Abel was slumped on an old couch that was in the manager's office, staring at the decrepit ceiling and taking deep breaths, flashes of visions of the abomination hoard still clear in his mind.
'I have been a fool, my mind not believing what it has been witnessing, causing it to downplay the significance and danger of leaving the house with a clear warning from the Recorder.' He sighed and closed his eyes, not believing he had been so foolish.
'I should head back to the house, gather more info, then see what I should do moving forward.' deciding on a course of action, he stood up, looking around the office.
It didn't look different, just the same as it was before he was dragged into this hidden world the Recorder keeps mentioning.
It had a normal-sized office desk, slightly old, filled with papers and folders, with office items like stapler, pencils, and whatnot. With a drawer next to it, the couch he was sitting on, and the simple wooden chair behind the desk, the rest of the small room was empty, unlike its version in the Underlayer.
A thought occurred to him as he inspected the office.
'Could he possibly have any information on this hidden world?' Feeling time running out with the monster manager possibly appearing in the office as he did, he began to hurriedly walk toward the desk office.
He rummaged through the papers, finding most of them as account papers for the restaurant, others, and some documents that he had no time to read extensively to read.
'It must be in some save or hidden place.' The desk papers were completely useless while its drawers were the same filled with more papers and other items. Nothing he could see being related to the hidden world.
He walked toward the big drawer just near the desk office, opening its compartments and seeing nothing different, more random items, and papers.
He even used the crowbar to break into a locked compartment, finding rolled money in the hundreds, which he pocketed instantly.
'Why is it here? Doesn't he have a house to go to and keep it safe there or something?' It puzzled him because the manager would close the restaurant at 10:00 p.m. every day for as long as he worked here, being 4 months now.
Done with the big drawer, he went back to the desk, touching it in all the places, trying to see if there were hidden compartments, yet he found nothing.
'He doesn't even have a pc or laptop. I haven't seen him use a phone either. Then how does he get things done around here?' It was just coming clear to him all the weird things the manager did.
The restaurant in question was also old and barely had the professional cooking equipment it needed in the kitchen, barely any customers as well, its food was bland and he didn't eat it after he tried it one time.
'Wait, is it just a front for criminal activity or something?' Now that made sense when he thought about all the weird things about it.
Realizing he was wasting time, he began to flip the place, moving the desk office, the big drawer to see if there were any hidden save behind and under it, the couch and the floor it hid, yet nothing at all.
Sitting on the couch with a pondering look, he could only think of one way there might be a hidden place and way where stored information could be stored, if there wasn't, that means the manager didn't keep any physical info.
He focused on the tiny imperceptible dot that was located just at the edge of his vision, manifesting a golden holograph that showed his status or record.
Nothing was different than before he went in the Underlayer, puzzling him since he thought he would level up or something.
'Hey Record, how do I level up?' he asked just in question, not expecting anything.
[Record: Essence crystals.]
To his mild surprise, it answered, and thinking for a second, he took out the blue crystal in his pocket, focusing on it, and saw the same notification from before.
[You have acquired a low Monster Essence crystal.]
'Is this it? Record, how do I use it?' He asked again, hoping for some answer that might not come.
[Record: You can use it by swallowing it.]
'Really? This sounds dangerous.' he hesitated and eventually decided not to swallow it. He won't be stupid anymore and had to carefully consider every action. After all, his life was on the line.
Putting it back into his pocket, he decided there wasn't anything more he could do here and walked to the couch where his crowbar was lying.
He looked at his clothes and hands, finding them filled with red color, while the previous grey mixed in with them was completely gone.
'With a crowbar of similar colour, it will look like I killed someone, but there are no clothes here.' With a frown, he paced around the place, thinking of a plan to safely reach his apartment.
Suddenly, light flickered in the room, a space crack forming in an instant and booting out a gory figure before it closed.
Abel was instantly on alert, able to react only when the crack closed. He decided to leave the office instantly, damned the consequences instead of being in the same room with a rat monster.
"WAIT!" said a voice with a pleading tone.
Abel stopped in his tracks, finally giving a good look at the gory figure that breathed with laboured breaths on the ground, dispersing huge amounts of blood.
He recognized it as the manager, his face filled with claw strikes, his left ear missing, his lips busted black and blue, not even to mention the rest of his body that was in strange positions, he looked like he will die any second.
"COUGH!! P-please!! help me!!" the gory figure pleaded, stretching his left hand missing 3 fingers toward Abel.
Abel frowned, the sight making his stomach squirm, but he responded.
"Why would I help you? you tried to eat me." He said with as much hatred as he could.
"Y-Yes, I know, I'm S-sorry, please. I don't have much t-t-time... haah....haah.." The manager's blood was reaching his foot at this point.
"If y-you help me... I will tell you all y- you need to know about the Hidden World... Do you wanna know what's happening , right?"
Now Abel was interested, but he wondered if he truly had the information he was looking for.
"I checked everywhere. There was nothing in here related to the Hidden World," he replied with a suspicious voice.
"I don't h-have ... much time... over in that wall is a safe where I keep all the i-important things... go there, smear it with my blood, and it will open.." The gory manager said with a pleading tune, feeling life leave his body from the grave wounds.
Still sceptical, Abel carefully looked at the blood, reaching his foot and thought about all the benefits and drawbacks his actions might cause him. Deciding a second later, the benefits slightly outweighed the drawbacks.
He crouched, putting his left hand in the blood, then quickly walked to the wall the manager pointed at.
Smearing the blood all over the place he guessed where it could be, it wasn't long before a little yellow light emerged before the wall opened to reveal a big enough square hole in the wall, filled with magical-looking items.
"The red filled b-bottle.. give it to me! please!!" With desperation in his voice, the manager pleaded.
Abel looked at it, taking it in his right hand and inspecting the red bottle.
[You have acquired a High Body Essence crystal potion.]
'Does this help in healing the body?' he wondered and began to walk toward the gory figure of the manager, one he never knew its name.
"Please... I will tell you everything... please give it to me!!" the manager pleaded.
Abel was faced with a dilemma. Should he save the person who wanted to eat him minutes ago, or should he save him?
...
".... You should have never tried to eat me." he stepped back away from the body, coldly watching the despair etched on the manager's disfigured face.
"Y- YOU!! Y-YOU BASTARD!! IS THIS HOW YOU REPAY ME FOR EVERYTHING-G... I DID FOR Y-YOUU!!?" The manager screamed violently, his body beginning to go through the transformation to his monster rat form, along with grey colour enveloping him from head to toe.
The grey colour went out of control, billowing in waves as it began to consume the remains of the abominable-like manager.
Yet before he could do anything, a space crack formed under him, swallowing his body along with the grey colour, the room quieting a second later.
Abel stood there in shock, the grey colour giving him the distinct feeling he was about to evaporate from this world, along with a half-kilometer radius surrounding the restaurant.
Sweat began to form on his face, his heart racing wildly, having understood what the bastard wanted to do.
'The fucker was about to explode like a nuclear blast...'
Coming to his senses, he quickly went back to the still-open wall, removed his jacket, and began to gather all the bottles and crystals, the lone dagger, and a notebook, not paying attention to the notifications that emerged when he touched them.
Gathering everything, he opened the office door, finding himself in the hallway of the restaurant, looking at his surroundings, he quickly run to the front door of the restaurant, while he wished it would have had a backdoor to sneak out of.
Passing through the main area of the restaurant, he saw 2 of his coworkers and 3 customers staring at his blood-soaked clothes and body, yet completely ignoring them, he run with all his might past the front doors.
The street had few pedestrians walking in it, who saw him as he ran to the alleyways, running continuously.
'With how I look, I can't possibly use the bus, which means..' reaching the apartment would take 30 minutes by foot, and he had to take a convoluted route to avoid the CCTV cameras from following his trail.
He ran and ran, knowing that he was utterly fucked, as numerous people saw him run around with blood-soaked clothes and Body.
Eventually, he reached the park where it all began, hiding behind a tree from a man who chased after him from a good distance while holding a phone.
'This fucking bastard!!' He raged as he waited for the man to pass through the area since he was persistent in following him for 5 minutes straight.
Sure enough, the man carefully approached the area he was hiding in, looking through the place, while Abel continued to hide around the tree.
As the man passed by him, Abel laid down his jacket filled with magical items, along with the deadly crowbar. Instead, he picked up a rock.
The recording man turned around when he heard a noise, just to see a blood-soaked man charging at him with a stone in his hands.
As the man tried to run away, exposing his back to Abel, he received a stone to his back, causing him to trip from the impact.
Abel instantly got on top of the man, not giving him any chance to speak as he began to punch him repeatedly.
A few minutes later, he stripped the man, took his phone, and changed into his clothes, before picking up his jacket and continuing to run to his apartment, this time receiving fewer glances from people as he had a hoodie on covering his face.
He opened the door to his apartment, entering a second later and locking it. He walked to his bed and lay on it, staring at the ceiling with calm eyes.
"...I don't think I'm gonna survive for a week." He said with a dead voice.