Tale of Death

Chapter 23 - Cave

Shi didn't have time to rest on the ground for long since she wasn't sure if the ground she stood on would collapse like the other parts of the ceiling. She needed to move quickly, at least out of the area she was on.

Standing up, she looked around for the first time she got up here, noticing she wasn't on the surface like she believed she would be.

Shi was in yet another cave— thankfully, this one wasn't like the ruins she had fallen into before. This one was naturally forming, at least as far as she could tell. It was a small roundish cave tunnel; Shi could barely stand up straight in it with her height of 5'7, which goes to show just how small it was.

The walls were made out of dirt and stone— perfectly packed together in such a way that they wouldn't easily cave in. It was a wonder to Shi how amazing nature was in forming such structures naturally without any effort at all. Truly wondrous.

The cave didn't have much of a design to it not— that she expected it to have any. The only noticeable thing in the cave was how flourishing it was. The cave's walls were littered with plants of all kinds— the most notable being a semi-translucent type of mushroom that glowed with a faint hue.

'So that's why it looked like daylight.' Shi thought to herself as she observed how well they lit the room up. Their colors may be different, but with enough of them— the colors simply intertwine and make one bright light.

While she was disappointed that this wasn't the surface, it was still better than a random ruin— that was falling apart. 'Don't they say that if there are plants there is a way out? I mean, oxygen has to get in somehow, right?' Shi thought to herself as she quickly moved down the only available pathway of the tunnel.

She may have been mesmerized by the mushrooms and interested in seeing what each of these plants were— but her main concern at that moment was getting away from the area she came up from.

The pathway was straight, with little turns to it as far as she could see. She had been walking for around 20 minutes like this when she finally came up to a fork in the tunnel.

'One left and one right.' She muttered to herself as she looked at the two options available.

'Well, it's either left or right; it's not like it matters which i pick since i don't even know which way leads out to begin with— no point in overthinking it. Right is always right.' Shi didn't think about the choice for long since doing so was pointless.

She didn't enter this cave from the surface, which meant that she didn't have any way of knowing how she got in or how to get out to begin with.

Overthinking which pathway to choose in a cave she had no way of knowing about would be like overthinking which grain of sand looked different from another. So with that thought in her mind, she just started going down the right pathway.

It was only a few more minutes before she noticed something different about the path she took. The plants and mushrooms that decorated the cave's walls were getting more prominent.

She had even seen some grass growing in places that you wouldn't expect it to be. This could only mean one thing— she was going in the right direction— even if she didn't know what direction she was going in.

It took no less than 25 minutes to prove her point right— finding herself in a large open cave that looked nothing like the tunnels she walked through previously. If it wasn't for the mushrooms that kept the place lit up— and her enhanced visions— she wouldn't be able to marvel at the sight before her.

It was an underground cave world.

'No wonder plants were able to grow under here.' Shi thought to herself as she observed the area around her.