She circled the rock cave a while, like a hawk tracing a ridge, but found nothing.

When storm-clouds were swallowing the sky, Nana Toki finally stepped toward that pitch-black maw.

Judging by a Shadow Warrior’s curse-decoding stuck at twenty-five percent, three more boss-type beasts should be lurking like stones in deep water, waiting for a party to cull them.

She’d combed the outside till it felt bare as a scraped bone, and only this cave kept exhaling a foggy “I’m weird, come explore me” aura.

Honestly, her mood was all gravel and grit; if not for the System’s two strange main-and-side quests, she wouldn’t touch this trap-smelling hole that gaped like a pit.

“If I get another weird side quest, I’m severing our father–son bond on the spot,” she snapped, her words slamming like a door in wind.

System: “...”

The System sulked like a tin box under rain, yet it wasn’t even the one issuing those tasks, so why take the blame?

With a sigh like steam off cold iron, she opened the in-game coin shop and bought a windproof torch, a stubborn ember that wouldn’t die.

Torch in hand like a small sun, she braced herself and walked deeper into the stone throat.

Ding— System prompt: You have entered the Lost Cavern. Please— after lingering by the cave for a while, Nana Toki found nothing; once storm-clouds veiled the sky, she prepared to probe that dark.

As expected, the first step inside triggered that emotionless chime, a sound like sleet on glass.

“Lost Cavern, huh...” Her breath was a thin mist; the name matched the intel from the Protagonist Lord like ink to paper.

Rumor said a player reclassed into Hundred Ghosts Reincarnation had a final event: escape this cavern like a moth breaking a web.

Back then the dev map had no exit, only ribs of rock hemming inward, so anyone sent here got caged like a bird with shuttered sky.

Time in reality kept grinding on like a millstone; starved, a player died because the body outside never ate.

Hand to the wall like palm to a cold fish, Nana Toki felt her way deeper while replaying the intel the Protagonist Lord had handed her like sealed letters.

If this event now has an entrance and an exit like gates in a fenced field, why did the devs publish the cavern map again?

She remembered nothing useful inside besides that rumored death; no treasure glinted here, just test-stone for shadow-type players to scrape their edge.

Could there be a mechanism that pops a hidden quest like a spring under sand?

She snorted, a sound like a pebble in a tin cup; more likely the troll devs’ dark humor, a cave meant to spook the timid like owls hooting at dusk.

Or just to make the world feel real as wet clay, not to dump busywork on her like falling leaves.

Without a Nesting Phoenix hidden quest, she wanted none of it; even in-game, her will was a drawn blade.

System: “...”

She walked on; besides the air dropping cold like water in a deep well, nothing else raised hackles or shadow.

Version update clearly wasn’t done; the cavern felt empty as a hollow gourd—no monster, no whisper, not even a ghost to trade jokes.

At the end, stones plugged the passage like a cork; start to finish, not a single odd ripple disturbed the cave’s black pond.

“Maybe I should go back, sleep, and wait for the update,” she muttered, eyeing the stone plug like a sealed tomb.

System: “Hey! Host, don’t be so heartless—what about the promised exploration?” The voice fizzed like a weak spark.

“Explore my ass,” she shot back, her patience a frayed rope; this tunnel is a straight pipe with nothing but damp and dust.

She turned to leave—then the world warped like heat over desert sand.

When the wavering air stilled, the path had vanished, replaced by a fork like a serpent’s tongue.

“Tch. A cave with only one corridor wouldn’t be dumb enough to call itself Lost Cavern; so the real trick hides here,” she said, gaze like a blade.

Two mouths led into darkness like twin gullies after rain; annoyed, she raked her fingers through her hair, feeling stupidity cling like burrs.

“Must be contagion from hanging with a trash System; my IQ’s catching rust.”

“Recommendation: trash System increases its IQ,” she added, dry as frost.

Trash System: “Damn.”

Words were smoke, but she needed a path; she couldn’t burn time here—other tasks waited like queued storms.

She palmed the smooth stone, skin to chill like river pebbles, then knocked twice, listening for hollows like drumbeats.

Satisfied, she drew her dagger like a streak of moonlight and carved a mark, a scar on the wall’s skin.

She waited an hour, watching for a data refresh like tide returning; the mark held like a nail in oak.

For safety, she gouged a second mark to the left, then drew a straight line between them like a tether, so left and right wouldn’t blur.

When all was set, she walked the left path without hesitation, stride like a hunter’s through tall grass.

The left corridor lay quiet as snowfall; only her footsteps drummed the cold floor, and no ghost came to banter away the hush.

“Host, you’re bold, but doesn’t hidden danger lie in places this still, like a sleeping snake?” the bored System piped up, a moth tapping glass.

She didn’t bite; her pace even quickened, a river cutting faster through stone.

“If something could ambush me, those troll devs wouldn’t go out of their way to craft this map,” she said, voice flat as slate.

She stepped out of the tunnel and saw her twin marks again, the line between them like a stitch; her guess settled in like iron.

“These devs do have a brain,” she sneered, smile thin as a knife; can’t kill me, so they’ll just lock me up with event walls.

No wonder they rolled out a Lost Cavern map and added a forced exit for players like a trapdoor—lure me in, then turn the bolt.

“What do we do now?” The System’s tone fluttered like a sparrow in a snare; if she couldn’t escape, this cave was forever.

“Yeah,” Nana Toki answered, calm as deep water, the chill holding her spine straight.

System: “... Host, aren’t you too calm? You’re making me look like a damp firecracker.”

“What face does a broken System need?” Her eye-roll was a wind-tossed flag.

“Do you want me to bawl snot and tears so you feel better?”

“...”

She wasn’t a player; she couldn’t hit a force-exit like breaking glass.

The Lost Cavern looped like a snake eating its tail, and she couldn’t see a seam to pry.

“You used teleport back in the Nesting Phoenix plane,” she said, sitting by the marked wall like a soldier at a gate; “crisis now—can’t you show off again?”

Memory flickered: the Cloudpeak Sect’s Grand Elder chasing her like thunder; she still needed out to finish a reputation task, to stack luck like coins.

System: “... That teleport was a temporary program my master stapled on. It’s rough work, and it only runs in the Nesting Phoenix plane.”

“Figures,” Nana Toki hissed, temper flaring like oil; “useless trash System.”

Trash System: “... Not my wish—your performance in every plane was too fierce, so I got used to riding your wind. Be kind, okay?”

“So it’s my fault?” Her shock popped like a spark.

“Are you even a System, or just a squeaky toolbox?”

“How do you survive in a System world crowded like a marketplace?” Her doubt was a spear stabbing straight.

“... Maybe I’m a different kind of firework,” the System mumbled, dim as ash.

“In my eyes, you’re a different kind of idiot,” Nana Toki said, palm to forehead like a shield.

If even the System couldn’t pull her out, she had less than smoke; she was only game data, no flesh to push through a wall.

Even a teleport talisman would hang useless like paper in rain.

“This damned plane,” she muttered, anger curling like stormclouds; someday she’d flip it like a table.

Leaning into the stone behind her, she thought through escape like mapping rivers, cursing this plane’s Heaven Dao under her breath like winter wind.

Silence pooled thick as ink; eyelids grew heavy like tides, sleep rushing in like a flood over sand.

Without noticing, she slipped under, breath evening like a lake at dusk.

Deep in the Lost Cavern, quiet returned and settled like dust, echoing her drowsiness until the dark felt whole again.