When they entered the settlement, it was quiet and passive like the early morning. Not many people showed themselves despite the day reaching high noon at this point. The town was made up of stone and wood, the streets were clean but looked unused except for carriages, which have clearly paved their wheels across this every day.

As they continued, they were told about the tower's appearance that had dominated most of the area near the mine. Due to the mana influx from the tower, the nobles tried, and failed, to get rid of it however they could. That didn't stop them from trying to take advantage of Cronus' supposed mistake of not letting them know about the details of the towers, even if it could greatly improve the miners' lives.

Because there were more issues than just the supposed cave-ins that they suffered through.

Strange monsters continued to appear, outside the usual monsters that would crowd the innards of the caverns, becoming more distorted and bluish as though their flesh were being twisted apart. Of course, they were also inflicting the miners with the same infection that occured with the adventurers, and unlike adventurers, they were treated as killed in action, passing away without even receiving any treatment for how expensive they were.

It was unfortunate news to take in, so that only drove the otherworlders to get rid of the tower as fast as possible. But as soon as they left the settlement, reaching towards the caverns where the mines entered, they saw the second tower to come across in this pocket dimension.

Zeke had to take a double take. It wasn't the regular tower he was used to, and it wasn't diamond-shaped and floating in the air. Instead, it rose from the ground like large stone-made vines circling one another. The vine-like stone structures had triangular-shaped spikes that propped up at every corner, creating what looked like a spiky intertwining mess of stone.

There were also what looked like windows, but they were just as stretched and distorted, even among the spikes that should've been impossible no matter how you make the glass, but it was there–just like that. It's as if someone put a normal tower and distorted the image so many times that it came out into this mess.

It was completely reasonable for the miners to run away like hell after this thing showed up. Just looking at it made him dread as to what sort of monstrosity made this, or what could be living in there for that matter.

"...That doesn't look like a tower," Lyle mentioned, destroying the silence wrought after seeing the 'tower' for the first time. "It's literally anything but a tower. The hell is this?!"

"D-Did your tower look like this, Mikky?" Janet asked her senior, apprehension in her face and voice.

"Not at all," Mikella shook her head. "Just an ordinary tower like yours. The last one was literally floating in mid-air, but this…"

"Can we still head inside like before?" Kote asked what was probably the most important question. "The form shouldn't matter as much as long as we can enter it, but… can we?"

"I-I think so," Zeke said. He was definitely sure, but even then he hesitated to truly consider it. "And we even got more people on our side. So… maybe it increases our chances?"

"That's… good, I think," Kote said, crossing his arms.

"You think this might make it harder? Like it has a level requirement now or something?" Saang mentioned. Another question that was clearly important to ask. But Zeke really had no clue on how to answer it.

"It doesn't really matter," Mikella finally answered. "Whether it's difficult or not, we still gotta enter it."

"Yeah, but it's good to ask," Saang shrugged. "I wasn't gonna run just 'cuz some smuck got drunk while making this."

Mikella chortled, and with Janet including in with a giggle of her own, the tense atmosphere relaxed a bit. It really did look like someone botched this one up so bad, they just had to be inebriated to make this passable.

"Alright," Hamil stated, walking in front. The other soldiers stood by, staring at the scene they were making. "Let's head in. We don't wanna cause these hard-working people any more trouble. You two, can you get us in?"

Zeke and Mikella nodded, and with Lyle and Janet joining in, they walked up to the strange tower with the Tempest Winds in tow. Looking at it, it really felt jarring to see such a large structure that could be mistaken for a skyscraper to look so twisted and malformed. It was like an art piece, but was taken seriously as a living area.

Still, he instead focused on the two new otherworlders by his side. As expected, they looked like they wanted to be anywhere else but here. Lyle looked apprehensive, his face the mixture of nervous excitement and overwhelming dread. Janet, however, looked fierce–her eyes were sharp like her dagger, and her veins popped from her visible fists while they gripped tight.

Mikella propped a hand on Janet's shoulder, and gave a nod to Lyle who looked over at her. With her and Zeke there, the two would be alright, and even if they weren't there, their training proved that they can handle mostly anything compared to the last time they were at the tower.

Back then, they were only at the Beginner stage, but now they've grown and gotten stronger, with more skills on hand. The two nodded in unison as Zeke and Mikella stared at the tower and forced their consciousness into it.

Their link to each other responded to the tower's presence, and soon a bright flash of light ensued before it completely took the entire party over. What was left behind was the gawking soldiers that watched in shock as the group of strangers just disappeared like that.

…..

It took a while for the brightness to fade, but his eyes quickly adjusted before slowly opening them, unveiling his senses the moment he felt he was safe.

He immediately panicked. His eyes widened to find himself alone in a grassy area, surrounded by dense trees with red leaves bigger than his vision can allow.

Sure, he could expand further, but they already reached way beyond any normal tree even in the world of magic. One single tree expanded over perhaps miles, the canopy of red leaves blocking the entirety of the sky. It was nowhere near like the swamp area, where he could at least see the fake sky above.

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Hills could at least be seen at the distance, and the grass were still the same green but with a more reddish hue. The dirt that comprised some areas were also orange in color, and there was even a hint of ember in the air that felt like something was burning constantly, not like a fire was burning, but as though someone lit up an incense titled 'something's burning'.

Zeke can't help but think this area was tinged in the fire aspect, but that wasn't what made him panic. He found himself alone. Nobody else in his party was around.

"Mikky?! Lyle, Janet! Saang, Kote, Hamil–Hey!"

Zeke called out, using his Journeymen voice to reach far and wide. But with the way the trees covered almost everything, his sight can't seem to go beyond that.

Just as he was getting ready to draw some runes to help with the situation, he heard a familiar voice call out.

"Zeke!? Hey!"

"Lyle?!" Zeke shouted, hearing Lyle's voice that was just as relieved as his was. "Hold on! I'll go to you!"

He ran towards the voice, getting ready for a fight just in case. While Lyle has done well in his training, Zeke still felt nervous leaving an Expert behind. Since they were responsible for bringing them here, Zeke would be destroyed if something happened to them under his watch.

Still, he smiled after seeing Lyle showing up in the middle of the densely packed trees, waving his arm at him.

"Thank god, you're safe," Zeke said earnestly. That brought a smile to Lyle.

"Hey, I'm supposed to be the oldest otherworlder here. I can't have someone younger worrying about me. I'd feel humiliated."

Lyle laughed it off in good will, reminding Zeke that he was in fact the oldest of the otherworlders. Being at 25 years old, he had his shit together a lot better than Zeke and Mikella had back in the old world. Hell, he owned his own compounding store and even had a condo.

"Yeah, but that's just how I am," Zeke simply said. Regardless of the age difference, Zeke would still take care of them. That's what he got stronger for, after all.

"Hah, I know," Lyle let out a clearly exaggerated breath as he shrugged. "But I'm glad though. Did you find anyone else?"

"No… I was hoping you have," Zeke grimaced, getting Lyle to do the same.

"Damn it, stuck in the tower again and I already lost Janet. I can't imagine what she's gonna say…"

"Ugh, tell me about it," Zeke grumbled. "I can practically hear Mikky cursing at me for going missing. Again."

"This happened to you before?" Lyle looked at him in surprise.

"Not like I'm doing this on purpose. I always end up getting separated from the group. Strangely enough, that always happens when a tower is involved. First time? In a tower. Second time? We finished off a tower and were scattered away."

"Jesus, maybe I got unlucky being paired with you," Lyle chuckled. Quickly, however, he frowned at him. "But what do we do? I can't make heads or tails of this place."

Lyle walked over a few feet towards a tree, the largest Zeke has seen so far. Compared to the other trees, this one was the widest by far, the trunk of the tree almost as wide as a small parking lot.

"Our tower was nothing like this… and did you see the freaking sky? It's red!"

Zeke actually hadn't noticed, so when he looked up through the small openings of the canopies, he saw that the sky was indeed red, with some mixes between the crimson hues and the orange light.

And of course the sun that was clearly not the sun hanging above. It was bright, but Zeke's eyes managed to pierce through and spot the fakeness completely.

"That's not a real sun either, right?" Lyle said. There was a bit of sadness in his tone, something that was very rare from this man. "It's like the ones that put us here are mocking us for making something like that."

"Honestly, I like to think they just really suck at designing levels," Zeke smirked, getting Lyle to do the same. He wasn't much of a gamer, but he can relate to being a critique. "But what matters is what we do now."

"So what's the plan? Go out randomly and hope we find them?" Lyle said, propping his hands onto his hips.

"Uhh…" Zeke gritted his teeth awkwardly. "Sort of…"

"Oh… you're serious," Lyle said slowly, his eyes widening. "You don't got a rune or something to get us out of here? Or someway to communicate to Mikky?"

"Wait, I can!"

Zeke realized, forgetting that he made several rune stones for this exact reason. Lyle looked at him in surprise when Zeke dug around in his pack, bringing out one such stone.

It was riddled with complex rune patterns and arrays that it would make anyone dizzy. That was just how much runes he had to put in even as a Journeyman to make a working communicator. It was impossible to find the perfect frequency in this mana-dense world they live in, but he made do with his runecrafting.

However, when he tried activating it, sommething felt off. The mana started converging around the stone he held, making the runes light up brightly. Considering that this wasn't supposed to happen, Zeke chucked it into a nearby tree, surprising Lyle.

"Hey, why'd you–?"

Boom!

A loud explosion hit the tree, startling the two as the power was a lot more than Zeke expected. It was enough to leave a devastated crater in the tree's bulk, not nearly enough to destroy it, but enough to make a lasting smoky intrusion.

"...Oh," Lyle eventually said.

"Fucking tower!" Zeke cursed. "Just being inside of it is causing loads of unstable mana into the stone. You know how many hours I spent making that thing?"

He was honestly really miffed. It was for this exact situation that he worked hard on this rune stone to communicate, only to find that it completely backfired inside the tower it was meant to work in.

"Whoa, hey, easy," Lyle raised his hands to offer consolation. "Trust me, I know the feeling. But what can you do? These towers are based on what gods made, right? What can we do except move forward?"

Zeke forced himself to relax. It was bad enough that he got separated from Mikella, and now he was panicking in front of Lyle who had every right to get worried. Nodding to himself, he turned to him.

"You're right. You're absolutely right. I need to focus."

"Good man," Lyle smirked. "So uhh… how strong are the monsters here, you think? Can you guess?"

"I'm hoping maybe Journeymen rank," Zeke said, mostly guessing at the top of his head. That however made Lyle creased his brows in concern. "It's better that way. We can level you up on the way, and if we can level you, then Janet can level, right?"

"Oh… right," Lyle's eyes widened. "It's usually the other way around. Heh, for once I'm gonna be the breadwinner of the house other than gold."

Zeke chuckled. That hit a lot close to home. "Same here. I'll help you out on grinding some XP. But our first priority is finding the others. They shouldn't be that far away from us if we found each other…"

"Yeah… you think Janet is safe?" Lyle asked, this time directing his gaze to Zeke's eyes. "I know she might be with everyone else, or maybe just one, but still…"

"I'm sure," Zeke assured. "Janet's strong for her level. Plus, if all else fails, she can transform into giant Janet and that'll definitely let us find her. I prefer to find her way before that ever happens, but at least she'll have a trump card."

"Yeah… " Lyle nodded, showing a serious face. "Let's find them quickly. I know she'll be fine, but… I worry, you know?"

"No need, I gotcha," Zeke smiled. "Let's find our girls."

Lyle let out a guffaw at this statement, and that finally got Zeke to blush as though he said something stupid. In the end, Zeke led onwards with Lyle in tow towards what they suspected to be westward of their current position. If the north was a way forward, then perhaps the west would take them either closer or farther away…

Zeke really hoped it was the former.

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