Rapid winds gushing through the snow, were tearing me apart. The severe weather made it extremely hard to hold on. And the blizzard around here, went about forever. But since I had chosen to walk the path, I decided to see it through the end.

I had decided to take on a detour instead of straightly climbing to the top. I did this after carefully drawing through the route while also checking out the map’s location.

But where I had landed was not within my expectations. An enormous chasm seemed to block my way. It was deep, too deep to even see the end of it. But the map pointed no other direction.

“Should I go back? But then I have to climb in that extreme weather.”

“Arf!”

“But it’d better to climb. There’s no other way through here.”

“….Arf!”

“But then, where was that map directing me to?”

“…….Arf!”

“But, it is possible that the map was wrong.”

I walked in circles pacingly, while the voice of the fenrir went farther and farther. I didn’t know where that anxiety of mine came from. I wasn’t following my usual attitude.

I took a deep breath and made the decision to head back, and slowly climb to the top; simultaneously explaining it to the fenrir.

Wait! My cloak felt a little lighter for a while, and it had been quiet for a while too.

“Noooo!”

I ran back to the rift and jumped into it. It felt like I was diving in an infinite void being crushed by mana from all sides.

In a little while, I was at the same location as the fenrir. The journey through felt like something from a fictional book. The mana, crushing my body, trying to compress me into something I didn’t want to be. I didn’t make any attempts on landing, the high-density mana was even rush through my brain, yet I had landed safely. I wasn’t hallucinating but the experience I went through couldn’t just be summed up in words.

I looked at the fenrir, who just sitting beside my leg, wagging his tail. “Sigh!” At least he is safe. I heaved a sigh of relief seeing the beast was fine.

“Why the hell did you disappear like that? Who told you to jump into the rift? DON’T YOU EVER DO THAT AGAIN.” I was seriously mad at this stupid dog for taking such an action on its own.

*Whimper

“No, what’re you crying about. I was just instructing you to never attempt such dangerous acts like that.” I told him with compassion this time. And he immediately stopped his shenanigans.

“Anyway, now that we’re here…” I started to look around the place. It was a small valley. There was no river, just plain sheet of ice running through the ground. I looked up but and there was no sky, yet it was illuminated enough to see around clearly. It was like we had come to another dimension, cut off from the real world.

And one odd thing in the whole scenario, it was a huge architecture by the wall, with lots of text written on it. I went closer to examine it more clearly, while the fenrir followed behind.

It was a huge door with several inscriptions written in the same language as the stone tablet back there.  

But this time I wasn’t as shaken, I could easily read the scripts as if it were ingrained in me from my childhood.

It said something about Orcus’ first dungeon and all the praises he wrote for himself. Reading all this, a doubt fluttered through my mind.

I asked  the fenrir if he knew the answer to it, “Is this Demon Language?”

[Devils’ Language, the most complex language, which is still spoken in the lower realm. The use this to communicate to each other. An easier version to it was passed down to demons. This too, though being easier than devils’ language, was no less difficult. How do I know this? Hati told me that the demon king, taught her some words of the devils language.]

“Woof!” He replied in affirmation.

There was no doubt about it, after his clearance, it became valid that this was a dungeon created by Orcus, the Demon King of Death. And even more so, that I was able to read and understand this demonic language.

The door mentioned the date this dungeon was created but I couldn’t get it straight. It might be long before the last human-demon war, quite possibly even before ten thousand years. That is what I assumed.

It also had instructions for opening the door and I decided to test it out.

“Ok, so I have to read this while constantly supplying energy to it.”

I read the demon script out aloud, standing in front of the door, while the fenrir keenly watched me wagging his tail in excitement.

Honestly, it wasn’t as easy as just reading the text. The demon language has over 60 dialects that need to be said simultaneously for it to be considered even a language. But to my surprise, I was able to do that with almost no effort. However, it was difficult to maintain an constant influx of mana, which was strong enough to charge this entire door.

Therefore, we decided to rest for while outside the entrance, and open the door after figuring out what needed to be done. We couldn’t leave this place so our only option was opening the door and exploring what’s inside.

I prepared something to eat for both myself and the fenrir. From the speed he was eating, it didn’t look like he hated my cooking.

And another day went by without me telling him what he ate. However, I think it should be fine either way. Though, they might look similar, they do belong to a different race. But still, it might be better if he doesn’t know this.