I turn around and point my light to see the first cockroach I squished turning into steam. It was slowly evaporating like a certain titan in this one anime I watched.
'Okay now I'm certain that this is another world. Corpses normally don't do that. I think. Never seen one before.'
Affirming my belief that I have been summoned to another world, I look at the remains of the evaporated cockroach. There seemed to be some sort of green glowing balls around the rock I used to kill the cockroach. Even the blood and guts on my clothes started to evaporate.
'That's a relief. But I still want to shower.'
After heading over to the green glowing balls to try and pick them up, they suddenly started flying towards me.
'Don't tell me it's the soul of the cockroach coming for revenge or something?!'
I put my hands in front of me to try and block but the green balls disappeared as soon as it touched me.
'Huh. Where'd they go?'
Ssshhhhh.
The second cockroach I killed started doing the same thing. I backed off a bit in case those green balls appeared again. And soon after they did. Looking closely at the balls, they looked like small souls what were slowly floating towards me.
'Maybe it's the experience points for killing the monsters like in video games?'
After thinking this I slowly walked over to the glowing green balls. When I was around 5 meters away from them, they started speeding up towards me. Paying close attention to my right hand, I reach out and touch the balls. Upon closer inspection I noticed that they looked like they were dissolving into my skin.
'How peculiar.'
I pointed my light at the death point of the second cockroach to see if there were any materials left behind. Usually when you kill a monster in a game they drop some materials that can be made into weapons, armor, items, and other goodies.
I looked around the area but didn't see anything.
'Oh right where did the head fly off to?'
After remembering that I decapitated the cockroach I look towards the area where the head supposedly fell. There on the ground a small item reflected some light.
Walking over to the item I picked it up and inspected it.
'Seems to be some sort of crystal? It's even smaller than my lucky charm gem.'
In my hand was a transparent crystal that was no bigger than a grain of rice. I walked over to the first cockroach's area and found another crystal just like it.
'I'll keep them for now. Might be useful later on when I get out of this cave.'
I put the two crystals into my single pocket.
I made my current goal to get out of this cave. It was dark and full of bugs that I'd rather not run into again.
Another goal I had was to look for any people I can talk to. Since that bright light and earthquake were seen and felt by everyone in the classroom, maybe some of them were transported here with me. I'm not vain enough to think that I'm some special snowflake chosen by God or something.
I resumed walking through the cave. After a short while I saw another fork.
'Let's keep to the left.'
I bent down to leave a mark like I did at the previous fork and was surprised to see a similar mark already on the ground.
'Looks like that fight with the cockroaches earlier disoriented me. Good thing I left a mark. If this is that same fork it means that the cockroaches came from the path in front of me.'
Not wishing to run into more of them, I quickly turned around and head back to where I came from.
While walking I restocked on some rocks and confirmed what I know so far.
One, after experiencing an earthquake and bright lights I find myself in a cave system presumably in another world.
Two, there are monsters or giant bugs at least in this cave.
Three, killing these monsters causes them to evaporate and leave behind a crystal.
As one could see, I don't know a lot. I have more questions than things I do know the top of which are:
Is this really another world? (High probability)
If so who summoned me and for what purpose?
How do I get back to my world?
Are there others from my class who were summoned with me?
Why do monsters evaporate when dying?
Do all monsters evaporate after death?
Will I evaporate when I die or will I leave a corpse since I'm from another world?
What's the use of these crystals?
So many questions but no one to answer them. I hope that there is an exit to this cave and that it's not too deep underground. At least it's not full of spiders eating each other and I am still a human.
"..elp…"
I heard an echo coming from in front of me.
"Som… ve me…"
'Seems like someone is in trouble ahead.'
I slowly approach the source of the sound. I'm not the hero type who rushes to save someone in trouble. If the person was being attacked by something I can't handle I will run without hesitation even if that person was someone I knew. Self-preservation first and human relations somewhere further down my priorities list.
Ahead of me was a corner which turns to the right. The sound seems to be coming from around the corner. I lean against the stone wall and carefully make sure my light won't be seen. When I was close to the edge of the wall I turned off my light and took a peak down the path. Of course I see nothing. It's dark.
"…Someone help!..."
I heard the echo of someone's plea for help. Soon a small light started to show in my vision. Looks like it's one of the students from my class who is also using their phone as a light. The question now is why do they need help?
As the light grew closer to me I started to hear a weird sloshing noise behind the echo of footsteps.
"Help me somebody!"
I can clearly hear the voice now. It's my classmate Fran. She's a slightly chubby classmate of mine who likes to sing and dance. We aren't that close, so I stay put. It may be cold-hearted but I would like to see what she is running from before making my move. If it's another group of cockroaches, then I can help her out. It's easy for me to decapitate them after all. But if there are more than 5 of them then I'm running.
It's still too dark to see what was chasing Fran clearly. Shine your light behind you so I can see whether to help or not please.
*Ding*
I received a notification from my phone suddenly. It's a noise telling me that I'm low on battery.
"Help me please!"
"Shit!"
The noise didn't escape the ears of Fran as she started running faster towards me.
To run or to help…