Aqua
After my encounter outside, I hole myself up in my small section of air for the entire rest of that day. With the broadcast ending not long after I enter it.
That was… a bit much.
I was sure I was going to die.
A feeling I don’t exactly know how to put into words fills me as I sit on the floor of the cavern with my legs folded up to my chest and my arms wrapped around my legs at the corner of the cavern. But if I had to put this feeling into words, I would say it feels… stuffy.
I don’t like it.
Several hours pass in this silence as I just sit here before I eventually fall asleep and wake up the next day feeling a bit better. At which point I know I have to get moving. So I finally climb to my feet.
And after doing my regular routine before leaving the air pocket – which is kind of sad that it’s even become a routine at this point – I jump into the water with my equipment. Then I move out to the large cavern again.
Okay. So going outside of the caves at my level is a terrible idea. The rigal showed me that, and so did the orca.
And considering the deepsea name in all these monsters, I can only assume that I am incredibly deep underwater. At least several hundred meters if not a thousand or two thousand meters deep.
Which doesn’t bode well for the trip to the surface.
On another note, there’s the question of why the monsters in this cave system are so weak. Why haven’t any stronger monsters come in to clear them out. And where these new weaker monsters keep coming from anyways if we’re in a location that has such powerful monsters.
Normally monsters form through a few different methods. One being mana in the air contaminating regular creatures and turning them into monsters. Another being there being too much mana in a specific area, so the System turns the mana into monsters on its own to manage it. And the last being dungeons, which are structures that appear all over the place. Some of them are in the form of a gate that leads you to a monster infested realm that closes up the moment the boss of the realm is defeated, and others are actual places on the planets that just have far too much mana.
The monsters coming from dungeons can take different forms.
Some dungeons straight up just leak out mana that then turns into monsters natural to the biome outside of the dungeon, whereas other dungeons straight up release some of the monsters from inside of themselves into the surroundings.
This place is obviously not the second type of dungeon as there isn’t enough mana here to explain that. Which also rules out the mana in the air turning creatures into monsters, especially since these monsters are appearing out of nowhere.
So after crossing all of the dots, the only thing I can think of for this place’s existence are rift dungeons.
There must be a rift somewhere in this cave system. A dungeon portal.
Otherwise known as a Gate.
These types of dungeons aren’t all that common, but they do appear from time to time.
And if there really is a Gate here, it may be my last hope. Since the monsters in it should be a little bit higher level than the monsters leaking out of it here. Which will make for great training to be able to handle the monsters outside of this cave system.
Or it’ll at least make for a start.
I may even be able to find a safe place inside of the dungeon.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
So I begin to search around the massive cavern bit by bit while killing monsters every now and then. Very grateful for my freshly healed body. Since it’s making this hunting thing far easier than it was before I went out there.
And thanks to that I manage to level up more as I hunt.
Unfortunately though, when I reach level seven, I come across a new problem.
Level one enemies no longer activate Apex Predator of the Depths.
So level ones no longer give me a point in REGEN from killing them.
Level two monsters still do though. Which leads me to believe that anything over five levels beneath me do not count for the skill.
That’s fine though. The only level one creatures here are those swarm piranhas anyways. Along with a few of the delfish.
So most of the monsters here are still giving me points in REGEN.
Also, my REGEN stat is rather high at this point.
A smile spreads across my face as I open my status and find myself staring at the REGEN stat.
[REQUESTING STATUS: USER AQUA FALLEN]
[STATUS RETRIEVED]
[Name: Aqua Fallen]
[Level: 7]
[Mana: 70]
[Strength: 22(15)]
[Dexterity: 15]
[Constitution: 15]
[Magical Strength: 12]
[REGEN: 72]
[Free Points: 0]
[Traits: Physique of the Abyssal Kraken, Apex Predator of the Depths]
[Skills]
[END STATUS]
I haven’t actually gotten hurt since getting healed by the orca, but my REGEN stat is now a little over seven times that of a normal human. So a bruise that would normally take a week to heal will now heal in a day.
And that is incredible.
It’ll still take a little while before it gets to the point of healing in a matter of hours though. Which is both disappointing and yet shocking at the same time.
Disappointing that I have to wait, shocking that it is set in stone to happen eventually.
As long as I don’t die.
Anyway, I continue to search through the cavern while hunting. But I don’t find anything on the first day because the cavern is so enormous.
Thanks to today and the last day I spent exploring the place though, there is only a little bit more to search. So I should be able to find it tomorrow.
With that in mind, I head back to my small cavern, where I lie down again. Except this time without all the pain I had before.
Then I go ahead and look at my Broadcast System mail again. Finding there to be thousands of different mail in the Business Inquiries section now, along with hundreds of thousands in the junk mail section.
This time I don’t bother reading the junk mail before selecting the clear feature to clear toxic mail and harassment out of it. And only after that do I begin to read the mail.
But it’s not until I reach further down the list that I find one specific mail that makes me stop in my tracks.
Because it’s from someone I recognize.
That cranky old grandmother at the convenience store.
Hey brat, you better not die before you come get those mints you’ve been stashing in the back of the store. Don’t think I didn’t notice that.
Despite how short it is, and despite the rather harsh method of speech in them, I feel tears begin to sting my eyes. Something that doesn’t happen often.
And when I notice the broadcast for some reason on right now, probably because I’m having an emotional moment, I wave at them and say, “Something got in my eye.”
The chat doesn’t believe me.
That’s fine.
And that old lady… I really thought I hid those mints well.
I hope she holds onto those. And… that she stays safe while I’m gone.
She has a habit of being careless after all.
It doesn’t take long before the broadcast cuts off again. At which point I take care of matters and head to sleep without checking any other mail.
And when I wake up, I once again go through my routine before heading out back to the cavern. Where I immediately set off to the section I hadn’t seen before.
A section that soon proves to have exactly what I’m looking for.
Underneath some coral in a secluded corner of the cavern, I find another tunnel connected to the large cavern.
I don’t actually see a Gate here, but I can feel the mana growing in density a little bit starting at this tunnel. Which means there’s a good chance it’s in this direction.
So after a short pause where I inject mana into my armor and my weapon to repair them, I go ahead and enter the tunnel. Beginning the next part of my journey as a Pioneer into the unknown.
I just hope there’s a safe place to make a temporary home soon.