In the Black Stallion Duchy, there was a mine that resided directly under the duke's estate. Since it was where the Black Stallion Duchy gets most of its riches from, and because the duke was a very paranoid person, he had people make an artificial hill above the entrance of the mine and build his house on top of the hill. Then he had them killed.
Since they built his house and the route to the mines, they would have extensive knowledge on how to steal his precious minerals and magical gems if they wanted to, so the duke took precautions.
Even the guards he kept there had gone through special background checkups before they were employed, and they had to have been born and raised in the Black Stallion Duchy. None of them dared to come late to work, or the duke would have them killed, claiming that they were selling information about the mine to the enemy. The enemy being anyone other than himself, of course.
The people the duke made to work in the mines were the people who broke his law, not the king's law. Once a person angers the duke, he makes them work in the mine, and he makes their entire family join them. Apart from a baby, everyone in their family would work in the mine.
In the deep mine, where people where breaking rocks with their pickaxes, there was a little boy running towards a direction. Alex had been watching the patrolling guards, waiting for the opportunity to leave his work post to see his friend. There were a lot of heads in the cave, and he was sure they wouldn't notice one as low as his if he went missing.
He had been working in the mines since when he was five, now he was ten and he knew the entire layout of the first layer of the mine and a small part of the second layer, where he was going.
He had sneaked of to the second layer before, but he was caught by one of the guards when he was leaving. Luckily, the guard didn't report him to the duke and just dragged him back to his aunt. He was spanked and made to promise that he would never go there again, but he did.
After dodging most of the people he met along the way he soon reached a hole, he carefully crawled in before people came by. He and his friend always chose different places where they would meet next before he left. Alex proposed this because if they found his friend, it'll be killed.
The hole led to a small crawl space that was shrouded in darkness, with the only source of light being a small slime that was hiding in a corner.
Alex smiled when he saw it, "Globby, why are you trying to hide when you literally glow."
The slime shook when it heard his voice, then it squirmed towards him. Since the crawl space demanded limited movement, Alex had to lay down do be able to hug his friend. He had found Globby two years ago, although there were slimes and other small magical beasts found everywhere in the mine thanks to the concentration of magical power the magic crystals emanate, Globby was different from the other slimes, because Globby glowed.
Alex's job was to carry the gems and ores that had been found and take it to the people who would in turn take it somewhere else, he didn't know where. But anytime he did, he would hear snippets of conversations of the guards. Sometimes they talked about inappropriate things he wasn't sure he should hear at his age, but other times the talked about the mines.
From them he knew that magical beasts could be born from concentrated magical energy. But the magical energy in the mine was mostly scattered so there were only small, mostly harmless magical beasts like Slimes, Light Beetles and Dust Moths could be found in there. Alex had also heard a rumor that there was a very strong magical beast living deep in the mines.
Alex was sure when he found Globby, that he had eaten a magic crystal. Because magic crystals glow, that was the only explanation as to why Globby was glowing. It took a while for Globby to get used to Alex, but the fact that it got used to seeing him and actually played with him in the end made Alex know just how different it was from other Slimes.
Other Slimes mostly just creep around searching for small rodents to eat, dead or alive. They always run when they notice humans, and they were corrosive. Globby was also corrosive – Alex had seen it dissolve a rat once – but it could control its corrosiveness, so when Alex touches it, it felt just like touching water.
Globby was smart, that was what Alex figured out.
Alex spent most of their time together telling Globby everything that had happened to him since their last meeting, although Globby couldn't talk Alex was sure that was listening. It always stood still when he started talking, it even shook when it heard something scary. Alex was very grateful for his and Globby's weird friendship, after his parents died from over-working in the mines he began living with his aunt, but she and her children blamed his mother for getting on the bad side of the duke, resulting in their entire family thrown down to work in the mines. He was maltreated and malnourished, and the stones in the mine gave him cuts all over his body. The one and only good thing in his life was Globby.
After a few minutes, Alex decided it was time to leave, "Come Globby, let's look for the new place we will meet next time." He gestured for Globby to stay behind him while he scouts ahead.
He had just stuck his head out of the hole when an explosion rocked the entire mines.
"Ah!" Alex stumbled back into the hole, cutting his face on the jagged, pointy rocks in the process. More and more explosions sounded, he held Globby in his arms and cowered. The explosions were coming closer, dust was starting to fill in the hole. Suddenly, the small crawl space started crumbling.
"We can't stay here, Globby!" Alex grabbed Globby and stuffed him into his shirt and crawled out of the hole. He could barely see anything with the clouds of dusts pilling up around, but he could hear the sounds of rushed footsteps and screams of pain. He covered his nose with his sleeve and walked through the dust. Luckily, he had chosen a place very near to the entrance to the first layer of the mine.
"Ack!" His leg hit something, and he fell to the floor, he checked to see what it was and saw a dead man's body. The body wasn't crushed by a rock, instead blood was coming from a slash on his neck. Alex then noticed that the screams of pain was accompanied with clangs of blades.
Alex trembled as he shot up to his feet and ran away, he didn't know what was happening, but he knew he needed to get out of the mine. As he ran, he could feel Globby expanding across his chest, like it was giving him a hug. He forced a smile and tapped it lightly.
"Don't worry, Globby. I'm going to get us out of here."
Globby squirmed in response.
He soon reached the first layer; it had less smoke but was riddled with dead bodies. Alex forced himself to focus on breathing or else he would have fainted. There were people fighting all over, the guards against some mysterious people. Some of the miners were also fighting the guards while some were being ushered out, most of the bodies that littered the ground were the miners though.
Alex tried to make himself as unnoticeable as possible as he maneuvered through big boulders, when suddenly a loud screech sounded. The screech was so loud that Alex saw the dust vibrating. Alex knew – and he was sure that the other miners and guards knew – what made that sound. It was the strong magical beast that was rumored about, it was real, and it was angry.
A dark shadow flashed by, and two people where immediately slashed in half. Then, all hell broke loose.
People were stumbling on top of each other while they tried to escape, some people even pushed others down to keep the monster busy while they escaped. But the beast didn't want to eat anybody, just kill. But the ruckus made the beast pause for a bit, and Alex could finally see what it was.
It was a shadow that was in the shape of a big cat. The shadow around the body twisted like smoke, once in a while the teeth and the claws would be visible. With another screech it pounced on the people in front of it.
Alex hid himself behind the boulder, he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the screams of the people dying around him. Unknowingly, he began praying. He prayed for his safety, he prayed that the beast didn't find him, and he hoped it focused on the others.
'They can die, but I want to survive!'
[Ding! The God of Origins has seen your plight and blessed you with his power!]
In the midst of absolute chaos, a bunch of words appeared in his vision. Following that was a rush of information, for a second he was enjoyed by what he saw, but after a thought he realized that even with the classes shown to him, he still didn't have a way to escape his predicament. Most of the classes demanded fighting, but he was too scared to face the beast, not to mention it was a hundred times stronger and faster than he was. The Cleric was good, but there weren't any people that needed healing, and even if there were he still wouldn't come out.
That left the Tamer the only class he could choose. That actually worked well for him, being a tamer meant that he could protect Globby, then all he had to do was wait for the patrol knights to get there. An explosion rocked the mines again, Alex decided not to waste any time and chose the Tamer class.
[Would you like to tame the beast with you?]
Immediately he chose yes, a red pentagram appeared and sucked Globby in. After Globby entered the Beast Space, Alex used [Merge]. It was a skill that was automatically unlocked when a Tamer tames a beast.
After he used it, Alex's body turned glossy, like he just bathed in oil. His eyes glowed blue like the color of Globby's body, and there were little blue lights streaking across his hair. After merging, Alex's perception multiplied. He was sharing the vision of Globby, and since Globby was a slime and didn't have any eyes its way of seeing was very unique. With his heightened perception Alex could 'see' all around him even if he didn't move his head, plus he could see different faint lights dancing in the air.
The most astonishing thing was that he could actually sense the beast's movement. The beast also had a light surrounding it, it was dark purple, but the workers and the guards didn't. Alex finally understood that what he was seeing was magical energy.
Suddenly, a collection of fiery red lights flowed to a certain person in the cave, he could see the lights combust and turn into a ball, he could even see the heatwaves, then that ball was thrown at the beast which dodged it. The ball of fire hit the walls and a familiar explosion sounded.
Alex couldn't help but peak out from behind the boulder, he saw a woman standing behind two men with swords, the men were trying to attract the beast's attention while she sent fireballs at it. But the beast was to fast for them to hit.
The beast lunged forward and made quick work of the two men, the it pounced at the woman and caught her in its jaws. It shook its head sideways, the woman screamed as her body was being torn apart.
But Alex could see something else happening, with his merged vision he could see an innumerable amount of red fiery lights accumulating around the woman's body. In his vison, the woman glowed bright red, the light pulsated like it was going to –
Boom! In a flash of light, the woman exploded. The shockwave blew everything around it apart, the entire mine shook and rocks were crumbling and falling down. Alex closed his eyes and held the boulder tight, small rocks fell on his body, but its glossiness prevented injuries from building up. The vibration after a few seconds, Alex opened his eyes to complete darkness.
Thanks to the merging his eyes quickly adjusted to the dark, couple that with his heightened perception he could basically see as he normally could. He slowly stood up and looked straight ahead with despair, the explosion of the woman had blocked the entrance of the mine. Alex rushed forward, dodging dead bodies as he ran, he came to the rock wall and tried to pull out the rocks. Instead of creating an opening the rocks trembled violently and more rocks fell. Alex was sure that continuing would only make things worse.
He knelt down and stared blankly at the ground, he didn't know how to feel, he couldn't even cry. He felt like his mind had stopped working.
Suddenly, he heard a low growl coming from his side.
"Ah!" Alex jumped to his feet and ran backwards, on the ground was the shadow beast that was killing everyone. Half of its jaw was gone, and the rest of its body was covered in terrible burns.
[Would you like to tame the beast in front of you?]
When Alex saw that message an anger like no other came upon him. He huffed as ran towards one of the dead miner's bodies and picked up a pickaxe that laid beside them, then he came back and slammed the pointy part into the beast's skull. Then he did it again, and again.
"This is all your fault!" He screamed. If it didn't come he could have escaped, if it didn't appear the woman wouldn't have had to self-destruct trying to kill it, and he wouldn't be trapped with dead bodies.
He slammed the pickaxe into its head over and over, even ignoring when he leveled up. He continued until he was satisfied, until the beast's head had turned to mush. The he turned his head to the side and heaved up a pile of vomit.
When he was done he collapsed unto his back and began crying. And he loved it, the headache and the tears falling down his face weirdly grounded him. He cried, then laughed, then screamed in anger, then cried again.
When his mental state went back to normal he realized that everywhere was dark and his vison had gone back to normal, the only source of light was Globby who was at his side. It seemed Globby stopped the [Merge] and came out to check on him. He knew this because of the connection they now shared.
He crawled to Globby and carried it, "We're trapped Globby," He sniffed, "There's no way out."
In answer, Globby did a series of jiggles.
Alex eyes widened, "You're right, Globby." Alex stood up as he stared resolutely at the darkness, "There should be another way, we just have to find it."
Globby jiggled.
"Thanks, Globby." Alex hugged it, then he merged them again. He picked up the pickaxe that he dropped and walked into the mine; he was going to find away out for the both of them.
"God help us." He said as he disappeared into the darkness.