At some point, strange rumors began circulating in the Abyss.

These rumors were about a golden carriage that roamed the monster-infested Abyss yet was never approached by monsters—a most peculiar carriage.

The mage named Arad, who drove this carriage, sold beer, as well as foods called hamburgers and fries, in the heart of the Abyss.

He also offered equipment maintenance and simple first aid.

Although his prices were 10 to 20 times higher than those in town, for those wandering the Abyss, he was nothing short of salvation.

“Have you seen five knights on horseback?”

Arad, the owner of the golden carriage, always asked the same question of the adventurers he encountered, inquiring about the knights from High Castle roaming the Abyss.

“I don’t know about that! Hand over everything you’ve got!”
“It’s just one mage! Attack before he can cast a spell!”
“Kill him!”

Of course, the golden carriage’s journey wasn’t always safe.

As the saying went, the most dangerous thing in the Abyss wasn’t the monsters or the ancient dungeons—it was other adventurers.

Quite a few adventurers targeted the golden carriage and attacked.

Not all adventurers were as cautious or as financially stable as Trevis’s party.

“Ugh, I’m going to have to waste another mana stone,” Arad muttered, annoyed.

Naturally, he was well-prepared for such scenarios. His defenses included a custom-made magic crossbow and specially designed mana stone arrows.

Click, clack.

Activating a sliver of mana from his core, Arad pulled the crossbow’s trigger.

Boom!

The moment the attack began, a massive explosion erupted at the site of the disturbance.

“This is my first kill.”

Not long ago, he had lived an ordinary life on Earth. Even after arriving in this otherworld, he had only cooked and sold food safely in a town.

This was his first experience with killing and violence.

And yet… I feel calm. Strangely calm.

Perhaps it was thanks to the countless passive skills and stats ingrained in him, but Arad’s mental state remained unaffected.

“Eek…! The Yuda party…!”

The enormous explosion had obliterated the legs of three adventurers charging at him with axes, leaving nothing above their knees.

“He’s an incredibly skilled mage! I didn’t even see him chant a spell!”

Several adventurer parties witnessed the mage’s power firsthand.

“What about your party? Will you attack, leave, or use my food cart?” Arad asked with a casual tone.

“We’re not in a rush! We’ll use it later!” one said nervously, retreating.
“Our party will pay with monster materials!” another quickly offered.

Even the most reckless adventurers could learn. After about ten displays of his power, no one attempted to attack Arad’s golden carriage again.

Thus, Arad’s golden carriage, both feared and revered, quickly gained recognition throughout the Abyss.

Business turned out to be better than expected.

While making money wasn’t his primary goal, Arad couldn’t complain about the silver coins and monster materials piling up in his carriage, many of which could be refined and sold for gold coins.

Of course, considering the cost of operating and maintaining this carriage, I’m just barely avoiding losses.

Still, the success of his business didn’t make him particularly happy.

The golden carriage he was driving was the height of inefficiency.

It’s like Cold War-era space technology.

The lack of infrastructure, materials, and resources meant he had to pour an absurd amount of money and effort into bridging the 100-year technological gap.

The carriage rolled smoothly through the snowy expanses of the Abyss as Arad admired the view.

Small hills and tiny forest patches appeared here and there, followed by wide-open plains surrounding him.

In the Abyss, one would expect monsters to appear at any moment, but strangely enough, the area around his carriage remained quiet.

Even the two ordinary horses pulling the carriage were calm, thanks to their heavily enchanted harnesses, which allowed them to move freely despite not being premium-grade mounts.

At least my extravagant spending paid off.

The carriage itself, reinforced inside and out with mana stone coatings, boasted enhanced durability, defense, and monster-repelling properties.

Even without proper materials or facilities, maxed-out Dexterity and crafting skills can make up for a lot. This might be one of the rarest achievements even in Era of Silver 1.

After traveling for some time, the sun began to set, and Arad parked the carriage near a rocky hill.

I guess I’ll camp here for the night.

Climbing down from the driver’s seat, Arad opened the rear door of the carriage.

The interior revealed a space that seemed five times larger than the carriage’s exterior—a result of mana stone coatings, spatial expansion circuits, and lightweight mana circuits engraved across the carriage’s structure.

This was a miracle of magical engineering, unmatched in this era and achievable by only a few magical engineers even 100 years into the future.

Thinking about the effort it took to make this…

The carriage could fetch a fortune if sold, but Arad had no desire to build another.

Arad grabbed four tripod-like totems from inside the carriage and carried them outside.

He placed the totems at the four cardinal points around the carriage—north, south, east, and west.

“Please take care of me again tonight,” he said sincerely, activating the totems with a spell.

Fwoosh, fwoosh, fwoosh, fwoosh.

Four glowing magic circles appeared, faintly illuminating the area and forming a barrier around the carriage. The totems would act as sentinels until morning.

Most Abyss monsters were deterred by the mana stone coatings on the carriage, and for the rare ones that weren’t, the alarm totems provided ample defense.

However, Arad didn’t look pleased as he surveyed the scene.

Creating these items had drained all the money he had saved, including the gold coins he’d earned from selling the Arad’s Salt recipe.

I’ll make them pay me back, with interest!

Arad was determined to track down those who had forced him into such a costly endeavor.

Before going to bed, Arad checked the compass inside the carriage to determine his next direction.

The pouch of Arad’s Salt he had given as a gift was enchanted with a rudimentary tracking spell.

Have they truly gone into the Abyss’s deepest depths?

The compass was pointing to the very heart of the Abyss—a place known as its most perilous and enigmatic region.

‘Based on the adventurers’ accounts and the direction this compass points… Damn it. No wonder they went missing so suddenly! What on earth was the Grand Duchess thinking, wandering around recklessly like this, especially without an heir?’

The information gathered from the adventurers and the compass’s direction matched perfectly. There was no denying it now.

‘The Abyss’s depths are truly dangerous…’

The deeper parts of the Abyss, known as the depths, were home to far more dangerous monsters than the areas Arad had traversed so far.

The monsters there would likely ignore the golden coating on his carriage and approach regardless.

Furthermore, the magical energy radiating from the ancient dungeons of the Golden Age could interfere with his current magical tools, rendering them ineffective.

While Arad’s skills were indeed maxed out, his materials and tools were still constrained by the technological limitations of an era 100 years behind.

‘Of course, there will be fewer adventurers in the depths. But that’s a danger in itself, isn’t it?’

The monsters weren’t the only problem. People were just as much of a threat.

The adventurers active near the edge of the Abyss were usually North-born and below C-rank. With Arad’s second-circle mana and magic crossbow, they were manageable.

But adventurers active in the depths, especially B-rank or higher, were a different story.

‘B-rank adventurers and above usually fall into two categories: if they’re from outside the Empire, they’re ridiculously strong legal bandits. If they’re from the Empire, they’re practically spies.’

In the current situation, where the Empire’s schemes were suspect, the latter were particularly troubling.

‘Untouchables sent by the Empire to explore the ancient dungeons of the Abyss.’

Adventurers of their caliber could kill him before he even aimed his crossbow.

‘I’m lucky I haven’t run into an Imperial adventurer party yet.’

Thanks to his luck stat, Arad had managed to avoid encountering any high-ranking adventurers so far.

Whew…

He sighed internally and leaned back into a chair inside his carriage.

‘And if, after all this, I find the Grand Duchess safe and sound… It’s going to feel so pointless.’

Few things were as thrilling and nerve-wracking as betting everything on intuition alone.

Snowflakes whipped through the desolate tundra.

The visibility was poor, the air thick and murky.

In the Abyss’s deepest region, the snowy expanse was less like a pure white landscape and more akin to a dreary gray wasteland.

Amid this barren plain, a small fire burned with minimal smoke, serving as a lone beacon.

“…”
“…”

Six figures, likely knights, sat silently around the fire.

Bundled in thick cloaks lined with monster fur, their bodies and heads were as protected as possible against the cold, their hoods made from the same fur.

Their faces, however, betrayed severe fatigue, the result of a grueling and extended journey.

The expensive, special-grade horses that had carried them this far—beasts undaunted even by the aura of monsters—were nowhere to be seen.

Where did it all go wrong?

Sitting dazed by the fire, Arina couldn’t believe the current state of affairs.

It felt like if she just closed her eyes, she would wake up in her bedroom in High Castle—or perhaps in Polly’s Inn in Haven.

She raised her head and scanned the gray tundra with her eyes.

Since entering the depths, she had repeated this motion countless times. It had become as instinctive as breathing—a necessary part of survival.

I can’t sense any trace of a barrier.

They were wandering, trapped within a barrier.

It felt as if months had passed.

When they first entered the Abyss, the landscape that greeted them was as expected:

Rolling hills, patches of forest, and a snowy expanse teeming with rare and unique mutated monsters, the kind only found in the Abyss.

Adventurers from across the continent roamed these plains, hunting the monsters or being hunted by them in return.

For Northerners accustomed to a life of constant struggle against savagery, it was an all-too-familiar scene.

“Good thing we moved quickly.”

Arina and her five knights felt relieved.

They confirmed that the catastrophe Sir Doyle had warned about—the disaster emanating from the depths—had not yet spread.

Still, there was an unsettling quietness.

Why is it so silent?

Even though a necromancer capable of controlling the Abyss’s monsters was rumored to be in the depths, there were no signs of any disturbances.

“Let’s hurry to the depths. Sir Doyle, lead the way.”

“Yes, Your Grace!”

There was no reason to doubt Sir Doyle, who had survived and returned from the depths.

Knights of the Frostblade, like Doyle, were chosen from among Renslet’s knights for their exceptional loyalty and reliability.

If they couldn’t be trusted, then no one in the North could.

They spurred their special-grade horses deeper into the Abyss, with Doyle riding alongside another high-ranking knight.

Along the way, they encountered several monsters. But Arina and her knights, the North’s mightiest forces, dispatched them with ease.

Not a single one of them sustained even a minor injury, nor did they suffer any significant fatigue. Their supplies of food and resources remained almost untouched as they reached the depths.

The entrance to the depths was starkly different. Like crossing a border delineated by a river, the snowy landscape turned a deeper shade of gray.

“This is definitely strange.”
“The depths aren’t as we remember them.”

While the entrance and the depths of the Abyss were always different, there was something deeply unusual about the current depths.

“There’s not a single person here.”
“Even in the depths, it’s strange for there to be no adventurers at all.”

Typically, the depths were home to B-rank or higher adventurer parties hunting monsters. But not a single sign of human activity was present.

“Not even any monsters.”

The most unsettling absence was that of monsters, which were synonymous with the Abyss.

“It’s too quiet. Far too quiet.”

The depths were eerily silent—an unsettling, bone-chilling stillness.

“Your Grace, it seems we’ve been caught in a barrier,” Balzac eventually concluded.

“Hmm…”

Arina nodded grimly. She had to accept that they were trapped.

“When and how did this happen?!”
“If it’s a barrier, we should have noticed it!”

“Stay focused! This is the work of a highly skilled necromancer!”

By the time they realized the truth, it was too late.

“We should have asked the witches for help…”
“We should’ve at least brought the Grand Witch of Spring with us.”

Everyone began expressing their frustrations and regrets.

The witches of the North, who were likely busy tending to their crops in High Castle, could have provided valuable assistance—especially their leader, Isabel, the Grand Witch of Spring.

But with spring around the corner, they had chosen not to burden the witches, a decision that now seemed like a grave mistake.

“Do not panic! Every barrier has an end and an exit!”
“Right. It’s not like we haven’t dealt with barriers before.”
“They’re just annoying and frustrating, but not impossible to overcome.”
“Focus your senses and find the gap!”

Arina and her knights began their search for a way out of the barrier.