To put it into simple terms, I would have been much much better off without the beasts following behind.

Did they do their job? No. Why? Because they had absolutely no clue as to what they were doing and simply refused to listen to any directions provided to them. Thankfully we encountered no more monsters, otherwise they probably would have just watched on in their little stupid circles waiting for me to die. Not only were they completely useless, they were slowing down the foraging process ten fold.

Not because they made locating the herbs and plants difficult, no. It was because they seemed to have no strict diet, and anytime I picked up a plant, one of them would jump forward and chew it up. As if me holding the plant up was some kind of command to jump and eat. Which if it were, it was more than stupid that, that was the only command or directive from me that they understood. I hate these beasts. I would say I hate them more than anything, but there are far worse things in my life.

But they are definitely in the top ten. For right now atleast. Though the process took much longer than it should have, on account of the beasts and because the list only gave brief descriptions of what each plant looks like, resulting in me picking up several wrong ones, I was finally nearing the end of the list. As the sun rose, only one item was left to be ticked off.

But of course, my troubles weren’t over, in fact they worsened. Because why not? I truly needed to take a few weeks off of doing anything, just to reset whatever cosmic imbalance I’d set off to result in me being screwed over at every single turn. The final plant, a bluemoon florous, which was accompanied by the description of ‘it’s blue, big and smells’, had no general location or directions listed. So now a long game of ‘where’s the stupid plant’ was set in motion.

By the time the sun had reached its peak in the sky, I was no closer to finding the plant. I’d already checked several different mini-biomes and environments, some I even checked multiple times just to be sure, even encountering some very strange looking insects, but that only led to a short few stomps. At a certain point, defeat had already made itself comfortable inside my head, as it seemed near impossible to find the plant.

‘Why not ask the brat?’ Hadeon questioned. He was a lot more talkative than I expected from when he first took up residence in my head, despite his severe superiority complex. But his sometimes very hurtful remarks did help me think of things I hadn’t thought of before. This was not an example of that.

‘You really think I haven’t thought of that? She almost let me die less than a few hours ago, what makes you think she’s going to tell me what I need to know?’ I vented a bit of my frustration, but not enough to rid the anger from my body. The fact that Alexia really almost let me get pounced on and decapitated was absolutley unreal. What the hell kind of guide was that.

Though, I guess I don’t have any other options currently. Might aswell.

“Where the hell do I find this last one?” I questioned loud enough for her to hear from the several meters of distance she put in between us.

“What?” She asked, her tone not helping me in deciphering if she was asking what I said or what I was looking for.

I sighed and threw over the list, everything but the bluemoon flurous was ticked off, so hopefully no unwanted misscoumnications emerged. She took a few moments to observe the list, her expression flickering several times, somehow shocked that I had managed to nearly finish off the lsit in its entirety. Finally as I watched her eyes reach the bottom of the list, her expression softened and she nodded her head. Whether that was a good sign or not, was in no way apparent.

“Well? Do you know?” I asked, watching her simply toss the list back to me.

“You know if you fail to get everything, it’s only a bit of exercise right. You can always just walk back right now without it.” She answered.

Not a good sign. Definitely not a good sign.

“I’ll be the judge of whether it’s difficult to get or not, just tell me where it is.” As long as whatever horror awaited me, as long as it was incapable of killing me instantly, I was confident in my abilities of running away. As for Alexia and the beasts? Neither were my problems.

“Your funeral. It shouldn’t be that far though, like a ten minute walk in that direction.” She waved her hand in the air, not exactly a helpful gesture, but it was a lead.

Nodding my head, I set off in a run, hoping to get this over with as soon as possible.

Though I expected to have to ask for more directions after reaching a certain distance, I ended up not needing it. After only a few minutes of running, I arrived in front of the entrance of a fairly ominous looking cave, so dark that nothing on the inside could be seen. For a moment I considered backing out and just taking the forfeit. But the simple memories of the enhanced gravity made my body shiver.

I consolidated my resolve and stepped in the cave.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

My aura wasn’t needed as the cave actually seemed to have a natural light source, some ten or so metres in, though the actual source itself wasn’t visible. The atmosphere was certainly dark and creepy, but other than the freakish bug or shifting of rocks, nothing life-threatening could be found.

Alexia hadn’t followed me inside the cave, otherwise I would have questioned what she considered to be dangerous, because clearly the cave wasn’t even close to being a threat. Though there didn’t seem to be any sight of the plant, which was a tad bit disheartening. I walked for several dozen meteres, keeping a close eye on the ground, certain that the plant would be growing from underneath.

Along the way, the light began to grow dimmer and dimmer, as signs of life decreased proportionally, until I had to finally employ my aura, not that my visibility increased all that much. It was though the light wasn’t fading away, but rather it was being consumed by darkness. Which was even stranger considering the dark was just the absence of light.

‘Stop being a nerd and charge forward! You’ve been moving at a step per minute for so long! Get a move on!’ Hadeon finally cried out, nearly giving me a heart attack.

I pertended to ignore his words, but did pick up the pace quite a bit. Nothing had gone badly so far, and the cave wasn’t showing any signs of housing anything too dangerous, or atleast nothing dangerous enough that could prevent me from fleeing.

I bumped from a slow walk to a faster pace until I was full on sprinting down the single road of the cave, but it was essentially never ending. No matter how far I ran, there was no end in sight. And though I didn’t think to see the length of the cave from the outside, there wasn’t a single doubt in my mind that the cave was not long enough to allow me to move at a full sprint for several minutes.

My frustration bottled up as I ran, until finally, I could contain it no longer. I roared in anger and swung my fist into the cave wall. My hand nearly flung into the wall behind me as it whipped back towards me, bouncing off the wall. The impact didn’t hurt, but not even a scratch could be seen. That was slightly more infuriating than the never-ending aspect of the cave. But of course, none of my actions could go without consequences.

A short few moments after my outburst, the stone began to shift around me, as large vibrations began to shake my surroundings. Then, the first tremor came.

It was subtle at first, a low, rumbling vibration that hummed through the stone, barely perceptible underfoot. But the sensation quickly grew, like a beast waking from its slumber deep within the earth. A thunderous crack shattered the silence, reverberating through the cave, and suddenly, the ground jerked violently beneath me. I staggered, arms flailing in the dark, grasping for something, anything, to hold on to. But there was nothing, only the cold, uneven rock, which was beyond stupid. Two surrounding stone walls and not one proper hand-hold? Yeah that makes total sense.

The walls around me groaned, and a sharp cracking sound echoed through the chamber. My heart raced. Something above shifted with a sickening crunch, and before I could react, small rocks and dust began to rain down, pelting my head and shoulders. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel them, sharp edges grazing my skin, and the dull thuds of stones hitting the ground all around me. The ceiling was breaking apart.

The ground shook again, this time more violently. I stumbled and fell to my knees, my palms scraping against the rough floor, now littered with debris. In the pitch-blackness, it was impossible to see how much of the cave had already collapsed, but the roar of cracking stone was deafening. The walls trembled violently, and the air filled with the sounds of stone grinding against stone, like some ancient, dying creature struggling to stay intact.

Then, with a deafening roar, the ceiling began to give way. Massive chunks of rock, unseen in the darkness, plummeted down around me, the force of their fall sending shockwaves through the cave. I could feel the gusts of wind as they hurtled past, the way the air shifted and compressed just before each impact. I dove to the side, blindly scrambling to avoid the falling debris, but in the chaos, my sense of direction was lost. Every time I moved, it felt like I was running into another wall of blackness.

The noise was unbearable now, an endless cacophony of rock crashing into rock, and the relentless rumble of the earth shaking itself apart. The ground beneath me was unstable, shifting with each step, threatening to give way entirely. Dust filled the air, thickening the darkness and clogging my lungs, making it harder to breathe. Each breath was a struggle, burning my throat and chest.

Suddenly, a massive stone slammed into the ground just inches from where I had been standing, the impact so powerful it sent me sprawling backward. I hit the ground hard, the air knocked from my lungs as more stones cascaded down around me, bouncing and tumbling in the pitch-dark. My limbs ached from the impact, but I forced myself to move, dragging myself forward on hands and knees, not knowing if I was heading toward safety or deeper into the collapsing death trap.

The roar of the collapsing cave was beyond deafening now, drowning out my own screams and cries. I could hear the terrifying creaks and groans of the remaining ceiling, still straining under its own weight, threatening to fall at any moment. The air was thick with dust and the smell of earth, choking me, making it hard to think, hard to move.

And then, as if in slow motion, the ground beneath me gave way with a sudden, final heave. I felt myself falling, plunging into the abyss of darkness below, swallowed by the very earth I had tried to escape.

My consciousness didn’t come back until an unknown amount of time later, but judging by the fact that all my blood and tears had dried up, it was safe to assume it’d been more than half an hour. A large set of coughs left my mouth as I scramble to push all the fallen debris off of me and attempted to stand. Thankfully nothing was broken, or at least nothing was broken currently, so getting up on my feet wasn’t too hard.

Remembering my actions before falling, I was a tad bit embarrassed, but atleast no one had seen me, so at least that proved there was always a little good in the very bad. The black abyss of fallen stone had basically made even trying to move around or see futile, so I took a few moments to meditate and try to recover.

The roof of where I’d fallen from was no longer visible, but there’s no way that not a single path to exit the cave was left. There had to be a way out. I just needed to be a bit patient.

“You’re a boring human.” A soft voice sounded out, but the source disappeared as soon as my eyes shot open.

I offered no response, simply rising to my feet and pulling out my sword. If it was a beast that could talk then it had to be near Hadeons level, not that I really understood the physiology or evolution process of beasts, but it was a fair bet.

‘Beast your mother! How dare you compare to one of those creatures!’ Hadeon cried out.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I saw you fall through some time ago and was simply observing. When you woke up I expected you to break through the ceiling, or smash through the walls, but you just sat down. Are you disabled?” The voice asked bluntly.

A vein bulged on my forehead but I remained silent. It seemed that anything with a pulse, and even some without were born simply to piss me off.

“Ah, so you’re unable to speak, that’s unfortunate.” A figure finally stepped out from the shadows, and my good lord was it an interesting sight.

A pink blob of slime hopped to me, stopping right at my feet.

“My name is…” A complete unknown combination of letters and sounds came out of nowhere as the voice spoke once more, and to even give it a shot at pronouncing myself was just stupid.

“I’m not mute.” I finally spoke, trying not to show any emotions on my face. If the beast had a temper like Hadeons and it was actually some kind of crazy overpowered monster, then the last thing I wanted to do was laugh in its face.

“Oh, that’s even better! You can be my new mount. Come now, let me get on your shoulder!” The slime hopped up and down.

My life was getting increasingly more worrisome.