“Stone Shot!” Vin yelled, blasting another one of the acid spitting butterflies out of the air before it could get closer to him. Grimacing at the stone floor melting beneath the fallen butterfly, Vin couldn’t help but imagine what that acid would do to his own flesh if it was capable of melting solid rock.

  “Reginald, you good?!” He called, lining up another shot and blasting down an acid filled butterfly that had been heading straight for the rat. Reginald and Blossom both had their paws full down here on the ground and he was the only one with a ranged attack, which meant he’d taken over anti-acid duty.

  An angry squeak was all the rat had time for, his focus entirely on the deadly dance he was weaving around his own enemies. The poor rat was fighting against a swarm of beetles nearly as large as he was, and only his quick movements and bladed tail attachment were enough to keep the seemingly endless beetles at bay. But for every one he cut down, it seemed as though three more took its place.

  Even as Vin watched, one of the large beetles managed to get a lucky hit on the rat, its bladed mandible slicing directly down into the rat’s side. But before Vin could even shout, the insect’s blade bounced off the rat, revealing a thin sheet of stone that had suddenly formed to protect the rat’s flank.

  Hell yeah Eithan! Vin grinned, shooting a silent thank you to the Stone Mage for giving Reginald his defensive runic object as the rat continued fighting unharmed. He’d originally wondered if the tiny band attached to Reginald’s saddle would function similar to his own ring of barkskin, but it seemed like Eithan’s creation was stronger and more reactive than Vin’s own constant durability buff.

  Seeing as Reginald was holding his own, Vin turned to check on his other companion. Blossom was busy swatting down leaping mantis monsters and ripping apart some monstrous bees that looked similar to the ones he’d seen out in the forest, if someone had injected them with steroids. Thankfully, neither of the two insects were really able to do any noticeable damage to the cat made entirely out of wood. Even so, they threatened to overwhelm the cat with their sheer numbers, and Vin knew the moment Blossom went down he and Reginald would quickly follow.

  “We can’t keep this up, we need to retreat back to Alka!” Vin finally called out, cursing as he missed a Stone Shot and barely managed to take out the next butterfly before it reached Blossom. “On three, turn and run! One… Two…”

  But before he could finish, the thrum of humming filled the air behind them, echoing powerfully in the large cave. Shooting a glance over his shoulder, Vin paled at the sight of dozens of dragonfly-like monsters zipping toward them from behind, their razor sharp wings gleaming in the pink light.

  “Crap, we’re cut off! Run!”

  With their exit strategy gone, Vin took off in the only direction they still had available to them. Grabbing Reginald as he ran by and shoving him in his pocket, Vin leaned into Threat Detection like never before, doing his best to block the butterflies' acid shots with his sword as he barreled straight through them and ran deeper into the dungeon. Luckily, not even acid seemed to be able to leave a mark on the petrified elder wood blade, meaning Vin managed to sprint past them in one piece.

  That wasn’t to say he got through unharmed of course.

  Resistance increased to lvl 13! 1,300 exp gained.

  Vin roared in pain as flecks of acid ate away at his exposed skin, melting straight through his grey fatigues and severely burning him wherever they landed. If it weren’t for his ring of barkskin, he was pretty sure he’d be dealing with melted muscle and bone instead of just skin, so there was that at the very least. Even so, the pain was excruciating, and Vin wanted nothing more than to stop and roll around on the ground in the hopes of getting the acid off him. But he knew if he stopped with the swarm right behind him it would mean certain death.

  Almost more concerning was the pained whine that seemed to be coming from the crystal around his neck as his body was punished. He could practically feel the ritual struggling to hold on, and he feared even if he survived, he might cause the ritual to fail and his friends wouldn’t live long enough for him to return.

  Unable to worry about that right now, he did his best to keep running. Some part of him remembered he’d yet to spend his attribute points from hitting level 22, and he blindly summoned his interface as he ran, dumping the three available points into vigor in the hopes it would help him survive all this.

  Hearing Blossom right on his heels, Vin didn’t even look back as he closed his interface and focused solely on putting some distance between the insects and himself. Pushing his dexterity to the limit, Vin sprinted deeper into the cave, leaping over small puddles and dashing around stalagmites, all the while silently praying for a miracle as he pumped his arms.

  To his shock, his prayers seemed to be answered, as without warning a sudden opening in the cave wall to his left revealed what looked like a man-made corridor of all things. Nearly tripping over his own feet as he tried to stop on a dime, Vin stared at the sudden change in scenery, trying to figure out what he was even looking at.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The natural cave wall ended abruptly, turning into a corridor made of rough hewn stone that stretched off into the distance, further than he could actually make out. But it didn’t just look like someone had built a random corridor down deep within the cave. The sudden and jagged change in environment reminded Vin deeply of the fragment borders up above.

  Vin was snapped out of his confused staring as he realized the humming was getting louder and the swarm was closing in on them. Not about to turn away this strange chance, he went to flee down the oddly placed corridor.

  And immediately stopped himself just shy of the strange entrance.

  Gasping, Vin nearly dropped his sword as he fought the urge to clutch his chest. It was as if he had a rubber band wrapped tight around his core, and he could feel the band pulling taut as he approached the odd corridor. He had no idea what the band signified, but he somehow knew without a shadow of a doubt that if he left the cave and took one step into that unknown corridor, whatever this strange band was would snap instantly.

  Vin hesitated, the swarming insects approaching quickly behind him and this strange, empty corridor stretching directly in front of him. He’d yet to run out of cave to run through so he could just ignore this entirely and continue heading deeper into the cave, but he somehow instinctively knew that his best bet for survival would be to flee into the corridor. Even so…

  Try as he might, Vin just couldn’t shake the sense of foreboding that snapping the mysterious band wrapped around his core would result in something utterly horrible happening. Cursing, Vin gave the strange corridor one final look before turning away and continuing to sprint through the rest of the cave making up the dungeon.

  “This might be it, Reginald,” Vin panted, doing his best to ignore the steadily increasing roar of insects behind them as he ran. His minor pause at the unexpected corridor had cost him, and it sounded as if the insects had made up a lot of the ground between them. He was definitely faster than the bugs, but the further in he went, the more insects it seemed he picked up on his tail, and he had no doubt there had to be an entire army after him now. “I kinda knew this was a bad idea from the start, but we were dead either way, so I figured it was at least worth a shot.”

  Reginald poked his head out of Vin’s pocket, giving him an understanding squeak and patting him on the chest with his tail. The rat’s compassionate eyes nearly melted Vin’s heart, and he had to stifle a sob that he wouldn’t even be able to save the poor guy.

  “Thanks buddy,” Vin sniffed, beaming at the rat. “As much as I appreciate you being here, there’s no sense in you dying as well. Even if I can’t go into that weird corridor for some reason, you could probably still make it if you left now.”

  Reginald gave him a defiant squeak, lifting his tail and shaking it at the heavens as if challenging the Gods themselves. Vin’s heart leapt out at the determined rat, and he decided despite everything that was happening to them, at the very least he was happy he wasn’t facing it alone.

  The thrumming of beating wings and scraping of insect legs suddenly grew louder, and Vin stopped running, realizing the sounds were coming from both in front and behind them now.

  “End of the line, huh?” He said, looking in each direction and realizing he’d finally hit the end of his adventure. Even if he somehow fought his way through the insects and escaped the cave, without the proper materials for the ritual that were still further down the tunnel, the radiation poisoning would kill him regardless.

  “At the very least, this world beat Earth by a mile. If that cop was right, I probably would have spent most of my life behind bars anyways.”

  Reginald squeaked again, sounding to Vin as though the rat was agreeing that prison sucked and definitely wasn’t worth it.

  “I wish I could have seen and done more, but hey, who doesn’t!” Vin said, pulling Reginald out of his pocket and wrapping the rat in a tight hug. As the impending buzzing and scraping grew to a crescendo, Vin squeezed his eyes shut and crouched down, praying that his death at the hands of the literal mountain of insect monsters would be quick.

  With his eyes scrunched shut, Vin waited for the burning of acid landing on his skin, or the sharp slice of a weaponized limb as the swarm of monsters smashed into them and drowned them in a living sea of bugs. He even contemplated removing his ring of barkskin in order to make it all hopefully end quicker and not draw out his suffering. But as the two of them sat there, huddled with only each other for company, Vin realized something odd.

  They weren’t dead.

  Tilting his head and focusing on the sounds echoing throughout the cave, Vin realized that the inevitable swarm of insects had grown quiet, almost as though they were suddenly much farther away than they had been mere seconds ago.

  Cracking open an eye, Vin looked in confusion at the thick, wooden wall completely barring the tunnel behind them. The wall seemed to be growing out of the stone floor, as though it was some sort of wide tree and the solid stone of the cave wasn’t a problem for it in the slightest and it had always been there. Turning around, he spotted an identical wall blocking the other side of the tunnel as well, trapping them in a small, makeshift cavern within the cave and preventing the insects from getting any closer.

  “What the…”

  It was only then Vin spotted the glowing man standing off to the side, staring at him curiously. Slowly getting to his feet, Vin stared right back at the stranger, trying to figure out what exactly he was looking at.

  For one, the man looked quite sharp. He wore a dark green suit decorated with hundreds of small leaf motifs that looked as though it had been professionally fitted. He looked to be somewhere in his fifties, with lengthy, snow white hair that was tied back in a braid so long that he had it wrapped around his waist like a belt.

  Similar to Alka, the man was completely see through, as though he wasn’t actually there at all. But unlike Alka’s flickering green form, the man’s body had a solid golden outline, and Vin wouldn’t have been surprised in the least to learn that he was capable of interacting with the world around him.

  It wasn’t until the man spoke, revealing his pointed teeth, that Vin realized it wasn’t actually a man at all that had saved them, but an elf.

  Taking a few slow steps toward them, the strange elf’s eyebrow raised as his eyes flicked between Vin and Blossom, and the glowing elf finally spoke.

  “Who are you, and why do you have my pupil’s staff?”

  that interesting.