The tunnel was cylindrical with a height of almost 20 meters and an even greater width, structured like a massive worm burrow.

It maintained a long and complex form as if a giant monster worm that supposedly lives somewhere in the desert had tunneled through, yet there was a strange moisture felt from the walls.

The surrounding structures flickered in the torchlight.

Haniel noticed a faint blue light reflecting on the tunnel walls, not from her torch, and craned her neck to look.

‘Those are… luminous mushrooms.’

Ding!

The luminous mushroom she had seen in the forest before.

It won’t kill you if eaten, but prolonged contact gradually increases its toxicity.

She had seen a few before, but this was the first time she had seen such a large colony of these mushrooms.

The luminous mushrooms blooming everywhere in sight were growing abundantly between the tunnel walls, supported by damp plant roots and fungal mycelium, illuminating the dark tunnel like pale streetlights.

“Huh?”

But then, some of the mushrooms on the tunnel wall began to sway and extend, gently wrapping around Haniel’s fingers.

Haniel shuddered and stepped back.

“It, it touched me.”

Her complexion turned as pale as the luminous mushrooms.

‘Are mushrooms even considered living beings? No, more importantly… should mushrooms be doing this? Should they be moving? What are you, some orange mushroom?’

The famous jumping orange mushroom from her previous life. The orthodox way for mushrooms is to simply sprout from the ground and remain motionless without any movement.

But just now, this mushroom clearly seemed to recognize Haniel’s presence and move. It gave her the creeps.

‘Could it be drawn to my ability… or…’

Regan carefully pulled Haniel away and said:

“Be careful, Haniel. Mushrooms, trees, ground… everything here could be very different from those outside the Rift.”

“Regan…”

So the Rift was the problem. Haniel narrowed her brow and moved as far away from the mushroom as possible.

It was clear that this place was difficult to expect anything sensible or normal.

Mushrooms moving, trees walking… it wouldn’t be strange if corpses suddenly appeared and grabbed her feet.

So what should she do now? How could she get out of the Rift?

As Haniel was considering whether there was anything to check in her status window, she suddenly saw an obstacle at her feet and screamed loud enough to tear her throat.

“Uh? Huaaaak…”

It was a corpse.

They say words, or rather thoughts, become seeds—and sure enough, a shriveled, twisted corpse was grabbing her ankle!

“Re-Re-Regan! A corpse! There’s a corpse grabbing my…”

“It’s a mushroom.”

“…Huh? Really? I-I see.”

It wasn’t the corpse but luminous mushrooms growing on the corpse.

Regan kindly tore away the mushroom stems that were tightly wrapped around her ankle.

Embarrassed, Haniel carefully observed the corpse in question, which was entangled in luminous mushroom mycelium.

“Hmm…? This corpse looks similar to me…”

To be precise, it wasn’t that it resembled Haniel but that it had the form of a “human.”

No, to be even more precise…

‘A Hume?’

In this world where the status window declared that Haniel was the only human, there couldn’t be another human.

Moreover, around the shriveled corpse’s ears and body, there were sparse hairs that looked too much like animal fur to be human hair or body hair.

So Haniel could only think that this corpse might be of the same race as Regan, a Hume.

‘And this is…’

Haniel’s gaze turned to the weapon the corpse was holding.

A rusted dagger that it seemed to be gripping as if trying to cut through the encroaching mycelium. On the pommel at the end of that dagger was a familiar pattern.

An emblem resembling the sun and a wolf.

It was something Haniel had seen earlier.

‘That emblem is the same as the one on the end of the sword Regan was carrying earlier.’

At that moment, Regan, who was less hesitant than Haniel, who was just observing with her head bowed, reached out his hand, disregarding whether the corpse would be damaged.

Rustle, crackle… the corpse crumbled under his hand. Regan roughly extracted the weapon the corpse had been holding and held it up to the torchlight.

“……”

He, too, had seen the pattern engraved on the blade tip, just like Haniel.

The mark of Soleil.

But the dagger the corpse was holding was much more rusted than the sword Regan had brought in.

That was evidence that time flowed differently inside this Rift compared to the outside.

A bitter smile appeared at the corner of Regan’s mouth.

“Indeed… these ones must have also been sucked into the Rift.”

“What? This corpse? Do you know this person, or rather… this being?”

At her words, Regan took out his own sword that he had brought from the territory, not the corpse’s, and showed it properly.

“I thought you might be curious about this.”

“That sword…”

“Your ‘bird friend’ left this behind. I suppose he was trying to warn me to keep my distance from you.”

Haniel’s mouth opened slightly.

The bird friend would be Nasir. It seemed that Nasir, who had flown away after their encounter, had gone straight to Regan—the one who had left his scent on Nasir’s female—while patrolling the forest.

To warn him to get lost because others were prowling around this area…

‘That one, with his temperament.’

Haniel muttered as she looked at the emblems engraved on the sword Regan was holding and the corpse’s dagger.

“Indeed, it looks similar to the emblem on the corpse’s dagger.”

“They are the ‘Sun’s Wolves.'”

The sun of Soleil, the wolf pack that follows Sol’s orders to go anywhere.

This was the emblem of the “Sun’s Wolf Squad.”

Wolves running along the light cast by the sun.

What remains in their path are only charred marks and animal bones.

And…

“Until recently, I was the leader of this pack.”

Regan uttered through dry lips.

The time had come. The time when the things he had presumptuously hidden and postponed would be clearly revealed under the sun…

Regan quietly looked down at Haniel’s face.

Golden eyes shining brightly despite the desperate situation where they had fallen into the jaws of death, into a Rift, with no future visible even an inch ahead.

Meeting her eyes like that, a guilt that felt like something sharp piercing the inside of his heart washed over him.

‘I wish it could have been under better circumstances…’

But there was no such time. Now, to be upright in the face of certain death approaching, all he could do was confess everything to his mate.

With a bitter smile, he looked at the puzzled Haniel and said:

“I would like to apologize for not properly explaining until now, out of a desire to keep you from being deeply involved, Haniel.”

“What… explain? That you were the leader?”

Haniel grew serious as well and carefully took the sword and dagger Regan handed to her.

Weapons with similar engravings and shapes.

Looking at Haniel awkwardly holding the weapons, Regan straightened his back and posture.

Just that change made his presence feel different, causing Haniel to flinch involuntarily.