Jack raised his katana into the air as he returned.
"Now we can go help the others too!"
However, after saying that, he saw that both Mia and Kenji were both already at the center. Granted, Kenji didn't look the best, bleeding from his forehead. It was quite hard to tell, but there appeared to be new tears in his rags.
Regardless, he had still made it in one piece.
As for Mia, she appeared perfectly fine, if not a bit suspicious of her surroundings still.
When Jack came on over with Jessica in tow, he clearly expressed his surprise.
"Eh? You guys are already here? How did you get here so fast?"
Kenji shrugged his shoulders.
"I just kept moving until I found myself here."
Mia blinked a few times.
"Everything became quite straightforward at the start, but when the cave walls turned to the world's largest pool, I realized something was wrong. After using a three though, it was back to just walking in the cave until I reached here. Why did both of you come from the same path though?"
Jessica let out an awkward laugh before giving Jack an affectionate look.
"I think Jackie came to my section to help me out. Fortunately he showed up, else I would've been completely fooled. Thank you so much!"
Once they reached the center, the four of them suddenly disappeared into a flash of light. Jack blinked a few times and found himself at a table within a red velvet room. Five different cards were in front of him. Two of them were revealed, a 7 of hearts and a 4 of hearts. He took the two of them before flipping the last one over. It revealed another 7 of hearts. The other two cards automatically revealed themselves as a 3 of clubs and a 7 of diamonds but before he could do anything, they faded into light before he similarly did the same.
He along with the rest of his party members reappeared in the building at the floor they had initially arrived in. However, it looked considerably different now. Instead of the white tiles covering anything, there appeared to be the same as the cave flooring they had seen near the end of the game.
The only exception was the roof, which had what appeared to be green roots growing and wrapping around some kind of mix between soil and solid stone, coming together almost like a hastily put together mosaic.
Mia rubbed the back of her neck before letting out a small hum.
"That wasn't too bad. Although there were illusions, they made themselves rather clear by just suddenly changing."
Jessica furrowed her brows slightly.
"Really? I remember you said something about seeing cave walls at first before. But I only saw that after moving into the last room. It looks like it's different for different people."
Mia's eyes widened slightly.
"Eh? How was it for you two then?"
Kenji wiped some drying blood on his neck and put a hand on the back of his head.
"I don't recall too clearly, but I'm pretty sure I also never saw any cave walls until the end."
Jack had a rather large smile on his face as he held up his hands.
"I liked walking through all of the walls at the start! It was also kinda cool to go through a place that seemed dark but wasn't really dark."
Mia raised her eyebrows slightly and let out a soft hum.
"I'm not completely sure, but it's probably related to the benefits we got from finishing our promotion mission. Considering we all did different ones, we all have unique traits. It appears mine helps either in dispelling illusions, or gives me an advantage in these games, or both."
Jack tilted his head to the side. He didn't seem too interested in what she was talking about. After a moment, he suddenly looked up at the roof before pointing at it.
"Let's go up again!"
Mia appeared to catch something in his expression, and voiced out her curiosity.
"Do you already know what's up there?"
Jessica puffed up her cheeks slightly and picked Jack up, holding him from behind with a tight hold.
"What are you trying to imply?"
Mia hurriedly waved a hand, lightly pressing two fingers against her temple.
"Nothing like that. It's just... that it seems like he knows something about it."
Jack held up both hands, kicking his feet slightly while being carried.
"I can smell them. There's something fun up there!"
Jessica smiled rather brightly.
"Wow, that sounds great!"
Though she thought Jack was just saying things without really meaning them. She didn't really understand what he was trying to say. Kenji had more or less the same thoughts, though it also appeared not many thoughts were going through his head either.
Mia on the other hand already fully knew what he meant by smell. After all, she was also able to smell the blood on other beings. It was better than when she practically had to be so close like she was actually sniffing her target, though it was still weaker than Jack's.
As for how Jack was able to smell them, she identified the most probable source just by looking through her memories. She still remembered Jack getting a reward for killing a diamonds creature in particular. And so, she wasn't all that surprised.
As for her own sense of smell, she actually could very faintly smell blood coming from upstairs. However, it was too vague for her to actually understand anything other than that people had either died up there, or the things up there had killed people. The only slight issue was that it didn't exactly mean much at all, since practically everything that could smell of blood had killed something before.
Although Jessica's scent was incredibly weak, she still had it.
Mia took a deep breath before taking a look at Kenji.
"Are you alright to continue on? I remember you sustained injuries in the previous level."
Kenji briefly brought his rags back, revealing his wounds which had already scarred.
"I'm already patched. There's no need to worry about me."
With that, he covered himself once more. Mia was wondering about that healing ability a little, since it seemed Jack possessed it as well, but decided that she would ask about it some other time.
"Alright. I suppose we might as well go up higher, though just remember to be careful. It's likely to have some sort of hostile enemy like this one."
Jack waved his arms back and forth.
"Ok!"
It was fairly clear that he had already forgotten about the advice that Mia was trying to give him.
Jessica let Jack down since he was rather excited and wanted to go on his own. The four of them went back into the stairwell and continued climbing upwards. This time, the stairs gradually became grassy, at first with just some moss around the walls. However, it rather quickly transitioned into dirt, until there weren't any steps at all.
There was simply a fairly small incline upwards that had various weeds, flowers and vines growing. Once they had gotten high enough, they saw that there wasn't a door at all. Instead, they appeared to have stepped into a forest, almost like they had always been walking in one the entire time.
There was sunlight cast down upon everything, though the actual sun itself couldn't be seen in the sky. Regardless, the sky took on a blue hue familiar to all of them, though it was a far healthier and brighter blue than they were used to, save for Jack.
A couple of small trees were spread out in the field, most of which had a variety of other plants, mostly flowers growing on top. They almost looked like Christmas trees that were made by people, though roots said otherwise.
A variety of other kinds of plant-life existed, scattered across. However, there also wasn't a single animal or bug in sight. Although the place looked rather nice, that fact made it ever so slightly off.
Before they even stepped into the clearing, there were some rustling sounds before a rather strange goofy voice came from the distance.
"PeOpLe hEre! PeOpLe hEre!"
The voice had a strange wetness to it, like the person speaking still had a considerable amount of water still in their mouth and rapidly changed in pitch back and forth like someone playing a trombone while rapidly sliding it around randomly.
"Oh, why hello there newcomers!"