As soon as Mark had felt that wetness on his arm, he had backtracked outside the cave as soon as he could. Alan and Kuro had not entered the cave at all which he was thankful for.
He smashed his arm on the saving wall as an assurance just as he was close enough to fully be able to see the light. There was a crushing noise and he knew that it had been a monster that had died.
Thankfully, those monsters did not leave behind any residual evidence after their death and his arms had been remarkably clean of any gore. He was not sure how he would explain that to Alan and Kuro if they saw.
But the teeth sized hole in his arm was not as easy to conceal. It was a glaring spot on his otherwise flawless skin which made it very difficult to divert attention from.
"What happened inside?" Alan asked once he was out far enough to be visible, his arm held in his other hand for support.
"Whatever was affecting the outside monsters did not manage to get the ones inside the cave. I was not able to see what kind of monsters they were, but one did attack me" Mark replied, his attention more on his wound than the other.
The wound was still bleeding and he knew that it would take time before it was close enough to start healing. He would have bought a strong enough healing item but he was still short on resources and the potent medicine was some of the most expensive things inside his shop.
He would rather keep it for extreme emergencies and not like this small one.
"I'll go and treat it inside the car, you keep a lookout" Mark knew that his injury would most likely require stitches and thankfully he had managed to grab the dissolvable ones from the standard base shop.
The advanced part of the shop was not open to ordinary people. Only medics and other health workers with a licence were able to buy them and even they had to show a record and get a limited supply.
But Mark was in charge of the shop and if he managed to snag one or two no one would ever know or question it. Besides, he was field trained in medicine and even had a practice licence.
The basics were similar enough.
He barely felt the thread pass and stitch his torn skin, the liquid he had been dosed with still working strong to prevent his body from feeling the pain and he was somewhat thankful for it.
He did not have anaesthesia to numb his injury and without this numbing factor, it would have taken much longer.
He bandaged over the stitches so that they were no longer visible and at risk of being contaminated. He would not risk an infection here of all places because he knew that it went down here then everything would become just that much more difficult for everyone involved here.
"Did anything happen?" he asked as soon as he saw Alan crouching down. Something was wiggling inside the cloth he was holding onto.
"It was a small round shape which came from inside the cave and I captured it as soon as it was near enough. I think it's the monster that attacked you inside but I can't be sure" Mark observed the clothes' size and came to a conclusion that it was highly likely.
The monster that had been on his arm had been light and small, easily crushable by the tiniest of forces he had exerted.
Mark allowed his system to scan the wiggling from inside the bag and then shot it through. They could not take the chance of letting it affect them after all.
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Type: Common- Spawn bats - poison
Lives in the emerald forest. One is easy to deal with but a dozen? Now we have a problem on our hands.
Weakness: Fire, light
Beware: More than 12 at a time can cause a headache with their ultrasound abilities
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These were really high-level spawns but they were common spawns.
Mark had a conflicting feeling about this whole thing now. This place was not supposed to be open for them yet and it was clearly because they were not ready to face such difficulty.
But then Rika had run forward and put this place right in their laps. This was clearly a problem without a clear solution now.
"Should we risk it?" Alan asked, no doubt having read the same thing he did just now. Mark shook his head in a clear 'no.'
"We need another way to clear the path. We are not ready to take so many of them. I believe there are more than a dozen inside - a few dozen perhaps" the younger gulped at his words, his expression not clearly settling down.
Mark did not wait for the other to speak and decided to add "But Rika Jones somehow got past them and there is no way she did it by going this way. There should be another entry somewhere" the teen seemed to agree, with his words, his eyes darting around to look for the entry.
Mark shook his head at the other. For all his smarts and wits, Alan was but a child and easily influenced by his surroundings. He still needed to learn a lot and before he would be ready to lead a team of his own.
But that was a thing of the far future when the teen would have grown up a little more.
Then he realised that their party of three seemed to be missing someone important. Kuro was nowhere to be seen and that worried him.
Where had the Kitten gone? She had never been too far away from them and he was sure she was not inside their vehicle.
He could still feel her but the connection seemed to be a little muted at her end. It made him worried enough to actually call out for her physically.
"Kuro" his voice carried over and echoed in the empty space of the forest. It attracted Alan's attention who began to look for the lost kitten too.
Mark made his way in the direction he could faintly feel her, her small curious waved knocking on his mind with an intensity he had seldomly felt before.
"Alan, come here" he called out, his tone sharp which caused the teen to abandon his search and join him. Mark himself hurried up in the direction he was walking in, his eyes taking in the structure right in front of him.
It was a human-made pulley system hidden entirely by the bushed and clearly not meant to be found out by anyone but the ones who had constructed it.
It did not look to be a recent development at all and Mark wondered just what secrets it could hold. He tried to make it work but it showed no reaction at all.
Scanning it did not yield any results either, just a system error message of 'conditions not met- insufficient key' and it sparked his curiosity.
"Mark, I found Kuro and you won't believe what she found" Alan called out, now a little distance away from him. Mark wanted to observe the unnatural system a little bit but the mention of Kuro won him over.
He marked that place on his map and then made his way over to the pair who seemed to be looking down at something. He was not sure just what could be that fascinating for them to call out to him in such a manner.
"Look down there" Alan pointed down as soon as he was close enough. He picked up Kuro who seemed all too smug at her discovery and finally looked down.
It was a constructed place, not unlike a human base inside a cave and he immediately opened his map to zoom it.
Something blinked down there, its intensity not unlike a checkpoint and Mark knew that they had found their destination.
"I think we found how Rika Jones found her way inside the cave" he knew he was right since nothing else made sense. That meant that they would have to go down there in search of the female.
Thankfully, they still had the rope and the hook with them which helped tremendously in getting down. Their landing was lit up by the hole above them but the rest of the cave was dark and hardly lit.
Danger like that monster for earlier could be anywhere and if they were not careful enough then they would be breathing their last breath.
Mark pointed his flashlight in the direction of the checkpoint and seeing no danger, started walking into the dark hallway.
From here on, they had only their instincts and Kuro to inform them about any coming danger. Mark was not sure if it would be enough or not but they had no other choice.
And so the party of three made their way inside deeper, right toward the heart of the cave and to the location of the checkpoint.