9 01 09 - The Death Within the Caves

"LHyuk.."

it spoke from behind. I turned around quickly to see a blonde long haired girl with red clothing stood behind me, she was taller than me and clearly gave a strong presence. I took a gulp, scared of what was to come.

"So you where over here, didn't you get my message looking for you?"

I was left confused before I looked up a little bit more, then realizing it was Empress Kim, aka it was Lisa.

"oh hey! I didn't realize it was you since in real life you're sho-"

I was cut off by a sudden punch that sent me to the floor, holding my face in pain.

"WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!"

I shouted in agony as she looked down at me hushing my down.

"shut up don't talk about my height!"

Suddenly a group of 4 people came from behind waving their hands, coming close.

"Empress! We bought food and equipment!"

one of the males spoke, another blonde with a muscular body and was clearly a player with a class related to a knight.

"oh is that the friend you said would join?"

Her group was now here and began to introduce themselves. The first was the knight, Tukitakoyaki. The female magician who had black hair and twin tails to show she was the cute member, Rivenknight. An assassin who you'd think was quiet but was quite loud with short red hair, Inkcorpse. Lastly, their pink haired and shy healer, Eternalgreen.

They were high leveled too, if my levels were on par with a level 30, their levels were triple the levels, each of the party members were at least over a 100 levels. Why would Empress want me in the game,, or was she planning to use me as bait?

"I, um, you guys seem strong enough I'll go find a quest to help me le-"

I was suddenly grabbed by the shoulder by Lisa, laughing a bit.

"I waited for you, you're coming for us, don't worry we won't have you as bait, unless it's needed."

I took a big gulp, there wouldn't be a problem with dying in game really, only if there wasn't a level deduction that occurs when your character dies. Dying takes 5 levels off your character, Which a level 12 like me would really not want.

"We'll help you level up too, don't worry we just need you to mine iron for us. We were going to hire some random guy but be happy I remembered you."

I groaned slightly before laughing awkwardly.

"yes yes, thank you."

She then gave me a huge backpack and a pickax before pushing me along with the group just giggling. before suddenly saying something that really made me interested.

"Don't worry Gihyuk, I'll pay you a quarter of what we earn from the quest and the iron."

I looked back to the other group which was nodding in agreement before Rivenknight spoke about how much it probably would be.

"it would probably be 5k gold coins, so maybe 1.3K?"

Holy shit, that would be around, I took a moment to try and count the money I could earn.

"23 400 000 won?! (around 21 062$)"

I could pay half the hospital debt for my mother, I still had to pay the debt my dad left us with, but this was a good start! I don't think I could hide the grin I had on my face. Then Empress just hit my back once again, to go ahead to the caves where we'd find the quest.

The location wasn't that far from the city, well that's what I was told. It did feel like it wasn't far, but that was only because we used teleportation rather than carriages, which by the way, is much more expensive, I could have had my whole week's grocery from the money we spent for all of us to go in it.

It was in the borders mountains, rocky mountains that bare no green life, but looked magnificent no matter what, and you could see the city walls from a distance.

"Don't just stand there, let's go. What's annoying is that a different guild claimed this area, but luckily they don't want much other than a small fee to enter."

I looked up at the taller woman slightly confused.

"is that allowed? Wouldn't it usually be Npc's?"

I asked before looking ahead of me, seeing a few other parties waiting for entrance. One particular group caught my eye, as one of the members, a woman with a spear looked as if she was glitching, but maybe they were just my eyes, or its a habit of her's to have twitchy neck movement and hand movement.

"Usually yeah, but this is L.O, a place where anything can happen, It's hard to believe this was made by code you know."

They stopped to the side, while Lisa went ahead to the cave's entrance, getting a wooden template with a number that indicates when it was their turn, and now it was just time to wait.

"LHyuk, are you one of the tenants at Empress's boarding house?"

One of the party members spoke and I nodded to show that I was living with Lisa.

"OH, guess you were the new kid, Me and Eternalgreen are also tenants, we just don't go outside much."

Inkcorpse spoke as I just smiled, I didn't really know what to say other than,

"cool!"

I always thought I was good at conversations, but I guess it doesn't count if the most conversation you had was with customers asking for help. Anyways, soon it was our party's time to go inside, there was a total of 4 party's in the caves now, and the party I saw earlier went in ahead of us.

At first it was just plain dark, and I was about to ask if we had torches before Empress Kim handed me a potion and told me to drink. I followed as I was told and so did everyone else, and suddenly I could see outlines of everything, not technically seeing what it was, but when I looked around, I could see the outlines of the party members, same with another party nearby, and what looked like a large dog that was deeper within the cave.

"Why did we use potions?"

I asked like the newbie that I am, and the party leader looked back at me before speaking.

"Monsters that live in this cave live in the dark, so if there's a bright light, they'd be attracted to us and that'll cause some trouble. The only moment the light is a good thing is when you want to blind the monsters, but you get blinded as well since our eye's are adjusting to the darkness."

I nodded in understanding, looking back at the others and seeing their face in the darkness, they had a smug face, basically saying 'our leader is so amazing.' which wasn't even a question since she really was really cool.

"Our main objective is to just get the ores, me and Tukita (Tukitakoyaki) will be on guard while you four will mine the ores, when you see spikey looking outlines they're most likely ores."

Lisa spoke once more and everyone was ready to go, this was pretty exciting but also scary for me, it was my first quest that seemed really dangerous, but this was a new experience, everything about The Land of Oasis was a new experience! Ahem... anyways time to get serious.

Along the way, there were many types of beasts that came out, Lightning bats would occasionally pop out of nowhere, but the two guards were fast to kill them. While we walked, we would mine the ores while Empress and Tukita would guard and defeat any monsters that came by.

We were getting deeper into the caves as the place was beginning to get colder, but things were beginning to get brighter too.

"What is that?"

I whispered as my eyes began to adjust to the sudden lights in the cave.

"Were pretty deep now considering we found glowing mushrooms and the glowing snails."

one of the members spoke. My eyes finally adjusting to the light. I was amazed by the view, the cave was large, the walls covered with blue lights that looked like they were stars, blue glowing mushrooms, some even red, and even some of the small creatures were glowing.

"Don't touch the mushrooms, they're poisonous, just touching them is enough to make your character drop to 25 healths, even for us who's in the 100 levels."

Was what Rivenlight said so my hand instantly drew back to my side, they were pretty, but I couldn't touch them.

"Makes sense why the smaller creatures glow the same, protection."

I spoke to myself, acting all proud and smart that I figured something that was pretty easy to understand.

"Let's continue so we can leave soon, it's getting late and I have work."

Lisa spoke and I remembered I did too, so we went ahead, finding shining blue ores that we then mined and continued on. Things were going smoothly until suddenly we heard shouting nearby.

"Lisa, it sounds like another team is having a hard time."

I said as I walked over to her, slightly concerned but at the same time, I also didn't want to get myself into trouble for wanting to help, but it seems the party had different ideas in mind.

"They probably are having trouble with a Head Eater, lets go."

Lisa replied to me before pulling me along, the others following without hesitation.

"head Eater?! I don't want to go near that thing!"

Did she forget I'm only like level 12?! I just came along for the money and the experience, but am I going to die here and lose half of my level?!

"Don't worry, we got you."

She spoke as we ran over to the shouting. I could always use the lightning skill I borrowed, but it's a large scale skill, it might hurt everyone else including me-

In a turn in the caves, it was the group that I noticed earlier. there was four of them, two were low in health, and the other two were fighting off the.. What the hell is that?!

"Is that a Head Eater?! That spider is basically the same size as a front of a truck!"

I shouted in surprise as I saw the girl with the spear, as she was fighting, her character seemed to be messing up her skills and missing a lot, but maybe that was normal?

"Don't worry about it! Help the injured."

I looked over at Eternalgreen, our healer as we both nodded and I went ahead and helped her help one of the players.

"Agh,, thank you, we went too deep into the caves for our own good."

One of the other party's member spoke as we helped them. I looked behind me and the other four were helping fight of the huge spider. It looked like it was it's base too, there was so many webs around the walls. The spider was strong as well, with a red colour, it's legs were even as sharp as swords too.

While the knight, Tukita, would block the attacks, Lisa would attack it's legs with her Large sword since she was a berserker. Inkcorpse wold use his assassin skills ad attack from the back while Riven would do buffs and distant magic from behind, With the help of the other two players that we came to help, the Head Eater was fast to be killed.

"thank you, we were too distracted and just kept going forward."

The leader of the other party, Demisword, spoke to us and thanked us.

"don't worry about it, we're heading out now as well, better to go before another spawn in."

Lisa, being her cool self, took lead to getting us out and everyone was going back up to the surface. I was in the middle while the other party was behind us. I looked back to check on the other team and the moment I turned around, the woman with the spear stabbed the leader of the party with her weapon.

For a moment, she had an empty face and the place was silent, before everyone moved away when the body hit the floor, and the leader's body faded away. The moment they died they would have to take five hours off the game as well.

"PK?! (Player Killer)"

I shouted as I moved away from the woman. Lisa and Takuta went in to protection mode.

"She's not a PK! She's been with us since level 1, I don't know what's happening!"

The other party's member spoke as the girl that killed her teammate looked at us with fear. Yet she pointed her spear at us, but she also looked as if she was trying to move it.

"h-Help me! I don't know what's going on!"

To be continued...