The counter was ticking now, mere minutes left on the clock for them to go and get Rika Jones before her certain death.
"She's here" Alan called out, his body language tense as he looked down at something.
It was dark enough to not be able to make out anything clearly and despite Mark having a flashlight, navigation was not any easier.
He flashed his light at the position Alan and Kuro had run off to but he could only see the teen and the cat in the illuminated radius, not the person they had been searching for herself.
He quickly caught up with the duo and flashed his light down at the opening they were pointing at. The female was barely visible, her upper torso the only thing that was actually free and twitching - an indication that she was alive.
Her lower part seemed to be bounded by a thread-like substance, a pale yellow sheen shining on its surface when they pointed their light at it.
The spider-like monster, similar to the ones they had faced in the power plant before, guided the entrance of the place and separated them from the female scientist.
However, this time the luck was on their side since there seemed to be only one monster in their path.
"Lucky~" the teen almost sang, looking at the same thing Mark was looking at. They could be sure that no more monsters would appear since the opening was blocked on all sides except their own.
The only monster that could enter there were the ones who came after them and if that happened, they would know immediately.
"I'll go down and free her, you kill the monster from here" Mark instructed the teen who seemed more than happy with the task.
Mark fixed the rope with a sturdy rock in their vicinity and began climbing down. The noise it produced was enough to alert the monster who stood up to check in their general direction.
A shriek followed as soon as the monster spotted their position, and Mark was sure that the light had altered it much more than the noise Mark had made. The speed of the monster picked up as soon as the shriek reached his ears.
But unfortunately for the monster, he didn't even get to be in an attachable radius before it was taken out by Alan's shot. Since they had faced this monster before it was really easy to dispose of.
Mark reached the female only to find her unconscious which was not really a problem for him now. He touched the thread that bound her lower half only to find that it was much less like a thread and felt much more like a stone.
It was hard to touch and did not even move when he tried to break it by hand.
Mark knew he could not take the chance of shooting it since it could end up hurting Rika as well but no ordinary knife would cut the thread either. In the end he decided to go with the sword in his inventory.
He had 'practiced' with it before, but he would be the first one to say that he really had no idea how to use it. The system tutorial video had been…...questionable and unhelpful.
It was a pain to get the thing off of the female, her body shaking more than he had anticipated which made cutting the thread no small feat.
Alan and Kuro had also made their way down in the hole since there was not a lot of time left before the next wave would hit them all.
He was halfway through cutting the thread before he felt the tremors of the earth and knew that the shock wave was about to come.
"Come here, now" Mark shouted to the other two who were observing their surroundings and they abandoned everything at once. The shed skin had more than enough space to cover all four of them comfortably and then the wave hit.
Maybe it was because they were inside a cave, but it was much more potent this time, almost managing to knock Mark off of his feet.
"What's going on? Is something shaking?" The voice that asked was clearly female and confused. Mark somehow managed to turn his body toward the female who seemed to be waking up now.
"Miss Rika Jones, it's nice to meet you again" the female looked a little shocked but also hopeful on seeing him and he knew that she had recognized him. All the while the shaking seemed to be getting less prominent.
"T-the shopkeeper from the base? Are you here to save us? T-the rest of my team would be hiding around the other parts of this cave" the female's voice told the story of her hope and gratitude and Mark felt bad to be the bearer of the bad news.
But he was the only one who could break the news out to her because Alan wsa not ready to handle such a big responsibility right now.
"I'm afraid you're the only one left for your team now miss Jones" he allowed the understanding to draw on her face and saw horror creep up on her face.
"N-no. They told me that they would be alright. A-are you sure you checked every part of this cave? Maybe you just missed them?" The female was clearly trying to make hope in her situation now.
"I'm sorry but you need to accept that they are dead. We can't tell you the technology that makes us so sure but we do have evidence of it" the female finally seemed to break apart at those words and the tears began.
Mark allowed her to cry, even if it was irritating to be faced with such a thing in such a situation.
He took that time to cut the threads off of her body which was delicate work. Every time the sword came close to her the female twitch which caused Mark to stop, lest he harm her too.
"Should I knock her out so that we can get this done? Her flailing about is not helping us at all" Alan asked, his body positioned directly at the female's side to almost whisper directly in her ear.
The female froze at those words, her shaking stopped the second his voice reached her ears. Mark could make out the fear that was visible on her face and he was thankful for the teen's help.
It was remarkably easy for him to cut her free once her hindrance was out of the way and soon she sat there, free of all the threads and other bindings.
"Can you walk?" Mark asked her, checking her lower legs visible to his eyes. They looked a little red but there seemed to be nothing wrong with them. She would most likely feel small shocks in her legs till her circulation stabilizes.
The female tried to stand but lost her balance as soon as she pushed her weight onto her legs.
"Hey, be careful" Alan was the one who helped her, his arms holding the female awkwardly. The female seemed to be a little flushed at her current state and Mark found it cute.
"I'm starting to feel my legs now, you can let go" the female seemed to be alright and Alan allowed her to stand on her own. The female seemed to be struggling with her legs but Mark knew that babying her was no solution to their problem.
They would need their hands free to hold the weapons.
"Here, hold her for your safety" Mark deposited Kuro into her arms who did not seem to be happy. The female almost dropped the warm body inside her arms but managed to somehow keep her intact.
"Are we taking the same way out?" Alan asked, looking at his map and Mark joined him.
"Would we be able to climb up from that hole again? We can't be sure the hook would catch on to the upper branches" Mark broke the idea about whatever the other was cooking inside his head and Alan frowned at his words.
"Still, we should have a look there" That was something Mark could agree with and he finally climbed back up. Kuro was a problem but they just warped her body with rope and pulled him up.
Rika was another problem, her arms too weak to pull her up herself. Mark had to be the one to pull her dead wright as she held onto the rope. Finally Alan climbed up, his breath heavy and tired.
"Let's go and keep your attention up" Mark reminded the other three who nodded at his words and the party started to move now. The cave was still filled with a repressing silence but this time it was a silence that could lead to their doom.
Mark felt something wrong just as something flew past his face. He reached up to feel the blood flowing from the small cut on his face and frowned at it. He shined his flashlight over to the estimated area where the creature had flown off to and froze at the dozen or so yellow eyes looking back at him and his company.