Come On, You Bastards!

Lin En ran to a fork, chose the left path, ran again, then chose left again.

He had no idea whether he was choosing the right paths. But running was running, no matter which way he went, so he simply kept picking left.

The cultists' voices followed close behind him:

"Get him! He can't have gone far!"

He turned into an even narrower passage, narrower than any of the previous ones. The stone walls on either side nearly brushed his shoulders.

He squeezed forward sideways. His clothes were torn by the rocks, and his skin burned where it scraped against them. He felt like he was wriggling through an intestine made of stone.

It hurt, but he wanted to laugh.

Because this passage was too narrow.

He had chosen right!!!

Those cultists were huge. He could barely squeeze through himself, so there was no way they could fit in.

Pain was pain, but it would pass. The cultists had already hit him three or four times. Every time, the pain had made him bare his teeth, but every time he recovered as if nothing had happened. He would get used to it. Enduring a little pain was no big deal.

A young college guy feared no hardship!

Lin En heard curses behind him, along with the sound of cloth scraping and tearing against the stone walls. A flicker of glee rose in his heart as he turned back and arrogantly taunted them.

"Come on, you bastards!!!"

The cultists howled in fury, but they simply could not catch him.

Lin En kept squeezing forward. The cultists' roars gradually faded until he could barely hear them at all.

The passage ahead slowly widened again.

Lin En squeezed out from the other end of the passage and glanced back.

The foremost cultist was stuck halfway through, his muscular body wedged in the crack between the rocks. He could neither advance nor retreat, and could only rage helplessly where he was.

Lin En giggled, then turned and fled in the other direction.

After taking a huge detour, he finally could no longer hear anything behind him. He leaned against a stone wall, slid down to the ground, and panted heavily.

He had really escaped.

He had truly broken out of the cultists' encirclement.

Awesome.

With 30 days in hand, as long as he still had a breath left, he could survive—!!!!

[You shook them off.]

"Are you sure?" Lin En wheezed.

[At least, there are currently no footsteps to be heard. Your hearing is sharper than your sight. After spending too long in a silent, dark environment, your hearing will naturally improve.]

Awesome!!!

But there was something he really could not endure anymore. "System bro, can I ask you something? Can I rest for a while?"

The system said:

[You can. But first, you need to make sure this place is safe.]

Lin En stubbornly climbed to his feet and roughly inspected the surroundings.

The space he was in was not large, perhaps two or three hundred square meters. The floor was smooth stone, with no rubble, no standing water, and no traces left behind by cultists.

The air was stagnant, but it did not stink. That meant no one might have come here for a long time.

He could sleep here.

Wonderful!

"System bro, I want to ask you for a favor. Could you keep watch while I'm asleep and warn me? Wake me up if someone comes?"

Sometimes, the system was actually quite easygoing.

[You can.]

"Really? My system bro is so straightforward!"

The system silently accepted the flattery.

[No need to flatter me. Warning you of dangers within my capabilities is part of a system's normal duties.]

The danger had temporarily passed. After a whole day of tense nerves, Lin En truly could not hold on any longer. He found a sheltered corner, curled up into a ball, closed his eyes, and then his consciousness went offline.

He was far too exhausted. The moment he closed his eyes, he fell into a deep, heavy sleep.

********

Fortunately, he did not dream, and nothing unexpected happened.

Lin En woke with an aching back and sore waist.

When he woke up, everything around him was still quiet.

The system said:

[Awake? Aren't you going to rest a little longer? You only slept for four hours.]

"Four hours?" Lin En's voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat, but it did little good.

"I... cough, cough... I slept for four hours?"

[Your body needs rest. Rapid recovery is not omnipotent. Restoring stamina takes time.]

Lin En touched his legs. Really, sob... they felt like they no longer belonged to him. His arms were sore too.

His muscles felt like towels wrung dry of every last drop of water. No matter how hard he tried, he could not squeeze out any strength.

"What am I supposed to do now?"

What about the next mission prompt? Was there no system mission to issue?

But the system said:

[You are playing survival, not role-playing. Please decide for yourself, Host. But generally speaking, you should look for an exit. You are still within this underground cave system. This cave is huge—far larger than you think. The cultists' camp is only a very small part of it.]

A cave system.

That was true.

Judging from the distance he had run and the direction of the passages, this cave was very likely a complete underground world. It had vast naturally formed caverns, traces of artificial excavation, water sources, and even an ecosystem.

Speaking of water, Lin En pressed his lips together. He was so thirsty right now.

He had found an underground river before. He had wanted to go over, but the cultists had interrupted him.

He had spent the entire day running. He needed water and food.

And he obviously could not survive in this underground cave forever. Otherwise, he would turn into Gollum from The Lord of the Rings and lose his sanity.

He had to find an exit.

There had to be one. The cultists' supplies could not appear from nowhere. They needed to obtain resources from outside. If he found the route they used to enter and leave the cave, he could find the exit.

Lin En took a deep breath and pushed himself upright against the stone wall.

His legs trembled a little, but at least he was standing.

He stretched out a hand to support himself against the wall and slowly shuffled forward, one step at a time.

When he could not see other things, his other senses became sharper.

It was a strange feeling.

He heard water dripping in the distance. He heard his own footsteps echoing through the passage. He could hear—wind.

Wind.

Air was flowing through the passage.

Lin En stopped.

"System bro, did you hear that?"

[I heard it. There is the sound of air flowing.]

"Where is the wind coming from?"

[The passage on the left.]

Lin En felt his way along the stone wall and turned left.

Sure enough, the air on the left was fresher than before.

He walked for a long time. The muscle aches were not impossible to overcome.

Once he got used to them, they were not so bad.

At first, he leaned on the wall and walked like a disabled man. Later, he no longer needed the wall and could move freely.

Lin En hopped in place. Humans really were highly adaptable creatures.

He now had 30 days that could keep him from dying, but he could not win a fight. He could only wait for rescue or run away. He needed to find some capable teammates as soon as possible.

Whether there were any normal people here was another question.

More likely, he would have to leave this place before he could find teammates.

He still had to find an exit first.

[The wind ahead is getting stronger.]

Lin En quickened his pace.

The farther he went, the more traces of human-made passages he found, until eventually it had completely become a corridor excavated by humans.

It was an artificial hallway, paved with stone bricks. The stone walls were smooth, with support frames and oil lamps every few steps.

The corridor was long, so long that he could not see its end. It led somewhere he knew absolutely nothing about.

Lin En stood at the entrance to the passage, stunned for quite a while.

"System bro, what is this place?"

[I don't know. But judging from the architectural style, it does not belong to Chaos. Things of Chaos would not use such orderly stone bricks. They prefer bones and flesh.]

"Then whose is it? The Imperium's?"

[Uncertain. But it should not be the cultists' lair. Go in and take a look.]

Lin En walked down the corridor.

It actually gave him the surreal feeling of returning to the civilized world after ages apart.

Just yesterday, he had still been at home.

This single day felt like being reborn.

At the end of the passage, he saw a door.

It was metal, thick and enormous.

Its surface was patterned, and it felt like some kind of relief carving.

When he shone his flashlight over it, he could vaguely make out humans, eagles, gears, skulls, and all sorts of messy flowers, leaves, and branches.

It was an extremely obvious Imperium style.

It was entirely human in origin.

This was an Imperium structure.

Light seeped through the gap beneath the door.

Unlike the dim crimson light of the cultists' torches, it was real, bright natural light.

Lin En placed his hand against the door and pushed.

The door did not move.

He pushed again.

It still did not move.

Was it locked? Lin En was about to lose it again.

[...Perhaps you need to pull.]

"...You could've said that earlier."

He grabbed the huge iron ring on the handle, leaned his entire body backward, and pulled with all his strength.

The door let out a heavy, muffled groan, as though awakening from slumber, and slowly opened.

Light poured through the gap into the darkness, stabbing painfully into his eyes.

He had been in the dark for too long. Suddenly seeing light, all he could see was a vast sheet of white.

Lin En raised a hand to shield his eyes. Only after waiting for quite a while did his vision gradually return.

Then he let out an awestruck sigh. "Wow—"