'It's better to wake others up first,' Abium didn't open the eerie book and discreetly stored it in his space ring. After that, he stood up unsteadily, moved towards Nicolaus, and untied the knots from his hand. He also removed the cloth from his mouth and helped him sit down.
He then took out a water pouch and gave him a loaf of bread to ease his hunger.
In the meantime, Nicolaus took a bit, ate the bread quietly, and glanced around.
"Where the heck are we? How did we escape from that Wyrm? I remember seeing a humanoid figure killing the undead Wyrm in mere seconds before disappearing, but what was that?"
"That's Abium."
At that moment, a response came from their right side.
Fennelis slowly opened her eyes and sat up with a tired look.
"I saw it with my own eyes. Abium moved like a bolt of lightning and killed the Undead Wyrm in mere seconds. But-" She suddenly paused, shifted her gaze towards Abium, and asked in puzzlement.
"How did you do that, Abium?"
Meanwhile, Abium gave a bitter look and shook his head.
"I don't know anything about it, my lady. Suddenly, I noticed that everything around me started to slow down. Not only that, but my body also moved according to my thoughts."
"Divine Blessing?" Nicolaus asked in suspicion.
"I don't think so. I am suspicious of something, but it's better not to talk about it." Abium decided to cut off the topic.
Nicolaus and Fennelis also noticed his intention and nodded their heads in agreement. They knew he had many secrets and decided not to probe him.
Then, Fennelis turned around, moved towards Umi, and tried to wake her up. On the other hand, Abium quietly moved towards the corner of the room and sat down.
After that, he took out the book and read the front page.
'That skeleton wants to communicate with us. But why? Why didn't it kill us earlier?' He wondered.
'There are so many secrets around this world.'
He now wanted to know more about this Undead Plane!
Shaking his head, Abium released a bit of his spirit power and moved it towards the eerie book.
Suddenly, a spirit wave emerged from that book cover and entered his mind.
Simultaneously, a blue notification popped up in front of his eyes.
[Unknown spirit is requesting authorization to transfer information? Y/N]
Abium froze as he saw the notification and fell into deep thoughts.
It was the first time Abium had seen a spirit asking for permission to transfer information, and he got startled inside.
'Moreover, this spirit doesn't seem to have any power to invade my mind.' In truth, Abium felt that the earlier spirit wave was too weak even to enter his mind.
After pondering for a short time, he finally clicked 'yes.'
He soon felt that his mind suddenly entered the book itself.
"This is....."
Abium soon discovered that many images and words appeared in his brain along with acute pain.
'Amazing. The book is helping me translate the words.'
He activated his [Eidetic Memory] as he read the newly acquired information and memorized those images and words within a few minutes.
Once he had absorbed all the information into his mind, he finally opened his eyes, looked at the eerie book, and tried to read the title.
At that moment, his mind worked at an incredible speed and translated the meaning of the foreign words into his native language.
'Basic Nether language. Heh, I can read without any problem.'
After checking the book for a while, he passed it to others and asked them to learn it.
Within a few moments, everyone learned a new language! Although they couldn't speak fluently like native speakers, they could at least understand the other party's intention.
'If not for this magical book, it would take more than 5000 to 10,000 hours to learn a completely new language. We will be clueless.' Abium sighed deeply and distributed some bread to Fennelis and Umi.
After that, they stayed in the darkroom and waited for the skeleton warrior to come again.
'Although we could escape, it's better to act cautiously. I have a strange suspicion that Goddess put us here for a specific purpose.' Will, a mighty Divine Being, would throw her chosen one into an undead world without any reason?
'No, we are talking about that prankster Goddess here. Tch, I don't even know anything about this plane.' Abium clicked his tongue and fell into deep thoughts.
A few hours later, the same undead warrior came to the darkroom and ordered them in the same Nether language.
Now, everyone understood what he said and was stunned.
His words were: "Who are you? Why did you come here?"
'Finally!'
Abium breathed out a sigh of relief, stepped forward, and answered.
"I'm Abium, mister. We appeared in this Undead plane due to some accident but got stuck here. Do you know any method to travel back to our world?"
Upon hearing his words, the skeleton warrior tilted its skull and asked in a puzzled tone.
"What is this 'World'? Is that a faraway place?"
Meanwhile, Abium furrowed his brows and assumed that it didn't know anything about different worlds.
Unlike others, he knew that there were multiple worlds like this undead plane and even heard some legendary tales about them.
'Abyss, Hell, Nexus world, and Underworld are the only worlds I have heard a lot during the past.'
Although this was the first time he had traveled to another plane, he knew a lot more than the other two and decided to gather more information.
'Hah! I assume it didn't even know anything about humans.'
"Do you know anyone who looks like us?" Abium asked further.
Meanwhile, the skeleton stared at Abium, then shifted its gaze towards others, and eventually shook its skull.
"No. Why don't you have any bones? What are you made of?" It asked simplistically.
On the other hand, Abium showed a complicated expression and sighed.
"We came from a different place, mister. Do you know someone who knows more knowledge about this place?"
Abium knew that the skeleton wouldn't provide them with anything useful. So he thought about asking another higher-ranking undead about it.
"Oh! Are you talking about Lord Skaktak?"
'What with that name? Anyways, I finally received some information from this skeleton!' A glimpse of hope appeared in his eyes.
"Yes! Can you take us to him?" Abium hurriedly asked.
The skeleton warrior stared at them for two seconds in silence and agreed before giving them a stern warning.
"Follow me. But don't try to escape and kill my soldiers as you did earlier. I will kill you all if you do something like that again."
Abium glanced at others and eventually nodded.
"We won't do anything reckless."
Saying so, he took a step forward and followed after the skeleton warrior.
Once Abium and others walked out of the room, they noticed that they were still in the abandoned mining cave. But many room-like chambers appeared here and there and seemed to be used for resting.
As Abium observed his surroundings, he noticed black dots on the skeleton warrior's bones.
"What are those black dots?"
As they walked into a large vacant area illuminated by magical stones, Abium pointed his finger at the skeleton warrior's bones and asked.
He knew that asking too many questions might infuriate this skeleton, but he didn't think much about it.
What he needed to do now was to gather as much information as possible about this undead world, not to befriend a random skeleton.
In the meantime, Skeleton Warrior didn't seem to care much about Abium's question, took out metal from its pouch and bit it.
Upon seeing this, Abium and others were momentarily stunned inside.
What Skeleton Warrior ate was not some random stone but the precious metal 'Mithril!'
To their shock, the black dots on its bones started to dim slowly and soon disappeared!
"Is it some disease?" Fennelis asked curiously.
"Yes. Lord Skaktak said some outsiders spread this disease long ago. The Lord once said they came from heaven, but I have no idea who they are. To make these dots disappear, we usually eat this stone." The Skeleton Warrior answered.
'Heaven, huh? Are there any other races in this undead plane?' Another doubt arose in everyone's mind.
Soon, they went farther into the mining cave and exited through a small pathway.
Many ordinary skeleton soldiers dug ore and worked along the way.
After stepping out of the mining cave, Abium saw 150 undead soldiers gathered next to the small mountain and appeared well-equipped. Some wore blackish armor-like things, many wore black cloaks, and the remaining ones held rusty weapons.
'Alas, they are well organized.'
The skeleton warrior gave a short speech to the undead skeletons and marched forward.
Under the protection of a hundred undead skeletons, Abium's group moved away from the mining cave's entrance and headed towards the black pond's opposite direction. When traveling, Abium noticed that most of the lands resembled deserts, while only a few of them resembled plains. But even those areas appeared to be filled with poisonous weeds and withered trees. Along the way, Abium and others also saw ruined buildings and walls in many places but didn't explore any further.
When Abium tried to ask the nearby undead soldier about it, he got nothing but silence.