Dry, cool, and dark. The narrow corridor seemed to go on forever, and a sharp wind whistled through the cracks in the walls.

With Cadel in the lead, the mercenaries strained their senses, relying on a small flame.

Lydon could feel the temple’s aura, but once inside, he couldn’t quite discern what was going on with the powerful energy rushing in from all directions. The only way to find the ‘something’ to break the seal was to examine it.

“How deep do I have to go, and if I get to the end, will I find something to break the seal?”

As Cadell frowned, staring over the corridor, where there was still nothing in sight, Lumen opened his mouth.

“Was there any other information in the old book that the Lytos kept, like there was something in the temple that could break the seal, or its location?”

“Umm..... I....don’t remember it.”

In the first place, the old book itself was a made-up story. He only knew of the ‘existence of the temple’ to break the seal, but did not know what to find in it.

Lydon was no different. He knew that in order to regain his power in the outside world, he had to visit the ‘Temple of Balance’ in the ‘Desert of Blood’, but he didn’t know exactly what to do inside.

‘Even if we don’t know anything about it, it’s not like there’s a monster coming out, so let’s just keep walking.’

15 minutes had passed since they’d entered, and walking down the darkened temple during that time had dulled their sense of reality. Finally, the impatient Cadel stopped walking.

“Lydon, are you sure this is the right place.....”

And then it happened. With a sudden, excruciating headache, his vision of the tiny fireball distorted dramatically.

“Keugh....!”

Cadel staggered against the wall as a terrible headache hit him, but his hand went right through it. Unable to maintain his tilting center of gravity, he slumped to the floor.

* * *

It was a terrible headache like someone had grabbed his brain and was wringing it out like a piece of laundry, and after writhing in agony for what felt like minutes, his vision slowly cleared.

Cadel drew in a ragged breath and blinked. He fumbled to reach out and light a flame, and he could see the cramped hallway he’d been standing in before he collapsed.

“Suddenly what happened.....”

It wasn’t like a normal dizziness. As he raised himself with a murmur, he heard an urgent voice from close by.

“Commander! Commander, can you hear me?”

“Van....?”

Quickly increasing the size of his flame, Cadel spotted Van on the other side. Van saw Cadel’s flame and ran straight to him.

“Commander! Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine. You?”

“I’m fine, too. I just felt dizzy all of a sudden.....”

Apparently, Van was suffering from the same symptoms. Cadel looked around, supported by Van.

“....What about the others?”

“I do not know. When I woke up, there was no one around, and I couldn’t feel any presence. I guess they fell off.”

“Fell off....? From here?”

Cadel looked around the cramped, straight corridor and frowned. How could they have lost their comrades here? It was a one-way corridor, where they couldn’t have split up. They might have traveled some distance, but it didn’t make sense that they’d fallen into different rooms.

As if knowing what he was thinking, Van called out to Cadel and stretched out his arm.

“Please look at this.”

Van’s hand touched the side wall of the hallway. But instead of grazing the wall, his hard palm went right through it. Cadel’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“We can walk through walls, and when we first walked in they were obviously ordinary walls..... Maybe we’re under some sort of illusion?”

When Cadel was jolted awake by a sudden wave of dizziness, he was sure he had touched a wall, but the sensation was still there. He thought it was an illusion, but was it real?

“Illusion only presents an illusion. It can make a cramped hallway look wider, but it can’t really widen the inside. If it was an illusion spell, it should have been the other way around.”

For example, a hallway that looked like it could fit ten people was actually only big enough for one person to stand in, so even the slightest movement was restricted.

But the place where they were was definitely a cramped hallway. The reality was clearly confirmed, and even illusion spells could not erase the reality.

Swiping at his cheeks, Cadel glanced thoughtfully at the wall that had engulfed Van’s wrist.

“....Let’s go to the other side first.”

When Cadel stretched out his foot in dubious doubt, his body passed through along with an unpleasant sensation that something thick enveloped his body. Cadel, who had crossed over to the other side, rubbed his forearm displeasedly, sparking a new flame.

And there it was.

「The conditions to start the unique quest for the Knight ‘Lydon’ have been met.」

「Overcome the given trials. Upon completion, a ‘Gate of Liberation’ will be created.」

“Woahh, we haven’t had a visitor in a while! Two of them! Stella, I’m so glad!”

There stood a beautiful woman, her long green hair tousled, her hands clasped together.

“Stella....?”

“That’s right! My name is Stella. What’s yours?”

A strange woman in a strangely transformed temple, with a bright face and friendly words. He should have been wary, but Cadel calmly examined her appearance.

Dark green hair that fell gently to her waist. Dark skin with a healthy complexion and piercing white eyes that contrasted with it. Her pupils, both pupil and iris, were white and unfocused, giving the impression that she had turned them inside out.

‘This woman, I’m sure.’

‘Hesonia’, one of the Seven Knights worshiped by the Mystic Principality. And the guardian deity who protected her was the goddess Stella. But why? Why was she in the Temple of Balance?

Cadel also hated the system window that popped up when he discovered Stella. Trials. Wasn’t it just a few monster waves?

Cadel smiled awkwardly, trying to sort through the questions that were flooding his mind.

“My name is Cadel Lytos.”

“Woahh, great name! What about the person next to you?”

Instead of answering her fleshy question, Vann tugged Cadel behind him. His golden eyes stared at Stella, a dark wariness in them.

“Be careful, Commander. I don’t think she’s a living human being.”

“Oh my, you just realized who I am! Yes, I’m not human, but um.... It’s a bit ambiguous to say I’m dead.”

“What is your identity?”

“Call me Stella!”

Stella’s smile never faltered, even in the face of Van’s stance. But there was an eerie quality to her gaze that didn’t quite fit the mood, as they couldn’t quite tell where she was looking.

Looking at them with a wry smile, Stella unclasped her hands, which had been clasped together the entire time, and spread her arms wide.

“Too bad! I haven’t heard your name yet. I see my ‘Hesonia’ has already started the trials? Then we have no choice but to.... try the first trial, shall we?”

A flash of light flashed in her pure white eyes. Van reflexively drew his greatsword at the ominous aura he sensed. As Cadel backed away, a new system window popped up before his eyes.