As there was a divider between the male and female explorers, no awkward situations arose. In fact, most of them weren't even in the mood for distractions. Rookies like Murray and Mir distinctly stood out from the rest of the explorers here, being younger, and looking extremely nervous. The two brothers weren't exceptions, but Murray fared a lot better than Mir, having gone through much more dire circumstances in life.
The underdressed explorers were guided into another chamber beyond the preparation hall. This was a wide, but brief corridor that led to dozens of doors standing side by side. Every door was made out of fine alloys, thicker than bank vaults, and interconnected, forming quite possibly the most robust defense Mir had ever seen in his life. An elephant couldn't make a dent there with its life on the line... a normal elephant, of course.
Each door had a warning sign painted on it, giving off an eerie aura. Mir distinctly felt a sense of danger here, as if his guts were screaming at him to not cross over to the other side.
"Gentlemen, here begins the taboo zone of Philosophy Corridor. You have to be ready to make the rest of the journey on your own. Seek help only if you find yourself in grave danger, because teamwork can lead to higher levels of danger inside the sacred ground. The taboo zone is mostly a safe space, where you can return and be rescued. However, most of you hold single-use licenses, which would disqualify you from the opportunity to enter the sacred ground again after you return back to the taboo zone."
With that heavy warning weighing on their minds, the batch of explorers shuffled toward the slowly opening doors. A strong, earthly musk hit Mir's nostrils, brought along by a pleasant wind. After most of their fellow explorers had entered the taboo zone on the other side, Mir stepped past the thick door right behind Murray, but he found himself standing alone a second later.
The place he had ended up in was a rather constricting tunnel, subsumed in darkness except for a vague glow far ahead. There was barely enough space here for two people to stand shoulder to shoulder. The walls were sticky, wet rocks covered in patches of mud. The soil beneath his feet wasn't solid. He was ankles deep in the sandy slush. Fortunately, there seemed to be large, uneven rocks supporting his weight underneath the loose sand.
"A recently flooded tunnel?" Mir muttered to himself. "I'm definitely in the taboo zone right now. No matter how unnatural the environment here is, chances of mutant creatures appearing at the periphery of the taboo zone is almost zero."
The keyword was, of course, almost. On other occasions, he would not have dared to ignore the odds of being attacked by mutant creatures, but when he looked back, he could not see the metal door he had come through.
"A flash flood might be even more dangerous than mutant creatures, but that only means I can't waste my time here."
Although he had been alienated immediately from the crowd, he hadn't gotten lost. His exit had to be somewhere nearby, and unless he entered the sacred ground by accident, he could find a safe area easily. Not to mention, the taboo zone wasn't a place for lone adventures. Everyone would eventually end up at the mouth of the sacred ground if they traveled deeper into the tunnels. This was a fact verified by countless explorers. And as far as his research went, he had never heard of anyone dying under a flash flood in this taboo zone.
Steeling his heart, Mir began to take small, careful steps, advancing toward the vague source of light at the other end of the tunnel. His perception slowly began to acclimatize to the new and extreme environment. The rocky tunnel did not seem as dark as before. He could make out the shapes and curves of the walls.
The noise was another discovery. Initially, his sluggish footsteps in the mud had been creating an unnerving squelching sound in the otherwise silent tunnel, but after a couple of minutes, human voices gradually began to emerge alongside the noise of his steps. He could faintly discern shouts and loud conversations coming from somewhere beyond the constricting walls, probably from the other side in similar tunnels. Not everyone had ended up alone like him, it seemed.
Several times, Mir felt the solid rocks sink lower when he tried to step on them, scaring the soul out of him. Whatever foundation these rocks were standing on, it had either been damaged by the flood, or was originally just a shaky one. The discovery made Mir extra cautious the deeper he reached.
At some parts, almost no mud could be found under his feet, which enabled him to advance faster. But in tandem, some parts of the tunnel were sunk in waist deep wet sand. Mir almost turned back several times because he couldn't find a solid footing. He didn't know much about such environments, but the composition of the ground made it seem susceptible to host quicksands. If he fell into one, getting out would be damn near impossible.
But thinking about the opportunity that lay ahead, and the tragedies that awaited weak commoners like him outside made him trudge on. These tunnels were surely familiar with desparate individuals who had gone through the same array of emotions and thoughts as him. How many commoners had stopped halfway, too scared to advance?
Gradually, the mouth of the tunnel came into view, blessing his vision with light, and relieving his heart with the increasing noise of fellow explorers. Heaving for breath and shaking from the adrenaline sprinting through his system, Mir squeezed himself through a particularly narrow gap between the rocks, and stumbled into a massive grotto.
On all fours, he scanned his surroundings as quickly as possible, looking for familiar faces, Murray in particular. But he was nowhere to be seen in the half-moon-shaped cavern. About a dozen unfamiliar explorers, all of them older than him by at least ten years, were staring back at him, appearing more stunned than they should be.
Mir looked down at himself, checking for any abnormalities that might be attracting their attention, but other than the muddy, wet skin, he couldn't find anything unusual.
After he took a better look at them, he almost became sure that none of these explorers had been among the members of the batch that he had entered alongside. These guys were from earlier batches... which was rather abnormal considering that there were rules against staying inside the taboo zone for so long.
One of the explorers, a woman who looked to be in her early thirties, shuffled closer toward him and knelt down just beyond arms' reach. Then she asked him a question that sent shivers down his spine.
"Did you, perhaps, spawn inside the Skin-leech pool?"