Orb

Creak. Creak. Creak.

In a dimly lit hut, a candle flickered from time to time, causing the drawn out shadows on the walls to shift.

A little girl with a red hood silently sat on a wooden, rocking chair. The darkness partially obscured her face, only revealing her tiny frown. She impatiently rocked the chair back and forth while her legs swung back and forth.

"Hmm ... it's been almost a day, why is that rat still not here yet? There's no way that the rat can get lost. After all, the rules will automatically lead him over ... ne, grandma, did you secretly do something? Little Red will be very mad if you did."

The little girl's unhappy voice echoed in the room. It seemed that she was talking to someone, but there was no response.

Hearing no response for a while, the girl suddenly had a manic episode as she swiftly floated off the chair and hovered over the bed next to the rocking chair.

"You did something didn't you! Little Red know you did! You did something, grandma! Answer me!"

The breeze from her movement caused the candle to flicker further, which happened to cast a faint light that shone on the bed.

Covered in an old, patchwork quilt and resting quietly on the bed was a skeleton with sparse gray hair that was wrapped into a bun.

The little girl hovered above this skeleton and she glared at it with her menacing, red eyes. It wasn't until minutes later that the red glow on her eyes gradually disappeared. and a smile appeared on her face once more.

"Hehehe~ Little Red knew that there was nothing wrong. How could it be grandma? After all, poor grandma had already starved to death because Little Red forgot to visit grandma for too long~ hehehe."

The little girl's happy, sing-song voice echoed in the room in chilling contrast to the skeleton laying on the bed.

The little girl gently floated back over to the rocking chair and plopped herself back down onto it. She then began to impatiently rock back and forth once more.

"Now where could the little mice be? Oh, where could it be hiding? Could it be in here? In this room? Under the bed? Outside the window? Hehehe, little mice, Little Red know you are there. Come out and play with Little Red~"

As if responding to her call, the wooden door to the small hut trembled slightly as if something knocked on it.

"Finally here? Hehehe~" the little girl stared at the door in interest.

Alas, the door was still closed minutes later. The little girl's smile of anticipation turned into a frown.

"Was Little Red mistaken? Little Red clearly felt it shake ..."

Tremble. Tremble. Tremble.

Little Red's head lifted up as she began to hover in the air. She frowned a bit as she swept her eyes across the walls of the hut. Was she mistaken? Why did she see the walls tremble?

Suddenly, Little Red's eyes widened in shock.

Rumble. Rumble. Rumble.

The entire hut began to tremble crazily as if there was an earthquake! The candle toppled over and was snuffed out as if fell to the ground. In the darkness, a pair of red eyes glowed in anger.

"Who is it?! Quit hiding little rat! Come out if you dare! Little Red will turn you into minced-"

BOOM!

The ground suddenly collapsed! The entire hunt sunk into the ground as the walls caved in. A cloud of dust wafted into the air and completely obscured the only hut within the forest.

"AHHH! How dare you!"

A horrid girl's shriek spread through the forest as Little Red floated out of the cloud of dust unharmed.

As the cloud of dust gradually dispersed, what was revealed was a completely collapsed hut. The rocking chair was now a pile of wooden debris and the skeleton on the bed was buried who knows how many feet under.

Looking at the rough, but clearly man-made digging traces around the sunken part of the ground, Little Red shrieked in anger.

"Little Red will find you! Little Red will dig you out rat and tear you into pieces to feed the dog!"

Waves of red mist converged towards Little Red as she waved her tiny fists wrapped in red mist as she charged towards the ground in anger.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Pot holes appeared all over as the little girl struck all over the ground with every wave of the little girl's hands. Her menacing face slowly turned into a wide, splitting grin as her eyes began dark, red swirls.

Suddenly, the little girl's fist deeply sunk into the ground as if she missed her mark. However, the little girl wasn't disappointed over her miss. She was excited!

The dirt cover over a hole collapsed to reveal a tunnel leading deep underground. Traces of blood leaked out of the little girl's mouth as she opened them wide in excitement.

"I. Found. You."

Whoosh! The little girl dived into the tunnel, expecting to discover the rat soon. However, she soon came to a sudden halt as she blankly stared forward.

In front of her, there was a split in the tunnel. It wasn't just one split, but as many as five!

Each went in a different direction, and it was unknown if they would lead to dead ends! On the wall of the tunnel, a big bold text was carved, as if it was afraid that the intruder couldn't see it.

"Bet you can't find me."

After a moment of daze, the little girl clenched her fists as she zipped off down one of the tunnels. It didn't take long before she reached another intersection. Another text lined the wall.

"Wrong way silly!"

The little girl ground her teeth, but didn't believe it. So, she dashed down one of the intersections ...

Ten minutes later, she returned to the first intersection ... or maybe it was just an intersection similar to the first. Her tiny body trembled with anger. After reading the big giant font that seemed to be mocking her, she then zipped down another tunnel ...

"AHHHHH! Rat! Where are you?! Quit hiding and fight me like a man!"

The angry shriek of a lost girl echoed in the tunnels, but got no response.

Meanwhile, an average-looking young man was digging through the debris of the hut. Hearing the shriek, he glanced at the nearby hole with schadenfreude.

Poor girl, she didn't even know that tunnel was purely a trap.

He came out of another hole nearby, and he had dug multiple traps like this all over. Even he himself couldn't remember all the routes clearly, let alone an outsider trying to find her way.

Still, all routes will eventually lead to an exit as all the tunnels are interconnected. This was to facilitate Pro's escape just in case the little girl was lucky enough to pick the tunnel he happened to be hiding in.

Returning his attention back to digging, Pro cleared off some debris for a while. Suddenly, Pro shuddered as he grasped onto a bony, hard thing. Pulling his hand up, Pro's face stiffened as he saw that he fished up a skeletal hand.

Pro's hand was lowered as he stuffed the skeletal hand back under the debris.

"Ahem ... err, sorry, didn't mean to disturb you ... please rest in peace and don't mind me."

Shifting in another direction, Pro continued to dig through the debris until he finally discovered his true target. It was a wooden basket that still looked perfectly fine even after the hut collapsed over it.

"Here it is. I've always wondered what was inside. It seemed to be important seeing how the little girl brought it around. At the same time, it isn't important enough to be carried full-time? Perhaps it was a quest item of some sort?"

Picking up the basket, Pro examined it for a bit and found nothing special externally. He then flipped open the lid and peeked inside.

A glowing red light flowed out from the interior of the basket once the lid was open. It was unknown how this red light didn't seep out through the gaps in the woven parts of the wooden basket, but Pro didn't think of this issue for now.

Instead, what caught his focus was a glowing red orb inside the basket. Feeling that his danger sense didn't warn him, Pro reached out his hand to take the orb.

It was a solid crystal orb. A closer observation revealed that there was red mist swirling inside and it was these red mist that released the faint red glow. A glowing red, runic symbol also flashed by from time to time within the orb. It was an orb that was seemingly filled with mysteries.

"What is this? Could this be the dungeon core? It can't be right? There's no way a dungeon core would just lay around here and easily land in my hands ..."

Pro wasn't too sure what it was. It was just pure speculation that it was a dungeon core as he had no information, but based on novels he had read, this was the most likely guess. Still, he wasn't too sure what to do with it.

Aiming at the ground, Pro threw the orb as hard as he could.

Thud. The orb collided with the ground and rolled forward a small distance. Besides the sound effect, there was seemingly no other effects. The orb was still undamaged and even its condition was squeaky clean, as if the dirt couldn't stick to it.

"Well, I was hoping for too much ... there was no way a simple throw like that can solve everything."

Picking up the orb, attempted to store the orb into his space pocket. As expected, it didn't work.

Next, Pro then tried to corrode it with his corrosion spell. As expected, there was no effect. Instead, it seemed the orb absorbed the negative energy supporting his spell, causing the spell to dissipate.

Pro increased the output of negative energy constantly, but even after using a half of his current negative energy, he couldn't make a single crack on the orb. So, he stopped to save some energy for emergencies.

"Well, can't expect it to be that easy to destroy this important quest item. If this was truly the dungeon core, it definitely won't be too fragile."

Putting the basket back in place, Pro then hurried back to the tunnel. After stealing a treasure from the boss, of course you should go back into hiding!

Moments later, Pro came to a halt. A sudden whim caused him to turn back.

Heading back over to the pile of debris, Pro picked up the basket. This certainly wasn't a normal basket. So, it must be a treasure! A poor bloke like Pro can't just leave it laying here.

"I would be disrespecting all the money grubber seniors in the light novel universe if I don't pick up a free treasure laying on the ground!"

With a thought, Pro attempted to put it into his space pocket. He felt some of his negative energy being drained as a spatial force wrapped around the basket.

In the next moment, the basket vanished from Pro's hands. Pro's eyes lit up with excitement as he saw the basket appear inside his pocket space. It worked!

However, Pro didn't have time to enjoy the results of his 'bright' idea. As if discovering that her basket was gone, a crazy girl's shriek boomed from the tunnels, "HOW DARE YOU STEAL MY BASKET!"

Rumble. Rumble. Rumble.

Pro could feel the ground tremble as if something was digging its way upwards! Pro's face paled. Oh lord. He poked the hornet's nest! Who knew there would be a trigger on the basket?!

Hugging the orb, Pro swiftly dashed off towards the tunnel entrance he dug! Time to run! But will he escape?