It was early morning the next day that Abel woke up, feeling fine physically and feeling terrible mentally.
He had so many questions about what he saw, what the Underlayer is, the Hidden World, the Recorder, and many other things.
Yet he felt like he didn't have the energy to move from his bed today, feeling comfortable being covered head to toe with a blanket.
Yet whenever he moved a little, something hard annoyed him by stabbing him into his stomach.
Eventually, he decided to get rid of the clothes he was wearing, even if it meant he had to wake up from his comfortable sleeping position.
As he sleepily began to undress, he woke up to wakefulness the more he stripped, inspecting the clothes that were not his.
'Right... I assaulted someone.' he thought to himself without guilt, thinking how the man should have stayed clear of a person covered in blood.
Seriousness returned to his face as he threw the clothes in the corner of his one-room apartment and entered his tiny bathroom moments later.
He showered and brushed, cleaning himself of the blood still smeared on his hands like a glove and the little splotches of blood on his face.
After cleaning himself fully, he turned his attention to his hungry stomach, having not eaten for a full day.
Cooking himself noodles, white beans, eggs, and cheese, he used all the special limited ingredients to make himself one giant bot of food.
In 20 minutes, he finished the huge pot of mixed food, something he cooked whenever he felt like celebrating.
With a bloated stomach, he went to his bed, wanting to sleep a little more but he saw the bed being dirty, so he went to the sofa, sitting and staring at his white ceiling in silence.
He kept his mind occupied with random thoughts, not wanting to focus on the surreal reality he found himself mixed in, at least for a while.
It wasn't like he wasn't happy to be a part of this unique world, a secret underworld of magical beings, which he only saw a few of, yet they almost killed him.
But with so little information about what he was a part of, it was difficult to come to decisions, a goal, or some other thing.
'Information, the only constant thing in this world.' Now knowing what he has to do, for now at least, he stood up, looking for the Jacket that held all the looted magical items.
'I hope there is at least some info on that notebook.' Finding it underneath the bed, he took it out, laying the blood-soaked dark blue jacket on the coffee table opposite the sofa.
Looking at the assortment of items laying haphazardly on the Jacket, he sighed relieved when he saw that nothing broke or had gone missing.
The first thing that caught his eye was the notebook, but he decided to make it the last thing to inspect for now, the other magical items piquing his curiosity immensely.
[You have acquired a High Body Essence Crystal potion.]
He tried to tap the notification to give him more information about what it could do for him, but there was no response beyond that.
'Is this thing broken?' He couldn't help but think so since it would give detailed info like the crowbar, then it would give him barely any info at all like now.
Not dwelling on something he has no answer to, he picked up a red crystal this time, a notification giving a similar but slightly different one from before.
[You have acquired a Mid Body Essence crystal.]
'So far I had seen Low Mid, and High, does that translate to the ranking or quality of an item?' He felt that it made sense.
Next, he picked up a white crystal, almost the same size as the red crystal.
[You have acquired a Low Spirit Essence crystal.]
This time, he called upon his status panel, seeing the 2 stats of Body and Spirit.
'Does this mean they are meant for these 2 stats?' His hunch and common sense were telling him so, but his newly cultivated overcautious mind denied any possibility of allowing himself to experiment with them without more info.
Then he picked up a blue crystal, shaped the same as the other two, with the same size.
[You have acquired a Mid Monster Essence Crystal.]
'A higher quality version of the monster crystal I gained by killing that abomination.' He said, taking out the smaller blue crystal from the jacket's pocket, which thankfully didn't fall.
[You have acquired a Low Monster Essence Crystal.]
No other different colored crystal was in the Jacket, but there were 5 Mid Monster Essence Crystals, 3 Body Essence Crystals and 2 Potion versions of it, and then 2 Spirit Essence Crystals.
Putting them aside, he touched the unique-looking bone dagger, hoping it to be a magical one and sure enough, a notification emerged.
[You have acquired a Lesser Dagger of Rotting Rat.]
[Lesser Dagger of Rotting Rat.]
[Record: Created from the spine of a Rotting Rat, It was infused with the Essence of its siblings, elevating it from an inferior version to a lesser version.
Durability: F
Quality: Poor
Essence: Mid.
Essence Power: Generating rotting effects.]
'Again a detailed explanation, but never the less it seems a slightly better quality than my crowbar.' Then it dawned on him, standing up and looking around the apartment.
'Shit! I left it in the park!!' He began to worry immediately, wondering if someone will figure out and trace it to his house.
'I already made a mistake already.' sighing, he decided to not think about it, and focus on the last item, the thing he hoped could give him any info on what he has gotten himself into.
It was an average-sized notebook, and it had this dark thick leather.
When he picked it up, he didn't receive any notifications at all, so he opened it. His face drained out of color when he saw the first page.
'What the fuck, what is this shit!?' all he saw on the page were unrecognizable scribbles, and he quickly turned to the next page, yet it was the same.
He kept turning the pages, each filled with unreadable scribbles, causing him to sweat, while feeling utterly disappointed inside.
"Fuck!!" He threw the book with all the force he could muster, cursing in his mind continuously, before slumping back into the sofa.
"Back to zero, I guess," he said out loud with deadpanned voice.
Sighing, he stood up gathering all the crystals, potions, and dagger to find a place to hide it instead of just leaving it out in the open.
Then he sighed as he also picked up the useless notebook, not wanting to leave any evidence.
Yet as he picked it up, a note fell out of the book, making him curious again.
He quickly put all the magical stuff along with the notebook back on the coffee table, and hurriedly picked up the note- not it was a business card.
{B.E.Y.N Auction}
Then it had a website written on it, yet it wasn't written like normal website links, it had unrelated numbers and letters on it with no HTTP or other versions.
An idea emerged in Abels's mind about what kind of thing this was, and he ran to his pc, turning it on quickly.
'I don't know if it's truly a secret website of the Hidden World, I just hope it's not some fucked deep web.' The idea that they might be able to trace his location was ringing in his mind, he shook his head.
'I don't have many other options.' So resolving himself, he used whatever program he could to try to hide his location, before putting the website on a random search engine.
The pc went dark a second after he put it on before the screen came up again with a simple black background and white text.
{Welcome to B.E.Y.N Auction, dear customer!}
{Please fill in your profile info:
Username:
password: }
Abel was surprised by the simplicity of the website, and seeing no harm in filling in the basic information, he completed it in a minute.
{Congratulations User: GER for successful registration!
Note: We have taken the liberty of making you an account to facilitate your shopping with us!}
'What? What account?' yet before he could think what it meant by that, it sent one last message, as a futuristic yet simple-looking website appeared on the screen.
{Happy Purchase!}
-----
A police detective walked out of her undercover police car, sipping a coffee, wincing from the harsh sunlight early in the morning.
Wearing a typical long detective white coat, she strolled smoothly to a restaurant teeming with police, as they blocked news reporters and pedestrians from coming close to the crime scene.
Pushing past the people forcefully, she flashed her ID to the cop trying to block her, causing the fat cop to step back quickly and let her pass the blockade.
"Mrs. Corallo, I appreciate coming on such short notice, the case we have here has been one of the strange cases, those you specialize in." A lieutenant cop walked toward her, raising his hand for a handshake.
Ignoring his hand, she looked at all the people surrounding the restaurant, pointing with a finger at them.
"Ah, It seems people took videos and pics and posted them online, and they came here to verify if someone was murdered," he said as he retracted his hand awkwardly.
"Didn't you release a statement that a murder happened?" Mrs. Corallo asked calmly, her voice having no discernible emotion.
"That's why we called you, there is evidence of a fight, struggle, a suspect, but there is no Body." said the lieutenant cop with a confused face.
"Have you investigated if he the suspect hid it somewhere?" she asked casually, yet already knowing the answer. She began walking toward the front door of the restaurant.
"We have combed through the place multiple times, there is no Body whatsoever." The lieutenant cop guided her to the office where the suspected murder happened.
As she went inside the office, she passed her coffee to the lieutenant and observed the whole trashed office room.
A large part of the floor was smeared with blood, the office furniture was strewn all over the place, with many papers having soaked up the blood on the floor.
Lastly, she looked at the wall smeared with blood, while a cavity formed in the center, empty.
Turning to the lieutenant, "Give me a minute." the lieutenant stepped out of the office quickly, even closing the door for her.
'Smart fella.' Focusing back on the crime scene, she removed her sunglasses, her brown eyes §beginning to shine and transform into silver, beginning to walk through the office while floating a centimeter from the blood-soaked floor.
She moved her hands through the air, inspecting invisible strings, coming to a stop where she sensed remnants of intense foul essence.
'I see, what a miserable bastard.' Already figuring out why the body disappeared, she focused on the why.
She floated to the rectangular cavity in the wall, and traced the insides, looking for a trace of the perpetrator, and to her surprise she found a weak almost disappearing string floating dreamily around the place, before releasing silver essence from her fingers, latching on to it and make it more solid.
"Now this is a mystery." if it was an experienced person, they would never leave a trace like this, yet if it was an inexperienced one, it shouldn't have been this tiny.
'Does that mean he was almost killed by a weak person?' this was a mystery to solve.
She took out an old cell phone from her coat. Dialing a number, it went through in a second.
"Should we intervene in this case, or let Scar handle it on his own?" The other person behind the line asked.
"I believe we should," she said, looking at the tiny emerald green essence that was enveloped by her silver essence.