Ryan stared into the door. Into the space beyond. That deep, dark abyss.

  The door, which wouldn't budge no matter what Ryan tried, was suddenly open. He leaned down and grabbed a rock from the ground, and carefully tossed it into the black space. It fell inside, and soon landed on the ground. Actually, a bit too soon, like it was moving way, way too fast.. But the rock stayed perfectly visible. It was like that was some black void, or a space with a floor and walls that were made of darkness itself, while the stone was illuminated from all sides.

  Rather, it was perfectly illuminated, to the point where it had been robbed of its shadow. Ryan stood in front of the door, staring inside. Every little cell in his body was telling him not to. It was dumb, absolutely and utterly idiotic. But his feet were moving him forward. There was a very simple reason for it as well.

  The spirits were just staring right at it. It was like they were stunned, stuck where they were standing within their domains. There was something in there that connected more deeply to the spirits. Ryan still had no idea what they were. Maybe there was a clue in here.

  Slowly, he pushed his foot through the doorframe. It felt weird, tingly, but not bad. It was actually a weirdly exhilarating sensation. Ryan stepped further inside, and just a single thought kept repeating through his mind as he did.

  'You fucking idiot, you fucking idiot, you fucking idiot, you're about to get yourself killed!'

  Of course, his mind was never quite strong enough to supersede his body in situations like this once his heart got racing. And by the gods, was it racing!

  With a deep breath, Ryan stepped fully into the space. His body was filled with that exhilarating sensation, and his mind almost went blank for a moment. Now he knew what that feeling was - this was a reaction to a high amount of mana in the air. Like the most ridiculous level of Dungeon Air that you could ever imagine. It legitimately took him a while to get used to it, but then, his mind seemed to magically clear up. Like the Seed of Blessing just... sucked up all the mana clouding it up.

  "What is this?" Ryan spoke. Or at least he thought he did. His voice wouldn't leave his mouth, but he could feel the vibrations that his throat was creating.

  And then, it appeared. It was a system message. That's what it looked like, at least. But it was massive. Like the size of a building, just sitting there in front of him, glitching. It wasn't the colour of Ryan's normal system windows, and it wasn't the colour of any of the spirits' system windows either. It was like every small particle was its own individual piece of mana. Like a collage made up of all the mana in the world.

  Ryan didn't had no idea how he knew this. He definitely couldn't see all of that. But he just knew.

  [Do you wish to attempt the -Administrator's Trial-?]

  Those were the words displayed on it.

  'The... 'Administrator'?'

  Ryan stared at the massive system message. It wasn't changing, nor was it responding to Ryan's thoughts at all.

  "Rrryyyaaannn...? Wwwhhheeerrreee aaarrreee yyyooouuu...?!?!?!" a voice yelled from outside, but it was so slow, like someone had taken a video and simply put it on half speed, or maybe even less than that.

  As he turned around, he saw Silvia 'running' toward him, but in similar slow-motion. Still confused by what was going on, Ryan walked back outside of the door, and the moment he did, Silvia's voice returned to normal.

  "Were you inside the door just now?! Are you crazy?!" she asked, looking past him to stare into that black void, "And why were you so fast? It's like you were-"

  "Sped up..?" Ryan interrupted her, and Silvia slowly nodded.

  "Yeah, exactly! What's going on in there?"

  Ryan shook his head, "I have no idea. But there are a few things on my mind right now."

  "... And what is it?"

  "First. Something... different used your skill to create this thing. We already knew that, but... I think I might know what it is now?" he explained, "It... said something about the Administrator?"

  "The what? Like, the being that made the system?"

  "Huh? What, no, that would be the 'Architect'. No, the administrator is the one that views over it. We don't know for sure, but it's believed that they either left after a while, or died. Though we also don't know if it was real, or if it was just some kind of pseudo-deity that people came up with to explain the system when it appeared," Ryan explained, "In there, it said something about the 'Administrator's Trials', whatever that means."

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  Silvia slowly nodded, still not moving her eyes away from the void, "What? So... the administrator used my to make the door that leads to their trials? Why?"

  "Fuck do I know, do I look omniscient to you?"

  "Well you're the guy that just waltzed right in there!"

  "Yeah, and I was thinking it was a stupid idea the whole time I was walking straight into it without a moment's hesitation!"

  The two stared at each other for a moment, as Silvia finally took her eyes away from the door, "Whatever, what are the other things you're worried about."

  "Well, obviously I'm worried about that spirit, you know, the faun-looking one?"

  "The one that assaulted me on my date with Fae? I'm familiar."

  "Right, sorry... Either way, I don't know why she was here, how she even knew about the door in the first place, and obviously how she fucking opened it," he pointed out, "And most importantly, why did she just... leave?"

  Silvia hesitated for a few moments, actually trying to come up for an answer for that last one, "Maybe she just wanted to open the door? Maybe there was something in there before, and she took it with her?"

  "I... maybe?" he replied, racking his brain to try and come up with any sort of logical answer for this. Why would that woman open the door? Was it dangerous? She definitely wouldn't do something helpful for Ryan, that was for sure. But if that space behind there spoke about 'trials', wouldn't that mean that there is some kind of reward at the end of it? Or once you got through it, it would mean that you were worthy of something. If it was a test of some sort... then it couldn't be bad, right? Nobody would test someone just to fuck them over afterward.

  Clearly seeing that Ryan was a bit overwhelmed, Silvia quickly moved on, "So... did you have anything else on your mind?"

  "So, so much... But yeah, I uh... You know how there's notes being slipped under the door every day?"

  "... Mhm?"

  "Now that the door is open, will we stop getting those notes, or will we see whatever is leaving those notes?"

  Runar walked down the ever-descending steps. It felt like hours had passed already.

  "How are you feeling?" he turned around, signing to Yamada.

  "I'm fine. But this place feels weird," she replied, looking around nervously. Of course, demons had a degree of dark-sight, so she was able to see well enough down here it being basically pitch black. But that didn't change the fact that the atmosphere was just way, way different to normal.

  "Why does all of this stuff have to be underground..? Why can't the hideout of a secret society ever be, I don't know... in a penthouse, or at a sunny beach?" Runar sighed, of course continuing to sign the entire time,.

  "I don't think we should be the ones to complain about that..."

  "It's not like I put the village there..."

  "Still, it feels like this is really, really deep, right?"

  "Well, we passed through some spatial distortions a couple of times. Judging from atmospheric pressure, we're technically higher up than where we started," Runar explained, looking at the small magical dial that was floating over his palm. Immediately, Yamada stopped walking, and hit Runar's back.

  "And why the hell didn't you tell me?!"

  "Ow, stop that! I just thought it didn't matter," he signed back, "It's not like we can change anything about it, and all the distortions are extremely stable and clearly artificial in nature. Don't worry, I've been walking on the right steps to keep up the passcode pattern."

  "Passcode what?!"

  "Can you calm down? It's fine as long as the person leading a group enters the passcode," Runar sighed, "I've got it all noted down, okay? We're fine. It's not that big a deal. Step 1 with your right foot, step 3 with your left foot, step 4 with your right, step 5 with your right, step 7 with your left, and then repeat. As easy as that."

  Though Yamada didn't seem exactly convinced, it seemed to be working pretty well so far. At least, each of the steps that he had been walking on were connected together in a magical pattern that he could see with his magical glasses, and they were all communicating very harmoniously, so it seemed to be working.

  Either way, Yamada's worry was largely inconsequential. After all, from the info he had... gathered, the end should be coming pretty soon.

  And just as that thought crossed his mind, a light seemed to finally be shining out in front of him. The deep, straight stairway was coming to an end. Runar signalled Yamada to slow down as they finally reached the bottom. They had immediately entered a large, open hall. It seemed like it had been carved straight out of the side of a mountain. Massive pillars were keeping up the roof, as the distant, open air spread out far beyond them. An unfamiliar mountain range spread out beyond them.

  "Urgh, finally, not something deeply underground," Runar stretched a little to get rid of the stiffness in his legs after walking down those steps for so long, Yamada doing the same.

  But in the centre of the space, a person was waiting for them. Runar was taking a look up and down at them while stretching. They weren't moving at all, though their mana was flowing. It was that identical black sludge-like mana that all those other guys had.

  The man himself was like an unwrapped mummy, his dried and cracking skin just barely staying wrapped around his flesh. Long, wispy white hair was flowing down from his scalp and chin. He was only wearing some ill-fitting, wide trousers that seemed to be thrown together for the barest amount of decency.

  "Runar Asamir Aglecard," the man said, his voice not betraying his appearance. Runar shuddered a little.

  "Why are all of you guys so fucking creepy..? Yeah, that's me, what about it?"

  "I assume you have taken us up on our suggestion, if you have made it all the way here," the living mummy continued, but the only response that came was a loud laugh.

  "Taken you- Hah, yeah right," Runar pushed his hand into his jacket's inner pocket, and pulled something out. It was a small pouch, which Runar immediately flipped inside out. Out of that tiny pouch, that weird, undead, 'stretched' wyvern's head fell out onto the ground, together with a person's skeleton covered in a thin layer of black sludge instead of skin, "Your friend told me a bit about you after I asked, though. A bit of my own suggestion."

  The mummy in the centre of the room slowly stood up. The sound of its skin tearing was like paper ripping.

  "I see. So you have chosen to discard the blessing of eternal death that has been offered to you," he spoke. He pushed his hands against his chest, and seemed to bury his fingers inside of it. With the loud sound of bones cracking, he pulled out two of his ribs. While his already dead skin healed over immediately, the ribs seemed to grow and shift, turning into two sabres, "In that case, I must sadly introduce you to the falsehood of death you live by."