Cave or Dungeon

The pain from my fall two days ago still affects my mind.

After entering this dark passage, I stepped on a trap. Hmm, it's not really a trap. I think it's just a piece of soft rock that's worn away over the years. By the time I realised I was in free fall it was too late, I was rolling dizzily as I fell into the pit, my limbs severed, bones scattered from my body.

When I opened my eyes, there was a beautiful turquoise in front of me. There were vines everywhere, small insects like fireflies flitting about, and in the distance huge mushrooms and large flowers full of colour. I also smelled a familiar smell of coffee from a fruit that looked like a cocoa fruit but had a purple skin.

I sat up, oblivious to my imperfect body. My mouth fell open at the sight of the juicy red fruit in front of me. I wanted to pick it up and eat it immediately, after all I had been starving for two days in a row.

"Hey, get out of my beloved bone!" I shouted as I saw a black beetle approaching my arm bone, my mouth still chewing.

It didn't seem to care. It gnawed on the bone and flew upwards, sending winds that blew dust into my eyes.

"No, no. Give it back to me." I panicked, madly picking up the rest of the bone and trying to run after it, not realising that I had gone too deep into the centre of the place.

I don't know how long I ran myself, but I kept running, running until I almost slipped into an underground trench that cut through two parts of the cave. It was as clear blue as seawater, and the stillness of the water made me feel safe. But not so that I am subjective, I tried to throw a small stone and watched the result with curiosity.

I took a deep breath to calm myself. I realised that this was no ordinary stream. It was flowing so fast that I couldn't see its movement. Then, to my horror, I saw a huge whirlpool violently engulfing all matter in the distance, where close to what seemed to be upstream. The steam from this point was constantly swirling around, creating a hazy layer of mist.

Putting that aside, my arm bone. It is my irreplaceable object. I looked carefully in all directions and saw the beetle, half my size, playing with it. The beetle's eyes stared at me, as if challenging me.

"Obnoxious bug!" I said angrily, looking around for something that could help me cross this dangerous trench safely.

Yes, a long vine just appeared in front of my eyes, my idea was to use it to swing a circle to the other side.

The reason I am so calm is because I had experience of this game when I was in the old world. All I have to do is gently gain momentum, let myself go, and if anything goes wrong, call for help from the protective suits. But that's the theory, and in reality I don't know if I can do it myself. It was then that I realised I didn't have a protective belt. I blanched, shaking like a leaf, my hand gripping the rope.

I wouldn't be stupid enough to put myself in danger, but... There was no other way to get to the other side but this way. I must do this for my own body.

My head was spinning, I would stick to the formula I had just come up with, screaming loudly and closing my eyes tightly. I hope it works.

"Ready." I shouted energetically.

"Snap"

"Ah. It's dangerous!"

"May the gods protect me!" I muttered, my trumpet teeth grinding together.

"Snap"

"Snap"

"rustling sound"

The sound of earth and rock falling into the water startled the beetle. It turned to look at the man swinging on the vines with expressionless black eyes.

I opened my eyes to see that my feet almost reached the rocky ground on the other side. I was about to release my hand to take advantage of the force of inertia, but something unexpected happened that stunned me.

I looked up and saw that the beetle was gone. As I struggled to find it, from out of the darkness came a very strong whirring of wings. An aggressive creature lunged forward and kicked me hard in the back. It kept repeating this until it was sure that I or the rope would break and fall into the water.

I couldn't keep up with its attacks, I couldn't identify what it was. I was like a toy ball for this creature to play. I screamed in fear and panic, my body swinging back and forth like a clock pendulum.

Finally I couldn't hold on any longer. I let go of the rope and looked at that creature.

"It's you, fucking black beetle." I shouted angrily. My hand waved my fist in the air and struck it with hatred. As despises me, It returned the arm bone as an alms offering and watched me drown in the rushing water.

The image of the black beetle slowly faded as I struggled relentlessly to the surface. "Help, help me. I can't swim..." I was so breathless, it felt like my lungs were swollen and ready to explode from the water. After that I couldn't feel anything, everything was so fuzzy.

I wondered if death would happen to me again. Will I die again in such a meaningless and boring way?

"gurgling"

"gurgling"

I was swept away by the current and swallowed by the giant whirlpool.

My vision was obscured by white mist and my mind was torn into hundreds of pieces. I was stunned as my head collided hard with an underground rock at the bottom. I shivered unceasingly as I saw pieces of my bones squeaking, others crushed and swept away by that terrible water.

As my eyes caught sight of my own head, a black curtain appeared out of nowhere and enveloped me.

◇

"Where is this, ....."

"Creek"

"Squeal.. squeal"

"What sound is that?" I whispered.

"Creek"

I dreamily opened my eyes, my whole body stiff and slimy.

I felt terribly tired before I realised I was lying in a large white hammock, with many boneless animal carcasses beneath me.

I tried to push hard with my hands to get out, but I couldn't. These nets are so sticky they remind me of insect traps. I looked around, turned to my right and saw a blue caterpillar trying to wriggle around in a cocoon covered in sticky silk, only its head showing.

The sound grew louder and louder, making me shudder.

"One, two, three... "A multi-eyed creature stared at me from the darkness. It appeared with eight long legs and occasionally made annoying noises. Its eyes were dark red and its mouth was always in the process of devouring something.

Thanks to the faint rays of light coming from above, I dimly realised it was a giant black spider. Its belly was printed with milky white, bulging skulls. The head was partially missing, turned inwards to reveal the nerves that surrounded the beating heart.

It emerged from the ground, its head spinning in a circle of horror. It used its sharp legs to impale its poor prey with ease. The caterpillar's mournful cry haunted me, it seemed to imply that I would be the spider's next victim. The caterpillar weakened and finally stopped protesting after the spider injected the green liquid directly into its head. The spider yanked the caterpillar's head out violently with its powerful jaws, sucked some of the liquid from the caterpillar's body and vomited a red envelope full of tiny round balls inside.

"Creek"

The spider turned to look at me, the caterpillar's head crunching in its mouth. The long legs were about to pounce on me.

Its drool flowed incessantly, it was still hungry.

I panicked, the fire in my chest growing hotter and hotter.

"Rumble"

"squeal..."

For unknown reasons, I fell to the ground, buried in a pile of dry bones.

"Sizzle" The green, caustic liquid trickled down. As it touched my body, a terrible sense of pain tormented my mind. I struggled to get to my feet and searched for a way out.

"Creek"

"clack..."

"No, there's no way..." My arm hit something very hard and sharp at the top.

This spider had chewed through piles of bones looking for me. It looked at me longingly, two long watery jaws melting my body. It grasped my body with four large, powerful middle legs, the front two pinned to my neck. I screamed in pain, my vision shrouded in darkness.

This spider was about to chew my head off with its sharp jaws.

Survival instinct kicked in, I gritted my teeth to bear the pain, pulling out a piece of my corroded femur. I stabbed it hard in the neck with the tip. The spider howled in pain, let go of me and rolled over, its legs scratching hard against the rock face, making deafening noises.

My anger flared, I continued to hold the bone in front of me, thrusting with all my strength into the exposed part of its head. A foul black liquid dripped out, and chunks of rotting flesh splashed up and down. The spider panicked and protested violently, trying to push me away with its large legs, releasing a terrible corrosive venom to finish me off, but in vain.

The night enveloped this stinking space with the desperate howling of the spider.

After a while I stopped, and so did the spider's deafening scream. Its heart had stopped beating, its legs had stopped moving at my wrath.

I don't feel guilty as I stand in front of its damaged body. At that moment I felt a strange euphoria, the like of which I had never felt before. I looked at the spider, my mind remembering the suffering I had endured, and laughed to myself.

I sat up, my body now fully recovered, the bone that had been corroded by the deformity replaced.

"Sizzle" From where I had just stabbed the spider, the corrosive liquid had seeped out, leaving only a crushed heart-shaped wrapper that had melted into a puddle of slime, revealing a black gem inside.

I cautiously reached for the jewel and stood up, assuming it was a cheap compensation the spider had to pay for daring to insult me. I don't know when I became so cold and cruel.

The murmur of running water came from the waterfall above, I must have fallen from there and luckily escaped thanks to this huge spider's web.

I happened to see a very narrow crevice in front of me and decided to go into it. Why, because I was surrounded by rocks that had broken off when the spider rolled and filled all the passable paths.

I leaned hard through the crevice and thought about the wonderful possibilities of this new body. I have incredible resilience, I can fast for days and above all I am endowed with great physical strength.

It made me laugh out loud, but the image of a laughing skeleton wasn't quite right. I'd tried to imitate some human expressions beforehand, but with that boneless face, it's too silly.

"New abilities unlocked!" A sound rang through my head.

"Huh. What's wrong?" Curious, I opened my status panel and pressed on the notification line in the centre of the screen.

"My skill points have been increased by 5 and my evolution points by 1." I whispered, fiddling with my hand to wildly press on the strange characters at the bottom.

"'/.@;;;' has been increased by 1 evolution point by you. Prepare to perform a skill upgrade."

"Huh. Skill upgrades?"

"Did I press something by mistake?" I scratched my head, staring in confusion at the row of numbers slowly drifting towards zero.

"The upgrade will happen after 5s!"

"5"

"4"

"Wait, wait a minute..."

...

"1"

The status board suddenly flashed as I finished. It stunned me slightly and I fell to the ground.

A white halo appeared around me, which gradually dissipated as I calmed down. After sitting there for a while, I noticed the sparkling blue flashes that appeared around the newly upgraded skill. This beauty piqued my infinite curiosity and motivated me to press on it.

"Hello Master!"

Another voice rang in my head!

This voice was a far cry from the one that woke me up in this world. It was a fairly clear, polite voice, and most importantly, it wasn't as hasty as the other one.

"Who are you?"

"I am the core of your newly developed abilities. Since I have no name, you can call me anything."

"Ability ? Let me ask..."

"Your abilities have evolved into the Great Sage."

"And I, as I said, consider myself to be the embodiment of a talking encyclopaedia, used to store information compiled from Appraisal."

"My main task here is to help you and provide you with knowledge about this world, Master."

I was completely surprised to hear the answer from it. It reminds me of the new technology that is rapidly emerging in my old world, AI. The more I think about it, the more it looks like the others, they can communicate effectively, fluently and carry out human requests with ease.

"I assume you're looking for basic information about your abilities, Master?"

"How do you know that? Can you read my mind?"

"I can't read your mind."

"Huh. Clearly readable. You're working inside my head."

"Pip..pip" - A little noise echoed.

"...." For a moment the space was mysteriously silent as no sound came out.

It seemed that the voice had stopped for a moment to think about something I was unaware of. I just waited, waited until he had finished thinking about his work and came back with a slightly faster and also slightly deeper voice.

"Do you want to start now ?"

"Alright. Let's start!" I urged the voice.

"Please wait a moment. I'm going to do a little manipulation and get you all the information about your abilities."

_

Skill:

Appraisal: Shows basic information about the currently selected target.

Super Heal: Automatically heals damage taken over a period of time. Any wound can be healed unless the Spiritual Fire is destroyed.

....

"Oh, what is Spiritual Fire?"

"Sir, it's the core of your magic - the fire in your chest."

"Turns out that's what it's called." I looked into my chest and whispered.

"You should be quiet for a moment, if you have any questions please bring them up when we're done."

"Hm, what a nasty guy!"

....

Self-improvement: Transform yourself and optimise your body according to the environment.

Hide: The ability to hide your race and identity.

Spiritual Power: Manipulating objects around you with magical power.

Telepathy: Use magic to communicate ideas to each other through thought, regardless of language.

Leader of the Undead: Summon and control an army of undead with magic. Can be used to make a treaty with another undead species.

_

"Oh my..."

"I have a lot of skills too!"

"Yes, I've explained the basics, do you have any questions?"

"Not yet, ..." I excited.

In my ecstasy I forgot an important question. But as soon as I remembered, the Great Sage immediately answered the question.

"Master, it's understandable that you don't understand them. It took decades for the magic researchers of this era to fully translate some of these characters."The Great Sage comforted me even though I hadn't questioned him yet. This made me even more suspicious that he was trying to enter my mind.

"Ancient oral traditions claim that these are characters created by the supreme gods since the age of the gods. These characters are considered to be the first seeds of this world. Diablos, the god of darkness, is not happy about using them to create life. He gathered 12 of his trusted followers to prevent this, but was defeated in a hand-to-hand fight with Queen Sylphy of the Holy Kingdom, the name of the first nation bestowed upon this characters".

"These divine characters were later developed and expanded into types of magic from basic to advanced levels."

"I see. These characters are the seed of life and this world really has gods." I muttered.

"I have one more thing.The outfit, even if it is a bit old, looks very good on a lich like you"."

"A Cape?" I clutched the black cloth that had just appeared in my palm. I was overjoyed and grateful for the unexpected gift it had given me.

For a moment, my body trembled and I felt as if tears had been shed. I've never received such a gift from anyone, even on my birthday. I had a feeling that the Great Sage would become a very close friend of mine when we accompanied together in the future.

I happily put on my robe and ran off to find a puddle. I'm 'showing off' and can't wait to see how dashing I am.

◇

A new outfit, all the basic information about my own state. Now it's time for my original goal: to explore this cave.

I asked him for information about the place, but he didn't tell me anything and left. Before he left, he told me that he only works for about thirty minutes a day. I will have to evolve into a higher species to use it longer. That's his drawback.

I took back my last emotional remark about the Great Sage.

"Huh, the Great Sage is lazy."

I whispered, still moving forward.

The deeper I went, the more difficult it became to explain the surrounding phenomena with the laws of physics I had learnt. The scene here is now truly majestic, large rocks piled up like hills, pieces of blue crystal floating above a hazy layer of white smoke, occasionally flashed by a tiny yellow creature.

I've been walking for a long time now, I wonder if this cave has an end.

"Hissed" The sound of metal rubbing against the rock face, creating a long straight line and small sparks.

Not just the sound of metal, but many other noises rushed to break the silence. The most obvious was someone grumbling about this 'vandalism'. I was startled, huddled in a recess on the side of the wall, looking out slightly.

"Is this a normal person in this world?"

Not really, they look more like warriors. No, I must call them adventurers.

The group consisted of five members, the blonde in the lead holding torches and two of the other four holding swords. The rusty swords and an old but thick magic book looked so dangerous that I probably wouldn't survive if they tried to attack me.

They are coming here!

I suddenly felt so insecure. Maybe I had made a mistake by trying to explore this cave in the form of a monster. I was confused, my body trembled and I just wanted to find a hole to disappear into.

"Yumi, you stand behind me. This dark place is no longer safe enough for you to lead the way."

The rather young man stopped. He motioned for the group to slow down while he raised his sword. Perhaps he had spotted something and was on high alert.

The footsteps grew louder and louder and I held my breath, holding my head in fear. I'm waiting for something I don't want to happen to me.

"clump..clump" The sound of the footsteps gradually faded and finally disappeared.

"Phew," I carefully stuck my head out, straining my eyes to make sure they were gone.

Nothing happened, they walked past me and didn't notice my presence. I suddenly realised how lucky I was and breathed a sigh of relief, my whole body relaxing.

A light touch made me involuntarily turn my back. Out of nowhere, the blonde's face appeared, causing me to panic and fall to the ground.

I looked up and saw the angry faces of the other four. The young man with the sword unable to stand it anymore and swung his sword at me, shouting at the same time.

"Wait, wait, ..." I raised my left arm hopelessly to block the blow.

"Stop, Himmel." The blonde stood in front of me, her arms outstretched.

"Can't you stop the random suspicion?" The girl said, sobbing.

"Yumi, maybe he's a subordinate of 'that one', why don't you understand for me." the young man said loudly, red veins popping up all over his face.

"It was so hard for us to get out of that hell, now you want us to get caught again?"

"Himmel, calm down!" The voice came from an athletic man with a solid body. Most noticeable was a large scar on his biceps, darkened by overexertion. He carried a very large and heavy sword on his back.

The rest ran over and snatched the sword from the other man's hand. He fell to his knees, hands in front of his face like a child. The blonde let go of the torch and comforted him, trying to defuse the situation.

The girl with the thick book in her hand came to my side. She looked at me coldly before reciting something magical to try and get the dark liquid into my body.

"Hm." The girl turned away, folded the book and said to everyone, especially Himmel.

"Himmel, he's just a victim like us, I don't see the impurity coming from the amount of magic in him."

"What... What?" Himmel didn't believe his eyes, he looked at me with guilty eyes.

"Stupid Himmel.." The dwarf approached me and lifted me up.

"We sincerely apologise to you. I hope you will forgive Himmel for his rash actions. He must have been too excited."

"I'm fine..." I regained my composure with a deep breath, only then did I realise that they knew nothing of my Lich identity.

"Probably because of [Hide]?"

Well, that story aside, why does the other guy look so agitated? Why was he attacking people randomly? - A lot of questions pop into my head.

If I hadn't been lucky, I'd be a pile of broken bones in a corner right now.

I looked around for a moment before stopping at the blonde and the young man. He seemed rather apologetic as he took the initiative to apologise to me with an open bow.

While I was still confused, a soft hand gripped my bony hand.

"What's your name?" the mage girl asked in an interrogative tone.

"I... I"

"Le...Leon!" I stammered.

…

◇