Cain took a couple of steps back, his grip tightening around the blade as his eyes moved across the growing number of Cinder Rats.
"What the... why are there so many?"
They approached him slowly.
And as their numbers grew, they began to move more aggressively.
Cain shook his head.
Yeah... there was no point in thinking about it.
There was no scenario where facing this many Cinder Rats at once ended well for him.
If it had been one or two Cinder Rats, he might have risked it, but a dozen was nothing short of suicide.
So he turned and broke into a run without hesitation. The Cinder rats pursued.
His boots slammed against the scorched ground as he pushed forward, forcing his body to move despite the heat pressing down on him.
Behind him, the skittering grew louder with every second, claws scraping and bodies closing the distance in relentless pursuit.
There were too many, far too many.
Cain knew staying on open ground would be disadvantageous to him if this continued.
So he scanned ahead for anything that could give him an advantage.
And after a minute of searching, he saw it: a narrow opening at the base of massive rocks that led into darkness.
"Perfect," Cain muttered under his breath as he veered sharply toward it, forcing more speed out of his already exhausted legs.
He didn’t know what could be inside this opening. Heck, there might even be more Cinder Rats inside, but he did not care.
The creatures closed in behind him, their skittering growing louder with each passing second.
One suddenly leapt at him from the side.
Cain reacted mid-run, twisting his body just enough to slash with the blade with all his might. It caught the beast from underneath, splitting its face.
[You have defeated: Cinder Rat F-Tier]
Cain fell to the ground, his hand throbbing, but he quickly picked himself back up and shot forward.
Numerous rats jumped onto the spot he had just left.
Cain’s heart pounded in his chest.
He didn’t even look back, his focus locked entirely on the narrow opening ahead.
They were right on him now, so close he could feel the heat of their breath against his legs and hear the sharp scrape of claws just behind him.
He pushed himself harder, ignoring the strain in his body as the distance between him and the cave finally closed.
Almost there.
The rats were a mere few feet away from him.
Just a few more steps.
Cain was running on sheer adrenaline at this point.
The Cinder Rats were about to catch him, one of them clawing at his back, but he dove through the narrow opening at the last possible second, his body slipping into the tight space just as the first of them reached him, their momentum carrying them forward as they crashed into the rocks ahead of them.
Cain crawled through the narrow path, not caring about what could be inside, and once he was out in an open space, he immediately turned toward the entrance, ready to deal with any of the Cinder Rats that followed.
At first, the rats couldn’t force their way in, their bodies crowding the narrow entrance as they tried to push through all at once, but soon, one by one, they started to make their way in.
One of them managed to squeeze just far enough through the passage, and Cain stepped forward and drove his blade down without hesitation, stabbing it before it could fully enter.
He didn’t waste time thinking about it, because the moment it dropped, another tried to force its way in.
He stabbed again.
And that was when it clicked.
He could use this to his advantage.
The next rat pushed through, and he struck again, dropping it instantly before grabbing its body and dragging it inside to clear the opening so the next could come in.
Another forced its way in. And Cain killed that one, too. Then another. And another.
The rhythm formed quickly. He stabbed, pulled the body aside, and reset, giving just enough space for the next one to enter while keeping the advantage entirely on his side.
The rats didn’t stop.
Driven by nothing but instinct, they kept forcing themselves into the narrow passage one after another, completely unaware that they were walking straight into a trap they couldn’t escape from.
Cain didn’t rush or waste energy; his breathing gradually steadied as he repeated the process, his blade rising and falling with growing precision, until the pile of bodies around him grew and the number of glowing eyes outside began to thin.
Finally, the last one came through.
It lunged the moment it cleared the gap, but by then, Cain had already adjusted, stepping in just enough to avoid the bite before driving the blade straight through it, ending it in a single motion.
Cain staggered back a few steps, his chest heaving.
He raised the blade and kept his eyes locked on the entrance, watching and waiting in tense silence for any other Cinder Rat that might try to force its way through, but nothing came.
And after a few seconds stretched into a full minute, it became clear that was the last one.
He exhaled slowly, the tension draining out of him all at once as his back hit the cave wall and he slid down, his grip loosening slightly around the blade as the strain he had been holding in finally caught up to him.
His hands trembled, his body ached from head to toe, and his throat still burned from the heat and exertion, but through it all, one thing stood firm—he had survived.
The cave fell into silence, thick and heavy, broken only by the sound of his uneven breathing as he tried to steady himself.
As his thoughts slowly began to catch up, the system’s presence made itself known again, reminding him of what had just happened.
He had leveled up three times from killing the Cinder Rats in the cave, pushing him to level four, and along with that came new additions.
[You have acquired the skill: Smoke Puff]
[You have acquired the skill: Heat Sense]
[You have acquired the skill: Night Vision]
A skill for every level up.
Cain sighed.
He still wasn’t entirely sure what this place was or how the stone had brought him here, but one thing had settled firmly in his mind.
"...This wasn’t a dream."
There was no doubt about that, because dreams didn’t hurt like this.
He stared at the notification and wondered what he needed to do to read notifications that had come earlier. But as soon as the thought came to mind, the notification he wanted to read appeared. Like the system could read his mind.
"Now that was rather convenient."
[Hero Candidate: Cain Wright]
[Trial Ground: Ember Isle]
[Objective: Purge All Hostile Entities]
[Reward: Hero Qualification]
[Failure Condition: Death]
"...Hero candidate, huh..."
He muttered quietly.
The system and the trial wanted him to become a hero, but what exactly does being a hero mean?
What was he meant to save?
Was the system preparing him to return to his world and deal with the dungeon gates? To become one of those figures that stood at the front lines against monsters? Or was this something bigger? Something stranger? Where he would be sent somewhere else entirely?
To another world that needed saving, like those stories where heroes were summoned to defeat the demon king?
Cain didn’t have an answer, and for now, he could only guess.
He sighed, but he wasn’t too troubled by the lack of information. Nor was he troubled by the entire setup.
The stone was not a serum, alright, but it had given him power, which he wanted nonetheless.
It had thrown him into this strange, hot place and forced him to fight for the power he wanted, to earn every bit of strength step by step, and the more he fought, the stronger he became, whether he liked the method or not.
He could already see the result of it.
He had gained levels, acquired new skills, and even now, he could feel the difference in his body compared to when he first woke up in this strange place.
Four new skills. And that number was only going to grow.
Cain exhaled slowly, his expression hardening as his thoughts aligned into something more focused, because while the way he was gaining power wasn’t what he expected, the end result was exactly what he had wanted all along.
And now that he finally had a path to power, no matter how dangerous or unforgiving it was, he wasn’t about to turn away from it.
"If this were the price, then so be it."
A faint smile tugged at his lips.
"...Hero, huh."
If becoming that was what it took to stand on the level of Adrian and his father, so be it.