Versatile: Alternate World

Chapter 413 Expedition To The Frozen Region: Hell Beneath The Ice (II)

I underestimated the size of this underground secret area. We are currently resting after exploring the only road that leads to somewhere in this underground hell hole. Just from the map alone that I managed to draw, it was big enough that the passageways of the Rodola Mine last time are not even close to the size of this place. Not only that but after our exploration, we didn't even see any traces of monsters or anything living underneath here but we can still feel the intense staring presence somewhere.

The staring presence doesn't do anything bad and does not even reveal where it was doing its staring job but having this constant feeling of being stared at gives some sense of dread to your body that you don't feel safe even though you are in a safe zone.

It was similar to the feeling of discovering that you have a stalker following you in the dark.

"Master. The staring that I am feeling is really unnerving, it was like I am being peeled slowly from his eyes," Tina rubbed her arms and I can see that she is also uncomfortable with how the guy behind the one doing this is doing its stalking tendencies.

"Indeed Master. And it doesn't help that we can't detect his presence at all. It was like it is waiting for a chance to strike during the most unsuspected time we currently have. What do you think we should do, Master? Seek this thing out?" Lina asked.

"I am against that option, Lina-chan. As much as we are annoyed and uncomfortable with this someone staring at us. there is no way we have to spend our time looking for this guy, We don't even have the luxury to check whether this guy is just messing with us or just there staring. I suggest we just ignore him right there and wait for his reaction. If he tries to attack us while our defenses are down, that is the time we strike," Lucia firmly suggested.

"Lucia's suggestion is indeed our best option. Right now, we can't afford to waste any more time finding out who the heck is this guy. Our priority is to find the exit from this place and get out of here as soon as possible. That would be much more worth our time than checking out whether he is real or not."

I can tell that the other two are not comfortable with my suggestion but that is our only choice. The more we try to check out who this guy is, the more time we will be wasting and the crazier we will feel if we don't find who is doing all of this crap.

Once we get enough rest, we continue our exploration and I continue mapping where we are walking to make sure we don't get lost.

We continue what seems like our worthless exploration going for a few hours already and the path that I already have drawn on the map that I am making already surpassed the size of the path of the Rodola Mine and how complex it looked. If I am not an expert in cartography, it wouldn't take time before we get lost. Some passageways that we passed by is just a repeat of a passage and if we decided to take it, we will just be circling around from where we came from. It was honestly too confusing and one mistake and we will be circling around once more to where we came from.

Not only that but the feeling of dread is still strong that it decreases the morale of everyone while we are exploring. Sure, there are no enemies popping out of nowhere but the fact that we haven't seen any single monster block our way and try to kill us just makes it even weirder than how it should have been. It was too troublesome just to feel like you are always not alone and yet you are sure you are alone. You can feel contradicting yourself in the process.

We soon found ourselves in a bigger area where it looks like a big round hall. There are currently three pathways that split themselves. We can't determine where is the right area around the three places and the only way to know about it is to manually explore it and see whether the path is busted or it leads to a dangerous place, or even the main exit.

"Let's rest here for a while. Even if you guys are not feeling tired, we have to refill our sanity which has been causing our sense of dread feeling intense than usual. I can also tell that you guys are also getting paler and paler the more we explore."

The three didn't object to my suggestion. We started making a small campfire using the campfire kit I keep with me always. Since we can't make normal campfires without any wood to use as firewood, the campfire kit that I carry with me makes its entrance as it will substitute itself as a normal campfire if we lack the necessary materials to create one.

"How long do you think we will be staying here underground? A few days? A week? Or a Month maybe?" Lucia closed her eyes, thinking hard.

"I doubt we will take that long staying here unless we are just stuck here due to how big this place is but I can't refuse you on that as it is a big possibility that it will happen," Tina relaxed her body to the foldable recliner I made for comfort.

Lina did not partake in the conversation as she was busy helping me prepare the food that we will be eating. Even if we are not in the real world, our characters still needed to eat as that is the main mechanic of the game that we still feel hungry. To lift up the mood of everyone, I decided to cook a curry. Since I don't have the ex job of Chef just yet, I can only rely on Lina to make the food to increase the chances of success and buff applied to the food as she has already the Maid ex Job that already consists quite a lot of perks all in one pack. The only thing I can do is just prepare some ingredients and help her prepare the necessary instructions to make the curry a success.

While we are working, I felt that the presence of the one staring at us is getting nearer than usual and it seemed like it was just around the corner. I frowned while trying to determine if I can easily pinpoint the one doing this. I made sure to keep doing what I am still doing to make sure the one doing the unnerving stare won't get alarmed. Lucia and Tina seem to be absorbed talking with each other while Lina is busy cooking allowing them to be distracted from the main presence of the little f*cker that is hiding from us.

I made sure that I am concealing my aura of detecting the stalker, to stop alerting it. The worst-case scenario we have is that this guy gets agitated and attacks us. We can still keep this guy near us and catch him before he can do anything.

With that little bit of detection, I slowly grasp where it was hiding. And from the looks of the traces, it seems it was really near to us and it is just around the corner. There is one thing that boggles me, is this a monster or this is a person? Now that I managed to at least identify the main source of the stare, it felt like it came from a person and it is not big enough that I can call it a presence from a monster either since monsters have a much different aura than most creatures.

Still, I can't properly discern its exact location. It seems to be using some sort of ability that deludes anyone who tries to track their location. It makes things hard for me to see where the exact main location of this guy is located. But locating that guy is already progressing in my opinion compared to earlier where it was like this staring guy is just a phantom of some sort and we can't determine whether this guy is near or far or just around the corner.

Just as I am already grasping where the exact location of the guy is, we suddenly felt a huge tremor, causing everything around us to shake.

"Holy crap... what was that?!" Everyone panicked when that occurred. With us being underground and surrounded by ice, it was clear that once a very strong tremor occurred and the tremors escalates, there is a possibility for us to get buried in the ice and that is not good.

But after the tremor, the staring presence seems to have disappeared but the feeling of being stared at remains. Looks like things will not be smoother than expected after all,