After a few minutes of walking, the area around him began to change.
Orion had to stop at a point where what was likely a large underground city began to take shape in the distance.
The dirt path ended here, replaced by a different road made of stone. In the wider opening where the road began, a bright light glowed ahead. A small, gentle fire burned there, giving the place the feel of a campsite.
This was the first safe place Orion found after opening his eyes. And she was there.
Orion's gaze settled on a woman sitting beside the campfire. Silver armor caught the light, long red hair falling down her back and a massive sword rested at her feet. She wore full heavy armor styled after the Middle Ages of Europe.
Her helmet lay on the ground next to a small bag, making her look like someone pausing mid-journey before traveling distant lands.
She looked impressive in her composed posture beneath the firelight, yet something about her presence felt faintly lonely.
Orion felt safe as he walked toward her, despite the huge sword on the ground and the stern expression on her face.
Orion slowly whispered to himself, "She is definitely my type."
"There is no speech help from the system yet. How am I going to talk?"
..
The knight girl spoke in a strange language as Orion drew closer. It was unlike any language he had heard before and he held a degree in language teaching. He had been exposed to more than his fair share of languages during university.
Orion gave no answer to her unfamiliar words and instead stared at her absentmindedly.
In response, the red-haired girl began examining Orion's body. She searched him for clues.
"Since he reached the second level of the Hell Maze, he must trust his own strength. But he doesn't look strong from the outside," she thought.
"He is taller than average and very skinny. He shows no signs of warrior training with that body. He also has no mana. Weird." As the woman named Thalia analyzed him carefully, she sensed both curiosity and helplessness in the young man's gaze.
There was something in the black-haired boy's expression, as if he couldn't speak for some reason.
"He has very dark eyes and clean, pale skin. Despite how tired he looks, there isn't a single wound on his body. Did he hit his head?"
Thalia wanted to learn the young man's name and check his status on the student list. She hesitated, however, because he didn't speak and seemed unable to understand her at all.
She also noticed something she had never experienced before in her life.
"Is he-?"
"Ah, yes. He is staring at my chest without any fear." Her expression didn't change, but this was a first for her. "Either he truly has no idea who I am, or he is just stupid."
She calculated the odds of a student candidate like this appearing here. She felt certain the boy couldn't defeat even a single goblin or hold a standard sword for five minutes. Someone like him would fail the very first physical test.
Perhaps the only thing she could appreciate was how handsome and healthy he looked. "He will probably live a long, disease-free life. If monsters don't eat him."
At that moment, Thalia turned her head slightly.
She sensed a monster approaching from afar. A massive one that would arrive within minutes. For her, it counted as a small hunt, but not while protecting a student.
"Hey, I need to send you up. What is your problem? Y-O-U-R N-A-M-E?" Thalia Arken spoke slowly, as if exaggerating her words might help, but the communication issue remained.
Orion had no idea whether she was questioning him or cursing him. He searched for a dialogue box or any kind of prompt, but nothing appeared.
No response options. No glowing text. No help from the system.
"How am I supposed to talk with NPCs?" The thought made him anxious. Even when monsters tore him apart earlier, he hadn't felt this helpless.
The idea of spending years learning a new language terrified him. "I'm willing to get burned by fireballs a hundred times if it means skipping the language-learning part."
As if his thoughts were heard, a girl's voice echoed in his head, bringing immediate relief.
[Unknown Language Analysis Completed!]
He remained silent.
The red-haired girl continued speaking, her tone growing sharper by the second, while Orion waited for the system to finish its work.
[New Language Acquired: Midkamia Human Common - C2]
[Set as Default Language?]
He tried to answer yes in his head, but actions like that still required spoken input. He opened his mouth.
"Yes."
The red-haired girl's voice, still mid-sentence, suddenly became clear.
"-you're just standing there like a lunatic. Are you okay?"
Orion smiled and lifted his head with quiet confidence. He felt so relieved about solving the language problem that he could have kissed a goblin on the mouth.
"Hey. Uh, sorry. I don't speak sexy."
She stared at him, then blinked once.
"D- did you just flirt with me?" She even pointed at her own chest.
Orion grinned. "Did it work?"
She didn't reply. But she also didn't kill him. Which already marked a significant improvement over dragons and goblins. Orion wanted to form a good relationship with such a beautiful woman. Perhaps his newly raised Charisma stat pushed him into acting this way. He wasn't certain.
Normally, he would never behave like this. Even when drunk, he carefully chose his words.
Now, this sudden boldness came either from the numb carelessness of dying too many painful deaths or from the two-point increase in his Charisma stat.
He raised his head with the most harmless smile he could manage and said, "Hello beautiful. How you doin?"
He remembered the pick-up line from a sitcom he had watched long ago. His serious inner self, fueled by a courage he had never possessed before, let the words slip out. He decided to inspect his stats more carefully later.
Seeing the woman staring at him with her mouth slightly open, he felt a strange awe at his own sentence.
He had no idea that the woman before him was the strongest human on the planet Midka.
Thalia Arken; Protector of Humanity,
Head Master of the Midka Academy,
"Immortal War Queen!"
That was how Orion shocked the innocent Thalia during their first encounter.
..
Orion kept smiling through ten seconds of silence.
He felt safe here. If a beautiful young knight rested in this place, it had to be a safe zone.
He took another step closer. She was beautiful. Almost unreal. She stood on the same level as the blonde girl from the battlefield.
"Too beautiful to be real-" he whispered. This time, it wasn't his body forcing the words out. He genuinely wanted to compliment her but forced himself to stop talking mid sentence.
Thalia Arken froze, unable to stop the bold young man after his last remark. "This had never happened to me before. Not even once over the last fifty years!"
She blinked rapidly, her expression strange. For the first time in decades, she lacked control over the situation.
Thalia was supposed to ask serious questions and escort this student back to the academy. Instead, her composed thoughts fractured.
Perhaps it was the warmth of the fire beside them, but a rare lightness settled over her. She focused on the handsome young man before her, excitement creeping in. His lips moved in slow motion with her vision.
"My name's Orion. What's yours?" His tone and the step forward remained friendly, but unmistakably flirtatious.
She blushed.
The War Queen of Humanity blushed and immediately recognized how childish she was acting. She should have scolded this boy. She should have warned him. But she didn't.
"Have we met before?" The question slipped out before she could stop it.
"Trust me. If I'd seen you before, I'd never forget." Orion moved closer, stopping less than a arm distance away.
In his past life, he had never had a girlfriend. He was anxious and quiet by nature, fully aware of how absurd this behavior was.
Yet unfamiliar urges pushed him forward. When he had added a single point to his Charisma stat, he never imagined it would lead into flirting skills. Still, he didn't mind.
Just as he was about to do something he might regret later, his eyes shifted past the warrior girl.
All his courage and hormones shattered instantly.
Beyond the stone road, the deeper path was buried under dead monsters. Blood and torn flesh stained the ground.
Everything was cut apart, including creatures far more horrifying than anything he had seen in the Maze above.
"Did she kill them?" Orion kept the fear off his face, unwilling to look like a coward. But inside, he made a quiet decision.
He would learn about this new world where he would live his second life and how he might return home. "I want to live in an Elven village where Slimes are the worst thing I have to worry about."
He forced his gaze away from the bloody scenery and turned back to the shy woman beside him, whose name he still didn't know.