CHAPTER 440: SILENT WORLD.

Marie would stay with Nobara. It took some convincing, but both Nobara and the girl finally agreed. Marie looked a little reluctant to see him go, but the old cook knew how to keep her distracted, so Dante saw no need to worry.

Next up, Dante had to take care of Rose and her crew. Knowing they would get caught in the black hole, he teleported all of them into the Red Hill replica he created for reconnaissance. Now that it was time to get them out, he had no idea how to go about it.

The obvious solution was to put on 8-6 and teleport them back into the original dimension, but he dropped the idea right away. He didn’t want to completely wreck his body so soon after it healed. Well, he also didn’t want to experience the strain of wearing a Level 6 armor.

With this last battle, he could say he had worn all of the Type 6 armor and experienced the strain they applied. For some reason, the strain 8-6 applied was several magnitudes higher than that of 8-5, despite being only one Level higher. Dante understood why the time limit on Level 6 armors hadn’t decreased at all.

’I have been thinking...’ Dante thought aloud. ’Does going full cyborg really help with the strain?’

[Of course.] Volcan answered.

’Well, it’s just... the strain doesn’t just go away, right? It will continue affecting me even if I replace my entire body with bionics.’

[Yes.]

’Then-’

[The strain wouldn’t affect your bionics the same way, however.] Volcan said. [So long as they are upgraded, of course.]

’... I’m not sure I’m following...’

[Upgrading your bionics alters them in a way that makes them compatible with the armors. That ensures most of the negative effects of the strain are eliminated.]

’You... could have said so sooner.’

[I did.]

’Really? Guess I forgot...’

Putting the matter aside, he returned his focus to the matter at hand. He had returned to that accursed mansion. It wasn’t the real one, but that didn’t make it any less disgusting. After waiting for Spatial Awareness to do its thing, he studied the updated 3D model.

It has been about twenty hours since he dropped Rose and her crew in the pocket dimension. He also sent the children to the mansion there, along with Volcan’s androids.

The kids were gathered in one room. Rose was with them, and Dante could imagine what she was doing. Thinking about it for some time, he began to form a semblance of a plan.

’I think... I think I need to do more shopping...’

~[ ]~

As the hours passed, an existential kind of horror began to creep up on Rose and her crew. The place they were in was swallowed by darkness, and the silence was almost audible. After looking around, they realized that the rest of the city was gone, and soon after, it started to feel like those inside the mansion were the only ones left, while the rest of the world was erased from existence.

That insane story was given some truth when they tried to leave the gated neighborhood to investigate what happened, only to find out that a wall of darkness surrounded the place. The insane theories kept coming one after the other. Some believed that they had all died, and others cried about being thrown into the backrooms.

One guy was convinced that what they were experiencing was exactly like what he had seen in some old comic book he had seen and tried to rally the others, saying that they needed to defeat some ghosts or aliens before they could escape. His theory was the only one that made a semblance of sense, all because they did find something that resembled aliens.

Several rooms had strange, cloaked figures. They stood still like statues, which greatly increased the eeriness coming from them. According to the little girls they found, the strangers in dark cloaks had appeared during the commotion, killed all the adults, then stopped moving all of a sudden.

Hearing that, Rose remembered the mysterious entity with the dragon-themed power suit and how it incinerated that naked man before going on to fight Red Bull. That made her theorize that the cloaked figures were allies of that dragon entity.

One of the details stood out to Rose, and after sitting on it for some time, she decided that they would wait and see if things changed before taking any action. The tension didn’t decrease much after that. They found some emergency generators and car batteries, which they used to get some light. They then gathered any food and water they could find.

Rose spent that time taking care of the little girls who had ended up in that place with them. After everything they went through, they weren’t taking the situation that well. Once she was able to earn their trust, one of the older girls finally gathered the courage to inform her that one of the girls was missing.

Before they could go search for her, one of the cloaked figures they had found earlier appeared.

[The gate will open soon.] They said. [Prepare to leave.]

They tried to ask them a few questions, but the only explanation they got was that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and that they had been moved to that silent world to save their lives. It would be some time before they understood what happened. When asked about the missing girl, the cloaked stranger said that she was safe, but hadn’t told them where she was taken.

The other cloaked figures showed up soon after, bringing with them a bunch of boxes. They said they contained clothes for the girls to wear, since anything found in the silent world would vanish as soon as they went to theirs.

Though she remained hesitant about following the stranger’s instructions, Rose saw that they didn’t have much choice in the matter. Once they were done with their preparations, they were led to the front door, which seemed to be covered with a dark curtain. Apparently, that was the gate the cloaked strangers spoke of.