The heat was unbearable and whatnot. Fancy description of how powerful the impact of the nuclear blast was. Yada Yada Yada. Anyway, the characters were now still at the bottom of the dark cavern. They had managed to escape the blast of a naturally occurring nuclear explosion.
"So, you're telling me that the weather just explodes randomly!?"
"No. I said it works just like other natural weather phenomena. We can somewhat follow the patterns."
"How strong was that blast, that we needed to tunnel into this ravine? This has got to at least be 300 meters underground!"
"It was definitely far away from us. If it hadn’t been, then we would not have gotten out of that unscathed.”
“How far? So, we weren’t even close to the blast?”
“Very far. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. But right now, we gotta concentrate on getting out of this cave, since we don’t know what could be down here.”
“Monsters spawn in caves too?”
“Yes, they do. So stay close, cuz something might attack.”
“Don’t worry about me. Nothing can get past my crazy reflexes and the Doors of Death.”
“Yes, I don’t care about your safety, I care about you protecting us. We all just used a lot of mana to get down here and you’re the only one who can fight right now.”
“Oh yes. Of course. I am always there to help a fine lady in need.”
Walking through darkness. Everyone is moving slowly so as not to collide with anything.
“Let’s hold hands so that we don’t get separated.” said Sharlan with a slightly devious intention that made its way to his face. But of course, no one could see anything, so he didn’t attempt to hide it. What a creep.
“S-sure” Lesli responded, and everyone else seemed to agree.
Sharlan felt a soft tug at his sleeve.
How bold! She’s making the first move. Well she was a princess, wasn’t she?
Sharlan couldn’t help but be a little flustered, since this was the first time he held a girl’s hand.
I’m just holding her hand. That’s all. This is what I wanted. But actually doing it is so much different from what I thought it would be like. Now if only I could show off by protecting her with my powers.
Be careful what you wish for, Sait… I mean Sharlan. At that moment, almost as a consequence of his wishes, a thud was heard. Something attacked them but then was instantly knocked down into the floor by Sharlan’s ability.
Ok. That was too anticlimactic. Plus, no one can even see anything so I guess it doesn’t even matter to show off.
“What was that?” asked a slightly quivering voice.
“Oh nothing. I just took care of some monster.”
Suddenly, loud roars and grunts were heard and other generic goblin sounds.
“Oh, it seems that we found the goblins. Everyone get behind me!”
Sharlan reluctantly let go of the hand he was holding. Ah, I guess that’s the price for wanting to show off.
Sharlan stood on the front lines of a battle between him and the goblins, in a dark room, where his opponents had the advantage of night vision. He wasn’t worried however, as he now knew that he basically could not die from physical attacks.
Most of the smaller goblins immediately charged at the group and upon colliding with Sharlan, were knocked down into the ground at really high speeds. Sharlan did not hold back and even killed the small goblins. This continued until the goblins decided to try a different strategy. They all retreated and suddenly the dark cavern was silent once more.
"Are they gone?" Asked Jolene slightly on edge.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“I think so.” answered Sharlan.
“Don’t let your guard down.” Quinci reminded him. “We never know when they might come back.”
“I think they realized that they can’t beat me, so that’s why they left. I think we’re fine. Now, let’s keep going in the direction to the surface. Quinci, you lead.”
Suddenly, a huge rock fell on top of Sharlan. His Doors of Death activated and he avoided being squashed by the rock. However…
“AHHH. HELP!! IT HURTS!!!”
“Who’s hurt?”
“It’s me, Jolene!”
Sharlan probed his way through the darkness until he felt a rock that his ability was allowing him to rotate.
A rock roll, and a rock throw later and everyone was as good as new.
“AHHH—Huh?” Jolene stopped screaming after she realized she was no longer in pain.
“I used the Relativistic Rock of Restoration. RRR for short.” (The EPIC sounding name he chose for it) to heal her missing arm.
“What the—I don’t feel any pain at all! I can’t believe that actually worked.”
“See? And you didn’t believe me! But seriously, are you ok now?” She might be well physically, but it must be very traumatic to lose her arm.
“Yeah. Thank you sooo much! I would’ve died if you weren’t here. I literally don’t know how I could ever repay you.”
What the heck? That didn’t cause her any permanent mental harm? Wait, my Int Factor tells me this is normal. Nevermind.
“Quinci, Lesli! Where are you?” yelled Jolene. However there was no response. “Did we get lost?”
A lot of thoughts rushed through Sharlan’s brain at these words, but he calmed himself and thought about what he should say. He eventually decided on “Those bastard goblins, they’d better try harder if their plan was this simple. Huh? Is that the sound of a river?”
Context: Sharlan thought that their goal was to separate the group and kill them off one by one, through use of rocks and stalactites, however, he did not expect this outcome. The goblins decided to flood the cave, as it was right near a river. Suddenly, water rushed in and all the main characters were swept up in a surging stream.
AHHH! I can’t swim!
Sharlan attempted to activate the Doors. However, he could not rotate.
What’s this? A way to actually defeat Sharlan’s brokenly overpowered ability? No way. That’s crazy bruh.
Sharlan’s breath was running out as he did not manage to breathe in as the water hit so quickly.
Oh no! I’m gonna die! NO. Even worse. What if the girls end up rescuing me? You literally can’t get any lamer than that! Ok, I gotta focus on drowning so that that doesn’t happen! Wait no, I don’t wanna die! What do I do? Oh the rock! I’ll do the same thing that I did earlier today to propel myself.
The rock, as expected, appeared in his hand.
Ok, so now I'll just let myself rotate…
Sharlan succeeded in rotating himself. However, due to little practice and disorientation caused by the lack of oxygen in his blood, the strong current, and the darkness in the cavern, he ended up launching himself downwards, making it much harder to get air, knocking him unconscious.
Eventually, the girls rescued him.
After they all made it out of the water and into a higher level of the cavern, they all rested for a couple of hours. When enough time had passed, they used the last of their mana to make it to the surface. The sunlight shone into the hole, which now looked a bit different from when they first entered the cave. The mountain was gone. And so was about a mile of land in front of the group. Everywhere they looked, they saw negatives of trees and animals charred into the soil. Everything had been absolutely vaporized. The consequence of a naturally occurring nuclear explosion.
“WHat!?” Sharlan’s mouth dropped as he witnessed the scene. “This is literally the aftermath of a nuclear explosion!”
“A nuke?” asked Q. “Is that your home country’s name for Heavenly Despair?”
“Wait, home country?” Lesli asked asynchronously.
“I’m from an Eastern island.” Sharlan quickly explained. He turned to Q. “And yes, that’s basically what we called it.”
“So, what do we do now? How are we supposed to deal with this?” He changed the topic.
“Let’s head back and tell the guild what happened. We’ll be compensated for our efforts at least.” Q pointed at the bag being carried by Sh.
“What’s inside there?” asked the oblivious bearer.
“What remained of the goblins that you killed. They washed up where we pulled you out. I can’t believe that you can’t swim.”
“Ahhh, no. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What do you mean? Are you saying you got knocked out by a goblin or that a solid object collided against your face and your ‘crazy reflexes’ did not activate the Doors of Death in time to get out of harm’s way?”
“No, I’m saying that there was something there. I tried swimming deeper as soon as I felt the presence, but a strange wavelength radiated from the depths of the abyss, which disabled my consciousness. We have to make sure to avoid whatever was down there in that void.” Sharlan lied to try and make it so that no one knew of his faults.
“Then we have to report that to the guild! I can’t believe there was something so dangerous down there in that cave, that it was even able to hurt you!” Jolene immediately pointed out.
“Yes, we must definitely make sure to report this.” said Quinci. “Try to remember anything before you passed out.”
“Ah. Yes, I remember bits and pieces. But it’ll take me a while to put it together. We should probably set up camp now. I doubt any of you want to trek all the way back to the guild in this dark.”
5 minutes later and Sharlan jumped into a sleeping bag they had bought earlier. Eww, it’s wet. Well, we were getting flooded.
Sharlan switched to laying on the ground. He started to yawn. Now that the adrenaline was long gone, he realized his body was sore all over. Having no desire to resist sleep, he was swallowed up by the darkness.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sharlan woke up in a wasteland. Ah, it’s the same place I saw when I first got isekaied.
“Welcome back Master!” A Lesli greeted him, wearing a full blown maid uniform.
“Woah, Lesli! What’s up with ur getup.”
“What do you mean, Master-sama?” She looked at him sideways with a blatant question mark above her head.
“You’re already dead”
He woke back up.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The group started on their way back to the guild. When they finally arrived, it had already been three days since they took on the quest. As they entered into the guild, they were noticed by Lloyd’s party.
“Hey! Where’d you guys go? Were you out during the Despair?”
“We managed to take cover, so we made it back safe. How about you?”
“Oh, we went on like 6 quests since we last saw you. Speaking of which, there is apparently a cyclops that appeared a couple of miles away from one of the Southern Villages. Do you guys want to join us? This will be our first big quest. We will be taking the car though.”
Sharlan contemplated the offer for a moment. But then he realized that the girls will probably remember the lie he told them and force him to report the thing he made up to the guild.
“YES! I’m down! Everyone okay with that?” He looked around at the girls who didn’t seem to display any contrary opinions.