level 0 the tutorial
If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, and endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in.
𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐲, 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮.
After the events in the Pleiades watchtower and vollachia, the emilia and Anastasia camps decided to hold a meeting to review what has happened and discuss their plans for the future.
After spending a few days to reconvene: Anastasia, Julius, Mimi, and Tivey arrived, they sat at a table with: Emilia, Subaru, Beatrice, Raswaal Otto and Garfiel.
Shortly afterward, they began to start the discussion; however, the culminated pressure of everyone's arms and hands on the table caused the table to noclip into the floor.
Due to everyone (except raswaal, Emilia, and garfiel who wasn't sitting at the table)'s arms/hands being on the table they, in turn also quickly entered a nocliped state along with the table, causing them to fall through the floor, as the table began to violently convulse inside the floor.
wwwoooaaahhHH-
Everyone's mixed sounds of alarm were cut off by them entering the space between reality. Before subsequently continuing after they fell into a mysterious new place.
-AAHHhhh
*thump*
And then subsequently stopping again after landing on moist carpeted floor.
..."Huh?"
Subaru being the first one to get reoriented, questioned as everyone began taking in their surroundings.
They seemed to have landed in a medium sized square room with yellow wall paper and… some strange glowing rectangles emitting a loud buzzing noise. Taking note of the moist carped, everyone quickly stood up; thankfully they all had appropriate footwear on, and it seamed no one was hurt besides being slightly wet in some areas.
Subaru: "uh...Where are we?"
"I'm not quite sure; I've never seen any sort of place like this before." Remarked Julius, taking several glances around the room.
It didn't seem like any of the others had an answer either. They were rendereda speechless by the fact that they just suddenly fell through the floor and landed in some strange place that's like nothing they had ever seen before.
"What happened? The table started shaking, and we just fell through the floor." Frantically questioned mimi, as she tried to make sense of their situation.
Anastasia: "Could this be some kinda trap or somethin?"
"Betty's never seen or heard of any trap such as this, in fact." Beatrice noted, as she crossed her arms, and looked around as well.
"Hmm" well if beatrice hasn't heard of anything like it, then that can't be it.
Beatrice: something like this would have had to be done using yin magic i suppose; but betty's never heard of yin magic being able to phase two objects into one another in fact. Furthermore, Betty didn't sense any unfamiliar presences nearby in fact."
"Hmmm, anyone else have any ideas?" Subaru looked to the rest of the group, eho were giving similar looks to each other. Subaru let out a defeated sigh.
Eventually, they came to the conclusion that it wouldn't serve them to just just stand there
Otto: "we should at least look around; we won't get anything done just standing here."
"I agree with the merchant I suppose; all this noise and yellow is beginning to hurt my eyes and ears In fact.." Said the resident "drill loli'' of the group, crossing her arms
"What are those weird lights? Mimi's never seen anything like them!" she pointed to the ceiling, uncaring of their situation as ever.
Subaru: "huh?"
Subaru then looked up towards the roof of the 'building' and sure enough there they were; bright buzzing fluorescent lights as plain as the eyes can see.
Subaru: "wait, no way!"
Mimi: "You know what they are? What are they?"
Subaru nods his head. He couldn't believe it. If there are lights like these then that must mean…
Subaru: "I've seen lights like this from my homeland."
Julius: "could that mean we have somehow been transported to your homeland?"
While he had never seen a place like this before, Subaru couldn't shake the possibility that they might have somehow ended up on earth. but what could that mean for Beatrice, or even Mimi and Tivey? He let out a tired sigh. "first vollachia, now this?"
Subaru: "It looks similar to structures from my homeland, but I've never seen any place like this."
It looked like they were in the back rooms of some sort of office building; except there was no furniture, and with the way the carpet smelled, it could be abandoned. Though, if it was abandoned, why would the lights still be on?
"Well, we should probably start looking for an exit. but, we need a way to navigate, so we could get lost."
Tivey suggested, augusting his monocle, interrupting the conversation with a slightly rushed look on his face. Clearly agreeing that they should leave.
Julius: "Perhaps I could leave a trail behind us by making a carving into the wall?"
Julius proposed, getting nods of agreement from most of the group.
Otto: "Wait, what if someone lives here? I don't think they would appreciate marks being left on their walls."
Subaru: "I don't know, it doesn't seem like anyone is here; and if someone does live here they sure left the place in bad condition."
"Perhaps it's abandoned I suppose" suggested beatrice.
Subaru: "that seems likely, but why would they leave the lights on?"
Julius: "you may be right; however if someone does live here, it would be a great dishonor to have vandalized their walls"
Subaru wanted to say something back to Julius; but admittedly he did have a point. If by chance someone does live here then Subaru doubted they would appreciate carvings in their walls; so he decided to stay silent.
Anastasia: "then we should at least take note of which way we go so as ta not get lost. Whatever this place is, it sure seems real large."
Luckily Anastasia usually carried paper with her; especially today since, they were supposed to be at a meeting. So she decided to take the task upon herself.
"Well then we should probably get going" Subaru stated while looking at the many, seemingly random hallways and corridors connected to the room they landed in.
With that the group reluctantly began to walk towards one of the corridors, Anastasia taking note of which way they went.
The group had been walking for some time now, the trip being relatively uneventful so far. Subaru was lost in thought "there are lights here, but i don't remember any building from my world being this big. I don't think something like this could be built in one year could it? Then again there is the possibility that time flows differently between worlds, or even that we were transported to a different country than Japan."
But still, is it even possible to build a building this large? It seemed like it was nearly the size of a city, and that's just what they've seen so far, the way things looked, there wasn't an end in sight.
And he thought the mansion was big.
Looking back on it, Subaru hadn't considered the fact that the time could flow differently between the two worlds; but if that was the case. how long could I have been gone?.
However Subaru's thoughts were interrupted by the group stopping suddenly.
Wondering what was happening Subaru looked around for a second before seeing something that caused his eyes to widen.
There right in front of them was a group of dolls (about 7) that resembled raggedy looking Ann dolls. That wasn't the most surprising thing however.
The real surprising thing was the fact that they were standing…
And moving…
On their own.
Julius walked to the front of the group with his hand on the hilt of his sword as one of the dolls walked up to them. They didn't look dangerous, but they hadn't seen anything else other than yellow walls, moist carpet, and lights for who knows how long, let alone any other living thing. It was safe to say they were on edge
"Hi there, I'm dollface." the doll that walked up to them said in a cheerful voice, before immediately running away with the rest of the group of dolls before anyone could process what happened.
…
"What was that?" mimi asked as the rest of the group looked to the direction the dolls went.
"I…don't know." Subaru's gaze drifted towards Beatrice.
"Don't ask Betty in fact. Betty doesn't know of anything remotely similar to any of this." Beatrice looked down, see was trying to remember anything she might have read in the forbidden library that might give any sort of clue about this place, but she was drawing a blank.
The incessant buzzing of the lights, and the atmosphere that seemed to chew at her mind weren't helping either.
"Should we follow em" asked Anastasia gesturing towards where those strange dolls went. "They might be our only lead here."
"That may be true but we don't know anything about this place, for all we know those things could lead us to a trap." Otto argued.
Julius: "You have a point; however, I agree with lady anastasia. We'vebhad no leads so far as to any exit or inhabitants, and have effectively been wandering this place aimlessly."
Julius: "We are not defenseless. Luckily we seem to have been transported here with everything we had on our person, so we still have our weapons."
"though It would seem my maidens weren't brought with me." Julius pointed out wistfully in a lowe tone; lowering his head slightly, thinking that they must be worried about him.
Julius: "But still I will be fully capable of defending everyone here if trouble should arise."
Otto: "Fine, but we should still stay on guard. If there are things like this then who knows what else there could be."
The group, expressing their agreement, continued in the direction they saw the strange dolls go, keeping note to stay on guard.
It had been a really long time by now, and they still couldn't find those dolls. They had even tried backtracking based on Anastasia's notes but nothing lined up! Everywhere they went looked different, even the places they just came from! They came to the conclusion that some sort of magic must have been casted on the "building".
Subaru had thrown out the conception that this could be his homeworld completely by now; there's no way a place like this could be on earth!
Something about this place just seemed…off, not to mention the non-euclidean nature of this seemingly endless building.
"How long have we even been here! It feels like it's been days!" Mimi wined, her voice sounded tired, and there were dark circles around her eyes, clearly the environment was getting to them.
Similar could be said for the rest of the group. They all had looks of exhaustion and/or exasperation on their faces. Beatrice had long gotten Subaru to carry her by this point, and they had all long lost track of time.
How long has it been?
Weeks?
Years?
They didn't know anymore. They just wanted out of her, they didn't care anymore!
The thought of giving up had begun to enter their minds. They they tried resting, but they fround no rest with the constant buzzing that seemed to get louder and louder, and the dingy yellow walls that made their eyes bleed. for now though, ,they continued to press on; they had no other choice.
Even more time had passed; how much they didn't even care anymore. Some of them, despite the fact that everyone saw those dolls, had begun to think that it was some sort of hallucination, or illusion to mess with them. To give them some semblance of hope, when in reality, they they would be doomed to wonder in this torment forever. The thought of just collapsing and dying sounded better and better by the minute. But then…
Beatrice: "o-over there i suppose!" Beatrice sputtered out with a broken voice, pointed towards something at the entrance of a corridor at the end of the room they were walking through.
Everyone–who were all on a sort of autopilot at this point, quickly snapped their heads toward where Beatrice was pointing.
There it was, they all saw it!
Right there!
There it was as clear as day, another doll!
They all started desperately making their way toward it, their reservations having long faded. They were finally just about to enter the corridor when they were suddenly met with a wall.
They were suddenly disoriented; the area around them completely changed. Anastasia, having the weakest constitution and being long tired at this point nearly fell over at this sudden change of surroundings.
Okay, to be honest, they all almost fell over. The only thing that stopped them from falling over, was the cold hard wall in front of them.
Peeling themselves from the aforementioned wall, they looked on in confusion; around them were floors made from a strange type of stone, with several puddles scattered around. Many dirty pillars could also be seen around them.
...
Also cross posting on webnovel.
b93421b93d73657395fc4fe258e384d2I'm serializing this work on Webnovel. Head over to Webnovel for the other chapter updates! https://www.webnovel.com