Wow. That was a lot to unpack. Starting from the fact that the demons didn't immediately attack me, middling on the fact that they had some sort of monetary system and ending with the fact that they knew who I was, along with my respawn ability.

"You were betting on me coming back?"

"Nah, on your chances against our pet hydra. I bet it would kill you. Grallax over there was convinced you'd escape."

"She did escape," muttered the demon presumably called Grallax. "It didn't kill her; she committed suicide to get away."

"Don't start all that again," complained the first guard, who appraisal informed me was called Bekretti. "Dead is dead."

I just stared.

"What? Something on my face?" asked Bekretti.

"No, this just... wasn't what I expected."

"Oh. We're demons, so of course you assume that we're out to steal your soul or something. Typical anti-demon racism."

Grallax spat into the lava again, which responded with a brief hiss.

"Sorry?" I tried.

"So you should be. Just a friendly warning, but if anyone here catches you using the name of our city as a curse word like all the monsters up above like to do, you'll find we can be very stereotypical indeed."

"The abyss?"

"That's the one. Anyway, the big boss wanted a word with you when you dropped by."

"The... big boss?"

"Yeah, that's what I said. So called because he's our boss and he's big. You're not much for this whole conversation business, are you?"

I felt lost and adrift, and it didn't help that the sea I was adrift in was lava and had a cavern-sized hydra living in it. Right, forget the fact that they were demons. I needed to just treat this as no different from first contact with the fox-kin. Admittedly, that had gone horribly, but at least I'd tried, and hadn't wandered in assuming I'd be attacked.

"Okay, fine. How do I get to him? Or her, since I'm trying to put some effort into not making assumptions."

"Nah, you were right the first time. And you don't."

"I don't? But didn't you say that..."

Perceive mana advanced to level 11

I was interrupted by a burst of mana from beneath me, and looked down to find myself surrounded by a pool of darkness. Sense danger didn't respond. Teleportation magic?

"Bye-bye," called the guard, waving, as shadows leapt from the floor, surrounding me like a giant egg.

There was a shift in the mana and the shadows dissipated, leaving me staring straight into the teeth of something that was indeed very big. And also a dragon. I wouldn't call myself an expert at telling dragon faces apart, but I was pretty damn sure this was the one that had invaded the fourth floor. It was the way my face felt like it was being ripped from my head that gave it away.

Void tolerance advanced to level 3

I promptly dropped to my knees and threw up, scrunching my eyes as tightly shut as possible. It didn't help.

"So despite how far you have come, you are still too weak to tolerate my mere presence," intoned the dragon, and once again I wasn't sure how much conventional sound was involved. I could feel the words. I could practically taste them.

"Wh... Wh..." I stammered, rendered incoherent by the darkness pressing in around me.

The dragon laughed in great booming vibrations, each of which shaved a chunk off my health bar.

"The little failed hero can't even speak," he managed, each word hammering into my head like a nail. "But I know what questions you have. Where is the holy sword, and why do I call you a failed hero? And also, how do you save your blighted echo, whom you have sworn not to leave behind? I will answer any question you ask. All you need do is look me in the eye as you ask them."

He knew where the holy sword was? He would tell me, if only I asked? My health was half drained already, so I needed to hurry. I dragged myself back to my feet, the room shifting and swaying around me, and opened my eyes. I could see nothing. I could feel a tickling sensation on my face, even through the cacophony that was assaulting all of my senses, and when it ran into my mouth, I tasted blood. A touch confirmed I was bleeding from my eyes, nose and ears alike.

I still had olfactory perception. It was blurred, but I could orientate myself with it. I pointed myself in the direction of one of his eyes.

"Wh... Where..." I managed, before an intense pressure forced me to look away. Just standing there was sapping my health. I only had seconds left, and this was the first concrete information I'd been offered. I needed to ask, and I wasn't going to let some stupid otherworldly darkness stop me.

Void tolerance advanced to level 4

I forced myself to look back up. "Where... is... the..." I squeezed out before the effort sent me back to my knees.

"So close," replied the dragon. "Should you wish to make another attempt, simply call my name. I can teleport you here from anywhere within this world."

Name... He hadn't told me his name... With the last scraps of my consciousness, I invoked appraisal.

[Untranslatable], draco inanis

Detailed appraisal blocked

Void tolerance advanced to level 5

I gasped for breath back in the catacombs. I hadn't felt so discombobulated waking up after a death in a long while. Ignoring the soul magic, the only instance that topped it was waking up after having my mind overwritten by the giant centipede. I thought the abyss was supposed to be some sort of demon-filled hell, not a Lovecraftian nightmare that obliterated my mind and senses by mere proximity.

Now I had two problems. I was supposed to speak his name, but didn't know what it was, and probably couldn't pronounce it even if I did, given the appraisal results. Second, even if I did make it there again, there was no way I could look him in the eye.

And there was a third problem, if I was honest; I had no guarantee he was being truthful.

Perhaps I could work on the second problem first, before returning to the city. After all, weren't the black torches here the same thing, but on a smaller scale? I'd never gained resistance skills from them, or felt them hurting me, but it wasn't as if I'd tried. Now would be a good time to start. I walked over to the next room and stuck my hand into the flame.

"Ow!" I exclaimed, causing a zombie hanging around in the room to do a heavily exaggerated facepalm.

"Well, if you've got any better ideas for how to train my resistance against a dragon that causes my brain to ooze out of my face just from existing in the same room as me, I'd like to hear them," I complained to it. Alas, even if my twin could watch me through her zombie army, none of them could speak. I doubted she'd have any better ideas, anyway.

It didn't seem to be the flame part that caused problems, but the darkness. Sticking my hand into the flame didn't do anything. Perhaps I could have trained heat immunity that way, if it wasn't already such a high level, but it wasn't buying me anything now. Maybe if I made a bigger fire? Or if that teleportation offer wasn't a one-time deal, I could just keep repeating it until I gained the ability to cope. I'd earned three levels from that last encounter, despite its brevity. A few more would get a skill evolution, and that should be enough to look at him. Of course, if he didn't really want to answer, he hadn't promised not to do anything more active than simply standing there.

Regardless, he was the best lead I had at the moment, and at least he wasn't as grumpy as the red dragon. I gave dupliKatie an update on events, succumbed to her begging for a fresh brain supply, earning a few more levels of cold nullification in the process when I suicided by dragon ice breath, then made my way back downstairs.

"Oh, look who's back again," commented Bekretti.

"I could say the same thing. How long are your shifts?"

Including feeding my twin, I'd respawned five times since my hydra battle, so that was five hours minimum, and it wasn't as if I died instantly each time.

"Dunno. What's a shift?"

"Wow. If I ever get the chance, I'll have to talk to you about labour laws." They must finish at some point, surely? They had money. Someone had to give it to them, and they had to have some opportunity to spend it. Or did they just gamble the same hundred shards back and forth? Given how illogical this world was, maybe they were literally here on guard duty at all times. It wasn't as if many games had realistic NPC schedules.

Wait, was that why I never saw the fox-kin town when everyone was in bed? I'd never paid attention to who was on guard duty at any point. Would I have noticed if it had been the same set of guards every time?

"Anyway, you wanna go in? The big boss said you were allowed, if you wanted."

"Yes please," I answered, before thinking of the obvious. "By the way, what's your big boss's name? He told me to call him if I wanted to ask questions."

"Didn't you just talk to him? How'd you not know his name? Well, whatever. It's..."

The light from the lava dimmed. Strange shadows crept up the island walls. The air was filled with an odd susurration, seemingly coming from behind me no matter which direction I looked. There was, for some reason, a taste of mushrooms. And then it was all gone.

Void tolerance advanced to level 6

Bekretti's lips were still moving, but I couldn't hear anything and wiping my ears made it obvious why; my hand came back covered in blood. Never mind looking at him, I wasn't even in the same room this time. That was just from hearing his name.

"Sorry to interrupt whatever you're saying, but apparently hearing his name has made me go deaf."

The lip movements stopped, before he started shaking, bending over almost double and slapping his thighs.

"Yes, yes. It's very funny," I muttered. At least this was a way of training my tolerance and learning his name packaged up into one. "Do you think you can repeat that? Hopefully, I'll get used to it."

The next repetition gained me another level despite my broken ears, but ruptured my eyes. The third gained me yet another, but stunned me badly enough that I tripped and fell into the lake, where my olfactory perception informed me that a hydra head had popped out of the lava and opened its mouth wide. Deaf, blind and stunned too badly to flap my wings, I fell straight into the open maw, and it swallowed me whole.

I slid down a lengthy and fleshy chute, failing to get a grip on the slimy sides and splashing into a foul chamber of liquid. The stomach of a hydra was really not a place in which I was happy to have olfactory perception, causing me to add to its stomach contents with some of my own. Unfortunately, between my heat and corrosion immunities, being plunged into the lava-hot bag of acid was not immediately fatal. My suffocation tolerance wouldn't make it any less unpleasant, either. Unwilling to wait to be digested, I used the remaining air in my lungs to ice it.

Cold nullification advanced to level 24

"What did you do to our pet hydra?" complained Grallax once I got back a little over an hour later. "That was one mother of a stomachache you gave it."

"I assume it's used to warmer meals. Hopefully, it'll think twice about eating me next time."

"But you'd just have fallen into the lava instead. That's not much of an improvement."

"It wouldn't have smelt anywhere near so bad," I disagreed. Being squeezed between the heavy walls of flesh while submerged in boiling acid wasn't too horrible. Not silk cocoon levels of softness, and there was the whole suffocation issue, but it wasn't as hot as my fire breath and the acid wasn't the worst I'd experienced. Nothing my immunities couldn't cope with. If it wasn't for my new sense of smell that wasn't dependent on me breathing, I wouldn't have minded, and might even have enjoyed my hot bath.

Hah, trapped in a hydra's stomach. Another one for my weird bondage predicaments list.

"You were eaten by a hydra, and your only complaint is about the smell?"

"Yes. And yes, I am aware my priorities are screwed up. Now, can we try the name again, and hope that this time I can listen without my ears falling off?"

Both guards stared at me like I was some sort of alien.