Autophagy

Song Lei had a problem at hand that he had to solve. Kang Mirae needed a place where she could stay.

He had a few criteria on where to pick. First, it had to be near the 14th floor, where he could sense if something was going wrong. Preferably, it would be best if it were inside the range of two floors. Considering that the 13th floor was uninhabitable for now, the 12th floor could be the best choice.

The second one was that it had to be somewhere protected. Kang Mirae was still too weak. Although her ability looked cool and had good effects, she had no real fighting experience. She could freeze up in the face of danger, and that would be her end unless Song Lei was there to help. For this reason, it had to be a room with protection from ethereal beings.

Unfortunately, these two conditions were hard to find. He couldn't send Kang Mirae up to the 16th or 17th floors. Those were like borders, where Isabel and Aston were constantly under the danger of being attacked by the apartment manager.

'Why don' I just...' Song Lei thought. He then snapped his finger in excitement, finally having figured out what to do. 'I can ask Aston to create a soul fortress in the 1408th room.'

"Let's go with this," Song Lei started talking. Kang Mirae was still inspecting her skill carefully, looking at her scales close up. As Song Lei's voice reached her, her ears perked up. She turned towards Song Lei as the scales on her arms retracted into her skin. "I will ask one of the other members to create a safe room for you. It may take some time. While we wait for that, you can stay here in my stead. I'll be sleeping in one of the nearby rooms until then."

"But what about your pet demon?" Mirae asked. Visibly bothered by its possibility of barging into the room at the middle of the night and killing her.

"Well, as long as I occasionally feed it, it won't even come out of there. So don't worry," Song Lei answered. That was true. The Quake Demon wasn't really prone to moving. It wouldn't budge from its place for days unless it sensed something wrong. And even then, it wouldn't change its room. From Song Lei's observations, this wasn't related to it being attached to this room but just a byproduct of its general nature.

"It's fine I guess..." She muttered. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask but what is your ability exactly?"

Song Lei contemplated with his hand on his chin. He knew that he could trust Kang Mirae from now on as she had already joined his faction. However, he felt like it was too early to reveal his ability to her.

"Your ability isn't the only thing that decides your fate in the New World," Song Lei explained indirectly. "I don't even need to mention how important to have wits and willpower. Aside from that, with time, you'll eventually develop a new type of supernatural skill which you'll have to rely on."

"What? What skill?" She asked as she folded her arms in front of her chest.

"I'm sure you would understand if I called it a type of internal energy. It's called soul energy. It's still too early for you though..." Song Lei said.

"Oh! That kind of thing..." Mirae muttered. This, again, seemed to excite her a lot. The fact that she was so well endowed in fantasy elements unlike most of the people in the New World helped a lot. "But what is your initial ability?"

"Well, a faction leader has to keep a few secrets to be one," Song Lei said with an awkward smile on his face.

Song Lei would normally have a lot of trouble explaining stuff like that to other people, having to use all kinds of analogies and simplifications. However, it wasn't like that with Mirae. He would casually utter some fantasy elements and she would quickly get the gist of the situation. Probably, she would also be the easiest person to explain his system to.

"Anyways," Song Lei said. "I can bring new pillowcases and sheets if you want."

"No no. I'll be moving out soon, right? There's no need to," Mirae refused quickly.

"If you say so..." Song Lei muttered. "I will leave now. If you need anything... Well, it will be hard to find me so I'll occasionally come up and check on you," he said as he walked to the door. However, before leaving, he stopped and uttered another sentence.

"Oh, by the way. I really get the feeling that you'll try to get out of the room and wander around once l leave."

This sentence caused Mirae to flinch.

"N- No! I was going to stay here..." She tried to deny, as she scratched the back of her head.

"Huh. Well, I advise you to not leave," Song Lei said. "But I can't really stop you from doing so. So a piece of quick advice, don't make too much noise. Remember the three parts of the apartment I told you about."

"Don't wander into random rooms. Don't get too near mirrors, you never know what might come out of them. Once you're on the stairs, follow the guidelines," he listed one by one. These bits of information were crucial and were gained from first-hand experience.

"And last but not least, if you feel a sudden decrease in temperature, if you feel cold sweat suddenly start pouring out of your back and if you feel like somebody is staring at you, immediately scream as loud as you can," he said. "If you do so, I'll definitely hear it. And I'll come running as fast as I can. Until then, try your best to survive."

He had been lucky about the topic of ghosts up to this day. Initially, when he first came to the New World, the first encounter he had was the replicant from the mirror world. Which was technically easy to deal with.

His second encounter was with the quake demon. Fortunately, the quake demon wasn't outright hostile towards him. This helped a lot, as Song Lei would've no way of surviving such an encounter with his strength at the time.

And his third encounter was with Yao Ai. She was also not an outright hostile ghost. She was enigmatic at most but was easy to deceive. This helped him lure her to the quake demon and make it devour her.

Fortunately, after this, he was able to get the skill Ethereal Eye. Combined with the Cursed Knife that he had found earlier, he became capable of putting up a fight against ethereal beings to some extent.

However, Mirae wouldn't be as lucky as that. Even if he were to give her a weapon that she could use to put up a fight, she wouldn't be able to see them. She could even go by without being able to notice that she was being haunted. Like that, she could die pretty easily. And that was something that Song Lei didn't want.

"Mm," Mirae nodded her head at Song Lei's words. As his warnings settled in her mind, she started becoming more and more aware of her current situation. This wasn't a world with your average fantasy elements, where you could pull out a sword and beat your problems to death. Nor could you use politics and whatnot to deceive and use people to your will.

Song Lei was strong. She could feel it. And this ability to sense wasn't caused by her skill in any way. His presence was so strong that she could feel a certain heaviness to the atmosphere, even when he was just idly sitting. It was like a type of megalophobia. An innate fear of big things. When she looked at Song Lei, she felt small and insignificant compared to him.

Even then, even though he was probably very strong, he didn't dare to say that he would be able to protect her perfectly. In the end, she would have to rely on herself.

In the New World, everyone was alone.

"Oh, by the way," Song Lei said as he opened his backpack. This had become an awkward habit of him. As he spent more and more time in the New World, the amount of time he had his backpack on kept increasing. As if he could have to depart on a long journey at any given time, he would wear his backpack unless he was showering or sleeping.

Searching through his backpack, he took out something that he hadn't used for a long time.

'We'll be parting here, partner...' He inwardly bade his farewells to the cursed knife.

"Take this, it may come in handy," Song Lei said as he held the knife out towards Mirae.

"What is this?" She asked as she took the cursed knife into her hands carefully.

"Huh. Well, it's a cursed knife," Song Lei started his explanation. "It may or may not be able to hurt an ethereal being. Actually, it was rusted when I first found it so it wasn't a great choice to use against physical beings. Now, however, it should do pretty well."

"That... Doesn't sound reliable at all," Mirae said.

"Well, I don't know if it's about my luck but it worked pretty well for me," Song Lei said. "Hopefully, it will help you too."

"I'm leaving now. Later."

"Mm. See you...."