System Programmer Chapter 7: The Underground

The cavern complex that lied below Cestor was gigantic. Some children's legend said you could end up in Hell if you went deep enough. Obviously, that was just a tale to scare bad kids, but the fact dangerous beings were living down there was very true. Historical records seemed to indicate those being used to roam the surface, but thanks to the powerful military of the kingdom, those creatures were chased underground, with all the roads leading there being heavily guarded.

The reason the entrances weren't simply sealed is that valuable resources like energy crystals could be found nowhere else than underground, and those were quite valuable to the development of the kingdom. As for the nature of those creatures, the records were quite contradictory. Some said the creatures were mindless monsters, others stated there were species living in communities.

Joshua bit his lip, those records were useless. It was currently the middle of the night and the rest of the group was currently sleeping around a campfire Eric had lit. Three days had passed since they entered the caverns and they would soon reach the limit of the mapped area. They were currently resting in one of the rare outposts that could be found underground. The place used to be a mine, but it had run out of energy stones a few years ago, so it had been abandoned. It still made a fine resting place though.

Since he didn't need to sleep and could permanently keep an eye of the area with the mapping function of Luna, Joshua had volunteered to guard the group every night. No one objected to this since it made perfect sense.

The journey had been peaceful so far, humans were coming to those levels quite regularly and the creatures living below rarely dared to climb up so far. Joshua had picked up a signal once or twice but whatever it was, it had run away as soon as it had detected the party.

He took a glace at Catherine, she was sleeping peacefully. A few hours before, she managed to improve her body to the next rank, thanks to Joshua's improved training method. The twins and Eric were also making good progress, but unfortunately, they didn't have access to the personalized method that Catherine had. Still, the general method Joshua had developed had stepped up their physical training speed. As for Boris, since he was improving naturally, it wouldn't take him long to advance either.

Joshua had been so busy lately he rarely had a moment for himself. This moment of quietness allowed him to reflect a bit on the situation. Just a few weeks ago, he was still on Earth. He even finally met his old friend again. He was a bit embarrassed about how he had died and was glad Catherine didn't ask details about his past life. Seriously being struck by lightning as you head home was such a dumb way to die.

He couldn't help but appreciate the irony of his situation. He was someone society mostly rejected so much he had a hard time getting a job and as soon as he died, he was summoned to receive a lifelong assignment. When Catherine first explained what she expected of him, he thought it was a joke at first. Him? In charge of protecting a young woman from danger from super powerful assassins and assisting her in combat? A scarecrow would have been a better choice.

In his past life, only one man had believed in him and that person had helped him out when he reached rock bottom. He had seen the exact same look in Catherine's eyes as he did back then and that was enough for him. He would help her no matter what. Her dreams were naïve, but that didn't matter to him, what she needed was someone who believed in her.

If someone were to ask Joshua how he felt about Catherine, he would answer that he loved her. This answer would most likely be misinterpreted, as Joshua harbored no romantic feelings toward her. He loved her idealism as people who gave up on their dreams were far too common. He loved that she basically introduced him to a whole new path of progression, as mankind's progress was something extremely important in Joshua's eyes. And above all, he loved messing with her, she was so damn innocent.

Regarding the Crow, he had to admit, he had no idea how to deal with him for the moment. They had been lucky last time the servant he had possessed wasn't very powerful, but he doubted the Crow would make such a miscalculation twice. Their next meeting was certain to be brutal. He could only hope the trip to the ruins would be fruitful, but he expected a lot of trouble along the way.

As for the other teams heading toward this destination, he was sure at least one of them was working for the Crow. He sighed, an experience like this would most likely be profitable in the end to help Catherine mature, but she will most likely suffer a lot from it. He put his hand on her shoulder, hoping she will have the courage to face the situation when it came.

Morning came, it was still dark of course, but thanks to Luna they didn't have to worry about losing track of time. As requested, Joshua woke everyone up and they ate some rations before resuming their route.

After a few hours, they reached the end of the known area, and could no longer count on the maps they were provided. From this point on, they were venturing into terra incognita. Hence, Luna's mapping function became a crucial factor in the expedition. While all it could do was provide an estimated layout of the nearby caverns, it still saved them a lot of time, eliminating dead ends and giving them a general idea of how to proceed.

Despite Luna's help, progress was heavily slowed down from this point on. They were heading downwards, but it's not like there was a straight way going down. Sometimes the group had no choice but to take a tunnel leading up before it started to go down again after a while. There were times they had to escalate walls, on other times they had to cross several crevasses.

Joshua couldn't help but wonder how the other teams would progress without Luna's help, but he figured they probably had some magic to help them. At least he hoped so, apart from the Crow's team of course. That one he hoped they got lost in the middle of nowhere.

Two more days passed where the group didn't meet anyone. The only thing noteworthy were several types of fungi Joshua found. They were unknown types of mushroom so before allowing anyone to eat from them, Joshua materialized his body to test them out. Luna's was able to determine its properties as long as Joshua ate one of them.

The first type was edible so they took a few. The second one Joshua tried gave him hallucinations and he saw Catherine turn into a blue giraffe right in front of his eyes. He looked around, the twins had turned into purple cows while Boris was now a green elephant and Eric a yellow chicken. Anyone else would probably have panicked in delirium but luckily, Joshua had prepared an emergency procedure to handle such cases. He had built an emergency measure in Luna that would dismiss his body should anything abnormal happen. A few seconds after everyone transformed, his body vanished and the effect was dispelled.

This didn't discourage him, most mushrooms they found were edible, apart from another kind that was poisonous, but thanks to Joshua's brute-force method, nothing serious happened.

As the evening was falling and they were looking for a good spot to spend the night, they stumbled on what appeared to be a large underground lake. Joshua flew over it in spirit form but it appeared to stretch very far and he came back. Since there didn't appear to be another way, they decided to camp near the shore for the evening and try to cross it the next day. To cross the lake, Catherine suggested to freeze a large chunk of ice and use it as a raft. It was fairly basic, but it should work and no one had an objection.

Later that night, as the group was sleeping, Joshua was keeping watch again. Everything was calm until Luna detected a figure approaching a bit again. However, it ran away as soon as it realized it was detected. Joshua decided not to give chase, as long as he used Luna he would be certain no danger was near anyway.

The figure had run quite a distance before stopping. This was the third time it had tried to approach the camp, but the people in it seemed to be way too alert. It bit his lip, it would have to find another way to complete its mission.

Chapter end