Chapter 251 – One Morning when the Sky was Grey…

Aki - Now

‘So… she went down there looking for her brother and father?’ Savri muttered. ‘Can’t say I blame her.’

‘I’m with Sav on this one,’ I agreed. ‘If I learned my mom was in Hell, I would have probably stopped at nothing to see her again.’

‘And here is the problem,’ Lilyth sighed. ‘Just like “Heaven” has different levels, so does Hell. And most naughty people end up on the level you could, I guess, call Purgatory.’

‘So basically one for normal fuck-ups?’ Ren mused. ‘Meaning that had I died in that Ambush I would have ended up in Hell proper?’

Lilyth’s grim expression told us everything.

‘There are worse places than Hell, aren’t there?’ I saved Rennie from the need to ask.

‘Yes,’ Lilyth said. ‘And that’s all I am allowed to say on this.’

‘So, I gather Zaevi’s family wasn’t in the “Purgatory”?’ Nyx brought the discussion back onto safer territory.

‘Not sure how, but yes. Ere mentioned some “Guides,” but I know next to nothing otherwise.’

‘So… Zaevi chose to go down to a zone filled with hardened criminals…’ Sav sighed. ‘That’s the kind of a story that doesn’t seem to have a happy ending as a possibility.’

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ Lilyth said quietly. ‘But I guess we will get to that. So…’

Lilyth - Mission Day 1 (relative time)

The worst part about being in Hell was that I could not tell the three men trying to accost me to “go to Hell.”

Kannst du uns nicht in die Hölle ziehen, weil wir immer in die Hölle waren.

I knew I would have to watch my back from the very second I appeared down here, but getting attacked within a minute was not on my bingo card.

‘Listen, guys,’ I said, raising my hands with outstretched palms. ‘Let’s talk it out.’

‘There are better uses for that mouth of yours,’ one of them said.

Ah.

I summoned my gun into my hand and shot them before they could react.

Now this wouldn’t kill them, not permanently at least. From what Ere told me, if people “died” in Hell, they would reform unharmed sometime later in a different spot. Those three bozos would also be likely sporting nice glowing brands on their foreheads since rape was one of the very few no-nos down here. In fact, I would later learn that some damned souls made a sport out of hunting down rapists and murdering them. Over and over again.

I was surprised to discover people down here could screw to begin with, but as Ere put it: if the damned weren’t given some non-violent outlets, things could get ugly. Well… uglier.

In fact, Hell had quite a robust array of non-violent activities available for prisoners: mining, farming, factory work, construction, cooking… pretty much anything you could do when alive.

Except magic. It was impossible for the dead to use magic, or so we thought at the time, but I am getting waaay ahead of myself.

Regardless of that, me using my magitek pistol to dispatch those three clowns made my mission far more difficult, as sooner or later they would reappear and questions about their deaths would be raised. After all, information that there was a Kitsune Hellborn running around with a Magitek pistol was worth a lot.

Alas, breaking my cover was necessary. Ere was a bit sketchy as to when the “protection” field kicked in, and even despite that, there was no way I would allow myself to be brutalised and robbed. I had to wear my “Hell-protection” pendant at all times or my stay here would be well… permanent. Still, the hope was that simple clothes and a wraparound cloak would let me keep a relatively low profile.

Anyway, my first objective was to exit the undercity. Ere dropped me there to improve my chances of getting to my target relatively unmolested, as the ever-moving “starter zones” were apparently an unfiltered orgy of violence and recruitment. I wasn’t sure which was worse.

She made sure I would be as close to the entrance to Hell as possible, which meant I would have to walk only about six hundred kilometres through hostile territory.

What can I say? Azhylum housed billions of damned souls. The place was absolutely humongous.

I guess this is the closest I will get to ever seeing an ecumenopolis.

Of course, this introduced another issue - the finding a fucking needle in a haystack problem. In fact, Ere didn’t really expect me to succeed and would pull me out regardless after some time. Zaevi dug her own grave by coming down here. Eventually she would “die” and respawn back at the upper level, hopefully having learned an important lesson.

Denn wie man sich bettet, so liegt man.

So why was I there to begin with? Mostly recon. Get the lay of the land, monitor for “unforeseen consequences.” That kind of stuff.

Anyway, the undercity reminded me of the train station in my old home city mixed with a mall, so advancing through the network of piss-smelling tunnels with ruined storefronts and houses attached to them almost felt like returning home.

There were even shifty-looking destitute people all around. I did my best to give all of them a wide berth, but I did have a few close calls, like that one time a man reeking of alcohol staggered into me from a side passage, and we crashed into the ground.

He quickly raised himself to his feet and began to apologise profusely. I had nothing he could pickpocket from me, and I could still feel my pendant between my breasts, so I just let him go.

Another close call of note was when I had to pass through a narrow doorway with a man leaning against the frame. He was observing me impassively. I caught his gaze, stared directly into his eyes for a few moments and shook my head. The man nodded back and stepped to show he didn’t mean me harm.

I don’t know how much time I spent down there, as the clock on my interface simply said: “Out of Range.” It probably wasn’t more than a few hours, but being unable to tell what hour it was would prove to be a major pet peeve of mine for the days to come.

Before anyone asks - Hell does indeed have a way of tracking time, but it is based on resource respawn intervals, and I didn’t get my hands on a bullshit-to-hours conversion table.

One of the shortest regeneration timers I have discovered - sand was that of two units, and, yes, people have discovered a way to use those timers as a way of murdering each other. Basically, some resources - ores, soil, stone and so on- don’t so much reappear as regrow in the places they were dug out from. In reverse temporal order, so the last dug-out bit grows out first.

You can probably see where I am going with this.

So the execution method known as the “Sand Grave,” despite rarely, if ever, involving actual sand, was placing someone inside a dugout, tied up so they can’t move. You then either seal the exit to the pit, or, if you are especially cruel and want to prolong their suffering, do it in such a way that the person’s head is still outside the dugout.

Then you just wait until it begins to regrow and the person is slowly crushed to death.

Yep.

Eventually, I managed to blindly stumble my way onto the exit, a ladder leading onto the streets above. Fearing a “manhole” camp, I leapt outside using [Jet Jump], but for once luck was on my side and I found myself alone in an empty side alley.

Infiltration successful.

The next step would be more difficult: find the entrance to the upper levels and get past the gang-erected fortifications around it.

Aki- Now

‘Why the fuck would local gangs care about keeping territory around the entrance to the upper levels?’ Savri wondered. ‘They can’t pass through it anyway.’

‘Prestige mostly,’ Lilyth shrugged. ‘Plus the fact people can’t pass through doesn’t stop them from trying. So many myths about it arose throughout the aeons that “one of them had to be true, right?” And if you want to try any of them…’

‘... you need access. Would any of those myths involve souls from upper levels, perchance?’

‘Wouldn’t surprise me. It is one of the more obvious “ways.” Not that it would work.’

‘Then why was Ere concerned?’

‘You know very well that human ingenuity, and, more importantly, stupidity are boundless.’

‘Ah, a “hold my beer” scenario,’ Nyx laughed. ‘No offence, sweetie, but you are an expert in those.’

‘Uncontested,’ Lilyth smiled weakly.

Lilyth - Mission Day 1 (relative time)

I still cannot believe how “normal” Azhylum looked. Skyscrapers, food stalls, cafes, cars… everything I was missing from back home. Fuck, some buildings had media facades on them, and I could see a big-boobed purplish-silver-haired demon lady in a bottle-green military-like dress uniform on them reading out news.

None of what the newscaster was saying meant anything to me, but she sure knew how to capture attention. The logo on the screen identified this as Darkstar News Network.

‘Watch out!’ someone next to me shouted and pushed me aside with enough strength to send me sprawling.

What the fuck?

I learned the answer to this question moments later when something crashed where I just stood with a heavy, fleshy thud. I felt some warm liquid splatter across my stomach and face.

W-wuh…

I looked at the ‘object’ that nearly crushed me, only to discover it wasn’t one. It was a badly mangled corpse of a man.

‘Wh… what the actual f-fuck…’ I muttered.

‘Fucking flyers,’ the man who saved my life muttered and offered me his hand.

‘F-flyers?’ I repeated.

‘New here, I imagine, then,’ he laughed. ‘Some people consider the sensation of falling from high buildings to be fun. So fun, in fact, that it makes getting splattered across the pavement worth it.’

‘What the fuck?’ I asked the ever relevant question.

‘You’ll get used to it.’

I took his proffered hand, rose to my feet and examined my saviour.

He was a blonde young demon with blue eyes and wore a uniform similar to the woman on the news.

‘Kaidan,’ he introduced himself. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance.’

‘Lilyth,’ I forced a smile.

‘Then let me be the first one to say it. Welcome to Hell, Lilyth.’

Another man crashed near us.

‘I think we should continue this conversation inside,’ he suggested.

‘Yep…’ I replied weakly.

What the fuck did I get myself into?