I was very excited.

It might seem a little dumb that I was so happy for a chance to go galivanting around in demon land, but I was sick of the rust-colored walls and dust.

Taking a sip from the waterskin, I slipped a few things that looked like blueberries into my pocket before placing my food bag on the floor of the cave. I didn't want to go lugging around the bag while exploring, since I would totally lose it somewhere.

I did the best I could wiping demon residue off the bottoms of my shoes and onto the rocky floor. It was a little messy and left a lot of black stains on the ground but it wasn't really my house so I was fine with it.

Checking my profile one last time to see my health, I clambered up to the top of the cave.

I prepared myself for the heatwave I was about to face and lifted myself out of the hole.

This was the first time I was completely leaving the cave, and I honestly felt a little naked. It just felt wrong being out in the open, knowing that there were demons walking around that would be able to rip me apart with ease.

But I had already made my decision. I would rather be out here and die quickly at the hands of monsters then slowly and miserably decay in that cave. I was not going to sit around and wait for death. That was not me.

I quickly dashed over to the nearest boulders, many of which surrounded the opening to the cave. The smallest of the rocks were a little larger than me, and I felt much safer being shielded and out of sight.

While standing there, I felt like I could hear some sort of clicking sound. Like somebody repetitively tapping something hard against a rock. The sound was very faint, though.

I crouched low and peered around the edge of the boulder, bracing myself for what I would see from uphill.

More boulders. That's basically it.

That blue light was still there, streaming over the many large rocks laying around. It seemed like there were dozens of them just dotted around the hillside. It was strange, there were barely any of the boulders downhill from me but as the elevation got higher there appeared to be more and more.

Perception: Level 2 Acquired

I guess I could take that little reward for me randomly examining everything around me. It was a pretty bad habit of mine, standing around staring at things and analyzing them for no reason. But I was leveling up for it, so I guess it was alright to do it.

The only problem was I usually didn't pay attention to all my surroundings while carefully looking at or thinking about something.

For example, I hadn't noticed until that moment the clicking sound had fallen away, replaced by some sort of rumbling.

Like a stampede or avalanche, but one far away. One far away but getting louder.

Which probably also meant it was getting closer.

Realizing something big was coming, I jumped back behind my trusty boulder, while closely peeking around the side towards the noise.

I saw a cloud of dust rising from downhill in concordance with the loud rumbling.

As it got closer, I saw what it was.

A horde of demons, running uphill.

They were ten-foot tall red-furred ape things. It seemed like they had purple skin underneath the red fur. They each had four extremely muscular arms, and massive tusks.

None of them were looking in my direction, but I still cowered even further behind my cover. I did not want to get any closer to those things.

They got closer.

Abitsimus: Level ???

They were still decently far away, but close enough to trigger the system message describing them. However, this was much different from the Keilatrix descriptions. For one thing, there was no description! Just a name and something that showed where a level normally would be!

The horde of demons was still a few hundred feet away from me, which was probably the only reason they hadn't detected me, but because of how many there were and how huge they were, I was easily able to see them.

I was far too preoccupied with cowering behind a boulder to think about it, and I just watched the horde of huge gorilla demons as they ran. It was honestly terrifying, and I did not want to think about what would happen if they saw me.

Each one of the things looked capable of crushing me with a single massive fist. Of which they had four. They ran along the ground like a normal ape on those huge hands, grunting and roaring at each other.

Some were much bigger than others, something I attributed to higher levels. While most were around ten feet tall, some were as large as thirteen or fourteen feet. Absolutely towering above me, and that was when they were crouched over running on their knuckles.

I didn't even feel the heat of the surrounding area, just the damp sweat running down me in streams.

I didn't dare move, sitting frozen as I merely watched the mad procession of demons.

The horde was terrifyingly loud, a roaring hurricane of noise and chaos and brutality in all movements.

Stealth: Level 1 Acquired

After what felt like hours, and was probably a few minutes, they finally passed. As they climbed beyond the boulders and I could barely hear their movements anymore, I let my body go. I slumped downwards and deflated, out of breath.

That was yet another reminder of what happened here. I had to keep in mind that the things I had fought and killed were categorized as the weakest of all demons. Those apes were twice my height and looked ten times my weight in pure muscle.

How would I, a lowly human, stand up to those things?

I couldn't. Not unless I had a tank or some equally ridiculous scenario.

The only thing I could do was cower behind a rock, and it felt perfectly reasonable.

It felt like that was the natural way of things. That I was the prey, and they were the predators.

I did not like that feeling.

But it didn't matter what I felt, because that was just what I had to do.

And when I come back with an army, or I do come back with a tank, or I come back when I'm at level 100, I won't have to feel that way.

They'll feel that way, and that will make everything else be worth it.

....

I waited a few more minutes before continuing to move through the field of boulders uphill. I tried moving in a slightly different direction from the gorilla horde, but I knew that going uphill into the boulders was smarter than downhill.

It would be plain stupid to try and head down to the flat dunes, where I saw building-sized monsters, with nowhere to hide.

That would cause certain death, while going this way was more survivable.

I had plenty of hiding spaces, and I hadn't seen any monsters bigger than those apes.

After the apes had moved on, the clicking sound I had listened to earlier had returned. I tried moving in that direction, while making sure to not lose my way. It didn't escape me that the blue light was also coming from the direction of that sound.

I made sure that I always knew where I was in relation to my cave by taking in the unique blemishes of certain boulders.

I passed left of the boulder with a flat-top, up the steep slope, and straight past the boulder cracked in half.

After a few minutes of this, I could hear the clicking sounds get louder.

It seemed like there were actually numerous sources, all on top of or near each other.

I climbed over the top of the nearest boulder, and saw the sources of the sound and the light.

They were really ugly.

There was around a dozen large combinations of what appeared to be crabs and spiders.

Each of them had bright crimson shells covering their main bodies, with six large glistening eyes on the fronts of their heads, over mandible-like spiky protrusions.

The bodies walked around on eight large serrated claws that clicked against the stone ground. The front pair of claws were raised in front, like mantis claws.

Cirilka: Level 5

These giant crab-spider things like swarming together and tearing apart anything that gets too close. Normally they enjoy camping around small caves and using them as vaults to keep food and shinies they find while clicking around. A nice plus is these caves are usually extremely mana-dense, which is a great boon for any aspiring wizards!

As stated in the description, it looked like they were mostly gathered around a small cave in the ground. The standout thing about this cave was that it was where all that blue light was coming from! It was amazingly bright and spilling out all over the clearing like a beacon.

I was honestly really surprised to see the bug-like demons crowded around it, I thought spiders and the like hated bright light. I guess these guys are different.

I was pretty worried because they each seemed stronger than that Keilatrix I fought in the cave, and there were also like fifteen of them. If I made a wrong move they would probably swarm me and do some really nasty things with those claws.

Although, that light was very interesting to me. I wondered if it was related to that mana-dense thing it talked about in the description. And what did it mean that it was a "great boon" for wizards? That part sounded super interesting!

As I was looking over the demons, a different creature wandered nearby. It was one of those tentacle monsters I had seen the first time out of the cave. And they were really scary when they were closer!

It honestly just looked like a huge blob of grey tentacles. Oh, and mouths. But besides that, not a lot. No eyes, ears, or any other orifices for cognition. I was pretty sure it just flailed around blindly trying to find something to eat.

And those Cirilka obliged! They all stopped what they were doing and sprinted over to the tentacle-demon.

The blob was a lot stronger than each of the crabs but they looked to be overwhelming it with sheer numbers. It continued to flail around, grabbing individual Cirilka and shoving them into its mouths, but for each one it grabbed another three slashed it.

Immediately understanding I had a chance here, I jumped off my boulder and got just close enough to the glowing cave I could somewhat see what was inside.

What I saw was glimpses of a small pond of bright blue liquid.

The light wasn't coming from the cave itself, but some sort of water inside it?

I didn't have any other chance to think though, since I was right out in the open and the tentacle-blob was being overwhelmed.

Hightailing it back into cover behind the near boulders, I watched as the Cirilka killed the invader and dismantled the corpse, taking individual tentacles and body parts into the cave. There was probably some other section where the crabs' stored food inside.

I decided I did not want to end up like the tentacle thing, so I started stealthily making my way back to my cave.

What was that liquid? Some sort of high-mana fluid, like what the system stated? What does that even mean, though?

However, my thoughts soon landed on something decently concrete.

That stuff looked like it had the consistency of normal water, for the most part. It looked liked brightly glowing light blue water.

There was also a whole bunch of it, and it was somehow very useful for wizards.

Could I drink it?

But even if it wasn't necessarily drinkable, could I use it to wash myself, and my clothes?

Could I use it in the same way wizards do, or maybe for alchemy if I want to do that sort of thing?

I opened my menu and saw that I had a new quest, probably something to do with those crab demons. Maybe another extermination, like with the Keilatrix's?

Quest: The Mysterious Cave

You have chanced upon a cave full of a strange blue light. It is guarded by dangers and potential hazard, yet you find yourself drawn to it. Well, guess what; I dare you to get in there! Fight past the challenges and enter the cave, get a closer look at what's inside! If you're lucky, you might find something interesting...

Objective: Enter the cave of blue light

Reward: Rare loot box

All I have to do is enter the cave, and I complete the quest? That's great! I was super glad I didn't have to actually fight those Cirilka, although I was worried about how I would get past them at all.

I also get a new type of loot box. The other quests had given uncommon loot boxes, but this one would be a rare one! That means it'll be better, right?

I was so engrossed with thinking about the quest and its reward I was caught quite off guard when I walked past a burnt boulder and came face to face with another massive, eight-legged Cirilka.

That's a little scary.