The Garden's Threshold
The path leaving the Main Base on the first floor of the Abyss was starting to feel familiar, but the complaints from my side still pricked at both ears like needles.
“So… it’s really too much to call us the Hood Squad,” Leaf protested.
Leaf, what kind of nonsense is that?
“Even the naming’s so obvious. Just black hair and a lion beastman. Way more straightforward.”
Ray, then you’d be lonely with the black hair, right?
“Why, dye my hair completely black and add lion-ear headbands!”
I crushed their arguments with pure logic and locked in the name Hood Squad.
“If you don’t like it, you can change the name later. Team names are easy to swap anyway.”
Once formed, a team was basically a sect, clan, or guild—something that stayed permanent. Teams changed far more easily. Dozens appeared and vanished every day, so they never built lasting brand value. The Explorer Union just used them for quick classification.
“If someone later hated the name, the Union would probably side-eye us hard,” I admitted.
“That’s fine. It’s not like we can change it now. Right now all three of us are wearing hoods. No one feels left out.”
Incidentally, Ray hadn’t received her hood. Her size was off, and she’d already earned a reputation. In Res Limen, where every race mixed, lion beastmen were rare even among beastmen, and among them even rarer was the lion race. She’d trained, joined the Frontier Guild, and survived countless eyes on her. Only Arthur, the ultra-prodigy, had stolen all the spotlight. Without him, it would’ve been Ray’s name on every wall.
That was why I’d rushed to buy a hood nearby and flipped it on. Even if the whole city was already teasing us for the name, there was nothing for it. I wasn’t exactly common human stock—my features, skin tone, and hair color stuck out even among humans. Other races might have trouble telling us apart, but humans recognized me at a glance.
“Anyway, we’ll talk team name later. Let’s move first.”
My first destination had been set before we even reached the Abyss.
“Landmark Tree, I’m so excited!” Leaf cheered.
Exactly as promised. Our starting point was the place where our seniors had shared all their exploration maps.
Landmark Tree.
Landmark Tree was definitely closer than the World End Windmill. If I kept pushing with physical reinforcement, I figured we’d reach it in about four days.
On the first floor, monsters were weak enough that our team handled them easily—no real obstacles. The mutated Bugbears from that battle? That had been something else. Goblins and their evolved Bugbears were just snacks, maybe ten at most. Even the Magnetic Twirl, which yanked metal to itself, was nothing but a big beetle to us.
The only real danger had been the flying monsters that dove from the sky. That was dangerous until I or Leaf could snipe them. The first ambush had been scary; afterward they became training targets.
Flying monsters were rare on the first floor, so we’d only met two of them. Both times had been quick, and the second was just target practice.
“We’re almost there. We should reach it tomorrow.”
Landmark Tree was getting close—I could feel it. Today I’d already crossed paths with three exploration teams.
The first encounter had been a total grudge. I’d been on high alert, yet everyone had been friendly. They’d spotted Ray and me without our hoods, then offered short pep talks like “Landmark Tree’s just a little farther—keep going!” and good-luck wishes before parting ways.
It was a reminder that even in the lawless Abyss, the core of a person showed through in the end.
“Should we camp here tonight?”
All three of us had camping experience already. No roles assigned, yet we each instinctively built the fire, laid down blankets, and cast alarm spells in perfect sync.
After dinner we gathered around the bonfire. We set the watch rotation, then started chatting before bed. Leaf suddenly asked,
“Mr. Roman, why did you come to the Abyss?”
“Hm?”
“I heard Ray joined to avenge her uncle who betrayed her family and his helpers, but I never heard your side.”
Ray chimed in.
“Yeah, I never heard yours either. Thinking about it… that’s kind of petty. You heard mine, but you never told Leaf! I only told you!”
“Eh? I did? It felt like I mentioned something…”
“I tried to tell you during the training center test but the ambush happened instead.”
“Ah… that explains it.”
Leaf scratched her head with an awkward giggle.
Ray’s sharp gaze softened when she saw Leaf’s pure, innocent smile—the kind a rural elf girl might wear.
“Well… I’m a half-elf.”
Leaf touched the tip of one pointed ear.
“I grew up in an elf village and had to be extra careful. My mother said she had to leave me with strangers right after I was born.”
Essentially an orphan.
“Elves don’t officially discriminate against half-elves. Emotions in the eyes are unavoidable, but formal prejudice is forbidden as long as we follow the rules.”
I’d heard something similar too.
Still, many half-elves eventually snapped under the silent disdain and ran away.
“The real problem was that I was only half of what I should have been.”
“Hm?”
“Eh?”
“No, not that kind of thing. Magically. I could only use ancestral spirit magic.”
“That makes sense. A half-elf who can’t even use proper magic would be looked down on in the village.”
“So… did you ever go looking for your mother…?”
Even Ray’s voice had become careful.
Ray had lost her entire family to relatives, yet at least she’d been loved. Leaf hadn’t even been given that chance.
In a way, Leaf’s situation sounded even more tragic.
“It’s not like that. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
“What about asking a demonologist? Locating someone is literally their specialty.”
Ray’s expression darkened a little.
“I tried. They said they didn’t know. Maybe I wasn’t skilled enough, or maybe the demon was bad. They only knew that if they didn’t recognize the case, it was either the target dead or trapped deep in the Abyss.”
“Dead or…”
“In the depths of the Abyss.”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
Deeper into the Abyss, the deeper layers became isolated worlds that blocked outside interference. Even a demon’s eyes couldn’t pierce the ultimate darkness.
“Anyway, that’s all I have to say!”
In truth, I could feel there was more—leaf’s instincts, unconscious gestures, the way she avoided the topic. People always hid something.
I did too.
“Now it’s your turn, Roman.”
I stared into the crackling bonfire. Staring at fire was the only way to clear my head.
What should I say? How much? Why did my thoughts keep spinning and never settle?
I simply opened my mouth while staring at the flames, letting the words come as they would.
“I had a hometown.”
I laughed bitterly at myself.
Where in the world was a person without a hometown? Even those abandoned at birth who never knew their own origins still called the first place they remembered “hometown.”
But I had no hometown. Not in this world, at least.
“I wanted to go back.”
Those words used to mean nothing to me. Now I understood their weight.
I had been a complete foreigner in this world—tied to it by nothing but threads of fate.
“That’s why I called the demon. Anything. I was ready to give my life, and I would have handed over my soul after death without hesitation.”
But it wasn’t enough.
My strength had been lacking.
“To pay the price of returning home, I needed more. So I came to the Abyss—to raise my value and borrow the demon’s power to go home.”
As I spoke, I looked up at the flames. My eyes were stinging too much to rub them, so I simply tilted my head back and endured.
“Anyway, that’s it.”
Water gathered in my eyes, cooling the burn. For the first time in a long time, I felt something like relief.
“Now we should sleep. I was first, right? You go first. I’ll wake you later.”
In the dim light of the bonfire alone, surrounded by darkness.
Some figures crept toward the fire, pushing back its light with their presence, then spoke kindly.
“Only three of you. All Novices. You’re really handing us a free meal.”
“On top of that, you’re trying to lure us into a deep sleep?”
They laughed, ugly and mocking.
I glanced at them. Five in total. Two Regulars and three Novices—exactly the perfect combination for first-floor exploration.
The two idiots who had spoken earlier were the Regulars.
They were closing in on Landmark Tree, weren’t they?
“Looking at your gear, you’ve just returned from an expedition.”
They burst out laughing.
“Heard that? You’ve just returned from an expedition.”
“Yeah. Just coming back. What, expecting us to be exhausted? Too bad. We came back empty-handed. The Bugbear brats have been going crazy lately.”
I ignored their words and kept talking.
“Roughly a month? At the shortest, over three weeks.”
Their attitude shifted. The casual contempt turned to something closer to caution.
“Hit the nail on the head.”
Even if they had been hiding in Res Limen or even the Main Base, they would have recognized our team with all the hoods off. If they knew and still tried something, they would have attacked in a surprise ambush, minimized evidence, and avoided any loose ends—especially now that we were three hood-wearing Novices.
Failure stress. Ignorance of the opponent. Greed that overstepped boundaries.
The three of them together had created this mess.
“I was feeling pretty good until just now. First time in a long while. I could smell nostalgia. The surroundings felt empty, so old memories started bubbling up.”
The first Regular quietly gripped his weapon—a morningstar. A nasty one.
“So, you feeling generous now? That kind of talk?”
“You should at least show some bravado.”
The second Regular joined in, a standard longsword guy.
The three Novices behind him… mages? Whatever. It didn’t matter.
“No.”
I stood up.
They had been allowed to attack from behind, yet they had waited. How much they had underestimated me was clear.
Even if I had gone all-out, the result would have been the same.
“You should at least know why you’re dying before it happens. It’ll hurt less that way.”
From the moment I started pouring murderous intent their way, they had started doing the same to me.