Re:Crafting in Another World
Chapter 130: Second Biome

Chapter 130: Second Biome

Juno’s head hung low, sweat dripping from his brow. His hands were shackled to a metal ring on a strange cylindrical tube. The room around him was dim, metallic, humming faintly like a machine breathing in its sleep. Across from him, another figure stirred—an orc, bound to a similar tube, twitching and groaning in pain.

Shennong stood between them, arms folded, his voice calm but sharp.

"So..." he began, tilting his head slightly, "are you ready to tell me now?"

Juno didn’t answer. His eyes narrowed, watching Shennong with cold suspicion.

Shennong let out a short laugh. "If you’d just swallowed your pride and told me what I needed to know from the start, none of this would’ve happened. You could’ve continued your little charade of being the hero with a cursed sword."

He took a step forward. "But now—now you’re here. And I need everything. From the beginning to the end. Everything."

Juno looked away... then noticed the orc beside him. His eyes widened. "What... what is going on here?! Who is that?!"

Shennong smiled, stepping to the side and revealing a console with a single red button.

"This," he said, "is another one of my creations. I call it the Mutator." His fingers hovered over the button. "If I press this, you’ll become just like him. A twisted creature of muscle and rage. You see... he was human once. Just like you."

Juno went silent. For a moment, nothing but the hum of the tubes filled the space.

"...What happened," Juno finally muttered, "...why am I here? My memories are... hazy."

Shennong raised an eyebrow at the lack of fear in Juno’s voice to his lies. He had expected screaming, struggling—anything but this blankness. He shrugged it off thinking maybe it was not just the sword that made Juno strong, but his qualities.

"You’re here because that cursed sword of yours started consuming you. Your body, your mind. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? The way it twists your thoughts."

He stepped closer.

"I need to know where you found that sword. What it is. And most importantly—how can someone injured by that thing be healed?"

Juno’s eyes stayed locked on the orc, his jaw tense as if grinding every word down before speaking. Finally, he sighed.

"...Fine. I’ll tell you. It all started when my family and I were searching for a place to live."

Shennong raised a brow. "Your wife and daughter...I heard bandits killed them , didn’t she?"

Juno nodded slowly. "That was a lie, I’ll tell the full story. She never liked staying in the capital. We wanted someplace quiet. Mysterious. So when we heard of a mansion, abandoned but still standing near the forest, we thought—why not? The price was low, the place was grand. We thought we’d found a hidden gem."

Shennong leaned forward. "And?"

Juno swallowed. "There were stories... rumors. People said the mansion was cursed. That the previous owners—a noble count and his family—just disappeared one night. Gone. No trace. They said the place was haunted."

"And you bought it anyway," Shennong said with a half-laugh. "You really are an brave idiot aren’t you."

Juno smirked bitterly. "We laughed it off back then. For a few years, nothing happened. It was quiet. Peaceful. My daughter played in the gardens. My wife decorated every inch of the halls. We made it ours."

"...Until?"

Juno’s face darkened.

"I started noticing strange things. Flickers of movement out of the corner of my eye. Whispering voices that echoed when no one else was around. I thought I was imagining things at first. Stress, maybe. But it got worse."

He clenched his fists, the chains rattling.

"The entity... it was feeding. Feeding on the energy left on my sword after every hunt and coming back to life."

Shennong’s eyes narrowed. "What entity?"

Juno’s mouth twitched. "The evil."

"...The evil?"

"It doesn’t have a name. At least, not one I know. Some called it a genie, others a devil. A being of darkness. I didn’t believe it at first. But I saw it... and I was a fool. I thought I could control it."

Shennong’s brow furrowed.

"What did you do?"

"I broke the gate," Juno said, voice trembling. "There was something... a barrier. An old magical seal, woven into the foundation of the mansion preventing the gate from opening. It was holding the entity back. I tore it down. I thought if I freed it, I could get rid of it."

"You tore down a gate that bring creatures of otherworld?" Shennong’s voice was laced with disbelief. "You mean a Gate of Evil?"

Juno nodded slowly. "The mansion was built on top of it. That’s why it was cursed. Why it was abandoned. That seal... it was the only thing stopping the darkness from pouring out."

Shennong exhaled. "And when you broke it?"

"Creatures came. Horrors I’d never seen before. The entity itself didn’t take form—not completely. But it whispered. Promised me strength. Said I could protect them better if I accepted its gift."

His voice cracked. "Next thing I remember... I was standing over their corpses. My wife. My daughter. Dead."

He closed his eyes.

"I don’t even remember raising the sword. But I... I knew. It was me. I gave them up. For power."

Shennong was silent for a long moment.

"So it was a sacrifice," he said finally. "That sword—it’s cursed with blood. That’s why you refused to give it up. You still believed it might do something. Bring them back, maybe?"

Juno gave a small, broken nod.

"I thought... if I held onto it long enough... maybe."

Shennong crossed his arms.

Juno then looked at Shennong.

"You said the wound caused by the sword can’t be healed. Why?"

Shennong looked at the orc beside him again. "Everything I told you is truth. Someone I know got injured by you,"

Shennong pressed. "How do we heal someone injured by it?"

Juno shook his head. "I don’t know. You should be asking that thing—the entity. Or something that came from its world. I’m just a man who lost everything."

He looked up. "What did you do with the sword?"

Shennong’s face turned cold.

"That’s none of your concern," he said. "Mandira will be here soon to deal with you. Until then—"

He stepped back toward the console.

"Shut up and wait."

Juno leaned back against the cold tube behind him. The flickering lights cast long shadows on the walls, and somewhere, far above them, the hum of magic circuits thrummed like a heartbeat.

***

Not getting any satisfying answers from Juno, Shennong decided to see if he can get any answers from the entity of the sword.

The metal door creaked open slowly, groaning on its hinges. Shennong stepped through cautiously, the echoes of his feet against the stone floor fading behind him.

He wasn’t sure what he expected from the second floor of this dungeon. Maybe it didn’t cahnge anything. Maybe the sword had been convereted into something else.

But what he didn’t expect... was this.

"—What the hell?"

The door opened not into another stone chamber, but into something that looked like a gaping mouth of another world. Heat rushed out instantly, making Shennong wince. It wasn’t just heat—it was like dread was seeping into his bones. He instinctively took a step back.

The sky—or what passed for one—was not a ceiling but a dome of swirling black clouds, shot through with veins of crimson lightning. The ground stretched on endlessly, made of charred rock and twisted terrain. A reddish-black fog slithered across the land like a living thing. Massive spikes jutted out from the earth like claws trying to escape.

And then the creatures—hundreds of them.

No, thousands.

Grotesque figures roamed the desolate wasteland. Some looked humanoid with elongated limbs and eyeless faces. Others crawled on all fours, dragging themselves across the scorched terrain. Winged demons circled in the air, and bulbous things that shimmered like shadows prowled in the distance.

There were walls too. Not made of stone—but of flesh. Towering, throbbing flesh-walls, stitched with blackened veins and glowing red runes. They pulsed like hearts. Something behind them throbbed with such hatred that Shennong’s breath caught in his throat.

"What... is this place?" he whispered, almost too quietly to hear.

But the creatures did hear.

He realized his mistake a moment too late.

As soon as the door swung wide open, a wave of heat and dark miasma surged out—and every creature within a mile radius turned their head.

Toward him.

Shennong froze. Hundreds of glowing red eyes opened all at once in the shadows. Some were the size of his fist. Some were the size of a house.

The air stilled. Time seemed to stretch. And then—

They screamed.

An unearthly chorus of shrieks, growls, and screeches filled the air, and the creatures charged.

"OH NO—!"

Shennong slammed the door shut with both hands and stumbled backward, his heart hammering in his chest. The door shook violently as if something huge rammed into it from the other side.

BOOM!

Dust rained from the ceiling. The entire floor quaked. Another hit. Another shriek.

"What kind of hellhole is this floor?!"

He stumbled down the stairs, breathing hard, eyes wide.

He didn’t stop until he was back at the base of the stairway, leaning against the wall, clutching his chest.

"What the hell happened here?"