Chapter 41

Of course, I don't get the chance to run for that long. Before even five minutes to running, I run into another one of those leeches. This time, with my bow and iron arrows, I kill it in six shots to the mouth and collect its body. I can't see anything that would be craftable from it, except maybe green paint.

With the Black Leech in my inventory, I went on to kill endless waves of the leeches in the cave. For some reason, the leeches did not the depths of the cave, or somewhere above, but instead came from inside the walls. True to their gelatinous appearance, they oozed from tiny holes in the wall and grew to be anywhere from 10 to 20 feet long in height and 30 to 50 feet in length.

For killing the leeches, the bow is the obvious choice. Swords are not able to do enough damage to the slimy textured skin of the leech without getting extremely close where being swallowed by the leech would become a huge risk. With a bow, I can use multi-shot to group three arrows inside the mouth of the leech. It usually takes two sets of three to kill a leech, but sometimes takes three or four.

The more I hunt, the more I realize how having a large amount of extra arrows would be beneficial to these little expeditions. When the next shop day comes, I'm going to buy at least 500 more iron arrows.

I could switch to the crossbow, but I don't have the ability to use multi-shot with it, and iron arrows are doing a fine enough job by just piercing the skin of the leeches.

After killing 15 of the Giant Black Leeches, as they were called by the Identification Vision, I came up to a small stream. There is nothing in the stream, and it doesn't look particularly polluted. I could follow the stream for a while and see where it takes me. If the stream leads out of the cave, great, I would like to see the surface again. If the stream leads to an underground stream, fuck me. Without much of a choice, I follow the stream.

As I follow the stream, the cave gradually becomes smaller and smaller. If I try to imagine how this place formed, I would think that it was once filled with lava which gradually drained out. If that is true, I could very well be following the cave to the center of the earth. Kinda cool, but not really what I want.

I suppose if the leeches are living down here, something else has to be as well. Or at least, there are some plants. I hope it's another living thing and not just leeches and plants.

I keep going down the cave, but I see something ahead. It has been a long time that I've been walking, and I don't exactly know what time it is. It was the morning of the 38th when I left to see the dragon fight, which I totally regret doing now, and it's probably been a day since then, or more.

Anyways, the things that I see is a village. I know, strange to see a village in the deep dark cavern, but I see the outlines of buildings and some torches lighting the infinite darkness.

I really hope they aren't vampires or something.

As I walk to the edge of the village, two spear warriors come out to greet me.

"You there," They say, pointing their spears at me. "How did you get here?" Well, let me tell you. I was fighting a dragon when I fell through a hole in the top of the mountain and survived by pulling 400 feet of cloth out of my ass.

"I broke into this cavern from the top of a mountain very far back that way," I say, pointing back the direction I came from. "I was unable to get back out. Do you have an exit this way?" I think I can see a red glow in their eyes. Damn, they are vampires.