By midday, Yamamoto was already deep in the forest, headed for the Lost Abandoned Den dungeon. Luckily, the path there wasn't too complex, and it was still day time, so he wasn't finding it hard with navigations like he was with the lake.
After about thirty or so minutes of Yamamoto running about within the forest, he came before the place he was looking for. It was a waterfall that had a cave hidden behind it, the classic. It was so well hidden that without foreknowledge, anyone would pass by it a hundred times without realizing.
Seeing it now in real life, it felt even more surreal, not for the fact that it was a waterfall, though nothing too big, but the fact that even though he was aware of the cave behind it, he didn't feel sure and still had to check first to confirm his own knowledge.
The waterfall itself was modest, barely ten feet high, with water cascading over moss covered rocks into a shallow pool below.
'It's kinda nice.' He thought to himself as he approached, acknowledging the change in sound from the one in the forest.
He was going to rush in, but for some reason, something in him felt like he would just collide with a thick wall of rock side behind the water, so he approached slowly.
He waded into the pool right after unequiping everything so it doesn't get wet. It was a good thing that the system had such a feature. Gradually and carefully, he pushed through the curtain of falling water, and just as he knew, behind it was a cave entrance—dark and uninviting, but definitely there.
'That was very strange.' He thought to himself, equipping everything back.
He drew his sword as he walked forward deeper into the cave. It was a natural cave, with rough walls, narrowed into a passage that forced him to move single filed. Water dripped from the ceiling, and the air was damp with the odour of earth.
'Certainly didn't have to deal with this in the game.' He thought to himself as he went deeper, moving forward slowly to let his eyes adjust to the darkness.
The cave soon opened up into a larger chamber, and from where he stood, he could spot the entrance to the Lost Abandoned Den. It didn't appear like much for the time being, but once one got closer, it would morph into a dark opening in the wall that seems to swallow light.
Before he entered the dungeon, though, there was something he needed to check first.
He turned to his left, studying the cave wall as he walked along. To anyone else, it would look completely solid—just rough stone like everything else, but he knew better.
There was a space hidden behind a glitch, an easter egg kind of, termed the "unfinished room." Players had discovered it by accident and called it a glitch because the wall didn't have proper collision detection. You could walk right through it if you knew where to try.
Yamamoto approached the spot, reached out, and pressed his hand against the wall. Sure enough, it passed through the solid surface.
The wall rippled like water, distorting around his arm. Yamamoto actually couldn't believe it even though he expected it. It was one thing to know intellectually that this world operated on game logic, but it was another thing entirely to see a solid wall glitch right in front of him.
'Seriously, is this world real or not?' He thought to himself with a deep internal sigh.
Everything was strange. The NPCs seemed real, the physics seemed real, pain was real, but then there were things like this—impossible things that only made sense if this was still, somehow, a game.
He pushed the question aside and walked through the wall to the other side. The sensation was bizarre—like pushing through a soap bubble. For a moment, everything felt wrong, reality bending in ways his brain couldn't process. Once he came out on the other side though, everything rapidly returned to normal almost in an instant.
The passage was short, maybe twenty feet, carved more deliberately than the natural cave outside. It led to a wooden door at the end that looked old and weathered, but still solid.
He pushed it open with little effort and stepped into the room beyond.
It was exactly as he remembered from the game: a large chamber that looked like an abandoned study. Bookshelves lined the walls, filled with books, thick books, though there was almost no dust. A desk sat in one corner, covered in scattered papers and dried inkwells. Strange instruments lay scattered on various surfaces, all covered in cobwebs… or not? It appeared not everything was like in the game. Well, this was within a closed off area, neither could he spot any spiders since he entered the cave.
The whole room had an air of neglect, like someone had simply walked away one day and never returned.
To the left was another door—wooden, like the one he'd entered through. In the game, that door had been part of the scenery, non-interactive.
He ignored it for now and headed straight for his objective that lay towards the far corner of the room: an old wooden chest.
He had only taken a couple steps towards the chest, when he heard the click of a door opening.
Yamamoto froze, his heart almost leaping into his throat.
He left the door he entered through open, so the only other door that should open would be the one blended into the scenery for style, the one that could not be opened in the game!
"Move, and I'll kill you where you stand." A voice said from behind… not a still small voice, this one was cold and controlled, deadly serious.
Yamamoto felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. There was no way to explain it, but he could feel it, there was power in that voice, the kind of power that made it very clear this wasn't a bluff.
Before he could even think of anything, he didn't even realize when he spoke, "Please—" Yamamoto's voice came out strangled. "Please, I don't mean any harm. I was just—"
"You were just trespassing," the voice said. "Turn around. Slowly. Keep your hands where I can see them."
Yamamoto turned, moving with agonizing slowness, his hands raised to show they were empty.
Once he turned fully, he could now see the man. The man standing in the doorway was tall and lean, probably in his forties, with sharp features and intense eyes. He wore a black mage-like robe, and in his right hand, he held a staff that crackled with barely contained magical energy, even Yamamoto could see it.
Surprisingly, yet again, Yamamoto was hit with another realization as he looked closely at the man.
'Ludger?'
The name hit him like a physical blow. Ludger the Betrayer. Ludger the Mad Mage. One of the major antagonists in the mid-game, a raid-level boss that required multiple players working in perfect coordination to defeat.
'You've got to be shiting me.'