Lady Luck Clocked In Overtime
At the sight of the eel, the first thing I did was run.
Instincts took over as my legs carried me away from the looming death flag that was currently after my life.
A land eel.
I had seen them before in footage, usually surrounded by teams of hunters in either a restrained, weakened, or already dying state.
Alone, they weren’t terribly dangerous—especially not to a group of seasoned hunters.
But that was only for a group of seasoned hunters, and me? Well, I was just a newbie.
The eel moved with eased precision, and like a bullet train it headed straight towards my direction, causing fragments of dirt and rocks to spray around in its trail.
I managed to narrowly avoid it by a hair’s breadth as it slammed headfirst into the cave walls with a deafening crash.
Luck had truly been on my side, but I couldn’t count on Lady Luck to help twice.
‘If I get hit by that, life will not be good. It will be very bad… very, very, very bad.’
The eel writhed against the stone, stuck inside the hard cavernous wall as it tried to free itself.
For a few moments, I had earned the right to catch my breath, as I lay on the floor, chest heaving, watching the big critter struggle to move.
After catching my breath for a few seconds, I began to move again, in a direction as far away from this behemoth as possible.
To some, they might think, why didn’t I attack the monster?
Well, that would have been a slight possibility if I had been given a weapon or any abilities to take on this monstrosity.
The eel soon freed itself from the wall and moved again.
I quickly controlled my breathing, trying to relax as much as possible to distill any sound my body was making.
Countless hours of reading forums about gates and towers on the Hunter Forum had prepared me for this challenge.
‘Those countless hours on the forum weren’t completely useless.’
Land eels were monsters blessed with unfair levels of speed.
They were quick enough to move at 70mph in incremental bursts, with the hitting power of a freight truck, making them a formidable enemy.
In terms of speed, there was nothing I could do to stop them.
I didn’t have incredible durability, nor crazy attack prowess, but the one thing I did have was years of miscellaneous knowledge built up from years of forum scraping.
The land eel had one weakness that could be exploited.
It had very poor to non-existent vision, relying solely on its hearing to navigate and find its enemies.
This was a factor I could exploit, as the monster wasn’t known to be particularly intelligent.
All I had to do was generate a sound loud enough to get its attention, and theoretically it should follow that direction.
‘Let’s hope this works out the way I want it to.’
Picking up a loose stone, I chucked it in the opposite direction toward a wall behind me as I waited for a reaction.
Its body tore through soil in a straight line before smashing into the direction of the wall.
It did not slow nor turn, simply crashing into the wall and getting stuck again.
My hands trembled as I slowly reached down and picked up another pebble while I distanced myself further from the eel.
This pattern of cat and mouse continued for a while as I continually managed to make progress.
Each charge followed the same pattern. Straight line. Violent impact. Brief silence.
Then the system interrupted again.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
Escape Zone Detected
Distance: 30 metres
Tears streamed down my face as relief and terror tangled together in my chest.
“I am going to survive this,” I whispered. “I am actually going to survive.”
Victory was close.
That thought alone almost killed me.
The moment I let my guard down, the eel responded as if it had been waiting for my confidence to rise.
A low hum beneath my feet started.
No longer was the creature searching blindly; instead, now it was moving with focused, predatory intent.
‘Wait—you can do that? THIS IS BS. What sort of update patch is this?’
The land eel was no longer charging randomly.
It had stopped.
That terrified me far more than when it was crashing around like a mindless battering ram.
The ground buckled several metres ahead of me, then again to my side, as if the creature were testing the space, mapping vibrations instead of chasing them.
I froze in place, muscles locked, teeth clenched hard enough that my jaw ached.
Even the sound of my breathing felt unbearably loud now.
“So you can learn. That’s not fair.”
A sharp crack echoed through the cavern as part of the ceiling fractured under the repeated impacts from earlier charges.
Pebbles rained down around me, bouncing and skittering across the stone floor.
Each impact sent a tremor through the ground.
The eel reacted instantly.
The earth erupted.
I threw myself forward as the creature burst up where I had been standing a heartbeat earlier, its massive body tearing through soil and stone in a straight, devastating line.
The shockwave launched me off my feet, and I hit the ground hard, sliding across rough stone until my shoulder slammed into something solid.
Searing pain exploded up my arm, pain akin to what I believe being stabbed a thousand times would feel like.
I screamed reflexively, and that was a big mistake.
The vibration of my voice carried through the cavern like a flare, causing the eel to vanish and reappear again almost immediately, this time aimed directly at the sound.
It tore through the earth with terrifying speed, collapsing sections of the cavern as it went.
The walls cracked. The ceiling groaned. Dust filled the air so thick I could barely see.
The escape zone was right there, but thirty metres might as well have been thirty kilometres.
I forced myself upright, ignoring the way my injured arm screamed in protest, and ran.
Every step was agony. My lungs burned. My vision blurred at the edges.
The ground shook continuously now as the eel committed fully to its charge, no longer distracted by thrown stones or distant sounds.
It had locked onto me.
I could hear it, the grinding of soil and stone, the thunderous force of its movement.
It would reach me soon. There was no room left to dodge, no angle left to exploit.
Just as it was about to collide with me, a miracle happened.
The cavern answered my prayers.
A deep crack split the air above us, sharp and final.
The ceiling, whose stability had gradually been eroded by countless collisions against the walls, groaned, uttering its final breath before falling.
For a fraction of a second, everything slowed.
Then the stone gave way.
A slab of rock the size of a truck sheared loose and dropped between us, smashing into the ground with enough force to throw me forward.
Dust and debris exploded outward, swallowing the space in a choking cloud.
Thankfully, the impact cut the eel’s charge short, its body slamming into the falling rubble instead of me.
The collision was catastrophic, the eel now submerged under a pile of rubble.
A little satisfaction made its way onto my face as the corners of my mouth raised into a small grin.
I would have loved to sit and laugh at the stupid goober of an eel, but alas, I did not have any spare time to watch.
I dragged myself forward, fingers clawing at the ground as the dust burned my lungs and my vision swam.
The escape zone was only a few metres away now, the boundary barely visible through the haze.
Behind me, the eel thrashed, its movements slower and angrier, constrained by the collapse.
Each attempt to free itself only triggered more rock to fall, sealing it in further.
Eventually, I crossed the threshold on my hands and knees.
The moment I did, the vibrations ceased.
The dust settled unnaturally fast, as if the dungeon itself had decided the outcome was no longer negotiable.
The ground stilled beneath me, solid and quiet, and the pressure that had been bearing down on my chest since the trial began lifted all at once.
I had made it.
I collapsed face-first onto the stone, limbs trembling, breath coming in broken gasps.
The land eel was still alive.
So was I.
And somehow, that had been enough.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
Trial Cleared: Escape the Land Eel
Relative Difficulty: S
Evaluation: Survival Confirmed
“Looks like Lady Luck did come and save me twice.”
