Chapter 36: Strange Markings
A while had gone by in the lowly cavern, and with the absence of the sun or any electronic device, it was impossible to tell how much time had truly passed.
One thing was certain though—it had been more than a day since the collapse. And finally, Drake had woken from a somewhat long slumber, feeling healed and energetic once again.
He sat himself up, his stiffened bones creaking with every subtle movement he made. How callous was it to wake up this way.
’I feel so sore,’ Drake complained inwardly, folding his fists and stretching a little to ease the tension in his bones. This likely took him an entire session of five minutes of consecutive stretches.
When he was done, Drake rose to his feet, and with his new view scanned around the cavern, his eyes searching for any signs of life—or maybe something else.
For a second there, he had been expecting an army to immediately spring out of nowhere the instant he stood up.
However, there was no more horde of monsters. Not one he could see, and surely not one Drake could sense.
With a bitter taste in his mouth, he grunted, turning toward the pile of rubble. "It’s impossible to dig out through a hundred feet of solid rock, so I might just be trapped here."
He thought.
Knowing this was the same problem the people who came for rescue outside the crater would face, he immediately shifted his attention to much more pressing matters.
First—the necromancy stat.
Summoning the interface, Drake activated his necromancy and feasted his eyes on the different types of treacherous monsters he could add to his army. Well, this proved rather futile to his surprise.
The monsters they had encountered—none was Drake able to identify by the names the system called them. Not just that, but Drake suspected it wasn’t the names he couldn’t recognize—it was the language they appeared in.
’Just what is this system?’ he felt curious and compelled to ask the interface. Though, it was clear no answers would come, since it wasn’t an intelligent mind—rather something much more advanced, but passive.
Having no other choice in his current situation, Drake decided to select the monsters based at random. And when he was done, he dismissed the system and focused once more on the graveyard of the dead.
Many bodies were already beginning to rot, their disgusting stench filling the air—both man and monster alike—making it unbearable to breathe. That was the supposed case, but for Drake, who had been alone with the revolting corpses for so long, it felt as though he was rotting away himself.
How comforting.
Taking one final glance back at the load of debris, Drake took in the sight, burning the image into his head before he began to move in the opposite direction, in hopes of finding a way out... Or maybe, the way he went might just turn out to be a trap filled with the horde waiting.
No matter—he had to take the risk.
Moving through the cave, Drake stayed alert, paying attention to the slightest shift in his surroundings... By shifts, meaning if he thought he saw a body twitch—or was it just him being nauseous and running mad already?
"No, you aren’t running mad, Drake, it’s all in your head." Drake reassured himself. "Wait... speaking to myself—isn’t that already considered a form of madness? And I’m still doing it. Shit."
Maybe, he was truly running mad.
Keeping that in mind, Drake continued to inspect the interiors of the large cavern.
It didn’t take him long before he started to notice strange details he had missed earlier when they had first entered the cave. It wasn’t like they could concentrate on details when their gruesome deaths were bearing down on them. So, he was just being sarcastic at this point.
Drake had spotted weird carvings on the wall of the cave, seeming like an image, and a few writings he couldn’t make out easily from where he was standing.
Without delay, he hurried over to the wall to get a solid insight on the surreal markings.
Reaching out, he could finally see the full context of what was there. It wasn’t any drawing or language he could understand. No.
"This doesn’t even look like a language, but sigils and markings," Drake spoke in a low tone, recalling. Things like this existed in his old life. Usually, they were used for magical portals—or seals...
"This is very strange. In that case—" Drake placed his hand under his chin and assumed a thinking position, resting his back against the wall and then staring around further to see if there were other markings across the dim cavern.
He saw a few, thanks to his enhanced eyesight from his increased stats. Even if he couldn’t make out the intricate markings up close, having in mind that they were sigils made it all make sense from where he stood.
"Could it be there is more connection between this world and my last than I’ve already seen?" Drake began to entertain the thought, his mind trailing back to the devil that had killed him, and then Icaris—whom he had met on the dungeon hunt—in undefined suspicion.
"But if what I think is right, and this world is like my last, then that explains how the crater came to be in the first place—without even being noticed till it was already there."
Drake had stumbled on what he thought to be a very relevant theory regarding the craters—and maybe even how the monsters had suddenly disappeared.
This, he would share with Headmaster Stoick when he returned. Or more appropriately; if he returned.
With no more information left to extract from the cave walls, Drake felt a bit more appeased than alarmed by the large cavern.
He even started running rather than walking through the cave, in search of a way out—if there was one. Thankfully, his body motivated him with multiple growls from his stomach.
If the crater didn’t kill him, surely hunger would.
Continuing through the grim desecrated cavern for a while, Drake finally reached a section where the bodies of the monsters and the murdered awakened were nowhere to be found. This section was unlike the broad cavern from earlier; it had narrowed into something smaller—but not too small to make Drake have to squeeze through.
It was still as large as the grand hall of mighty, prestigious family that loved to throw money away lavishly.
It was that much bigger. And to this change, Drake himself had slowed down to a steady walk through the tunnel, getting a familiar sense of foreboding from his body.
Instinctively, he knew something was here. He lowered his hand quickly to his sheath and—
Empty.
His weapon was gone, lost during the callous ruckus caused by Kresha. And he hadn’t noticed until now. What dumb luck he had.
Drake frowned, clenching his fist and continuing his approach through the tunnel. For a while, he saw no signs of danger, but soon enough—with every step he took forward—the sound of life crossed his ears: grunts, snarls, the sound of metal hitting metal.
That was strange, since he was the only human who had survived the crash. So how could he be hearing such things?
Out of curiosity, Drake quickened his pace, his footfalls echoing down the narrow pathway as he raced through. Reaching a sharp bend to the right, he turned—and landed his gaze on a group of humans locked in a fierce battle against a monstrous, Minotaur-like beast.
From what he saw, the battle was clearly one-sided—the Minotaur dominating them in attack speed, strength, and wits.
From what he could tell, their deaths were inevitable.
’I guess I can’t let them die,’ Drake thought, knowing his way out could very much depend on this group. If not, he was tense with the thought of continuing to run endlessly through the crater.
{Ding}
{D-ranked beast detected}
Drake let out a dark, macabre sigh. "This is just perfect—a subject to test my newly founded strength on."