Chapter 5: Dark temple
"Where you come from?"
Shin ignored Lou's question and continued up the island's mountain while he followed from behind.
"What is the world like outside the island?"
"How did you get to the island?"
"Why don't you have a tail like mine?"
Lou grabbed her fluffy tail and hugged her, as if she were showing Shin how comfortable and fluffy, she was.
All the way from the cabin to the mountain, Lou kept asking Shin questions on all kinds of topics, questions to which he only answered superficially.
Once the conversation with the old man was over, he said that he was sleepy and that he was going to sleep. The old man had asked Lou to accompany Shin to a temple on the top of the mountain, so the next day when Shin had recovered from being adrift for several days they left for the temple.
Lou also offered him, on the old man's orders, a tea made from natural herbs from the island that canceled the curse that resided on the island.
Shin asked Lou about this curse to which Lou's response was short but impactful.
"According to my grandfather, it is a curse that forces you to answer any question or do any action you are asked to do without the option of refusing. I really always take the cure every day, so I haven't experienced it."
These were all symptoms that Shin had experienced. If Lou had bad intentions against him, she could have asked him for anything, and Shin could only have agreed without resisting.
He couldn't imagine how it would be if so, many people were on this island together and didn't know there was a cure.
It would be like hell bringing out the darkest desires inside of anyone.
"You are not funny"
Lou pouted as Shin didn't answer questions honestly now that he was immune to the curse.
"It was better when you did what I said. Hmmp!"
The old man had explained Lou's story to Shin when they were still in the cabin, and she was busy cooking.
Lou's full name was Lourna, and she came to the island the same way as Shin. The boat she was on had an accident and Lou miraculously washed ashore as a baby, where the old man picked her up and raised her.
The old man had no children or any other relatives, so he had no experience raising a baby. So, he gave Lou a lot of freedom as she grew up.
Lou was from a race called Varums, where people had features of different animals. Lou, for example, was part wolf, so her instincts made her develop in a certain way in this jungle without the supervision of society.
Shin didn't know what race the old man was, but he understood that it wasn't easy at all to raise a girl who had such wild instincts.
That's why Lou hardly knew about common sense, that's why seeing Shin naked he could only see that he was different from her, so he simply asked out of curiosity.
Shin sighed when he saw Lou's attitude, the old man had told him that she was also 18 years old, just like hers, but to Shin she seemed like a girl of just 10 years old, at least in the way she thought.
Shin kept walking as he followed Lou through the lush jungle.
Lou might be used to this environment but walking on the uneven ground was a challenge for Shin.
"You are too slow"
Lou complained as she watched Shin from above.
'You are very fast!'
After a full hour of walking, Shin was exhausted but Lou looked completely fine.
"You're not in good physical shape either, are you good for something?"
'Shut up, dammit!'
Although Lou was very innocent, she was also very honest, perhaps too much for her own good. Shin just wanted to pull her tail and teach her a lesson to vent all his frustration and irritation.
But he kept the thoughts of him to himself and looked at the great door in front of them.
"This is the temple?"
Lou walked over to the door and put her arms behind his body before explaining.
"Yep, my grandfather told me never to go in, so I don't know what's inside. But now that I'm going in with you, I can't help but feel excited!"
Shin didn't know where all the energy contained in Lou's small but well-proportioned body came from.
"Let's go in quickly!"
Shin was still taking a breath after the restless walk so he couldn't help but roll his eyes at how impatient Lou was.
"No one ever told you that impatience kills?"
Lou just tilted her head, not understanding Shin's question.
"No?"
'Well, me neither'
Shin stood up and stretched out his arms.
"It doesn't matter, let's go"
Shin approached the entrance with Lou following close behind and placed his hands on the large door.
The gate was about 4 meters high and 3 meters wide, it had intricate designs and it was completely black. Which instilled a bit of fear in people.
Except for Lou, she was just curious.
With a bit of effort, the door opened halfway making a very annoying hurtful squeak that affected Shin but made Lou cover his ears in annoyance.
Being a Varum and having more developed senses than a normal human, loud screeching noises bothered her more than Shin.
The doors were flung open, and the noise stopped, Lou took her hands from her ears and growled.
"What a bad welcome!"
Shin could only sigh at Lou's comment.
"Let's go in"
"Yes!"
All of Lou's irritation disappeared and her curiosity returned to her.
Inside the temple was a large corridor made of dark marble with tall stone columns that supported the ceiling as black as the walls.
On the walls there were torches with black fire that remained active after so many years without anyone entering.
The torches were enough to completely light up the room, and though Shin didn't know how a black torch could exist and how it could work. Surprisingly they lit up quite well.
The floor was full of dust, and it was noticeable that no one had entered in a long time so the maintenance was non-existent.
Shin walked carefully in contrast to Lou who was investigating every corner of the corridor.
"Shouldn't you be more careful, there could be traps"
The temple was an unknown place so there might be traps to keep intruders out, like them.
"There are none"
"How do you know?"
Lou stopped and put her hand to her chin.
"My instincts tell me"
Shin sighed heavily again as he watched as Lou returned to explore the abandoned temple.
'This woman is going to kill me'
It had only been a little over a day and Shin felt like he wasted years of life just trying to understand Lou.
The corridor of the temple was not very long, so they quickly reached the end, finding another smaller door compared to the one outside but with the same patterns and designs.
Lou looked at the door while he waited for Shin who was a few meters behind her.
When Shin arrived in front of the door, an ominous sensation took over her body, making him feel a fear that he had never felt before.
If Shin felt this bad just being outside the door, Lou felt the same feeling but much worse.
Lou began to snarl in the direction of the door and got into a fighting stance as the nails on his hands began to grow into claws sharper than a knife.
Shin felt a lot of reservations about opening the door, if only the sensation could be felt from outside, neither Shin nor Lou wanted to know what was behind the door.
Taking a deep breath and putting a hand behind his back where he kept his gun. Shin proceeded to open the door.
With just a little push, the door slowly opened, echoing throughout the hallway.
A large wave of air flowed from the center of the room outward, making both Shin and Lou shudder.
They both stood still for a moment trying to see what was in the dark room.
Shortly after, Shin began to walk slowly, trying to get used to the ominous sensation, but he noticed that there was no one next to him.
He turned to look at Lou who was still in the same position as before and continued to snarl showing the big fangs she had.
"Aren't you going in?"
"...No, my instincts tell me not to go in"
The innocent and honest girl from before was nowhere to be seen, the Lou from now looked like a completely scared animal.
Compared to Lou, Shin didn't have the instincts of a Varum, so he didn't feel the same as Lou when he was in front of the room.
Shin left Lou behind and continued inside.
When his eyes got used to seeing in the dark, lamps lit up all over the room as if by magic.
The entire room was revealed to Shin who froze upon seeing the contents of it.
In the center of the room was an altar surrounded by a circle of runes, which formed a network of intricate carvings between them.
Shin didn't know what these runes meant, and it seemed like the frozen corpses in the room didn't know either.
Surrounding the circle on all sides were many frozen corpses that stretched out their arms towards the center of the room, as if reaching for something.
The mere sight of the kneeling corpses with their arms outstretched made Shin feel his hair stand on end.
'What were they trying to achieve?'
Inside the rune circle and on the altar was a small pot with a small baby plant that was no more than 10 centimeters tall.
The leaves of the plant were completely black and seemed to swallow the darkness around them.
Shin felt that the plant seemed to call out to him just like it called out to all the other people in the room who were now nothing more than corpses. Just like the island's curse that forced him to obey the other people, the plant forced him to come closer slowly.
"Don't go!"
Lou yelled from outside the room warning Shin not to come any closer, but his words fell on empty ears as Shin was unable to hear her and continued slowly walking down the aisle.
As much as Lou wanted to help him, her instincts forced her to step back and just watch from afar, making her feel helpless and limited by her instincts that had always helped her.
Now Shin could only defend himself on his account.
As Shin took the first step into the circle of ruins, everything around him began to change rapidly and in a single blink Shin found himself on a black sand beach.
The water was calm behind him, with small waves washing over his bare feet, sinking them into the sand.
Shin took a step leaving a footprint in the sand and everything around him changed again.
He now found himself in the middle of an ancient city, with large white structures supported by columns of the same color as tall as the tallest tree on the island.
Shin found himself surrounded by all kinds of people who were calmly walking beside him as if he were invisible as they went about their daily chores.
These people were dressed in robes with all kinds of designs and colors.
Shin took another step and found himself on the outskirts of a large pantheon supported by eight large columns and with writing on strange runes on top of them.
Although Shin couldn't read such a language, for some reason he had no trouble knowing what the runes said.
"The Will of Darkness"
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone