Knowingly counting the time was a difficult task; a human brain is limited in long and exhaustive tasks such as non-stop counting. Normally, there would be signs to help with the count, for example, the sun and moon cycle which helped to mark the days.

  However, inside a place where that sign was non-existent, the task became exponentially harder. In this dungeon, no matter how long Faust waited, the pale blue moon did not move. A beacon shot down from it, a pillar of unwavering azure light far in the distance.

  Initially, he attempted to maintain track of time. For hours, it was possible to do so with some accuracy. Then it turned more difficult as his mind began to exhaust and wander off multiple times, forcing him to restart the count. In the end, he estimated anywhere from a full day to two days had passed.

  Waiting so long was a hard challenge for multiple reasons: the cold, the hunger, and the possible danger nearby. Surprisingly enough, forcing himself to eat snow worked in relieving his thirst and making it slightly more bearable to resist the hunger.

  Still, after so long, he expected the villagers to have entered the dungeon already. Had something gone wrong on the outside? Or were they simply delaying? Had their plans changed, and they would not clear the dungeon anymore? Would he have to wait more? Or maybe Chris was wrong, and not everyone appeared in the same area? Maybe because he entered earlier, that was changed? Faust did not know.

  What he did know was that he was still alone; no other people had entered the dungeon besides him. If they did, they had not appeared where they were supposed to.

  If they would not appear, what should he do? Wait more? Leave already and try to escape? Go back to the village and try to find something else?

  There were many options, and he was unsure what to choose. But for a final choice, he decided he had waited for too long, and coming back to the village was too dangerous.

  He would wander off. That is what he would do. Try to leave this snow landscape and hopefully get to some other area, which he was unsure even existed in the first place. If the whole dungeon was snow, then he did not know how long he would be able to survive.

  Pushing these negative thoughts to a corner of his mind, Faust got to his feet and began to walk away from the village outline.

  …

  Once in a while, he would stop walking due to exhaustion. Apparently, not getting sleepy did not mean he did not get tired, seeing as how he grew exhausted often. Using these breaks, Faust would eat snow and temporarily fight off hunger and thirst, then go back to walking.

  The unchanging moon kept still, gazing at everything below its presence. Meanwhile, unsure of how much time had passed, Faust was obligated to glance back once in a while to see if he was still going away from the village. Surprisingly, the outline reduced in size after a certain point and gradually got smaller as he walked away from it, seemingly having a limit to the strange effect.

  The freezing howling wind fought against him, but being protected by the heavy clothing, its effect was mitigated by a great margin.

  For an unknown amount of time, Faust kept on like that, moving forward and ignoring everything else. Just going forward. That was all he needed to do.

  Time kept passing by, and then, amidst the sparse ice forest, Faust glanced forward to see if there was anything after getting so far away.

  And there was, indeed there was. However, his reaction was not one of happiness. Instead, his crimson eyes widened in shock and his mouth was left agape. His body stopped moving while he simply could not believe what his eyes were seeing.

  How… the… what? How?!

  In front of him, not too far away, he was seeing the outline of the village once more. How was that possible when he had walked away from it? It simply was not! Was it another village? No, the outline was exactly the same, exactly so!

  Stunned by that fact, he turned away and ran off in the opposite direction once again. For a long period, he kept moving while his brain tried to pass this as a coincidence; maybe he had taken a wrong turn somewhere in the spike forest. Glancing back constantly, he made sure he was indeed putting distance between himself and the village once again.

  Yet, long after that, he glanced in front of him once more and he saw it in the distance. The same outline, the same village.

  No… no. Again!

  Running away in the opposite direction once more yielded the same result. After a long distance traversed, he somehow went back to seeing that village outline in front of him. And not only that, but this time, he could see something else in the distance.

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  Corpses, pale bodies that were already covered by particles of snow. They bore grievous wounds; some lacked parts of their bodies and were stripped of clothing. They were the… monsters he had killed.

  They were unmoved, almost the same way he had left them. Seeing that, he massaged his temples as he tried to calm down. Surely there was an explanation for that. With his widened eyes, he breathed deeply and soundly.

  See… see… there’s always an explanation for things. It’s only that I do not know all of them, but this situation should be the same.

  But what is the answer? I ran away in different directions, multiple times, but I always come back to see the village silhouette. Not only that, but now even the monsters' bodies?! Is there really an answer?

  How could that be? It’s simply senseless…

  Senseless…

  That’s it! I can’t judge a dungeon by logic since it defies logic! That should be it! I need to apply a different source of knowledge to it. Straight thinking won’t get me anywhere. So, think… think…

  Massaging his temples in circular motions with his pale fingers, he spent a few seconds trying to come up with an explanation. Suddenly, he stopped and looked up, then down again, and stared at the village.

  “Hm…” he sighed, “is that so…”

  This place… it seems I can’t leave it, or at the very least, I do not possess the method. A loop of sorts? I’ve read books where the characters got stuck in situations similar to this, and usually, the answer to break the cycle was not acting the same way. Doing the same thing multiple times expecting a different outcome will rarely work.

  In this case, I assume the main point of interest in this area is that village? But what about it? It's difficult to say; there are many things that involve the location. If I put them in order and assume the dungeon wanted me to find that book and its information, then I can reduce the options.

  Faust grabbed the book at his waist and quickly passed through the pages until he reached the final one. The page where a complex rune was drawn. Seeing it, Faust tilted his head.

  “Sacrifice rune…”

  The author gave great importance to these runes and the people of the village, the Kakariu. But he spoke about them using it and…

  Faust observed the dead bodies close to him.

  They have no drawings on their bodies… what about the ‘surpassing the cages of flesh?’ Well, maybe he was wrong, or these people aren’t the Kakariu, but it doesn’t really matter right now.

  Alright… the information I have at the moment is: the village is likely that of the Kakariu; these people could or could not be the Kakariu, though. Apparently, the sacrifice rune has great importance, while the other drawings, which I assume are runes, don’t even have names of their own, so it’s likely they are just a breakdown of the sacrifice rune itself.

  At the same time there’s a possibility of the villagers not being the Kakariu, I must assume they are. The dancing around fires and ‘women draped in flowers and men in dark leather’ fits the description perfectly enough. Now I need to know what I should do with that information.

  They do not speak my language, and they tried to attack me… so communication is not possible. Although attacking them doesn’t seem like it will end well for me. From what I could count, they were at least twenty to thirty in total numbers, although the ones with weapons were far fewer.T

  Seeing how easily I killed these three monsters… I think I could fight up to five of them if I caught them by surprise. But… no, why would I kill them? Why am I even thinking about that?

  It’s obvious; it’s the only answer. But is it? It should be. I need to kill them. Yes, that’s it. I need to kill them. In the books, when the monsters are killed, most problems go away, so I’m probably over thinking and the answer is simply that.

  Yes, that makes sense.

  Nodding to himself, Faust’s eyes glared with an unusual will.

  So, I should kill them and then use the sacrifice rune? That seems to be the connection of the two things, but to kill so many… that will be difficult. How will I do that?

  Faust had already decided to kill the monsters; that seemed the path the dungeon wanted him to take, and so he would do it. Why else would it purposely feed him such information and present him with enemies?

  The challenge in doing that, killing the monsters, was their numbers and the fact he could not catch all of them by surprise since they were concentrated around the great campfire. Luckily, not all of them were, so he could trim their numbers before going for an all-out attack.

  At the same time, this still did not solve the problem of the disparity in numbers. For a while, he kept thinking of possibilities, such as funneling them into houses or using other creatures as flesh shields, but they still had weak points or could work against him. For example, funneling them into a house would be great if he could keep only one at a time, but if he failed to do so and two entered, then it could open a path for even more to get in and overwhelm him in a place with no route to escape.

  His fingers kept rhythmically hitting his forehead. His stomach grumbled and broke his concentration, also making him remember the cold and thirst.

  Shit.

  With a hesitant expression, he forced himself to look away from the bodies. He bent his knees to grab a handful of snow once more but his eyes inadvertently caught hold of his wine bottle. In that instant, another idea came to his mind.

  Alcohol… fire…

  He covered his mouth with his hand while intently looking at the faraway village.

  “I see…” his muttering muffled by his own hand.

  Eating a lot of snow, he forced himself to resist a bit more. That was all he needed to do, resist a bit more so he could get out of this frozen land.

  After including the wine bottle in his plans, he finished the details and knew he could not spend more time. The hunger was becoming too intense. Funnily enough, feeling so much hunger made him realize what Chris truly meant.

  Indeed, there was no “need” to eat. Without food, his body would work all the same besides the pain; he would not feel more exhausted, sleepy, hallucinate, or any of the common hunger symptoms. Meanwhile, it was extremely uncomfortable, almost as if his stomach was trying to eat itself.

  The selective symptoms and effects of hunger were something he found curious but had no time to patiently think about.

  The plan was lackluster, a desperate gambit. But it was the only path forward. With a heavy sigh that plumed in the frozen air, Faust touched his axe and turned his steps toward the village.