The Adventures of an Overpowered Knight in Another World

Chapter 582: Chapter 582- Hollow Earth: Level Two

Turning back time a little.

Darkness ruled this place. Not the simple absence of light, but a thick, suffocating darkness, one that seeped into the lungs. Even torches had limited use here.

Inside such a place, a young boy, no more than ten or eleven years old, worked without rest. His small hands assembled parts of a mechanical component inside what could be called a factory.

In such a place steeped in darkness, the factories were the only things illuminated in the light.

An irony in itself.

The young boy continued to piece together everything tirelessly. Crystal conductors, mana filaments. All the core components used in the daily life by the people of Lunaris were produced here.

That’s right, this place was the Hollow Earth. The hell beneath Lunaris.

More precisely, this was Level Two of Hollow Earth. A realm so cruel that even its existence is hidden by the inner circle of Lunaris.

The outside world knew little about Hollow Earth, and whatever little they knew was already horrifying. However, what they didn’t know was that the Hollow Earth had two levels.

Level One housed those newly enslaved, the newly fallen poor, debtors, and such. A place of nightmare and suffering. Though at the very least, it gave a chance of survival.

However, Level Two was not so merciful.

Being dropped here was a death sentence. It was reserved for those deemed worthless. Worthless by profit.

In Lunaris, all slaves were owned by the members of the upper circle. They were investments, assets, or even livestock, you could say.

When a slave grew ill, and their productivity dipped, bringing less profit to their owner, that is when they were judged worthless and dropped to the actual hell on earth that is Level Two.

Entire families disappeared this way. Parents, children, no one was spared.

Once branded slaves, Hollow Earth is the only place waiting for you in Lunaris.

That is how their policy worked. A tradition of exploiting other humans for one’s own benefit taken to the extreme.

No one in Lunaris batted an eye over such things. Nor did they care, profit was all that mattered for them.

The boy at the assembly line was one such survivor.

Looking at him working tirelessly with dead fish eyes, a couple of older slaves looked at him with sympathy. Such a young man, he hadn’t even lived out his youthful years. Yet he was sent here to toil away until death.

Looking at him, they could only sigh.

The conditions of Level Two were far worse than even Level One. The air itself was poisonous here with massive pipes and mana conduits extending out from the ceiling, depositing toxic waste and mechanical dust below.

Anyone here was bound to die sooner or later after inhaling too much of it. Human bodies could only resist so much. Although they empathized with the boy, they were not surprised.

This was nothing new for them. They had seen it countless times before.

Entire families being dropped to Level Two. Children who lost their parents.

Even those that survived did not last long.

It was a surprise to see the boy last so long. However, they all knew that sooner or later, he too would break.

This place devoured even the strongest wills.

And they were right.

Something inside the boy began to fracture, or rather change, in front of them.

He started staring too long into the shadows, whispering something when there was no one around, as if possessed.

It was fine till here, it was a telltale sign that the boy was starting to break. But then came the stories.

Every day in the communal space where all the slaves lived, the boy would sit around with other unfortunate children, and under the flickering torchlight, he would tell them stories.

"Hey, did you know, we have new friends?"

"What? Did more people get dumped here?"

The boy shook his head.

"No, they were always here, in the deep dark."

Scary, unsettling stories.

The adult slaves barely paid attention at first. Everyone here was half-mad already. Hallucinations were common. Hunger and exhaustion did terrible things to the mind.

But the stories of the boy did not stop.

In fact, day by day, it became more real, more tangible.

"They walk like us. They talk like us, and even mingle among us."

Howl~

At this moment, an ominous wind blew, sending goosebumps to the other children.

"Ah, don’t worry about the wind, it’s only listening. So where was I? Yes, they, although they look like us, they are the perfect beings. They are the pinnacle of creation and the greatest of all salvation"...

"If you listen closely, you can even hear them talk. When they whisper, even the wind becomes silent."

Some of the children gulped and tried to listen closely, but all they heard was the howling of the wind.

"Don’t worry, when the time comes, you will all be able to hear them and feel it in your marrow."

"You talk like you have heard them?"

One of the children questioned. Unlike the others, he didn’t show any fear towards these creatures the boy was talking about.

"Hear? Yeah, I can hear them. I have seen them, in fact. Their dark crimson eyes... when they stare at you, they do not blink. They have mouths, but they don’t feel hunger. Isn’t it beautiful? They are just like us, but they are perfect; they are the final form"...

"We should be honored to be their mirrors. So, tonight, if you see someone smiling a bit too wide, or a friend whose shadow doesn’t quite match their shape, don’t run. Just try to talk with them, they are quite friendly." The shadow beneath the boy quivered unnaturally but went unnoticed.

The children drew closer, fear and fascination evident in their eyes.

Seeing this, the adults could no longer take it.

"Enough! All of you, go and sleep. We have to get back to work in three hours."

Although they stopped the boy from filling the children’s heads with nonsense, day by day the stories only began to become worse.

.

.

"They’re watching us. Waiting for someone to talk to them. When the lights dim, that is when they appear. Take whatever deal they give you, because they are the final salvation. The most flawless beings."

A chill crept through the communal space. Even the adults could no longer feign ignorance because what the boy described did not sound like some wild fantasy, but something too real to dismiss.

That said, no one truly believed him, not at first.

Even when some of the children and adults mysteriously started changing and became engrossed in the stories of the boy, they did not think of it much.

After all, this was Level Two. The inhumane condition would break anyone. Death was constant here, so a little madness was expected.

But each night as the stories became more fascinating, one by one, everyone began to change.

"There’s a shadow that doesn’t belong to anyone. It moves when everything else stands still. It stands behind you. Always, always behind you. And if you turn around, it steps closer."

"Shut up! Enough of your damn stories!"

Finally, one day, unable to take it anymore, one of the adults struck the boy.

However, to the adult’s irritation, the boy simply got up from the ground and smiled widely.

"I’m not lying. They’re real. They’re waking up."

That creepy smile and that unnatural shadow made everyone uncomfortable.

.

The stories stopped, but as days passed by, the strangest of things started happening.

A man collapsed in his workstation.

By the time guards got to him, the man’s eyes had turned crimson, and his body became pale like a corpse.

The man had died. His death hardly sent any ripple.

The guards disposed of his body in the underground incinerator just as usual.

Then the next day, two more collapsed.

The symptoms were the same. Crimson eyes and pale bodies.

Every single one of them were disposed of like the disposables they were.

The guards continued their job.

.

In the following days, things became even stranger.

The slaves started seeing the deceased.

Those who had died recently. Their bodies walked the deep darkness, and dark haze continuously followed them.

The words soon reached the guards.

The nerve of the slaves to fake their deaths and stop working.

Needless to say, they took action. However, when they dived into the darkness, they never returned and disappeared altogether.

From there, the situation only started escalating.

The disappearance of the guards and the appearance of the deceased drew the attention of more and more guards.

But even they disappeared once they stepped inside the darkness.

To make matters more freaky, all of those who had disappeared in the darkness started showing their appearance all around Level Two.

Crimson eyes, pale bodies, and dark haze covering them, these became the distinctive features of everyone who dived into the deep darkness.

And this occurrence was just the beginning.

Similar instances started happening all around Level Two.