“You shouldn’t be here.”

  The words sent a shiver down his spine, a sense of primal fear slithered through his body, freezing him in place as he tried to process what was happening.

  “After all I did for you, letting you live and keeping you safe. All I ever asked of you was to stay out of the cave system, and you didn’t listen.”

  The voice was unmistakable, but cold and harsh, a stark contrast to the inquisitive nature of its owner.

  “Hugmun.” Lloyd said in a cautious tone, wary of the anger in the crow’s voice.

  Lloyd turned around to face the crow, keeping a flat face as he looked up at the angry bird staring down at him. Now, Lloyd was by no means good with emotions, most of the time these things would fly straight over his head, but Lloyd could tell for sure, Hugmun was pissed.

  “What persuaded you to come here? To disobey the one thing I asked of you?” Hugmun growled, his voice dripping with indignation.

  “I don’t know. What made you decide to lie to my face?” Lloyd shot back, knowing full well the crow was unwilling to do anything to him.

  “That’s not important, what matters is why you simply refuse to liste—”

  “No, that’s not important at all, what is this place and why are you so dead set on keeping me away from it.”

  Lloyd was done with Hugmun’s shadiness and deceit, he had no good reason to hide this place, Lloyd was sure of it. His vexation was evident, as Hugmun was visibly taken aback by his outburst, surprised Lloyd would dare oppose him.

  “What this place is, doesn’t matter. What matters is that you can’t be here.”

  “Yes, it fucking does. What are you hiding from me?” Lloyd’s voice was aggressive, and Hugmun seemed to realise he wasn’t going to win him over with reasoning.

  Lloyd felt a shift in the air around him, Hugmun's gaze was more hostile than before, and the shadows seemed to be changing. The subtle darkness became more prominent, suffocating, oppressive shadows billowing out of the darkness trying to pull him down.

  Lloyd felt his knees shaking, whatever Hugmun was doing was clearly a ploy to intimidate him, he had to stand his ground. His body buckled under the pressure, the outside force pushing him down with unyielding resolve, but Lloyd was unwilling to bend.

  Mana spread through his body, unfurling through his body like an antidote to the shadows. As the pressure grew in power, Hugmun seemed to grow concerned but Lloyd stood fast, an immutable force amongst the roiling sea of shadows.

  The darkness didn’t avail, lashing at his legs as it began to draw blood, despite the obvious danger, Lloyd didn’t break as he knew Hugmun would first. Lloyd hadn’t known the crow for long, but he knew that he was incredibly weak of will, so he need not worry.

  Just as Lloyd had expected, Hugmun deactivated the skill, the dark clouds retreating into the shadows.

  “You’re lucky I’m showing you mercy, I could cut you down in seconds should I want t—”

  “But you won’t, will you?” Lloyds asked pointedly, glaring up at Hugmun.

  Hugmun moved to dispute, but after tilting his head in indignation for a few seconds gave up.

  “There is a reason I didn’t want you to come here, I know of the system’s machinations, I cannot say how, but I know of you your plight. I know how you humans have to complete, this ‘tutorial’ which I suppose is the island we find ourselves on, and I know how this cave is involved in that.” Hugmun's voice was clear and defeated, unable to continue disputing with him.

  “So why hide it from me?” Lloyd asked confused “It feels pretty clear you brought me here for a reason so why do so if you didn’t want me to find this?”

  “I had assumed that anyone reaching this far into the forest would have been stronger, but you have subverted my expectations and appeared here far weaker than I had expected.”

  Lloyd felt a bit insulted, but he couldn’t say Hugmun was wrong, he definitely wasn’t up to par for this part of the forest, yet he hadn’t turned back. He had no real reason for this, but he couldn’t say it hadn’t been worth his time, he couldn’t do anything just yet, but when he was stronger Lloyd knew just where to go when he wanted high quality materials.

  “And just how does my strength tie into the purpose of this cave?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t say, all I can offer is my advice on the matter.”

  “And what would that advice be?”

  “Leave.”

  “Don’t throw your life away, return with a full party when you’re at a higher level, when you stand a chance. You can’t do this alone.”

  Hugmun wasn’t trying to hide anything now, he was being clear and sincere, his advice was his honest opinion. As much as Lloyd wanted to listen to the bird who was clearly just trying to help, he couldn’t, his advice was physically impossible.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, I don’t have much of a choice.”

  “You always have a choice, it might be hard, but it’s the only way you can do this, return when you’re stronger, and don’t return alone.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to dispute you there. I don’t have a choice.” Lloyd sighed realising the limits of his situation. “I have no one to return with.”

  “Yes, you do, it doesn’t matter if you got off to a bad start, relationships can be mended, and trust can be formed.”

  “Hugmun, I can’t repair relationships with someone who doesn’t exist, there is no one else! What aren’t you getting here? I’m the only person on this god forsaken island.”

  “The only one? How? There are meant to be hundreds, if not thousands of you, how are you the only one?”

  “That’s what I said to the system, but to no avail, I am the only one.”

  Hugmun was lost for words, dumbfounded by what he’d just heard, and Lloyd couldn’t blame him, this situation was completely absurd.

  “I understand that you’re concerned for me, and I fully intend to get stronger before I try anything serious, but I feel like it can’t hurt to let me see what’s so special about this cave.”

  “I-I suppose not, follow me.” Hugmun sighed in bewildered confusion at how things had progressed.

  They slowly tread across the shallow ponds that covered the cavern floor, weaving through the maze of glowworms hanging from the cavern roof. The ethereal glow of the cavern skewed Lloyds vision, all he could see was bluish silhouettes amongst the towering pillars of light.

  Hugmun's walk was slow and unsteady as if he was deliberating whether or not this was worth it. Lloyd followed closely behind, careful not to get ensnared in the bioluminescent forest of silk.

  The trek seemed to go on for hours, as Lloyd had to maintain a constant vigil so as not to get lost in the maze of light. Luckily, as long as it felt the journey soon came to an end, the glowworms dispersing across the roof, not daring to go near the wall of the cave for some unknown reason.

  Hugmun came to an abrupt stop, he stood just at the edge of the clearing staring solemnly at the wall. Lloyd walked up next to him, confused at what was happening, as there seemed to be nothing going on here.

  “So, what’s this big secret you’ve been hiding from me?” Lloyd asked completely oblivious to what was going on.

  “Infuse it with mana.”

  Hugmun's voice was flat and emotionless, sounding forced, like he was struggling to say it. Lloyd looked around trying to spot something but was unable to see anything that looked out of place.

  “Infuse what?” Lloyd asked exasperated.

  Hugmun didn’t say anything, just giving a sharp nod towards forward before taking a few steps back into the glow worms.

  “What, the wall?”

  Hugmun only responded with a curt nod confusing Lloyd even more than before, why did he want him to infuse a wall with mana? Would it reveal a hidden path or something? Surely there was more to it than a blank stone wall, this couldn’t be what he was hiding.

  Lloyd walked up to the smooth stone wall, it had no engravings, no distinct markings, nothing that would indicate its importance. With nothing else to do Lloyd pressed his hands against the wall, for a moment he hesitated, wondering if it was a trap, but he ignored this notion, channelling the mana.

  His hands were veritably glowing with energy, mana pouring into the rock like rain into a river. The sheer volumes of mana being drained by the stone was shocking, but he could feel something was happening, he just needed to infuse it with more mana.

  He wasn’t sure how the wall would react when it reached this mana threshold, but he was certain it would react, he just needed to infuse some more an— He was out, Lloyd had infused his entire mana pool into the wall without realising and it hadn’t even reacted.

  Lloyd turned to Hugmun in disbelief, but the crow didn’t seem surprised, just shaking its head in disappointment.

  “Just as I expected, you won’t be able to see things as they truly are until you are stronger.”

  “What do you mean ‘see things as they truly are’, why do I have to get stronger, what’s going on here?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t answer that, not until you’re stronger at least. I can’t say when you will be able to return, but you’ll know when you can.”

  Hugmun produced a small stone disc engraved with deep inscriptions he didn’t recognise, before he could get out another word, Hugmun pressed the disc to his chest, telling him to take it.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “When you feel the time is right, break this disc and I will know.”

  Lloyd stowed away the disc, freeing his hands as he went to ask Hugmun what was happening, but didn’t get a chance.

  “Goodbye Lloyd, may we meet again.”

  Lloyd opened his mouth and tried to speak but no words came out, he suddenly felt his balance disappear as he fell backwards. He fell backwards into an uncontrollable tumble out of the cave and through unfamiliar landscapes, ultimately arriving in a recognisable forest.

  He felt like he would throw up from the vertigo trip he’d just experienced, but Lloyd couldn’t stop himself from looking up at where he’d come from. Floating in the air high above, Lloyd could see a magic circle glowing purple, the centre occupied by Hugmun's silhouette.

  Being subjected to all kinds of magical horrors by the system had clearly desensitized Lloyd to what was happening around him. He had to remind himself that Hugmun wasn’t some old friend, he was a stranger -not to mention a crow- of unknown but incredible power, a figure his timid demeanour betrayed.

  This had never been more apparent, he had without issue and without resistance, teleported Lloyd -what was likely hundreds of kilometres away- in seconds. Lloyd hadn’t even noticed the magic circle behind him until the portal was pulling him in, not an easy feat as Lloyd was normally amazing at detecting the use of skills -and mana usage in general.

  Taking in his surroundings Lloyd was shown the true extent of Hugmun's power once again, as this was a precisely where he had first crossed the swamp and unlocked supercharge. What was scary about this was how Hugmun had chosen to send him here.

  The likelihood of him picking this place at random was near zero, as he was directly at the base of the tree he jumped to, that was one tree out of thousands of kilometres of forest. With that out of the question the remaining options for how this was possible were downright terrifying.

  Either Hugmun had been watching without him knowing for days if not weeks, or he somehow knew the route Lloyd had taken some other way, which was somehow worse. This was deeply concerning to Lloyd, as if Hugmun could so effortlessly track him, then why not something with less savory intent.

  As strong as he was, Lloyd was certain Hugmun wasn’t the strongest thing on this island, and he doubted the real threats would be as friendly as Hugmun had. Coming to this conclusion, Lloyd suddenly felt a sense of anxiety forcing his eyes upwards every few seconds.

  He quickly snapped out of it, nothing as strong or stronger than Hugmun would have any reason to hunt down some incompetent level fifteen. It was only out of pure bad luck that Lloyd had even gotten the parrot to fight him, the islands real heavyweights would have to think he shat gold for them to bother with him.

  More pertinent than imagining non-existent monsters hiding in bushes, Lloyd had to focus on what he was doing here in the first place, getting stronger. Not just leveling his class, but his profession too, making better armour, backing his level up not just padding his status screen with high numbers.

  At the moment Lloyd’s biggest problem was how skewed his class and profession were becoming. It was understandable back in the dungeon, when he had to focus his profession with no way to improve his class, but back on the island it was just a case of laziness.

  After skinning the giant lizard in the miscus village Lloyd had enough material to make more armour than he could ever need. Just, not good armour… Lloyd now felt comfortable saying he was proficient at inscriptions and runes and okay at magic circles, but he had one clear area he had to improve when it came to armour, enchantments.

  Lloyd already had some enchantments on his current gear, thunderstrike on his gauntlets, swift step on his boots, and lightning slice on his halberd. Problem was, these enchantments weren’t that good anymore, all of their effects could more or less be replicated with supercharge.

  Sure, the enchantments had the bonus of not needing mana to activate, but it seemed like a waste when he could have something entirely unique to bring to the table. He didn’t have a surefire way to create unique enchantments that could better aid him, but hie did have an idea.

  His theory was that if he could find unique materials from powerful beasts and combine that with well done inscriptions, and he had a much better chance of succeeding than he did just using basic materials. Lloyd didn’t have set ideas for what he wanted to do with each armour piece, but ideas would have to wait, he had bigger problems.

  Lloyd stumbled as he tried to step forward, his false leg ensnared in an unseen object. He tried to pull himself free before something had a chance to notice him, he tugged in a lighting quick motion doing nothing but throwing up leaves in a line along whatever his foot was stuck in.

  Before Lloyd had a chance to try again his leg was pulled back down, almost like the thing ensnaring his foot was attached to something. Actually, come to think of it, what was on his foot?

  “Oh fu—”

  The thick strand of silk was pulled tight sending up leaves and dirt in all directions, alongside the thirteen other silk strings hidden along the path. Lloyd was ripped backwards with the force of a semitruck, sending him flying through the air towards a wall of ferns.

  With little mana to speak of after wasting it all on the cave wall with Hugmun, Lloyd couldn’t afford to summon a supercharged mana bolt, his only choice being Thunder bone -which promptly appeared in his hand.

  Lloyd crashed into the ferns headfirst, barely keeping hold of his weapon as he was dragged through the dense foliage. With cuts leaking blood covering his face, Lloyd finally popped out of the ferns only to be met with a silk filled hell.

  This was the second time Lloyd had been dragged towards a spiders den since he arrived on the island, and he wasn’t going to succumb the second time. One slash of thunder bone and the silk binding his leg was severed perfectly, shooting down the hole like the others.

  As he stood in the entrance of the cave Lloyd looked into the ghastly tunnel, the silk was filled with the bones and bodies of the spiders many victims. This didn’t worry him though, just based on the strength of the beast alone, Lloyd could tell it wasn’t too strong.

  Yes, it had easily pulled him through a wall of ferns, but it had grabbed him while he was on one leg and not paying attention. He could have done much worse if he was in the spider’s position, judging by this mediocre strength, Lloyd guessed it to be at most level sixteen, nothing to write home about.

  This made Lloyd look at the tunnel differently, not a trap to fall into, but somewhere to trap his foe. As the pack of weasels had demonstrated a week ago, while Lloyd may be stronger than his foes, but that didn’t mean he could kill them, escape was always a variable, so a tight space to trap the spider was just what he needed.

  With Thunder bone at the ready Lloyd stepped into the silken tunnel, walking into the darkness. Try as he might, it was impossible for him to go through the cave without making noise, every step was marked with the crunching of shattered bones, the spiders prey creating a tracking beacon for it.

  The knowledge that the spider would know exactly where he was made Lloyd a bit uneasy, but at the same time it meant he didn’t need to bother sneaking around. If he had no way to hide where he was, then why not forego stealth for a full-frontal assault instead.

  Lloyd picked up his pace, going through the tunnel at a light jog, keeping an eye out for anything out of place. Before he knew it, the tunnel opened up into a small cavern, but still no trace of the spider hiding there.

  The cave was only a few metres across, its walls made of the same dirty brown stone as the mountain he’d been taken to. Broken bones were littered across the floor entangled in cobwebs that marred the walls and ceiling, but there were no obvious signs of the spider.

  The only trace he could find of anything having been in there recently was the tangled mess of silk strings that had just been yanked into the cave. He could only tell the strings had been pulled in because they still full of leaves, needless to say, this was all very weird, as anything big enough to spin a web like this should not be this good at hiding.

  With nothing else to go off, Lloyd went to investigate the tangled ball of silk and leaves at the edge of the cavern. Since the trap had been triggered by Lloyd, there was nothing in the silk besides leaf litter, and Lloyd guessed this failure was a standout, based on the countless bones strewn about the cave.

  When he had been yanked into the cave Lloyd had assumed the spider had pulled all the strings inwards when it felt the vibrations. Following this logic, Lloyd would have guessed the spider to be holding the strings, but the trailing tail of the silk ball was connected directly to the cave wall in a smear of silk.

  Lloyd went closer, examining the silk in search of an explanation to his confusion, and coming to a startling conclusion. What had first looked like silk hastily smeared across a rough patch in the stone was far stranger when viewed up close.

  The silk wasn’t just attached to the wall, it was actually coming from inside of a crack in the stone. Was the spider on the other side of the wall, was Lloyd standing in a false chamber? Lloyd hastily cut the silk off of the ball trying to see across to the other side of the wall, but failing to see anything on account of the immense darkness.

  Unsure what to do, Lloyd grabbed onto the remaining silk poking out of the wall and tried to yank it loose. Unfazed by Lloyds efforts, the silk didn’t break or come loose, it didn’t move an inch, well at least the silk didn’t.

  Lloyd jumped back in surprise as a large portion of the stone wall dislodged and started moving backwards. A ceramic scraping sound rung out from the wall as the stone fully entered the main cavern, swinging to the side to reveal the spider Lloyd had been looking for.

  Having spent his biology classes learning far too many useless facts about animals no normal person would have heard of Lloyd had a good deal of knowledge about spiders. One spider species in particular would use its abdomen to seal its burrow shut, blending into the ground to hide itself from predators.

  What Lloyd was seeing was the defence strategy of the trapdoor spider scaled up to eleven. It hadn’t just hidden itself in the ground, it had assimilated itself perfectly with the wall, its abdomen even sharing the same durability as stone.

  As the spider turned around to face him, Lloyd activated identify, shocked at how he had walked right past it without noticing.

  Ossec cavern spider -lvl 17

  Level seventeen, slightly higher than he’d estimated but certainly nothing unmanageable, this should be doable. The spider was only marginally taller than Lloyd at its head, but its real mass was commandeered by its colossal abdomen.

  Aside from the obvious threat of its venom, the disproportionate abdomen was the only thing to look out for, as the spider was spindly and thin like a huntsman as opposed to the tarantula he’d seen fighting the lizard. This was good, as it meant it would be weak defensively, so as long as he could avoid getting bludgeoned by its mace-like tail he should be fine.

  Not that that would be easy as it was like trying to dodge a wrecking ball in a jungle gym, but if he was careful, he could manage. Lloyd dropped to the floor, narrowly avoiding being launched like a ping pong ball as the spider swung its boulder-like abdomen at him.

  In response to the deadly tail swing, Lloyd slashed sideways with thunder bone, slamming into one of the spider’s legs, cracking the white carapace to reveal what laid beneath. As shards of the spider’s exoskeleton fell to the ground, Lloyd realised something, the spot on the spider’s leg where he had struck was completely fine.

  Underneath the ivory white shell, a glossy black leg remained completely fine, confused by what was happening, Lloyd inspected the spider’s legs closer while intermittently dodging the spider’s attacks. What Lloyd realised was that the spiders armour wasn’t uniform, far from it, the exoskeleton was a patchwork abomination of different shades of white and yellow.

  It looked like the spider was using the bones of the creatures it found to increase its durability, giving it a second layer of defence. While this was an interesting discovery, Lloyd couldn’t pay it much attention right now, as all it was doing was making his job harder.

  Caught off guard by his revelation, Lloyd was unable to respond in time when the spider’s abdomen appeared on his left like a speeding truck. His body instantly rag dolled as he flew across the room, Lloyd smashed into the wall faster than a moving car, feeling the damage instantly.

  A sickening crunch sounded out from his chest, and Lloyd was pretty sure he’d broken at least a couple of ribs. He felt like he would die if he started moving, but he knew he would actually die if he didn’t move.

  Lloyd activated swift step as he shot across the room, the spider turned to face him but recoiled in surprise when in was met with a halberd to the face. Three of the spider’s eyes were instantly destroyed with the other five sustaining minor but still damaging injury.

  With its vision now heavily impaired, the spider was much less of a threat, or that’s what Lloyd thought would happen, as with nowhere to aim, everywhere became a target. Unable to find Lloyd the spider did the next best thing, and began swinging erratically, aiming for anything and everything it could reach, and in such a tight space, that was bad.

  Lloyd kept pace with the spider, stabbing for its weak points and debilitating as many of its legs as possible, but for every three hits he landed the spider got one back. None of these hits were and bad as the first one, but they inflict enough blunt force trauma to make one of his arms half purple.

  His body was worn out already, and he was bleeding far more than would be ideal, but he was definitely better off than the spider who only had half of its legs working. At this point, whenever the spider tried to attack him, it would miss horribly veering off in a random direction like a shopping cart with a broken wheel.

  The spider charged towards him again, barely managing to go straight as it trundled forwards. Seeing his chance, Lloyd jumped upwards soaring over the spider’s head and onto its back, rearing his halberd as he tried to keep balanced.

  While the spider was repositioning and trying to figure out where he was, Lloyd took his chance and stabbed downwards, driving the point of his halberd through the spider’s head. As Thunder bone punctured the spider’s brain cavity, the beast froze mid-charge, collapsing on the cavern floor.

  As the spider slumped across the ground, Lloyd jumped up in alarm as he felt it gather mana, preparing for a final strike. Mana condensed around its chest, building up in the exoskeleton until it reached critical mass.

  It was clear as day when the skill reached its breaking point, as Lloyd instantly got a kill notification whilst trying to dodge the gory shrapnel. The aftermath was not a pleasant sight, the spider’s entire midriff was reduced to a bloody soup, leaving only the head and abdomen behind.

  Luckly, that was all he needed.