Code Collector

Cold. All Allen could feel was cold. He was looking around aimlessly, thinking what happened. One second he was getting water from the spring, and the next thing he knew, the cave collapsed and the water flooded.

He was floating inside the dark cave, trying to call for his friend. "Jeremy! Jeremy!"

His voices began to shake as fear slowly ate him away. Just when he thought he finally had a friend, he vanished. Allen didn't want to blame himself, but he couldn't blame anyone else at this point.

"Guah!"

A man arose from the waters, breathing deeply as he tried to swim above. "Allen? I'm here!"

The boy looked up to see his friend all and well. "Y-You're actually alive."

"This is nothing compared to our training. I was just caught of guard, that's all," Jeremy chuckled. "What do you think happened? We were just taking some water and then it collapsed."

"Yeah," Allen nodded in agreement. He looked around to see if they could get any clue to go out, but nothing was around.

The collapsed site was a larger cave beneath the cave they were on. It has natural white stones that had formed grotesque figures over the millenia they were in the cave, as well as the green glowing moss that littered all across the ground below them.

"I think this was already an underground river system," Allen pointed at the other side of the cave. "See? The water is flowing from that area–" he then pointed at the higher ground where they fell from. "The water spring that collapsed was from there, above us."

Jeremy was looking at the hole on the stone above them, nodding as he slow understood Allen. "Now, I get it. But we can just jump above us so we can reach that cave–"

When he turned to where Allen was, the boy wasn't there anymore. Allen was now on the side of the river where a small stone ledge-like emince was. He was collecting moss and storing it in his inventory.

"What are you doing?" Jeremy asked. "That moss could've been poisonous or something. Things in the Otherworlds doesn't function the same as things on Earth."

Allen shook his head, pointing at the water beneath Jeremy. "The moss is also found on the river. I actually drank some of the water when I was resurfacing earlier, and if it is indeed poisonous, we would've long since died."

Jeremy formed an O with his mouth. "I swear, I'm not usually this stupid. I could catch on to things with my usual self. I'm not my usual self right now."

"It's obvious," Allen chuckled. "But we don't need your usual self. We just need your cooperation so we can find things in this cave? It would be a waste to just leave an unbothered natural resource, right?"

"But don't you think it's dangerous?" Jeremy asked. "Wait, you singlehandedly taken down a Grand grade beast. Okay, I'm all in."

Allen just chuckled, but slowly felt guilty. Yes, Jeremy knew his secret, but he had thousands of it. Jeremy only knew one while he still hid many. The guilt was getting to Allen for some reason. The feeling even got him thinking to abandon Jeremy and the rest and start a new life in a new camp, but he would feel even guiltier.

The boy shook the thoughts away and just thought of the reasons why he was hiding stuff. He was going to help them in the future, he wasn't hiding his secrets just because he wanted to hide them. The less people around him who knew, the safer it is for them.

"Dante," Jeremy said. "Favorite hobby, to space out."

Allen awoke from the thoughts when Jeremy spoke. He looked at himself and saw that he was now dry, and he could walk better. Even when the White Fang set was small trinkets, they still added weight when they got wet. Not to mention the cloak that he was wearing wasn't helping him at all.

"A Code that lets you shoot a gush of warm air into a wide area," Jeremy introduced. "Issued by the police department, also discontinued."

"The police officers are prepared for any kind of disasters?" Allen chuckled. "They must've paid a lot for these Codes."

"That was before," Jeremy said. They found themselves walking deeper into the cave, following the underground river as to where it leads to. "But now, they have less Codes. The Rooster Bearer thought that it wouldn't be wise to just let the police have 10 similar kinds of skill Codes with them. They'd be easily countered by anyone if that was the case.

"So, John Smith proposed a new law that the police would have at least ten Codes that will match certain criterias. Each Code was situational, and the police officers are assigned to choose the Codes that they think are the best to use in those scenarios. When their supervisor would agree, they get to keep the Codes. But in my time, all police officers have the same set of Codes," Jeremy finished.

Allen deadpanned, smacking the other boy in the back of his head "Your so called "back in my time" was only three years ago. You didn't have to lie to make it sound cooler."

Jeremy snorted and shrugged, "I just needed to calm the atmosphere down a bit. It was getting too tight."

Allen smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I guess you cleared it a bit."

Silence followed after. The Two didn't speak another word until they reached the end of the cave. There was a dome-shaped area on the end, as the water was flowing in a hole underneath.

"I thought there was a way out," Jeremy said. "It seems like the water continues down this rock. We should head back."

"No, wait," Allen said. He walked over to the side of the dome, the rounded wall that was too smooth for it to be just natural. "If you noticed, the path we walked into the forest, the cave rather, has all these eminences and rocks that formed shapes. But this room is too suspicious to not have those."

Jeremy looked around, noticing what his friend meant. There were indeed nothing like the one outside of the dome cave like the outside. The white stone was now marble-like, formed the dome rather perfectly. 

The walls seemed to have marks on them, something Allen went in closer to investigate. He narrowed his eyes as he tried to analyze what could these markings meant. The brown stains on the wall were too shaped to be just random markings, and the white marble enhanced their visibility.

"It's a mural!" Jeremy yelled from the other side. "I think it starts from here."

Allen walked closer to Jeremy to see what his friend meant. And there it was, the shapes that formed the figures.

The first one was of seven orbs forming a circle. On the second one, the orbs seemed to change positions until on the fourth mural, they formed a straight vertical line. In each orb has a symbol that both Allen and Jeremy had no knowledge about.

They could only proceed to the fifth mural which was a humanoid shape that was carrying a spear. In front of the humanoid figure was a giant beast that looked similar to a bear that had wings. On the next one was a figure of the human piercing its spear through the beast and the next one was a diamond shape hovering above the human.

The final mural was a close-up photo of the human offering his hand as the diamond shape hovered on its palms. Allen already knew what these murals meant, and whoever drew them, must've been in this cave a long time ago.

"Do you think it's from the first Hunters?" Jeremy asked. "Maybe the first Hunters were here before and they got stuck inside this cave. This would explain the old quality of the murals. Hunting happened first almost two decades ago."

"The first Hunters didn't even know there was another world," Allen pointed out. "How would they know that there were seven? And besides, these murals obviously dated back way ahead of twenty years. These are like from centuries ago."

"That's impossible," Jeremy said. "The first of the gates opened just two decades ago. How could this be?"

Allen shook his head, "Maybe this cave isn't what it seems."

The boy walked into the shallow river and stopped in front of the edge of the marble room. "There should be a hole underneath, that the water travels through, but there isn't one."

Jeremy's eyes widened as he followed Allen. He then kneeled and tapped below them, trying to find something, "There's a rift in between the river's floor and the marble."

"Makes sense," Allen said. He conjured his and slammed it right through the marble, making Jeremy gasp.

"Are you trying to kill us–"

Jeremy expected the cave to crumble down, but instead, a large arch of marble appeared in front of them. The marble wall vanished, revealing a room inside.