"It hurts. I... am I still alive?"
"Or... have I reached the Goddess of Magic's Divine Kingdom?"
The female mage felt as though she had woken from a hangover, her head pounding fiercely. Yet the sensation carried an eerie sense of familiarity.
"Why is it so hot? Where is this?"
As she slowly adjusted, her vision gradually cleared from its blur. But the instant she saw what lay before her, she began to retch uncontrollably.
She was sprawled weakly atop a small hill piled from corpses and rotting flesh. Farther away, she could only make out countless indistinct shadows layered atop one another, but she soon had no mind left to notice anything else.
Because she saw many monsters!
Hideous, enormous monsters!
One kind of them were maggots that dwelled upon the mountain of flesh, but what was utterly revolting was that each bore a human face twisted in pain and despair. Some could only howl ceaselessly in breakdown, while more were driven by instinct to continually gnaw and devour the carrion beneath them, even attacking their Fellow Creatures, biting and tearing at one another with their only weapon—their teeth.
What horrified her even more was that these human-faced maggots looked nearly as large as she was!
There was also an even more massive kind of "giant." These pale, translucent-skinned giants possessed cruel claws, sharp teeth, sparse hair, and deathly white eyes. More disgusting still, she could even see countless maggots writhing and burrowing through their swollen flesh.
Perhaps sensing her gaze, one "pale giant" twisted its head one hundred and eighty degrees to look in her direction. Then, flailing its limbs and drooling, it lunged at her.
"No, no, no! Help! Captain! Oath! Where are you?!"
The female mage immediately let out a hoarse, piercing scream. Instinctively, she tried