Randal walked up to one of the many doors lining the hallway and slid his card. Damian and Lindy watched closely, holding their breath. It was one thing to claim it would work—another thing entirely to see it happen.

And it did. With a soft click, the door unlocked. Randal spun around, grinning like a proud kid who had just pulled off a magic trick.

"See? I told you it would work," he said.

Damian raised a brow but couldn't help a faint smile. "I wasn't expecting it, but you did it. Let's see what's inside."

Lindy tilted her head, suspicious but intrigued. "Wait—you had access to their rooms this whole time? Don't tell me you never peeked. Seriously, weren't you even a little curious?"

She couldn't imagine resisting the temptation. If she had that kind of access, she would've looked long ago.

Randal shook his head. "No. I only got this clearance recently. Started working on it after I noticed some… strange movements in this building."

That was enough explanation for now. They stepped inside.

The room was chaos. Papers littered the floor and covered the desks in loose stacks. Books—some so worn they looked like they belonged in a museum—were piled everywhere.

On the far wall stood a whiteboard filled with diagrams, words, and symbols none of them could decipher. Not Damian. Not Lindy. Not even Randal.

This was the domain of a professor at the academy—a master in his field, buried so deep in his research that even his peers couldn't begin to grasp it.

Each professor had their own area of expertise, which explained why neither Lindy nor Randal could make sense of the whiteboard. Lindy specialized in demonology, while Randal focused on combat. This—whatever it was—belonged to a completely different branch of study.

"Check the room for a hidden passage," Randal instructed. "But don't touch anything else. And don't move things."

At first glance, the place looked like pure chaos, but it wasn't. The professor who worked here was meticulous. Every book, every scattered page, every stack was exactly where it needed to be. Disturbing even a single sheet would be noticed immediately.

So they searched carefully, eyes darting over corners and walls without shifting the clutter. Damian examined one side of the room while Lindy and Randal took the others.

Minutes dragged by. A secret passage had to be hidden well, but also designed for quick use. Still, nothing revealed itself.

"There's nothing here," Randal muttered. "Let's try another room."

They stepped back into the hall. Once again, Randal swiped his card, and the lock clicked open.

This room was the opposite of the last. Perfectly ordered. Spotless. Every book aligned, every paper stacked with mathematical precision.

Lindy's eyes narrowed. "The passage is here."

She sounded utterly certain.

"Why?" Damian asked.

"Because no research room looks like this. It's too organized. Unnatural. Right, Randal?"

Randal gave a firm nod. "She's right. This is the place."

They were certain this was the place. Damian followed along, preparing for another round of searching for the secret passage.

He checked for hidden buttons along the walls, pulled a few books to see if anything would trigger, and scanned every corner. These were the classic methods for uncovering secret passages. Randal and Lindy did the same in their respective sections of the room.

After a while, Damian stopped moving like a headless chicken. He paused and took in the room as a whole.

He imagined people entering through the door and heading toward the secret area. After taking a few steps inside, a table would block their way. That wasn't it.

Almost every direction was obstructed in some way. If someone tried to pass through the room, they wouldn't be able to reach most of the walls.

He realized the passage probably wasn't in any of the walls. It had to be on the ground.

He shared the idea with Randal and Lindy. They agreed it made sense and started checking the floor carefully.

Still, nothing revealed itself.

Damian paused and tried thinking like the person who had hidden the passage. Where would he never look? His eyes settled on the wall closest to the hallway—the one right by the door.

It didn't make sense. If a passage were there, it would lead straight back to the hallway. But Damian decided it was worth a shot.

"This world has demons, magic, and powerful artifacts… so why not?" he thought.

Damian focused on the wall next to the hallway. At first, it looked completely normal—but that alone made it suspicious.

Then he noticed something. A tiny section of the wall had a slightly different color.

"Take a look at this," he said.

Randal and Lindy came closer. The color difference was almost imperceptible; Damian had to lean in and study it carefully.

"This is nearly identical to the rest of the wall, but there's a subtle change. It doesn't make sense why they'd do that," Damian explained.

Randal didn't hesitate. He already suspected what it was. He held his card against the discolored section—and it worked.

A hidden passage slid open on the other side of the room.

"Let's move before it closes," Randal said.

They hurried across the room and stepped through the opening just in time.

Inside, a staircase led downward into unknown territory. Randal asked for his invisibility cloak that was with Damian.

"We should use it now," he instructed. They all put them on, ready for whatever awaited below.

From that point on, everything was uncharted territory. They could run into traps, or worse—people stationed down there who would kill them the moment they were spotted.

The smartest thing to do was put on the cloaks and make sure they stayed hidden from anyone lurking in the underground.

"We're definitely going to run into someone," Randal whispered. "From here on out, silence."

The cloaks of invisibility Randal had given them didn't conceal their voices, so the less they spoke, the safer they would be. Any slip-up could expose them.

Every step demanded caution now. They had finally reached the school's secret underground section—the place where unknown things were happening, things dangerous enough to put all of them at risk.

Randal and Lindy led the way, with Damian following close behind, his pulse quickening with each step into the dark.

The hallway sloped downward, lit well enough for them to walk without stepping into the wrong spot.

All of them assumed it would take a while to reach a populated area, but they were wrong.

After only five minutes, they arrived at an open space below them, peering down from above. Another staircase led further down, but what immediately drew their attention was a massive portal made of black stone. Around it, people were conducting research.

Some of the figures were professors—not the ones Damian recognized, but those who usually kept their identities hidden while working.

Each had their own tent or station for studying materials, almost as if they lived there.

Lindy was the first to whisper, careful that the sound didn't carry. "This is the portal… It could lead to the mysterious continent I heard about—or the dungeons…"

Both were areas she had wanted to investigate further. Damian, too, was eager to learn more about the dungeons, but the mysterious continent also piqued his curiosity.

Randal added his own insight. "I think this portal leads to the mysterious continent. From what I've heard, the dungeons are actually there—or at least, that's what the studies suggest."

The three of them fell silent. Damian felt the tension in the air, sensing that something was wrong.

Lindy grabbed his arm and pulled him aside, away from Randal. "He's working with them! There's no way he should know about this."

Damian didn't expect it at all. Why had Randal helped them get released if he was actually working with them?

Randal removed his invisibility cloak and laughed. "You're right. I am working with them."

"Why? Why help us then?" Lindy demanded.

"Well," Randal said casually, "we have other plans for you two… Don't worry too much, alright?"

Lindy's mind raced. She had to fight or find a way to escape—but the corridor they had just used had closed behind them. It was a trap, carefully set to corner them.

"You see," Randal continued, "we can now access this mysterious continent through the portal, but we have no idea what's on the other side. So why not send two traitors to explore it for us? Sounds like a great plan, doesn't it?"

It was a far more useful plan than simply locking Damian and Lindy away to rot.

"And don't even think about running or fighting me," Randal added, his tone sharp. "You know you'll lose. There are others waiting for us as well."

He pointed toward the figures gathered near the portal. All of them were already watching, leaving nowhere to run.

Damian couldn't believe how unlucky he was.

"Fuck, fuck, FUCK!" he thought.

Lindy decided to give up. "Don't fight back, Damian. We cannot win against them, and we cannot leave."

"We can, actually," Damian said.

He grabbed Lindy by the arm, and used his teleportation skill, the one he got from that demon. The two vanished instantly.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.