*Cough cough*

Darkness.

It was the only thing Aleen could see when he opened his eyes.

Aleen coughed briefly while trying to differentiate his surroundings. The sound of rocks falling and people moaning could be heard in the background. If he didn't know that he was inside the game, he would have thought that this place was hell.

Though, in a sense, it really was hell.

“Ugh.” Aleen used his hands to grab a rock wall beside him and stand up. He then noticed that one of his legs was slightly injured. Fortunately, it just was slightly strained due to the fall, so it would get better after circulating his mana for a while.

Aleen could not help but marvel seeing the toughness of his current body.

At that moment, Aleen heard a voice coming from behind him.

“H-Hel… Help…”

The voice was very weak and listless. Aleen first thought that he was imagining it, but then he heard the voice again.

Turning around, Aleen searched for the origin of the sound, but he was unable to see anything due to the darkness.

Aleen directed a bit of his mana towards his eyes. It was a trick he learned from ‘The Basics of Mana’; and according to the book, it could help him to see better in the darkness.

In a few seconds, his sight gradually adjusted to the darkness, and he was able to see a bit. But because the place was too dark, the enhancement on his sight only allowed him to see slightly less than five meters ahead.

Frowning briefly, Aleen searched again for the origin of the voice, and this time he found it.

Around him, bodies of humans, wolfkins, and kinals laid bent in unnatural forms.

And near him, a wolfkin was gasping for breath while a gigantic and heavy-looking rock crushed the lower part of his body.

“H-Help… Help…” Aleen heard the wolfkin moaning softly in pain again.

Aleen made an astonished expression seeing it, but he quickly recovered and ran to the wolfkin to try to lift the rock.

“Uppppp!” Aleen shouted and tried to lift the rock while strengthening his body with mana, but the rock was too heavy for him to lift. Putting a serious expression, he spoke to the wolfkin while looking to the surroundings for something useful to rescue him.

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“Don’t worry, I will find a method to help you.” Aleen comforted him softly and the wolfkin nodded with a weak look.

Aleen searched around for something to help him to lift the rock, but after a few seconds, he noticed that he could not hear the wolfkin's breathing anymore. Turning around, he found that the wolfkin was already dead.

Aleen made a sour expression and looked away from the scene. It was not the first time he saw someone die and he was already becoming used to it, but it still was something unpleasant.

Shaking his head, he began to search between the corpses for more survivors, but he was unable to find any. Aleen, however, sighed relieved when he did not see the bodies of Ana or the elf between the dead.

A few minutes later, Aleen found his sword while looking for survivors. It was being crushed by a big rock, though smaller than the one that crushed the wolfkin. Aleen used his strengthened body to lift the rock and take it back, but it damaged badly due to the fall.

His sword already had been bent slightly when he defended against the attack of the level four, but its current state was just a step away of becoming unusable. Aleen smiled wryly thinking that he had to buy a new sword later.

‘So unfortunate… this sword only lasted a game…’

Thinking about how expensive was to buy another sword, Aleen could not help but become slightly depressed.

Getting these thoughts out of his mind, Aleen continued his search.

A bit later, he noticed a light coming from the path ahead of him.

Hurrying his steps, Aleen walked towards the light. When he was a few meters away from it, he heard someone asking something.

“Human, is it you?”

Aleen sighed in relief hearing that voice. It was the elf that came with Caira, Elvila.

“It’s me.” He shouted and ran towards her. When he finally reached to the origin of the light, he noticed that Elvila was accompanied by Ana.

The source of light was a small metallic ball floating above Elvila. Aleen was curious about it, but he temporally got rid of his curiosity and observed the pair.

“Are you fine?” Ana came close to him quickly and asked with a worried expression. Aleen simply smiled and shook his head. “I’m fine, don’t worry.”

Immediately, Aleen noticed something unnatural about Ana.

Her left arm was hanging down uselessly.

“What happened?” He asked with a frown.

“The girl was lucky.” Elvila said wryly while she shook her head. “The rock only hit her arm. Otherwise, she could have died.”

Aleen made a grave expression when he heard it and looked towards Ana worriedly. “Are you fine?”

“It’s a bit painful, but I can endure it.” Ana smiled slightly before Aleen’s concern and shook her head. “At least I’m alive.”

Aleen frowned deeply but at the end, left a tired sigh.

“Anyone else survived?”

“I doubt it.” Elvila said with a sad tone. “We only survived thanks to our enhanced bodies granted by the levels up. The others, however, were just level one. I doubt their bodies can endure such fall.”

“… I see.” Aleen sighed again.

He directed his sight towards the roof of the cave and asked in a worried tone.

“Do you know what happened?”

The elf thought for a moment before answering. “The queen probably used a powerful skill that destroyed the ground. Because of it, the surface caved down and we fell to the tunnels below.”

“In other words, it’s like I thought.”

“You are right.” Elvila nodded with a grave expression. “We are currently inside the brooders’ nest.”