It is dark. My body hurts so much. Why is it so damp here? What happened? that's right I fell… No! I jumped. No that's not it either. I was forced to jump. It was the only way to survive. if it wasn't for them, if they had fought together with me, we might have had a chance. They took the easy way out. Well, I can't really blame them, we weren't really friends.
I should try to move, I need to gauge the shape of my body if I am to survive in this hell hole of a labyrinth. No. it's futile. I'm alone, injured and probably far deeper than I have ever been. I should just give up. At least that is what my always rational mind is telling me to do.
I sighed.
"Oh, you are finally awake!"
I turned my head to the side and saw a small fire. Next to it, leaning against the wall with his knees pressed up against his chest was a sitting man. He was quite handsome, probably adored by ladies, I kind of envied that. He was taller than average, had a slender build, black hair, and his facial features were sharp. from the shape of his eyes you could tell that he was asian or at least half asian. It took me a while to remember who he was.
"It took you a while to regain consciousness, for a long moment I thought you actually went ahead and kicked the bucket," he said with an idiotic smile plastered on his face.
His name is Allen, oh wait maybe he was Alex, or was he Rogers? no it was from the letter 'A'. I'm so bad at remembering names… The point is he is the one who was forced to jump with me.
Well it doesn't matter we are both going to die here anyway so what's the point in trying to remember the guy's name.
"Are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere? I checked over your body, but aside from a broken leg you look more or less fine"
More or less fine? It seems we have a jokester on our hands, because I sure as hell don't feel fine. Although it is strange that after falling from that high of a ledge to a pool of water all I have, injury wise, just this. I guess he was up to something when he ordered me to fall legs down, keeping my whole body rigid, to enhance it with mana and to inhale before hitting the water to protect my innards. I mean, I would have used mana anyway, but who knew about the other two?
But then what happened to my leg? Did I hit some underwater rocks? And did I lose consciousness? He was probably the one to drag me out of the water, which is pretty amazing considering that he experienced the same fall I had. Wait, hold on, did he say he looked over my body? I mean, I am a guy but still that doesn't make me comfortable being left alone with him.
"Can you please say something? I know you are injured, but it won't make your injuries any worse," he was still smiling but it was obvious that he was quite shaken on the inside.
I guess at times like these it's good to have this low tier trait - 'coldblooded', at least it keeps me calm and rational no matter the circumstances and it also provides me with a slightly enhanced pain tolerance which I really appreciate at the moment.
"Listen I know we don't know each other, but we are stuck in this predicament together and the only way for us to get out is to work together, so what do you say? You wanna get out of here with me or not?" he leaned closer to me gesticulating wildly with a flustered and yet determined look and wincing at the pain from moving.
well what can i say, the guy has passion and besides, it will be comforting spending my last hours with someone else. I might as well talk to him a bit and humour his ridiculous plans of actually leaving this place.
I slowly repositioned myself so that I would be right in front of him with my back leaning on the adjacent wall, his excitement growing with every one of my sluggish and painful movements.
I sighed and finally said "So Bob what do you have in mind?"
He looked at me as if I had just saved his life, the excitement just oozing from his pores.
"We should carefully and sneakily find the stairs leading up and escape, your job class is an assassin right? you should be good at stealth and detection. Oh and my name is Alex Jones by the way, I thought I had introduced myself when we first started our party."
Even though it is hopeless to begin with, I expected a bit more of a plan from a man with the legendary 'sage' trait. although it lets you recall even the oldest of your memories as if they had happened only moments ago it doesn't give you any actual additional intelligence. The poor fool forgot the main issue.
"So, you know, Alvin, that with a broken leg I won't be able to move much, right, so your whole plan of 'carefully and sneakily' leaving this place won't work." I looked at him with a slightly challenging, yet mostly indifferent look.
"That isn't a problem either, as you know I am an alchemist, in other words I create potions. I have almost everything I need to make a healing potion on me. Oh and my name is Alex" his self confidence and pride almost illuminating the entire dungeon.
"Almost?"
"Almost…" he visibly shrank "All that is left is a mana source and while you were sleeping I racked my brains out until i finally found a solution that might work"
"Might?"
He shrank even more "I am not sure about this, but we could use monster blood, as you know it has a huge amount of mana, but…" he went silent for a moment and lowered his eyes.
"I would be the one to test it out right? Sigh… Fine it's not like I have anything to lose anyway"
"Yea, it was a stupid id-wait what? Really? You would do that? In that case all we need to do now is to find a monster so slay and we will be set.
"Well you can start with the one on your left that has been eying us for quite some time now."
He suddenly turned his head to the left and started searching, his eyes wildly darting. After a while of not spotting anything he took a deep breath, sighed and turned to me "You shouldn't joke like that, you almost gave me a heart attack" he said looking relieved and slightly annoyed.
Heart attack at the age of around seventeen? He shouldn't blame me, it's his diet to blame. One of the perks of living in the most powerful country in the world, well atleast in the former world.
"I wasn't joking, there really is a monster to your left. It's black, the size of a tiger, actually it kinda looks like a big cat."
His eyes widened "T-that's a shadow panther, a 'B' class monster. B-but why isn't it attacking?"
"its' side is injured, it's probably too weak or too weary to take us on now so it will wait for us to fall asleep and then take us out"
"How do you know that it won't attack us now"
"I used to watch a lot of documentaries in our previous world and most animals tend to act that way" I said.
"Well if what you are saying is true, I think I know how we can take it down" the determination once again showing on his face.
I chuckled internally and said "Well, as long as I can help, we might as well try."