By Zephyria 
Yohan, who had slept soundly without even dreaming, sprang up the moment he opened his eyes. He rubbed his swollen eyes and quickly crawled out of his Sleeping Bag.
“Ah, um, I was supposed to be on watch…. I’m sorry, did I sleep too long? Please go get some rest now.”
The Abyss offered no distinction between day and night, and since Lee Hyun-muk hadn’t woken him, he had slept soundly, losing track of time. However, instead of sleeping, Lee Hyun-muk rolled up Yohan’s still half-asleep form in his Sleeping Bag. Before he could even say “Huh?”, the pre-prepared instant meal was placed before him. Yohan asked, flustered.
“Aren’t you sleeping?”
“I wasn’t planning on sleeping anyway. I’m fine for about a week without sleep.”
“No…! You must be tired, though. Please sleep a little.”
Yohan, shrinking with guilt for having slept so comfortably, urged him, but Lee Hyun-muk just shrugged and paid no mind. After leisurely finishing the instant meal, he cleaned his spear, which had become dirtier than yesterday, by burning it with electricity.
“Alright, let’s go.”
Screaming internally, Yohan followed Lee Hyun-muk. He had wanted to perform some purification out of guilt, but Lee Hyun-muk stopped him, telling him to save his strength. It seemed he had planned from the start to let Yohan sleep while he himself didn’t sleep at all. Thanks to that, Yohan’s hands gripping the backpack straps were tense with determination.
‘Even if I can’t do half the work, I want to do at least half of that…’
Thinking something along those lines, they traveled for about three hours. In a forest filled with twisted trees, a dark cave suddenly appeared in the middle of a swamp. Unlike Yohan, who was tense after having already experienced a subway station made of illusion, Lee Hyun-muk stared intently at the cave entrance. Yohan, sensing an ominous premonition, asked with trembling eyes.
“…Surely not, right?”
“That seems to be the place. It was exactly this spot where Yoon Seung-ryong was last time.”
“Ah…”
Yohan sighed and looked back at the cave entrance. It was excessively quiet, eerie, and dark, making him really not want to go in. Lee Hyun-muk glanced at Yohan, his eyes clearly conveying, ‘I really don’t want to take you in there.’ Stimulated by that, Yohan mustered his courage.
“We’ve come this far, so let’s go in. If it really doesn’t seem like it, we can just come back out…”
After pondering for a bit longer, Lee Hyun-muk poked the cave entrance with his spear. The stone, which looked solid, crumbled with a crisp sound. Perhaps thinking they could break their way out if necessary, Lee Hyun-muk nodded.
“Alright. Let’s go in.”
Even though he was the one who suggested it, Yohan’s face fell into a pout as he followed Lee Hyun-muk into the cave. The cave formed a gentle, slow slope, extending downwards, as if crawling. It looked like the trace left by some giant beast slowly digging and crawling into the swamp. The muddy water from the swamp flowed slowly downwards from the entrance, making it resemble a drainage channel. As Yohan kept looking back nervously, Lee Hyun-muk said.
“There probably aren’t any other monsters inside. And nothing will come in from behind us.”
“Why not?”
“Because they wouldn’t want to be eaten.”
Yohan swallowed dryly, his tension mounting. He was already terrified, and sweat was dampening his palms. He felt like something was about to leap out from the darkness within the cave at any moment.
However, contrary to Yohan’s expectations, nothing emerged even after walking for 30 minutes. The cave just continued endlessly. As Yohan walked, stepping on the slowly flowing swamp water, he asked impatiently.
“Doesn’t the cave seem to be getting narrower?”
At first, it was wide enough for Lee Hyun-muk and him to walk side-by-side, but now they had to walk in single file. Moreover, the texture of the cave walls was strange. What had been hard like stone was changing to an unpleasantly soft texture. It felt like they had entered the insides of living organs.
“I see. It’s getting narrower.”
Lee Hyun-muk casually said, poking the wall with the tip of his spear, a wall Yohan was too scared to touch. A disgusting bodily fluid-like substance dripped down from the tear in the spear.
“Ugh…”
Yohan shuddered and instinctively pressed close behind Lee Hyun-muk. The words “Let’s just turn back” rose to the tip of his throat, but he held them back. It was a place that seemed to be giving him claustrophobia, which he hadn’t had before.
The further they walked, the stranger the cave’s shape became. Not only was it narrowing, but it also twisted left and right, or the walls became rough and grotesque. Yohan tried his best to avoid touching the walls, which gave the illusion of being strangely damp and wriggling. But it was only for a moment.
“L-Lee Hyun-muk! The walls, the walls are moving!”
“Hmm, they are. They’re moving.”
Unlike Yohan, who was screaming, Lee Hyun-muk was calm. The wriggling wasn’t an illusion! The damp, soft walls were pulsing and narrowing. The floor wriggled, causing Yohan to lose his balance and fall forward.
“Aah, aah…”
Panicked, Yohan crawled forward, and Lee Hyun-muk extended a hand, pulling him into his embrace. He skillfully dodged the walls closing in from all sides and moved forward quickly, but soon they were trapped. Veins stood out starkly on his arm as he pushed against the walls that made a crunching sound.
“W-what do we do!”
“Try pressing close for now?”
Yohan, in a panic, flattened himself against Lee Hyun-muk’s chest, then flinched. He then opened his mouth, trembling, unable to ignore it any longer.
“Um, I’m sorry, but my…”
“Your…?”
He didn’t want to be like this in such a critical situation, but Yohan, whose nerves were completely frayed, squeezed his eyes shut and shouted.
“It’s touching!”
Lee Hyun-muk’s… it had too much presence. Yohan didn’t want to know the size of the person he admired, respected, and recently harbored impure thoughts about… like this.
“Mm.”
“I-it’s touching!”
“Haha.”
Lee Hyun-muk ignored him with a laugh instead of a reply and somehow began to crawl, holding Yohan. It was close to a prone position, and it was incomprehensible how he managed it. After crawling like that for a few minutes, he suddenly laid Yohan on top of him, rolled over, and said calmly.
“This won’t do, Yohan. We have to get out now.”
“Right?! It’s too narrow, isn’t it?!”
Yohan shouted, trying his best not to touch Lee Hyun-muk’s lower body. He truly wanted to escape this place desperately.
“Acid is coming out.”
“What?!”
Only then did Yohan faintly hear a sizzling sound and smell something burning. It seemed to be seeping from the floor, but Lee Hyun-muk, who had noticed it first, had made himself a mat to prevent it from reaching Yohan.
“Lee Hyun-muk, you’re burning right now!”
Yohan screamed and used his ability without being asked. The purified, strange acidic liquid turned into clear water and sloshed, but that was it. The acid kept pouring in from all sides, rendering it useless. It felt like they were trapped in the stomach of a giant beast. His hair became damp, and he looked up to see that the walls above and to the sides were now also producing acid, which was then purified into water.
“It’s regenerating, right? It is, isn’t it?”
Yohan stammered, confirming that Lee Hyun-muk’s back of the head and back, which had been burning moments ago, were unharmed. Lee Hyun-muk, breathing slowly and expanding his chest, called out, “Yohan.”
“Close your eyes and cover your ears. It should only take… a few seconds.”
His languid, mid-low voice brushed against Yohan’s ear, making him shiver, especially since they were already pressed so close. Yohan tried his best not to show it and quickly closed his eyes and covered his ears.
Then, darkness descended.
‘Huh?’
It was already dark inside the cave, and he had already closed his eyes, and even though he was surrounded by shimmering Light Particles, Yohan felt the surroundings becoming pitch black, devoid of even a speck of light. He knew Lee Hyun-muk was right beneath him, yet it felt as if an unfathomable abyss had taken his place. He trembled with an unidentifiable fear.
At that moment, a cool breeze blew, and everything plunged downwards. Thinking he was falling uncontrollably, Yohan instinctively flailed his hands covering his ears and screamed. But contrary to his thoughts, his feet were now firmly planted on something solid. Hearing the voice that followed, Yohan opened his eyes, tears streaming down his face.
“…Yangyang.”
“L-Lee Hyun-muk?”
Yohan looked around in confusion. They were now near the cave entrance. They had been buried deep within the cave moments ago, and he was bewildered, wondering what kind of ordeal this was. Something soft and squishy brushed against his cheek.
“Aah! Lee Hyun-muk, no!”
Lee Hyun-muk, who had instantly turned into a Madman again after whatever happened in the cave, was licking his cheek. Yohan struggled to break free, but he was held tightly in his embrace, licking his tears with gusto as if eating something delicious. His tongue even licked up to Yohan’s eyes, causing him to scream and hastily activate his ability. A cluster of light seeped into Lee Hyun-muk’s body, and the red glow in his eyes seemed to weaken.
“Yangyang…”
However, it had little effect. Lee Hyun-muk, still with his eyes rolling, simply sucked on his cheek with his mouth. After much effort, until both cheeks were red and swollen, Yohan finally managed to break free from the Madman’s embrace. In fact, it was more like the other person let him go. Only then could Yohan see with his own eyes how they had escaped. A gasp escaped Yohan’s lips.
“W-what is this…”
A giant, deep hole had appeared in the ground. The trace looked as if it had been cleanly cut by some tool. One could see the winding layers of the cave, dozens of meters down, like an ant colony. The swamp water from the marshy area was flowing into it like a waterfall. It wasn’t scorched at all, unlike something done with electricity. Terrified, Yohan muttered.
“How on earth did you do that?”
Of course, there was no real answer from a madman. He just slyly attached himself to Yohan’s back and sucked on his sweat-soaked nape, making Yohan jump again. His face flushed red.
“That’s forbidden!”
Yohan, who was now slightly less afraid of the Madman than before, hit his back and then let out a silent scream. Even considering the difference between a Dealer and a Healer, he was too solid…! Clutching his throbbing hand, Yohan sighed deeply. He looked at Lee Hyun-muk, who was staring at him somewhat dejectedly, and asked.
“Do you know the way back to our lodging…?”
As expected, there was no answer this time either.