We find our Hero... what? Oh crap wrong story. We find our soon-to-be Villian wandering through the cave system. His eyes have adjusted to the lack of light, but he is still barely able to see past his out stretched hands.
He has been wandering for about a day now according to the mission timer. Oddly enough, the timer didn't mention hours, minutes, or seconds. Just days remaining.
During his wandering he ran into several creatures. Most were small creatures like bats. snakes, and insects. Those small creatures avoided him. Burrowed into the ground, clung to the ceiling, or going into a branching path.
But out of all the creatures he ran into, there was one that was as large as the cave itself. It several meters tall and wide. It looked like a western dragon mixed with a turtle. It had four powerful scaly legs, scaly body, hard shell that looked like layered iron plates. It's head was that of a dragon and was covered in the same hard shell. The legs also had the shell armor, but it didn't cover the entire leg, just the front of it. When it retracts all of it's limbs, it will be fully covered in the hard shell, no flesh sticking out. Without a spear, that has a long and thin blade, to stab the gaps between the shell and the shell from limbs, there was no way a human could get through it's shell. It was doubtful that even a railgun could damage the shell without hitting the gaps.
Even before laying eyes on the creature, Aaron was frozen in fright. It wasn't something he could overcome, even with all of his training in his first life. It was a primal fear, something similar to a normal human meeting a living T-rex. Just the mere sound of it's breathing causes an adrenaline spike. But the creature did nothing, just looked at Aaron for a few moments before it continued on it's way. It walked straight into the cave wall, and the wall just crumbled into a cloud of dust and hail. It was similar to anything being crushed by a hydraulic press.
Aaron continued his journey in search for the surface. He ran into more small creatures, and it wasn't until the third day that he ran into something bigger. It was a wolf, or rather a pack of wolves. It didn't take long before he was ripped to shreds. He suffered a lot of pain, his flesh was torn right off his bones, his stomach was gutted as some of the wolves feasted on his inners. But it wasn't until, what appear to be the alpha wolf, ripped out his throat and crushed his entire neck did he die.
'Ding! Mission failed. Resetting conditioning, please wait...'
'Ding! Resetting successful. Mission Survive. Time Limit, 5 minutes.'
'God damnit, back to square one? The fuck is this shit. Anyway, it should be easier since I know what to do, and I don't have to adapt to this body anymore.'
It didn't even take a minute for Aaron to get that creature into the pit. The mission didn't end though, which confused Aaron, but he shrugged it off, and followed the path he took from before.
'Ding! Mission successful. New Mission, Start the conditioning.'
The subsystem resounded with the same message as before when the five minutes were up. And the five day timer replaced it.
'Sigh. Well, I have a couple days ahead of me before the wolves. I don't think that there is anything I could do about them. I'll just go a different path just before I meet them.'
Time passes, all the while Aaron is lost in thought. Thoughts of the past, the present, and future pass through his head. And while he wasn't paying attention a quick adrenaline spike ran throughout his body, waking him to his surroundings. He knew the reason, it was that Dragon turtle. But unlike before, he wasn't frozen in fear. His body was in a defensive stance, his eyes shown fear and vigilance.
Like before, the dragon turtle made it's way through the cave. But unlike before, it paused for a moment as it observed our hero... err, villain. After that moment, it just snorted and continued on. It left behind a smell of smoke this time.
This did not encourage our villain though. With his knowledge of mythology from earth, or at least the most common knowledge that almost everyone knows, he could tell that this dragon turtle creature could breathe fire. Or at least in some fashion spit fire. With that pause and the smell, he never wanted to enrage this creature. He doubt he could ever survive it.