“Ugh, where am I?” Trying to open his eyes, he couldn’t tell if he was blind or if there was truly no light. Everything around him was a mix of blurriness and darkness and it wasn’t until a minute later that he was finally able to see more clearly, at least to an extent.

All that he could tell was that he was in some sort of cave, with a clear opening at the top, wide like a meteor. Yet despite the width, light barely shined through, as if something was covering it. It did look like there was some foliage but it wasn’t easily identifiable.

Luckily, he woke up next to the wall as the center showed a large lake with items that sparkled underneath. As his eyes adjusted he could also see slight hints of boxes and chests off to the side. There were a few boxes a couple of meters away, containing weapons like swords, axes, and much more.

“What the hell... where am I? And why are there weapons? A cosplay event?" He wondered as he stood up and started getting closer to the boxes of loot. Even though he had no clue where he was, it might be a good idea to grab one or two. To wake up in a totally different area all alone, especially after what happened before, he had to be careful.

Regardless of what happened to him, he took a plain-clothed shirt and pants and decided to wear them. While definitely unhygienic, there were splatters of blood on him from that goblin, it would be bad to go out looking like a maniac.

He also found a decently sized leather bag, strapped nicely that it hardly moved around, yet still feeling comfortable. Taking what appears to be different sized and shaped coins, a filled canister, he stored them in his bag before grabbing a dagger for safety.

After sorting everything out, he took a peek at the other boxes in case he had anything to take. Feeling prepared, he looked around to see if there was an exit. Luckily, there was as there was a tunnel that illuminated with some strange yellow light.

He gulped, wanting to go through, but a bit scared to know where it led to. Sadly the light wasn't bright and shining like the sun. He approached the tunnel while holding out his dagger, taking caution with every step.

Peering through the tunnel, he could not see any signs of an exit for a good bit. While this was worrisome, he noticed that the path was lit by many small rocks. This was what gave off that dim yet luminous yellow light. Barely enough to see the entire tunnel in a clear picture, but just enough to not go completely blind.

Walking through the tunnel at a moderate pace, it took over five minutes for any other light, or space to be in view. But when he did, he was shocked. He stumbled slightly and put a hand over his mouth to not make any noise and to not gag.

The very first sight that greeted him from exiting the tunnel was not grass, butterflies, and a breeze of calming wind, instead, he was greeted to a larger room. A room that had cages to the side, and within those cages were decaying bodies. The smell itself was horrible, putrid, and his eyes dare not lay on it.

“This… was not the scene that I expected…” Taking a short break to regain his thoughts, he began pondering on how he even got here if there were literal dead bodies just rotting in the direction that he needed to go to leave. It most likely wasn't a kidnapping, but he just had no clues or evidence as to why he was here other than the stone that he picked up from the goblin's body, the stone that shone a blinding light. Not wanting to waste any time, he headed forward while trying his best not to look at the morbid sight to the right.

Finally getting through the room, he gave out a sigh. He managed to find an opened metal door which led to a tunnel leading to more rooms. Though instead of the usual long tunnel that he went through, the tunnel contained many side rooms.

Within these rooms, contained many short, poor-quality beds clumped together with some weapons laying on the ground. Miners certainly didn't live in this cave, as there were no obvious signs towards it, making it appear to be a place for a small army to reside. Though with these conditions, this place most likely didn’t belong to soldiers, with the mess, it looked like it belonged more to bandits or some chaotic group.

Not spending much time looking into the bedrooms, he found himself peering into different areas. Whether it be a kitchen, bathroom, or even a lavished office, it was oddly empty. It didn’t appear like it was abandoned long ago, but it seemed like there was some sort of event where they had to all leave recently, not letting a single soul stay around.

“Hrm, Hrm” a quiet yet slightly high-pitched voice echoed through the long halls. Stopping in his tracks, he carefully listened. He could hear it again but it stopped after a bit of time, “Seems like it heard me… hopefully, it isn’t dangerous,” pondering on the noise, he carefully walked closer, trying to get close enough to observe in the dim environment.

Upon reaching the room, he reached for a dagger in case he needed to stab whatever was in that room. Taking a quick peek, with the dim yellow stones on the walls he was able to barely see some sort of fluid-slime type of thing that resided in a glass container.

“Why is it moving? Jesus, what is going on...” he stared at the slime creature. It had a slightly circular shape at the top but it drooped down like a messy puddle. Though if there was one that looked familiar about it, he was relating this creature back to slimes from RPGs.

“I must be dreaming if I'm seriously seeing a slime- Crap!” Focusing on the slimy creature too much, he accidentally took an audible step forward as he was leaning his body to observe, his hand slipping from the dry rocks. The step wasn’t loud at all, but considering how the creature was a couple of meters away, it definitely heard it.

“Hrm Hrm!” it squealed despite having no way of speaking as it had no mouth, and its fluid-like body moved slightly towards him as if that was how it looked at things since it had no eyes.

At least confirming that this slime was making the noise he relaxed slightly since it was behind a glass container.

Even though he had already passed through rooms that had creatures in them, they were either dead, like the large room before, or hiding, not daring to make a sound. When he looked through the cages, he found some weird horned rabbits, green wolves, and many more, though this slimy creature most definitely had to be the weirdest one as it had no clear organs, and was one of the few things actually still alive despite being in this creepy dead cave.