Party 1 feasted on our dinner in total silence.
There was only our party in the dining room.
While Jyrgil was still enjoying bullying the first floor trainees, lately, Party 2 had been training a lot more.
Actually, they had been doing that ever since they saw the recording of the fifth floor.
And when they heard the sixth floor could not be accessed anymore, they trained even longer every day to bridge the gap they had to cover from the missing experience of the trial.
So we did not get to see much of each other as of late.
At least I was since I spent most of my time in the magic hall if not the trial.
Our party did not talk much after the promotions Jonah and Shanny just experienced earlier.
With what little words Shanny hesitantly told us, we learned that during her promotion she was standing in the middle of the estate where she worked as a maid.
The manor was in ruins. The servants were running around, panicking. So were the guards. And she could see the town beyond her completely on fire.
She swore that she also saw a few bodies strewn around.
It was definitely not a pleasant scene. Just like what Jonah saw.
Even when I heard Shanny's story, I did not look surprised. Which was why the silence in the dining room.
My comrades were waiting for me to tell them something that I knew.
And I did not plan to make them wait any longer.
"There is a reason why the mirror said, 'Climb the tower and save the world!'"
My words broke the silence.
Jonah's frown deepened.
"Saving the world…was the mirror referring to our world? As in Dunia?"
I nodded to him.
"I'm sure you'll learn more as you get promoted over and over again. But right now, there is no home you can return to. Everything has been destroyed."
With gaping mouth, everyone jerked their gazes to me. Shocked by the revelation.
"What do you mean 'destroyed?'"
Trudy asked suspiciously.
"Remember when you and Shanny first got here and we rounded up everyone in the lodging and introduced one another? All the places you people told me that you were from, all of those places were gone before I got here."
Shanny suddenly stood up. Her face was full with worry and denial.
"But that can't be! Before I suddenly found myself here, I was just working in the middle of a quiet afternoon like usual. Everything was fine back then!"
"I assume when all of you came to the forged land, parts of your memories were sealed. That was why you did not remember what exactly happened before you were summoned to this place. Until you were promoted, of course."
I explained to her. I continued.
"My theory is that the stronger you were back in Dunia, the less of your memories got sealed. Because I, a 4-star hero, still remember what happened to me and why I came to the forged land in the first place. While those of you, 1-stars, who never properly held a weapon in their life before did not remember a thing."
Darius leaned himself to me.
"Is that why the 3-stars like me somehow already knew about the synthesis and master's existence upon our arrival?"
"Yes. I'm guessing all of you experienced what I did before coming here. You just did not have the complete memory of when and how you received those exact knowledge."
Jonah was now the one leaning on to me.
"Memories aside. So our goal in clearing the trials is so that we could save our world? And that is how we're going to go home?"
He asked.
"Admittedly, I don't know what exactly will happen after we clear the 100th floor. But I believe it will happen as you said."
It had to happen that way. Else, what was I doing in the forged land?
The dining room returned to silence once more.
Everyone was trying to digest what I just said.
And even then I had not told them everything yet. Like how worse the cataclysm Dunia was facing.
I turned my gaze to all of them and decided to ask something.
"This information is quite sensitive and it could be very disturbing to some people in the lobby. So I'd ask you to be discreet about what you just heard in this room. Don't go out of your way to spread the words around unless you needed to. We don't want everybody panicking."
Hearing that their home was gone, that their world had been destroyed.
People like Jonah and Shanny who had been through hellish experience like the fifth floor could probably accept it.
But there was no telling how the common folks in the lobby would.
Some could fall into stress and could not serve their role properly.
It would be bad for our climbing effort if the lobby was thrown into hysteria from the terrible revelation.
Fortunately, my comrades understood this as well.
They wiped the nervous faces from before and shifted into a determined one.
One by one they nodded their heads to me and promised to not share what they learned in here unnecessarily.
After dinner, after I went to the magic hall, continued my work till late hours, and returned to the lodging again, I returned to my room.
As soon I changed out of my magic dress to my nightgown, I went to the desk by my bed.
A wide piece of paper with a drawing of a map consisted of a grand valley stretching east and west, a smaller one trailing north, and a westward mountain path.
Indeed. It was the map of the sixth floor.
Considering the mission on that trial was exploration, it would only be proper if we made a record of the region we surveyed.
Now that we had completed exploring the seventh floor, it was time for me to revise the map.
New path and landmark were discovered.
The buried trail extending to the north and a dam.
There had to be a reason as to why the trial was showing us these.
I was certain of it.
And somehow, all of these had something to do with saving our world, Dunia.