Chapter 3: Small cave

As they ran desperately down a long corridor, they heard the piercing screams and sounds of monsters.

After running, they reached the end of the long corridor and came to a dark forest that emitted a strange and terrifying.

Kleint and the brown-eyed man stopped while breathing heavily, their expressions haggard with fear and exhaustion.

The brown-eyed man looked at Kleint with a haggard expression due to exhaustion. "Panting, panting... What do we do now?" he asked between gasps.

They were still in shock over what had just happened.

Kleint did not respond immediately, but opened the canteen and took a big gulp of water as if his life depended on it when he felt the water running gently down his dry throat like a heavenly elixir.

"Haa..." He exclaimed contentedly; he couldn't believe that a simple drink of water was so satisfying to his body. He looked at the brown-eyed man, he replied. "I don't know; for now, let's rest."

The brown-eyed man assisted. He didn't have the strength to continue running. Besides, they don't know if more monsters are waiting for them ahead.

"Phew..." A long, tired sigh left Kleint's lips as he closed his eyes and opened them again.

Still horrified, he was trying to come to terms with this as his head went cold; he still had the vivid image of the woman's death in his head. He wanted to believe it was a dream, but he knew this was not a dream.

I seem to have approached someone quite competent... thought Kleint, looking at the body of the brown-eyed man.

Standing at the end of the corridor, he scanned the surroundings, which was a terrifying forest; he looked up and saw the dark sky with no clouds or moon, making everything much darker and scary, giving them the feeling that they could be attacked at any moment.

"Since we don't know what exactly this place is, I think we should look around," Kleint suggested; he is making every effort to communicate well.

"Are we going to move?" The brown-eyed man asked.

"Yes, because we don't know if the monsters are chasing us, and we don't know if we are at the entrance of the starting point or in the monsters' nest," Kleint said with a serious expression.

The brown-eyed man tensed up while his face hardened. Because what he said may be a great possibility, staying in this place has a high chance of being attacked by monsters.

Before he started moving again, Kleint asked him. "By the way, what's your name?"

The brown-eyed man stared into Kleint's red eyes briefly before answering.

"My name is Davey."

"Un gusto Davey, mi nombre es Kleint"

Kleint stretched out his hand with a forced smile; he's not used to this, so he's trying hard to increase his survival.

"Nice to meet you, Kleint." Davey shook Kleint's hand with a tired smile.

They started walking through the dark forest, and neither of them said a single word the whole way; now and then, they looked back to see if any monsters were following them. But fortunately, they were not followed by any monsters or people until they reached a small cave.

The cave they had found was a bit cramped, but it was better than being out in the open, not knowing what might happen.

Before entering the narrow cave, Davey gathered some dry branches and leaves.

After collecting the dried leaves and twigs, he put them in the middle of the cave and made a base of twigs; after that, Davey took off one shoe, removed the string, and tied it to a stick in a clumsy way.

When he finished preparing, he took another stick and moved the sticks quickly with the small primitive mechanism he made to create friction so he could produce fire and light the improvised bonfire.

Not too long after, with a lot of effort and willpower, Davey lit the fire, and little by little, the cold that enveloped the cave was disappearing.

Wow, incredible, it seems I was not wrong to approach him... Kleint thought, amazed.

He watched the whole process with glowing eyes. It was the first time he had seen someone creating fire in that most primitive ways, and he couldn't be in awe as he witnessed it.

Feeling the cold covering his body, it was slowly leaving, thanks to the warm fire of the campfire as his mind calmed down.

"Weapons, water, food, and coins..." He muttered, looking at the bags of supplies, the canteen, the sword, and most curious, the bag of coins.

With a sigh, he closed his eyes, calming his emotions in the process and organizing his chaotic mind, then opened them again; though the fear still lingered in his body, he pulled out of the bag a coin to look at it, since he doesn't know what to talk to Davey about. Looking at the coin, he realized that it was very well-detailed.

The coin's obverse features a majestic dragonized lion in all its splendor. The head of the lion is entangled with the sinuous curves of a dragon, creating a unique amalgamation of two legendary creatures.

On the reverse of the coin, an elegant and symbolic design complements the strength depicted on the obverse.

Kleint looked at this with bewilderment and amazement at the quality of detail on the coin, which appeared to be silver, not fake, but real silver!

Davey's droopy voice with a hint of sadness was heard as he was immersed in the coin's details.

"I never thought something like this would happen..." Davey said.

Kleint stopped looking at the coin and spoke, looking at the campfire. "You didn't see the status window and those monsters. They're not a hologram, or we're in some virtual game. All those people who were killed by the monsters were totally real... I wish it were all a dream. But unfortunately, this is our reality."

Davey bit his lips in frustration and clenched his fists tightly, looking into the campfire, sighed, and said in a desperate tone: "D-didn't the woman say that the point of this tutorial or whatever... was to survive or something? That woman who showed up mentioned it. So, what do we do? If we stay hidden here..."

Davey, who was talking desperately and with a blank stare as if he didn't want to accept reality, couldn't finish his sentence.

"It's not as simple as you think..." Kleint said, interrupting; as he added more wood to the campfire, he made his red eyes glow slightly.

"What do you mean?" asked Davey.

"The problem is that we don't know how long this situation will last. We have food, but it's limited, and we can't last more than a week with this. Adding other factors, we don't know when we will be attacked by monsters again," Kleint explained.

"Really?"

"Phew... I don't know, but it's a strong possibility," Kleint told him as he sighed.

"What will we do after we survive?" Davey asked.

Kleint stood for a moment in silence, thinking, looking at the cave ceiling, sighed, and said, "I don't know... But, if we hypothetically finish the tutorial, we will go to the continent, like that woman said, right? But we don't know, nor is there any guarantee that the next place we go to, the continent, will be safer. So we don't know what might happen down the road; the place we're heading to might be better or even worse than this one..."

Davey remained silent because what Kleint said could be both a lie and the truth, but the chances are great that it is true. Because what he said made a lot of sense and more closely resembled the reality they were currently in.

While Davey was silent, Kleint said, "Since you know, whether we stand still or move, the monsters won't attack."

"Do you have something in mind?" Davey asked curiously.

"We need to fight."

"Fight? Against those things? How can we win against those man-eating monsters...?" Davey said, and his expression darkened as he understood what Kleint meant.

"Well, I don't know, but we have to try. We need to get stronger to at least be able to protect ourselves, like that woman mentioned if we kill monsters, to increase our stats and get a class," Kleint said seriously.

"But..." Davey didn't look very convinced and was honestly afraid.

This was normal; none of the summoned people probably didn't want to face those man-eating monsters.

"Ugh... As the woman said, we are players chosen to save this continent, right? She gave us a buff, which is the status window. So, if we look at it, to survive, we have to level up like in games. Because if we stay here, we will be fresh meat for the monsters," Kleint said. He didn't know if he had expressed himself, but it was the best way he could say it.

Davey was silent with a complicated expression, and after a few seconds, said, "What you mean, to increase our survival rate, we have to kill monsters whether we want to or not, right?"

"Exactly."

"But can we kill it?" Davey asked, still hesitantly.

"I don't know... But it's either do that or expect to be eaten by a monster. But I think we can do it," Kleint replied. Although he isn't sure if they will be able to win against those monsters, they will most likely die, but he at least has to try.

"So how are we going to do it?"

"We need to do it the simplest way possible," Kleint said.

Davey tilted his head to the side. "What are you talking about?" he asked confused.

"We need to look at them as such and not run away terrified. That was the mistake we all made at the starting point; we were terrified of the monster's appearance and what happened happened happened. But no one tried to attack the monsters because we don't know how tough they are, so we have to attack one to see if they are such monsters or it's just their appearance that terrifies us," Kleint said what he had in his head.

"Isn't that practically crazy to do that? It's like playing with the lottery; we don't know what we'll get," Davey exclaimed, upset; it was as if he was entering hell alone.

Davey still had the vivid image of that ten-foot monster with the big snout full of pointy teeth, exploding the burly man's head like a watermelon. Just remembering that made his body shudder.

"For that very reason, everything is a lottery, like now a monster will appear and eat us. That's why we have to take the initiative, or else it's our turn to wait our turn to die, like cows in a slaughterhouse," Kleint said as if they had no choice, which is true.

If they stay still where they are, their supplies run out, the smoke can attract monsters, and many more factors.

After being silent in thought, Davey spoke, letting out a sigh. "Ugh, let's do that because we don't have any other options, right?"

"Exactly."

After that, they shared no more words as the cold and silent night slowly passed.

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