A truth revealed and we entered the mysterious cave!

We woke up before the sun is up, and go to the north. We are waiting for a merchant to come out from the gate and hope they want to take us with them. We see a carriage coming out from the gate, Edith and Secra stop them and asked if we can tag along to the north. Luckily with Edith and Secra's beauty, they let us in. But the merchant is not going to the north, he's going to the Lovelace's Kingdom on the west. He said that he will drop us at the nearest village, which is Lowa Village, it's 12 hours from here. We thanked him and we're on our way to the Lowa Village. The merchant takes a lunch break, and we all hunting for our own food. Edith and Secra making a fake story to the merchant, that we got robbed on our way to the Bulark's Kingdom by the Jungle bandit, and we got lost in the forest for a week and ended up here and planning to meet our friend up north to ask for help. The merchant believes the story without doubting her. We continue our journey to Lowa Village. Vivi and Kiel are asleep, Zee and the others just sitting there in silence. Then Edith says,

"Val, after we arrived at the Village, find the Inn and wait for us there, there is something that the three of you need to know about Shive."

I reply,

"Is it something that she's been hiding from anyone?"

They all nod, and Zee replies,

"You will know when we are at the Inn. Get some sleep, Val. We still have 4-5 hours before we arrived at Lowa Village."

I nod and get some sleep.

Vivi woke me up, and we arrived at the Lowa Village. We thanked the merchant, and then he left to the Lovelace's Kingdom on the west. The sun is almost down, as planned, I, Vivi, and Kiel will find an Inn, while Zee and the others go somewhere else to get money.

An hour has passed. We waiting for Zee and the others at the Inn. They finally back with a bag of silver coins, I asked them where did they get that money from. Zee said that he sent Vex to do quests from the adventurer guild, and Secra finds some information about the village at the market, Den and Edith helping the villager, while Zee just doing nothing and go to the pub. We rent 3 rooms, Vivi and Kiel, Edith and Secra, and us the guys in the same room. We all go to Vivi's room, to talk about Shive. We all sit down on the bed, and Zee sitting on the chair and says,

"There is something that you all need to know about Shive. She's a Demon and she lives in the Underworld or you can say the Demon World."

Our jaw is dropped. I know that she always says to her people but I never thought that she's a Demon. Kiel is screaming and says,

"Waaaaaaaa that's why she is so scary and disgusted when she's looking at me."

Then Vivi ask,

"If she's a Demon, how old is she?"

Edith replies,

"If excluding the time she's in the Underworld. This year she's 255 years old if, including the time she's in the Underworld, it's about 900 years old I think."

Kiel just passed out hearing that, Vivi just laughed at Kiel. This is not weird for Vivi, because she's a half-elf and hundreds or even thousands of years is normal for her since she lives with the Wood Elves. I heard the Wood Elf Queen is 700 years old. But we are confused by what Edith said and I ask,

"What do you mean by including or excluding time in the Underworld, Miss Edith?"

She replies,

"Oh, a month in Demon World is like a week in here, so a year in there, it's just 3 months in here."

We nod, and then Zee says,

"So we're planning on staying in the Underworld for a year. You can train for a year there and it's only 3 months in here when we get back."

We nod again. This isn't that bad, we also curious about Demon World. So we agreed with Zee's words. Then I ask more questions,

"I remembered Shive calling them, her people. Is she someone's important in the Underworld?"

Zee replies,

"You will see when we have arrived at the Underworld."

I ask again,

"I heard Demons can change their appearance, is that her true form or it's different?"

Zee and the others smiling and he says,

"You will see, or you can ask Vex. He's Shive's little brother. He's also a Demon."

We all surprised by his words, and Vex laughing and says,

"You want to see what the real form of us Demons. Little one?"

His hair color becomes silver and longer, his ears become pointy and widened, black skull wings came out from his back, his body becomes taller and his eyes become pitch black, but he becomes more handsome and yet scarier. Then Zee says,

"We will be staying here for 3 days, get some money to buy a new weapon and equipment. No need for a strong weapon, just a weapon that can help you protect yourself."

We all nod. Vex back to his usual form like a Jester. We all go back to our own room and go to sleep.

3 days later, we have 300 silvers and bought proper equipment for now and our adventurer points are 470. We bought a Carriage for our journey, and Zee said that our next destination is Jaque, Beast Kin City. A one-week journey from here. Zee said in Jaque, all the quests from the guild are B to S-Grades, so we can get enough points to be Tier 4 class. We start our journey to Jaque City.

5 days have passed and 2 days are left to reach Jaque City. We have all been traveling through forests and lakes and training every day. We're taking a lunch break, Zee said there's a cave nearby, a Sea Serpent live there and nobody has ever made it out alive. It's an SS+ Grade explorer quest. He offered us to try to explore the cave, and find out what is inside of that cave. But we don't have the proper equipment and our weapon is not going to be able to kill a Sea Serpent. Zee says,

"I'm sure we can find proper types of equipment inside the cave, from the adventurer's corpses."

Well... He's not wrong, but that's kinda scary to think about it. Looting from dead bodies. I asked Vivi and Kiel, they are okay with it. So we will explore the cave tonight, and for now, we hunt for our lunch and spend the rest of the day here, then we go to the cave in the evening.

It's already night. We arrived near the cave, it's huge and surrounded by the lake, and there is a small island in the middle and a cave in the middle of it. There is a bridge to get to the island. Before we go there, we are preparing ourselves and eat dinner first.

We all are ready and crossed the bridge. The cave's mouth is a bit scary, the aura from it already makes me shiver. Zee is leading the way. We are inside the cave, Zee and I holding a torch. We heard weird noises, and Zee told us to be on guard. Dozens of merman are charging at us, I grab my sword and start fighting. They're not that strong, we killed all of them in a minute. We continue exploring the cave and as Zee said, there are a bunch of equipment and even a decent sword. I think the merman collecting all the loots and put them in this place. We haven't seen any dead bodies around. I replaced my sword with the one I found, and grab another sword just in case. Zee took 3 shields and a sword, I wonder why. Vivi took a silver staff with sapphire stone on top of it. Kiel took a book and has a core on its cover, it's a Codex. Vex said it has a very powerful core, and it's far better than the Rod she had. After we took everything we need we continue exploring the cave.

We have been exploring for an hour, we are getting deeper and deeper. There is no more merman in here, and we start seeing a lot of skeletons. I guess the merman disposed of the dead bodies here. We see a bright light in front of us, and we walk towards the light. Turns out it's a big cavern and the light came from the lake inside, it made a reflection on the minerals. It's so beautiful and yet so scary for some reason because you can see the lake is crystal clear, and it's so deep. You can see something big is lurking at the bottom of the lake, and some weird noises coming out from it. We all agreed to continue and see where the water came from.

The cavern becomes wider, this time we see another huge lake, and the big thing that lurking at the bottom of the lake we saw is the Sea Serpent or just the tail. But this time, it's the whole body, it's as big as the lake. Zee said that we need to be quiet and be sneaky. The Sea Serpent is sleeping at the bottom of the lake. We see a small hole behind the lake, and I think there's something inside that hole because the Sea Serpent seems like protecting that hole from intruders. We are sneaking around the lake and go to the small hole behind it. We see a Rod stuck on the ground, it's crystal clear. The bottom half is straight and the other half is spiral, but something is missing on top of the Rod, like something you can put or stick it in. I tried to pull it out, but it won't budge. Then Kiel tried to pull it out as well, but her squishy arms can do nothing. Zee says,

"If three of you can't pull it up, then we should leave it behind. Let other people try to pull it out. Only the chosen can pull that Rod."

I reply,

"You guys don't want to try to pull it out?"

They are shaking their heads and Edith says.

"Too rich for our blood, and Vex doesn't want it. So we don't have to try it out."