4 Blinding Light

"Find Shin! I'll come find you guys! Just hold out! Don't you 2 dare die on me! I can't be the villain without a hero!" Amber shouted into the abyss I fell into. Echoing throughout the cave, I heard what she said loud and clear.

Crashing into walls, my body flung around like some plastic toy a kid threw around for fun.

Even hit feels like a thousand punches. Hundred kicks. Most would cry out in pain... I'm tempted to be one of the 'most'. I bit my lip trying to endure the pain in silence.

If Shin's also down here then... maybe I won't die when I hit the ground. Maybe it's plot armour, maybe it's how the world works who knows. Such a pain. I probably can't him find him as fast as I'd liked to anymore if Amber knows about it then he fell before me for a little bit.

And... hit

Slamming onto the ground, it knocked the wind out of me.

WHY DOES IT HURT SO MUCH?! NO WONDER PEOPLE GO INSANE AFTER TORTURE.

"AHH" I banged the floor continuously, trying to ignore the pain with another. With the echo... she'll definitely hear... Amber definitely heard my cry. She looked genuinely worried... I hope she'll be alright. I should find my way out of here with Shin before she decides to do something reckless in order to find us.

Crystals... glowing... everywhere. My cold flame blew out... I didn't even notice, but I won't need a useless light source anymore.

Hit the ground and didn't even break a single bone, hurts like hell, but I'm not dead now am I? From what I can see, Shin went deeper into the cave. They're footprints and blood. I guess it'd be way easier to track him like this.

Luckily, he fell near me. The plot requires it I guess.

If I remember correctly Shin's ability is nothing. His stamina is worse than mine and he has no magical abilities as far as visible ones. My guess is that his ability is activated by resources that are near him. Maybe the resources he needed to be touched for him to manipulate it to his will. He wouldn't have nothing as his magical ability. He is the main character after all.

"This is the part that the person gets so stressed that from his carefree self he became a cool, calm and sometimes cruel guy." Now I really mean it

Stumbling and crawling until I finally found... a very big bat.

Such... a... PAIN.

I'll just sneak past it. I wish I was in something else like, I don't know a story of a guy that was really good at playing one VR game and got sucked into it and became the black swordsman or something. I'm pretty sure I'm in some kind of anime or maybe manga or light novel? No... they wouldn't spend money on this story. Probably an anime or web novel.

Why am I debating on what platform this cliche story would be in while I'm literally sneaking past death? Ehh... whatever.

Just keep crawling... I'm almost off sight... AND the monster spotted me. Frick... did not think this one through.

Okay... Hiroto, be creative, you can do this. What can a cold flame do?

Distract! Just needs to swipe, left to right, access my skills and press ACTIVATE

"Soul Flame!" I activated it with my voice

It was the same cold flame, but it engulfed the bat whole. There was no scream, no sound. The bat just became a hollow husk. It's like it had no soul left in it. Is that why it's called Soul Flame? Why didn't I know that it's this OP before? This is gonna make my job way easier.

I pulled out my dagger. I highly doubt my flames can cook the bat's meat, but it might help me hold out till I find an exit to this thing.

Trying to stab the hollow husk, I remembered something important. I remembered how weak I am. Couldn't breakthrough. My dagger broke.

"I swear, one day I'll level up to be stronger than any of you monsters here without that weird flame," I kicked the husk, just because I could and walked away, leaving the broken dagger behind. I don't need it anymore.

"Stay dammit!!!" Shin's using some kind of web to string all the sticks and stones together and started sharpening the stone.

Found him. He's trying to make a sword. So should I run to him, hide or leave him? Okay, leaving him's off the options list. I came all this way to find him, not leaving him now, but I'll hide for a bit. I wanna watch what his gonna do next.

I got an idea. I picked up a small pebble and threw it in the opposite direction making a sound echoing in the cave.

"Who's there?" Shin said with a straight face and a cold voice

A shadow raises at the back of Shin and that shadow... was me "Finally found you, Shin". He turned around with a surprised face, oddly it looked happy.

"You came? They didn't leave me?" His voice has gotten softer, his face barely smiling.

"Amber said she'd find us and help us escape, but I feel like she'd just do something impulsive and reckless. Maybe... falling into the same hole as me, but unfortunately or fortunately, Damon's floating fire was with her. He was close. He'd stop her,"

"So is it safe to bet that she won't come?" His face reverts back to being straight and cold

"Yeah..."

"What are we supposed to do? I'm only a level 3,"

3?! I'm still one thank you very much!

"We get out, what else? Stay here and let the others say they're right leaving to die? Heck no, the only thing I love more than animes are proving people wrong and seeing their pitiful faces, filled with horror. Heh... it makes me wanna live even more" that moment I realized that I was putting off a terrifying aura just like Amber. I guess I gotta learn it from somewhere.

Realizing how psychotic I sound... I apologized, "I got carried away there sorry bout that. Anyways the way out is probably the way we came, luckily we have your blood leading the way"

"Gotcha, so... what's your ability?" Shin tried to not be awkward.

"I believe it's something called soul flames, it ba-" the code for activation is soul flame which means...

"Ahh!" The blue flame burst out of my right hand launching me a few meters, slamming me on the walls. Well, don't my body just love being slammed today eh? The good thing is that even though the pain stays, there's nothing physically broken.

"You know you can change the activation code right?"

"Really?!"

"Yeah, go to your skills and click on the code, it will ask if you want activation by movement or speech, then you did the moves you want to activate it," Shin said while showing me how to do it

I then open my menu bar, go to skills and did exactly as Shin said, and my activation code will be... "Activate Soul Flame"

"That's lame, isn't it?"

"What's your skills genius?"

"Copy, I copy the skill of any monster I see, I know there's probably a limitation for my ability, but I haven't reached that part yet"

"No name required huh?"

"Yeah, anyways what level are you?"

"Uhh..." I checked the menu" Wow... I got to 1, almost 2 cause of that bat,"

"I just reached 3"

"A lot more than me at this point,"

"I broke my sword slowing down my descent. There are deeper parts of the cave, I just happened to jump at the right time to end up at the same level as you,"

"Lucky you," I tried breaking the glowing crystals but had no arm strength to do so.

We retraced our steps to our fall, killing A LOT of monsters in the process. Pro's that I got some more info about myself.

Even though my bones won't break, I can still bleed. Learnt that one from the bat's wind slash. One soul flame takes 50% of my mana. Can only use it twice within an hour, but it engulfs every monster I see. Useful I tell you.

"How do we know which is the exit?" I looked up to find holes like it was a 4-dimensional maze. Like it was hiding something that wasn't supposed to be found.

How the heck do we get up? What would Amber do... Ugh, I'm not Amber, but I have protagonist kun with me. I am level 5 now so maybe I can run up? Let me try that.

I sprinted full power like a wall run and... only got halfway.

"Dangit, aren't level 5 a far cry from 1! I'm so close! Yet so far" I said dramatically as I fell back onto the floor. Hello, pain my old friend! I've come to talk to you again!

"Wait a sec, I think I know how to get up." I readied myself to run again.

"Good luck falling," Shin smirked and sat down, I can tell that he'd be eating popcorn if he had one.

Just have to check something first.

Go to menu, Skills, then found it. Activate with the "right hand". Let's change that to both hands and then...

Aim both hands towards to ground and ready to wall run, and

"Activate Soul Flame!"

Run, run, RUN

"I made it!"

"Nice, now how do I get up?"

"Did you copy the bat's skills? Like the one for the wind slash"

"Yeah"

"Then just wall run and when you're gonna fall repel yourself with the wind slash" Can he not think for himself? Well... at least he's consulting an expert of escape.

"Alright" Shin got up using my tactic and surprisingly bowed to me, "Thanks for your help," Shin said with a small smile.

"It's cool dude, just don't go that Keneki route. Seems painful." He's starting to trust me, this is going according to the cliches of the Isekai genre so he would be very powerful. I got to be on his good side. This balancing act's gonna exhausting.

"Do you remember the way back from here?" Shin asked as I activated a small, but constant soul fire for light. The upper levels are dark... too dark for the human eyes. The smaller the flame to longer the activation lasts.

"Nope"

"Same here,"

"I think it's this way"

We turned the corner to find the cave was blocked by a boulder. They blocked it off... or blocked us in? Why? Why would Amber do that...

"Let's just break the boulder, you're level 6, you should be able to break this. Give it everything you've got" I'll just ask them... they have no reason to lie to me...

"Of course, young master," Shin laughed sarcastically

Shin clenched his fingers in a palm making a fist. He had this cold look before he attacked.

"Boost"

The wind started gathering around his fist. It started moving around faster and faster.

"Beyond"

His eyes and hair turned from a hickory shade of brown to a purplish-black and the tip of his hair had a slight shade of white.

Then punched the boulder like it was foam. See? I knew it! This guy's gonna be OP as heck. The boulder disintegrated into dusk! Both of us jumped into the light, finally breathing fresh air. Even though it was only hours, I felt like I was in there for months.

The light was blinding. Being down there for about 12 hours, my stomach is tutoring me and my throat is dry. One drop of water would be nice.

"So tired, so hungry, so thirsty," Both of us said then collapsed