Extra's Guide to Surviving a Dark Fantasy World-Chapter 43: Escaping the City

That feeling... I had never felt something so evil in my life, so overwhelmingly sinister.

I let out a deep sigh, the feeling had finally disappeared. My body had just begin to relax, when the statue beneath me trembled violently.

What the-

It happened so suddenly that the head crumbled first, disintegrating into fine sand, followed swiftly by the rest of its body.

I scrambled to escape, but the shoulders I was sitting on vanished beneath me too quickly, even before I could regain my footing, causing me to tumble face-first into the hard ground.

"Damn it," I groaned, rubbing my aching face.

That had happened out of nowhere. I was slowly pushing myself up when suddenly-

Tok Tok

A faint sound of footsteps came resounding outside the chamber.

My instincts screamed, and I immediately got on full alert, activating the shroud in less than an instant; I ran to a dark corner, waiting for someone to walk through.

Time passed, and I waited and waited, but no one stepped in through the door.

Was I imagining things? No, I had definitely heard some noise; just in case, I decided to hide for a couple more minutes.

The sound had disappeared as if it had vanished into thin air. Deciding to check for myself, I walked out of my hiding spot before cautiously walking out of the chamber.

The outside was just as empty as I had left them, without a sign of anyone.

But how? I distinctly remembered the sound of human footsteps coming closer in my direction.

I needed to get out of here. This place hadn’t been safe earlier, but now it felt a different kind of dangerous.

Besides, I probably got the most important thing in this place, anyway. Turning around, I took one last look towards the chamber to make sure there wasn’t anything else for me to take, after which I hurriedly stepped out of the building and began running back to the base.

"Oh right, I had to get the supplies as well." I groaned once again. I was too tired, to be honest, the fight with the statue and the incident with the crown had been both physically and mentally draining. Still, I needed to get some supplies if I wanted a decent cover story.

Shaking my head, I began running towards a nearby broken house, searching for some easily carriable stray pieces of bricks when suddenly.

SCRAAAAAA!!!

A shrilling roar echoed throughout the entire city, causing me to stop in my tracks.

What was that? Was it the storm?

SCREEEEEEE!!!

The roar echoed once again. And this time, I was able to locate the direction from which it was coming.

The roar seemed to be coming from... the inner district.

My mouth instantly went dry as I remembered the giant pit in the center of the city. A pity my instincts were screaming at me to stay away from them.

I didn’t waste a single moment; hurriedly throwing whatever supplies I had collected by now, I began running back towards the base. The pit... I had a bad feeling about it the moment I saw it from above the sky.

But why now? Everything was fine until a few minutes ago; just what the hell could have happened so suddenly for something like that to come out?

A sudden prickly sensation in my chest pocket forced a thought in my mind.

Could it be the crown? The timing did seem a little suspicious, not to mention how that statue had crumbled.

"Damn it, it must have been the crown; I knew there was something wrong about it the moment I touched it." I cursed while sprinting as fast as I could through the sand-filled streets.

SSSKKREEEE!

Another loud roar pulsed through the city, almost knocking me off my feet. Was I imagining things, or had that felt a little bit closer?

Blast it all! We needed to get out of this place and we needed to do it now.

It didn’t take me long before I could see the house coming up in the distance. Reaching the house, I didn’t stop for even a moment; instead, I burst in through the makeshift door.

Aria was already in the room, prepared with her sword; she must have heard the growls as well.

"What is happening out there? What are those roars, and what are-" Aria hurriedly questioned, obviously confused about the whole situation, when suddenly her vision flew past my burnt arm.

"Start packing our stuff; we need to get out of here as soon as possible." I didn’t answer her question. Instead, I began looking through the camp and searching for those bags Tess had been sewing all those days ago. Speaking of which-

"Where the hell is Tess?" I asked, confused. Shouldn’t she be here fixing the wall along with Aria?

"Tess went out looking for you an hour ago and hasn’t returned yet; seriously, what the hell were you doing out there?" Aria spoke while shoving some of our supplies into one of the makeshift bags Tess had made.

"An hour ago? I had barely left an hour ago. Why would you send her out to look for me?" I asked, confused, and started packing beside her.

"Tess insisted, saying she was worried. I didn’t see any reason to stop her." Aria spoke while filling up the last bag. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

As we finished filling up the last bag, both of us looked longingly at the piles of canned food left outside. Our spatial storage wasn’t working because of the storm, and given our situation, we could only take what we could carry in the bags.

"This can’t be happening." Aria clutched her head. "Tell me this somehow isn’t your fault." She glared at me with eyes filled with venom.

"Wha-"

"And don’t you dare insult me by trying to lie your way out of this, Zane, or if that even is your real name. You have been hiding and lying about things from the moment we started our journey. Now you show up covered in fresh wounds, coincidentally at the same time some terrible monstrosity began rampaging through the city."