Chapter 48

The group began to look around their surroundings, trying to find some kind of clue that could lead them toward their objective. The first thing that they noticed was that, even though it looked like there were windows, they were all covered by some kind of vegetation on the outside, so the only light that illuminated the area was Arthur's light sphere.

"I guess we need to continue ascending, so we should look for some kind of stairs or some way to go upstairs," Edwin suggested.

"Guys, I think I have found something that might help us," Denise called to her companions from a few meters away.

Her companions looked at her and found that she was standing in front of some kind of sign, which looked like it had some kind of map painted on it.

The map was pretty detailed, and it even had an enormous arrow with the words "You are right here" written on it.

"See, it looks like we are in the south area. If we walk less than a hundred meters that way, we should find some stairs. " She said this while pointing in a direction.

"Looks pretty convenient," Cyrus replied. "Let's go and see if we can use them."

"Wait for a second, how is it that you can read that map?" Gar asked suspiciously."I mean, we are in a different world, with all kinds of strange things around us, and you are telling me that you understand that language without any kind of problem?"

"As incredible as it may sound, I can, "Denise replied, shrugging.

"Me too," said Arthur, supporting her. "It is a language pretty similar to the one that we use in the Esvert Village, but with a few variations. It sounds exactly like what my 7-year-old pupils write, full of mistakes and misspellings. "

"Maybe this has something to do with Heaven's will. Maybe she had granted us the capacity to understand any language that we found in this quest. " Denise suggested the theory.

"That may not be the case, because I can't read it," Gar replied with a bitter smile.

"But are you even capable of reading anything in our world?" Arthur began to mock Gar.

"Are you capable of getting punched in the face and not crying?" Gar asked while stepping forward before retreating again and starting to talk in a much lower tone. "I didn't learn how to read, ok? I left that kind of work to Raziel. She is much more clever than me, so she takes care of the paperwork and I take care of punching things. "

"And you are the best at that," Raziel said to her father as she patted him on the back to comfort him.

"Let's try to stop feeling sentimental until we finish the mission. I would not like to get ambushed while we are talking about our problems," Cyrus said before pointing in a direction. "That way, right?"

"Right," Denise replied.

After that, the group began to explore the area again. From time to time, they found another of those signs, so they had an easy time finding their way to the upper floor, and in less than ten minutes, they were there.

What they found were some rusted metallic stairs that looked as if they were about to break at any moment. As they didn't want to lose their way up, they decided to ascend one by one, so the stairs didn't need to support a lot of their weight.

The process went by without any complications, and in no time, they found themselves on the next floor. But what they found there was that some of the windows were broken, so some vegetation had managed to get inside the building through them and had covered some areas.

What was most strange about those plants was that they were ivory in color and didn't seem to have any kind of flower or fruit. They looked like vines, but instead of leaves, they had thorns all over their bodies.

"Be aware of those things. They don't look very harmful, but we don't know if those thorns are toxic or something." Denise warned her companions as soon as all of them were on the same floor.

Without a second thought, Cyrus unsheathed one of his swords and slashed toward an area where these plants were abundant, which caused an air slash to leave the sword and cut most of the vegetation.

"This is strange." Cyrus said while nearing the area he had attacked to examine it."Cutting these things doesn't feel like cutting a plant. Look at these. They are rigid and break into shards instead of simply being cut. If I had to say, in my opinion, this looks pretty similar to bones. "

"What? How the hell would a plant have bones? " Edwin asked while tilting his head.

"What the hell was that?" Raziel suddenly asked while pointing at a dark area."Arthur, throw one of your lights at that area. I think I have seen a silhouette. "

"As you order," Arthur replied, as he created another light sphere and sent it flying towards the direction that Raziel had indicated.

By doing that, the group was able to see much farther as there was much more light in the area, so they managed to notice a few humanoid shadows trying to escape from the area.