Beasts den

"We are close to a hideout. This secretion belongs to a horned lizard, a beast that lives on mountain caves, a lizard type of beast that reach the height of 1,5 meter and length of 4 meters from head to tail, and it is on the chain food of the silver luan beast, so let's proceed with caution." Luise said.

Although she claimed caution, she went forward faster than before, passing through the rocks jumping swiftly from one boulder to another, occasionally pausing to inspect when something beast-related catch her attention.

From time to time, Nura had to reprimand her, to go ahead too fast and opening distance from the others, to which she always reacted with a frustrated face but holding the pace until they regroup, but on the next minute, she was ahead again.

In just a few minutes, they reached a hole on a mountain, and the entrance of the cave was large enough for the four of them to enter side by side and two times taller than Ryu, the end of the cave was not visible as the vision ended on darkness without reaching a wall.

"There is something strange here, why there is no beast around?" Cahya said, expressing what the others were feeling too.

Around the cave's entrance, feces and bones reveal that the cave was indeed the lair of a large pack of beasts, but even after positioning at the 'door' of the cave, they couldn't hear any sound, which gave the impression that the horned lizard fleed or had been hunted.

However, the beasts could be just sleeping deep within the cave, or even if they had fleed, another beast could have entered to make the abandoned cave its own home.

"What do we do now, enter, yell at the entrance to lure whatever is inside, wait to see if something exits?" Ryu asked, waiting for Luise to decide since she was the expert of the group.

"Yelling to lure the beast is not a good option since it could anger whatever it is inside if pack exit the cave to defend it, thinking that we are here to attack, we will be in serious danger facing more than a dozen beast." Luise said, lecturing Ryu.

"Tough waiting is far the best option, I'm afraid that someone will have to go in and see what is inside." Luise said, biting her thumb in distress.

"Hey, we talked about that many times already. No one is going to enter this cave, you can't throw precaution away to fulfill your curiosity, Luise." Nura said, raising his tone to speak.

"I know, I know, but this time is different. I believe that the horned lizard has abandoned this cave not long ago, you see these marks on the floor and that carcass over there, and these feces over there are still humid. All of this is is a sign that they have moved into a large group.

They could be sleeping leisurely inside, but if we wait as we always do, we will end up losing the pack of lizards, and they could run to a village bringing destruction.

We are running out of time here." Luise explained.

As if Luise words have brought a curse, a sinister atmosphere settled in the place, and the four people looked at each other, waiting for someone to offer himself to enter the cave, but they knew the risk was too high, and no one seemed to be in the mood to go.

Since no one was willing to go, Ryu offered himself with a sad face, if his enhanced vision skill were at the second stage, there would be no problem entering the cave since it will grant him night vision, but in his present condition, he can only count on luck.

At least it would count as an opportunity to train the skill, as one of the ways to upgrade a skill is from constant usage, there is also the possibility of the upgrade via the store in the system, but the price for a scholar grade skill is too high for a low-level cultivator to afford.

That was what Ryu said to himself in his mind when he gave the first step, his heart started to beat fast with anticipation, just a few steps in, and he looked back to see if the other were still there. They were smiling with their thumbs up, glad that they were not the ones entering.

Seeing the happiness on his friend's face only gave him anger, but it worked as a motivation to go forward and cross the darkness. At first, the world disappeared when he passed the board, which light ended, then his eyes got used to the low light condition, allowing him to see a few meters ahead.

Step by step, he advanced in the cave, taking extreme caution to make any sound when walking as he progressed deeper, a urine stench became strong, and his eyes started to tear with the acid environment. Eventually, he reached the end of the cave and found nothing there aside from beasts' residuals.

At the end of the cave, Ryu decided to play a trick on his friends by return running screaming as if something had attacked him.

"AAAAAHHHHH, they are here. Help me." Ryu yelled with all the capacity of his lungs.

But when he reached the exit of the cave, there was no one at sight, he was completely alone in the mountain. Only a minute later, the first person appeared from behind a boulder, followed by a second person and the third from behind a tree, they returned walking embarrassed.

"I can't believe you abandoned me, you bunch of traitors two faces." Ryu said, angry.

"It's not like that. I was preparing a trap to rescue you when you exit the cave, but when you exited alone, I realized it was a joke on your part." Nura said.

"And I was far over there to analyze the beasts attacking you, to make a plan to deal with the beasts." Luise said.

"What about you?" Ryu asked Cahya when she remained silent.

"I had to go to the toilet." Cahya said, but when the others looked at her in mocking, she added, "What? All the other excuses have been already used, how I was supposed to answer."

For a while, they went silent as Ryu was angry, and the other didn't dare to provoke him any further, but when he calmed down and explained that there was indeed nothing in the cave, they left the betrayal aside to plan the next step.

Since the beasts were gone not much time long, they had to find clues about their whereabouts and chase them before they had a chance to arrive at a village.

Thus they decided to spread and go south in search of something that could indicate the horned lizards fleeing route.