Chapter 317:A quarter recovery.
Silver stared at it, then at the system, then back at the sword.
"Seriously?"
He sighed.
"At least it’s still here."
Standing became the next challenge. Silver rolled onto his knees waited as he caught his breat, then planted one foot against the ground. His legs trembled immediately.
He nearly fell but he grabbed a nearby rock.
"Come on, you can do this."
He pushed up. His muscles protested and his head spun. For several seconds, blackness crept into the edges of his vision.
Silver stopped moving and waited. The dizziness gradually passed, then he stood.
His posture resembled that of an old man who had spent eighty years regretting every decision he’d ever made, but he was standing.
He looked upward.
The sword remained just beyond reach.
"Of course."
He carefully climbed onto a section of rubble. The rocks shifted beneath his weight. He froze but nothing collapsed.
He continued.
Eventually he reached high enough to grab the sword’s sheath. He pulled, still nothing. The root held.
He pulled harder and the sword suddenly came loose. He almost fell backward from the sudden release.
"Shit!"
Silver jumped down awkwardly and landed on one knee. Pain shot through his leg but he stayed there, sword in one hand and gun in the other.
Then started laughing quietly.
"Perfect... Fuck that hurts."
It hurt to laugh, so he stopped.
After securing the sword against what remained of his clothing, Silver finally began inspecting the cavern properly.
The first problem became obvious almost immediately; there was no exit. The section behind him had collapsed completely.
The wall to his left was solid. The right side contained several narrow cracks, but none looked remotely large enough for a human to pass through.
There was one tunnel farther ahead.
Silver approached carefully.
He didn’t need to inspect it for long. Deep fresh gouges ran across the stone clearly from the queen.
Silver stared into the darkness.
"Absolutely not."
Following the queen through an unfamiliar tunnel while injured and barely capable of walking was suicide. He stepped away. There had to be another route.
He activated his spatial ability.
[Spatial Sense Lv2 Activated.]
The world changed.
For a fraction of a second, Silver felt the familiar expansion of awareness as space around him unfolded inside his mind, then pain exploded behind his eyes.
He staggered.
"Ah...!"
His hand slammed against the wall. The spatial image immediately fractured.
[Warning!]
[Host mental capacity insufficient for stable activation.]
[Spatial reserves critically depleted.]
[Effective detection radius reduced by 87%.]
[Continued activation not recommended.]
Silver deactivated the skill.
He stood against the wall, breathing heavily as blood trickled from his nose. He wiped it away.
"Right." He stared at the blood on his fingers. "Definitely not doing that again."
His body simply wasn’t ready. He needed food, water, rest, and probably several hours of doing absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, he was trapped underground with a Teir Six beast somewhere above him.
Silver opened the system shop.
"Let’s see how badly you’re going to rob me."
The familiar interface appeared. For once, Silver didn’t browse.
Food first.
He selected several emergency field meals.
[Emergency Field Meal ×3 selected.]
[Purchase Confirmed.]
[AP Deducted: 63.]
Three packaged meals appeared within his storage. Silver immediately moved to water.
[Purified Drinking Water: 1.5L ×5 selected.]
[Purchase Confirmed.]
[AP Deducted: 50.]
He took one bottle out immediately. The moment the water touched his mouth, Silver realized just how dehydrated he was. He forced himself not to drink too quickly.
His body wanted the entire bottle but experience told him not to be stupid. Silver drank almost half before stopping.
"Better."
Then he looked down at himself. His clothes were destroyed.
The shirt had been torn open along one side. His trousers had several enormous cuts, and everything was covered in dried blood, mud, dust, and whatever substances he’d collected while being thrown around an underground worm nest.
Silver frowned.
"No."
He opened the clothing section. The system had standard Contractor clothing. It was nothing special or fashionable. Exactly what he needed.
[Standard Contractor Clothing Set ×1 selected.]
[Includes: Shirt, reinforced trousers, undergarments, socks, lightweight boots.]
[Purchase Confirmed.]
[AP Deducted: 120.]
Silver looked at the price.
"One twenty?"
The system remained silent.
"For clothes?"
Nothing.
Silver shook his head.
"Thief."
He didn’t change yet. There wasn’t much point when he was still covered in dried blood and dirt.
Next came ammunition.
Silver checked the handgun magazine again. He had ammunition left but not enough. He opened the appropriate section.
[Compatible Handgun Ammunition ×60 selected.]
[Purchase Confirmed.]
[AP Deducted: 300.]
Silver winced.
His AP was disappearing much faster than he liked. But ammunition underground wasn’t optional.
He was about to close the weapons section when something caught his attention.
Suppressors.
Silver paused.
He looked toward the cavern. Firing a gun underground was a terrible idea. The sound could travel through the tunnels.
Even if he killed whatever attacked him, every beast within a considerable distance might hear the shot.
Silver selected a standard model compatible with his handgun.
[Standard Firearm Suppressor ×1 selected.]
[Sound reduction efficiency varies according to firearm, ammunition and environment.]
[Purchase Confirmed.]
[AP Deducted: 110.]
Silver stared at the notification.
"One ten." He attached the suppressor. "That better save my life or else I’m writing a bad review after this."
The system offered no guarantees. Silver sat against the cavern wall and began checking everything he still had. Most of his equipment had been lost; some probably during the fight, some during the fall and some buried beneath the collapse.
He searched his pockets and found one core, then another.
Silver continued.
By the end, he had only a handful of low-level beast cores left. He stared at them in his palm.
"That’s it?"
Silver leaned his head against the wall. He needed energy, more specifically, he needed spatial energy. His strength beast was useful, but strength wasn’t going to get him through several meters of solid stone.
Space might.
Silver reopened the system shop. Beast cores were considerably more expensive than food, he already knew that.
Knowing didn’t make seeing the prices any less painful. He filtered the available cores.
[Filter Applied: Tier Three.]
Then...
[Attribute Filter Applied: Space.]
Several options appeared.