Descending a mountain turned out to be a more difficult task than I thought. There were no dedicated paths that conveniently led down to the base of the mountain, so I had to slowly maneuver down the very steep slope of the mountainside one step at a time. One wrong move and I could break my legs from a nasty fall. If that happened again, I wouldn't be surprised if some ginger-haired lad started singing nearby about my legs not working as they used to before.
“Damn that fucking god,” I grumbled as I climbed down an almost-vertical incline. Progress was slow because of how smooth the rock surface was, making it difficult to find handholds. “Out of all the places he could've dropped me, it had to be a mountain. There's a city right there. How stupid could you be to drop a man in the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on his back?”
My grumblings were lost to the strong winds as I continued my way down. The descent was mostly boring, though the few times that I slipped and almost fell gave me sufficient doses of panic to keep me on my toes.
After a few hours of travel, I came across another cave set into the mountainside. Eager to rest my cold and numb body, I entered the cave to take a short break.
“Dammit, my progress is too slow,” I muttered as I took a peek over the edge of the mountainside. I was still pretty high up the mountain despite the several hours of continuous travel. At this speed, it would take me weeks just to reach the base of the mountain.
As I tried to think of ways to expedite my journey, I heard the crunch of snow behind me. When I turned around, the biggest and ugliest gorilla I've ever seen greeted me with a glare. It stood as tall as me even while hunched, and its entire body was covered in long white fur.
“Why in the hell is Bigfoot—”
I didn't get to finish my sentence before white King Kong slammed me with a double-fisted smash against my chest. All the air left my lungs as I flew from the impact like a ragdoll. But instead of landing on the ground, I flew past the edge of the cave and started tumbling down the mountainside. Ah shit.
I rolled down the mountain without an ounce of control. The world spun around me in a chaotic mess that threatened to have my stomach hurling its contents, but there was at least the consolation that I found a shortcut to the base of the mountain.
I rate it 1/10, though.
But of course, fates seemed to always conspire against me. Just when I thought that my unexpected shortcut would lead me to the base of the mountain, a massive chasm suddenly appeared beneath me. It must have been hidden from view while I'd been assessing the area from a higher elevation.
“FUUUUUCK!”
I plunged into the mountain's deep chasm, screaming at the top of my lungs. Blood spurted out of my mouth as I did so, which was easily explained when I glanced at my chest. Bigfoot's smash had caved my chest in.
“SKORM YOU FUCKING—”
I hit the side of the chasm hard, shattering one side of my ribcage. The impact caused my already chaotic fall to become even more uncontrolled. I was practically spinning every which way.
[Minor Regeneration has leveled up to Lv.3]
I felt several more impacts as I bounced between the narrowing chasm walls, but at this point, I could barely feel any more pain. My body felt really cold. I think I'm dying.
[Minor Regeneration has leveled up to Lv.4]
Eventually, I reached the bottom of the chasm. The impact on the ground…
Wait, where was the impact?
Even in the state my body was in, I tried to assess my surroundings. I was still alive, luckily, and I think I was lying prone on the ground. There was the small issue of my body being mostly paralyzed, but that should fix itself soon.
When I tilted my head a bit to look around, all I saw was complete darkness. I tried moving my head around and felt a slight resistance and a cold sensation. That's when I realized that I was currently buried completely in snow. Soft, fluffy, cushioning snow that just saved my life.
For a moment, everything was silent. Then I started chuckling, slowly at first before turning into a full-blown madman's laughter. How in the hell was I still alive?
Somehow, I doubt even Skorm the Fucker could answer that question.
[Minor Regeneration has leveled up to Lv.5]
Several notifications in my vision caught my attention, and when I read them, I finally found out how I managed to survive everything I just experienced. I swear I was this close to kicking the bucket, and if not for those lucky levels, I'd already be floating in oblivion once more.
Over the next few minutes, I waited for my body to heal all the damage it incurred from my fall. I had to get hands-on several times when a dislocated bone or jutting rib had to be forcefully moved out of the way, and the pain I had to endure further hardened my resolve to stay alive and give the middle finger to Skorm.
Soon, my body was as whole as could be. With my new and improved Minor Regeneration, the entire healing process only took about twenty minutes tops. For someone who used to have no health insurance, I was moving up in the world. Though based on everything that happened so far, I don't think I was still on Earth. Earth didn't have fucking abominable snowmen. It was a mind-boggling revelation, but once again, I told myself to just take everything at face value. Don't overthink it. That's how I managed to push through life's struggles: a simpler outlook in life and a generous dose of ‘it is what it is’s.
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I dug myself out of the snow, revealing the dark and narrow bottom of the chasm. What light filtered from above was just enough to let my adjusted eyes see a few meters in front of me.
Now, the big question was: what the hell am I supposed to do now?
There were only two courses of action I could think of. The first is to try and climb back up the chasm, which was probably more than a few hundred meters high. The second was to explore the bottom of the chasm and hope that there was some path down here that conveniently led back to the surface.
Both choices sucked, but as always, welcome to Bob's life.
In the end, I decided to explore the bottom first and look for a way out before trying to climb the chasm. The fall down the mountain was still fresh on my mind, and the image of my spine rotated 360 degrees in the wrong direction was still too vivid. A short walk at the bottom of an abyssal chasm should help me clear my mind.
Unlike the mountain up above, the bottom of the chasm was calm and quiet. Without the constant howling of the wind, the only sounds present were the soft crunches of snow beneath my boots and my steady breathing. I could almost say that this place was perfect for some relaxing yoga, but there was a slight issue of smell.
Actually, scratch that. The issue wasn't slight at all. This place fucking reeked. It actually reminded me of that time my neighbor's dog died and the fucker just threw the body in the trash. Stank up the place for weeks.
The smell here was similar to the stench of a rotting body. I found the reason a few minutes later when I came across a lump on the ground. With how dark it was, I thought it was just a rock, so I placed a hand on top to support myself while trudging through the thick snow.
My hand sank into the ‘rock’ with a juicy squelch, sinking all the way up to my shoulder. That's when I realized that it was no rock. It was a fucking corpse.
“Mother FUCKER!”
I quickly took my arm out, producing the same disgusting squelch as it did on the way in, and started swishing my arm in the snow to try and clean it. But it was too late. The smell of rot had already clung to my skin, and vomit rose into my mouth. Given the scarcity of food around here, I swallowed it back. No sense in wasting food.
Staggering from the smell, I continued moving forward, where plenty more corpses littered the narrow path. I couldn't see what kind of animal the corpses were because of the dark, but whatever they were, there were plenty of them. I'll bet my left nut that these poor fuckers also fell from above and were too unlucky to have the crazy fast healing I had.
More time passed as I followed the narrow chasm, until eventually, I arrived at the end. And boy did I feel like the luckiest man alive, because there may actually be a path to the surface. I could see the light at the end of the path, and I didn't mean that figuratively. There was a literal light at the end, and as I approached, I saw the source.
At the end of the narrow chasm was a tunnel whose walls were lined by hundreds of glowing blue crystals, bathing everything in its gentle light. They looked like the cheap night lights you'd find at a thrift shop, but when I examined them closer, they were set into the rock deeply like a natural formation. They were the real deal.
“Holy shit, this has gotta be worth somethin',” I whispered in awe as I tried prying a piece off the tunnel wall, but they were really stuck in there. Without a tool to extract them, all I could do was stare at them in a daze. So much money within reach, but out of my grasp. “I'm coming back for you, my sweet babies.”
Forcing myself to look away, I followed the brightly-lit tunnel to wherever it led. There was a chance that it could lead to some nasty beast's den, but was it to my detriment, though? It had been hours since I last ate. I was hungry.
My hunch was later proven right when I turned around a corner. The moment I entered a new section of the tunnel, some nasty bugger dropped from the ceiling and bit me on the neck. “Gah! You damn cocksucker!”
I reached over my head, gripped the critter tightly, and slammed it hard against the crystal-lined wall. Then I dragged the screeching fucker over the crystals to give it some high-quality exfoliation.
[You have slain a Frost Spider. Experience gained.]
“Dammit, why does it have to be bugs?”
The frost spider was a dog-sized fucker with white fur growing all over its body. It must've been venomous too because the bite on my neck was itching like crazy. Fortunately, it didn't get worse than that.
“What kind of stupid idiot would even attack something larger than itself?” I scoffed as I wiped the spider's green ichor off my hands. Then the realization hit me. “Idiots who hunt in numbers, that's what.”
I looked up at the hole in the ceiling where the spider came from.
Hundreds of glowing eyes stared back.
“FUCK ME!”
I ran like hell, and just in time too. I heard the sound of multiple spiders landing on the ground where I had just been, and they screeched furiously as they began to give chase.
If there was one good thing I liked about having a large frame, it was that my strides were ridiculously larger than the norm. When I ran, my legs ate up the distance quickly, and that meant I was leaving the eight-legged fuckers in the dust.
Just as I was reveling in my superiority over the spiders, something up ahead made me stop in my tracks. Of course there was. It wouldn't be my life anymore if there was no misfortune rearing its ugly head at me.
There was an intersection up ahead, and standing there like some dull idiot was Bigfoot. I thought the big lug had followed me all the way down here, but upon closer inspection, it was a different guy. It was a a fair bit bigger than me, and it was more plump than the bastard who knocked me off the mountain. I'll call him Senior.
Senior was munching on a piece of blue crystal like it was candy. I had no idea if the crunching noise from his mouth came from the shattering of the crystal or his teeth, but nevertheless, the moment he saw me, his expression turned aggressive. He gave a loud roar that echoed throughout the tunnels, then he started charging at me on all fours.
“Dammit, why can't anything be easy?”
I charged forward as well, my eyes focused on Senior's center of gravity. As soon as he shifted, I instinctively knew that the oversized ape was going to sock me in the jaw. Following my intuition, I stepped forward and to the side, just in time as Senior's fist swung near my head and missed by a few millimeters.
My dodge brought me behind Senior, and before he could react, I kicked him hard on the side of his knee. With the large ape's heavy body, his knee easily broke and buckled from my kick.
Senior roared in pain as he fell to the ground. He tried to grab me with his meaty fingers, but I was already out of his range.
It was extremely tempting to kill the vulnerable creature to claim the valuable experience, but with the frost spiders hot on my tail, I had no time to lose. Killing Senior with nothing but my bare fists would take forever.
Leaving behind the furious Senior that would hopefully delay the spiders, I chose a random direction in the intersection and continued on my way through the bright tunnels. Not even a minute later, I came across a hole in the wall filled with frost spiders standing still.
They didn't stay still for long.