After about an hour of attempting to skin the beast and almost two dozen new holes in the pelt, I give up on the hide and just cut out what I want: its heart and some meat. I break through the ribs and cut into its heart, stopping when my knife hits something solid right in the middle. Cutting around the crystal, I manage to remove it pretty easily and put it in my bag with the others I have. I’ll examine it when I have some more time.
I notice that my wounds have already started to heal, mostly the gashes on my chest, which are much less severe than my shoulder wounds. I examine the area, finding that it’s already starting to form a scab over the gashes, and the pain has gone down a bit too. Must be because of mana and leveling up. I start circulating my mana through the wounded areas. Maybe extra mana will make them heal faster.
Not wanting to waste any more time, I unlock the door, standing to the side in case of another ambush, and exit once I see it is clear. I continue walking the way I was before that trial, adding more to my map at each intersection, hoping to run across Daniel sooner rather than later. After a few more dead ends, I turn my attention back to my wounds and the mana I have been circulating there.
Moving mana through an area seems to increase the body's natural healing speed by a decent amount. The inflammation and swelling are almost gone, and the pain has been reduced to a dull throb, allowing me to use my arm some. I brush it off as just another wonder of mana. I’ve got more important things to do right now.
I follow the dark stone brick tunnel forward, the same as all of the other tunnels, pitch black with nothing in it, until I find a trial door that is different from the others.
[You have found a trial room]
[This trial is currently active]
It doesn’t give me the prompt to open it, so someone must be inside. The question is, is it Daniel or a goblin? There is a hallway that leads to a dead end close by, so I go there and sit down, watching the trial door with my spatial perception, waiting for whoever is inside to leave while my mana reserves build up some more.
After ten minutes of waiting, I get bored and pull out the crystal from the last trial, the fight with the Wind Leopard. It still has some bits of heart attached to it, so I spend a few minutes cleaning it off before I test it out. It’s about the same size as the one I got from the shaman, as big as my thumbnail or so, and fairly rough, with sharp edges and little spikes on it. The mana capacity and transfer rate on it are slightly better, however. In the middle of my examination, the trial door softly clicks open, and whoever was inside steps out.
The person that leaves that trial room is not a goblin, nor is it Daniel. What leaves is a nearly eight-foot-tall, four-armed… alien? I watch him for a while longer as he slowly makes his way through the tunnels in my direction. He, well, I think it’s a he—he's a male—doesn’t seem to have a light source or the capability to see in the dark, as he is constantly running two of his hands against the wall while slowly shuffling forward. His arms are massive, by the way, and they are also chained together. The two on the left are coupled together, as are the two on the right, so he still has some movement with them.
He wears no armor, only some torn-up-looking clothing, and wields only a big pickaxe-looking tool, with a small bag in one of his free hands. He is limping slightly and seems to be covered in wounds, but it’s hard to tell with just my spatial senses. I need to get eyes on this guy. I can probably run from him if worst comes to worst, but my gut is telling me this guy is an initiate from one of the other planets.
I decide to face the guy, but I should do it smartly, like a diplomat. I take out the improvised flashbang, my only source of light, and feed it just enough mana to work as the enchantment originally intended, creating a soft glow around me. I slowly start my way toward him, making sure to make some extra noise as well. I want him to hear me coming.
As I come up on the corner, my light starts bleeding into his hallway, causing him to stop suddenly about ten feet from the edge. He tenses up, raising his pickaxe while getting ready to charge around the corner.
“Wait! I mean no harm! I’m just down here to kill the goblins. We can be friends!” I say, trying my best to not get killed by the largest man I have ever seen.
“Come around the corner, no weapons in hand, or I’ll crush ya. Slow and steady now.” He says with a deep, gruff voice, and I believe him. He looks ready to kill me at a moment's notice.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting NovelBin for this novel and more.
“Okay, I’m coming around now. All I have in my hand is a light.” I walk along the opposite wall from where he is, giving myself a little more space between us, and step into the intersection, fully revealing myself, and face the four-armed man.
I stand facing the largest person I have ever seen, and maybe ever will see. His skin is a dark red covered in splotches of green, which I soon realize is the color of his blood. His head is completely bald, except for the massive bright red beard that stretches down to his waist and is braided in a thick weave. His eyes, however, are a deep blue and quickly turn to confusion after seeing me.
“Thought you might be another of those… goblins. My bad, friend. I’ve been trapped down in these tunnels for over two days now, hunted by those little terrors. Fumbling my way through this place, I managed to kill a few of 'em but haven’t found a way out yet.”
They’re hunting him down here? Does this tribe use the dungeon to do their evolution trial? What’s the point of that? Why not just do fights like the other tribe? I look the massive man across from me up and down. Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t want to fight him either. He looks like he could crush me into a ball.
“Ah, I see. My partner and I were wiping out a tribe when we found the entrance to this place and decided to enter, hoping to find the shaman and her guards inside. It looks like they were using this place as a hunting ground for their captives. Did they capture you?”
“What horrible little creatures. And yes, they did capture me. A while ago, maybe twelve or thirteen days, I just arrived here, no warning or explanation, just a flash of light, and I was in a cave. I’ve just been doing everything I can to survive since. You are the first person I have come across that speaks my language. How do you speak Traxi? I have never seen one of your kind before.”
Oh wow. This guy knows even less than I do, which I didn’t think was possible. He’s been surviving this whole time with no guidance. Despite Merrick being partially insane, I am super grateful he decided to take us under his wing, even if he is a very hands-off teacher.
“Are you hungry? There is a lot to explain to you, so let's sit down and eat while I do that. I’m Ray, by the way.”
“Corvax, and yes, I haven't had anything to eat or drink in several days now.”
I sit down and give Corvax my last full waterskin and some dried jerky to eat. He is visibly relaxing now that I have proven to not be hunting him, and he starts to tell me of his time here on Helot after I explain everything I know about our initiation and the [System] in general. He had figured some stuff out earlier, like the status and [Quest], but obviously didn’t know much about mana.
“I am a slave, born to slave parents. My planet has two intelligent races, the Traxi and the Skrill. I am Traxi, and unfortunately my entire people live under the rule and whims of the Skrill, toiling generation after generation in one of the planet's many mines. One day during lunch, when one of the slavers was giving out the slop they call food, there was a bright flash of light, and suddenly, we were in a different cave.
“My fellow kin and I were corralled by the slavers, forced to be the front line as we fought our way past many cave-dwelling creatures as we made our way to the surface. Once we broke free of the cave system and out onto the surface, we knew we weren’t on our home planet anymore. Shortly after, my kin and I attacked our slavers, deciding that was our best chance at freedom. A few of us died in the fight, but we managed to win, and those who survived found out we have skills and levels, and we got stronger just by winning.”
Corvax pauses here for a second, a solemn expression on his face, before he continues. “There were only seven of us left at this point, and we decided to try to look for any signs of civilization. We wandered for a few days, occasionally fighting off beasts called wolves while drinking from streams and eating whatever we could find. Eventually we found a camp with wooden walls, and I volunteered to go check it out to see if we could get any shelter or supplies from them.”
I listen quietly, completely focused on his words.
“As soon as I was spotted by the inhabitants of the camp, goblins, I was surrounded. It pretty quickly became clear that they meant harm to me, so I activated my skill [Berserker Rage] and fought as hard as I could. I thought they would kill me, but after killing several of them and tiring myself out, they just stabbed me a bunch to make me bleed and then tied me up. A day later they dragged me into a small room under a shack and made me enter this place through some symbol on the floor. After that I’ve just been surviving down here until I met you.”
Corvax eats the rest of my dried food and drinks the rest of my water while he tells me his tale, but I don’t mind. He has had a much rougher time than I have, and I’m glad I could provide at least a little relief. I tell him of my time on Helot, the first clearing, also being captured by goblins, and our current training under Merrick.
“If you want, we can stick together. Safety in numbers and all that.” I say, hoping that he takes me up on the offer.
“I would gladly travel with you, Ray. Let us find your lost partner and kill the last of this tribe.” He says with a menacing smile, the light from my orb making him look even more intimidating in these dark tunnels.
I’m glad he’s on my side.