This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Silence.

Kain was beginning to panic, wondering if their only sign of help in a while had decided against the effort. After all, since this person was not one of their teammates, he really had no reason to help Kain and Serena.

For all he knew, Kain and Serena were horrible people that would turn on or kill him the second they managed to escape.

'Of course, I have no plans to do so…unless necessary."

Serena, still unable to understand the conversation grew slightly nervous at the prolonged silence, but decided to trust Kain to handle the exchange.

Then, finally, the voice returned. *"Understood. Give me a moment."*

Kain relayed the response to Serena in a low voice, keeping his eyes trained on the wall of ice in front of them that he felt the voice was coming from—but given how sounds can get altered as they travel through different surfaces, it was difficult to predict the man's exact position.

Over the next hour, the man, presumed to be mapping the outside of their 'prison' could be heard fading in and out of earshot.

At times, the vibrations of his movements sent uneasy shudders through the cavern, making the ice creak ominously.

For now, it was concluded that only 2 of the walls and the ceiling would eventually lead to the network of underground tunnels their rescuer was in.

"It's been nearly two hours since we last heard anything, do you think something happened?" Kain asked anxiously. Previously, they would hear light banging and calls along the walls as the other man was mapping out their location from the outside.

Serena shook her head hesitantly, "I don't think so…Prismarin hasn't expressed that its clone was facing any issues…Maybe they just got caught up in something."

Then—without warning—the world shook.

A dull buzzing sound rumbled through the cavern, low and invasive, like the growl of some great beast gnawing at the bones of the earth. The walls trembled. Fine cracks spiderwebbed across the ice, glinting like broken glass in the dim light.

"Something's shifting," Serena murmured, pressing her hand against the wall. "Her fingers came away dusted with frost—no, not frost. Powdered ice. From above. The ceiling was shedding fine dust like particles like dead skin.

The distant scraping of rock against rock echoed through the space, followed by the unmistakable sound of something cracking. Not a clean snap, but a wet, splintering groan, as if the earth itself were being torn apart. A jagged fissure began forming in a corner of the ceiling, splitting wider with every passing second.

Then… CRACK

A deep groan reverberated through the cavern as the ceiling and several of the walls also showed signs of giving way and burying the two alive. They buckled inward, ice and rock screaming under the strain. A mixture of dust from shredded stone, ice, and snow plumed in thick clouds, choking the air. Kain's pulse hammered in his throat as a thick slab of ice the size of a truck tire broke free from above, crashing down barely a foot away from his head..

*"Stop! STOP!"*

At Kain's shout, the buzzing stopped. For one terrifying heartbeat, the cavern held its breath. Then—miraculously—the shifting ceased.

Kain saw the source of the disturbance. A tiny opening had been cut into the ceiling by something resembling a drill, creating a hole only as thick as a pencil.

And creating that tiny hole had almost destabilized the entire cave they were in!

The ice above them groaned dangerously, deep fractures spreading from the newly created hole like the webbing of a shattered mirror. Dust and bits of frozen rock crumbled down, and for a split second, Kain thought the entire ceiling was about to come crashing down on them.

The air became suffocating, with neither Kain nor Serena barely able to breath for fear that the smallest breath will destabilize the cavern and lead to a collapse

'I guess it's a good thing we didn't just try and blindly dig our way out of here…' Kain thought in trepidation, only now realizing just how unstable and fragile the structure surrounding them had been this whole time.

'Who knows, maybe if one of us had sneezed loudly enough the past few days, maybe we'd both be dead…'

After his pounding heart calmed down and it looks like the spread of collapse was halted, Kain shouted in anger. *"I said not to try and dig us out! We just need help finding a safe location, Goddammit!"*

But after a moment, it dawned on him.

'Did he misunderstand me?'

Bea had transferred knowledge of the Southern language to him, but he wasn't exactly fluent. He hadn't had many chances to practice, and there were many words that his tongue just refused to make. Having the knowledge was one thing—speaking it well was another.

All of his repeated silences after Kain spoke would also support that.

'What exactly did I say earlier?'

Thinking back, Kain's stomach sank as he realized the mistake.

Instead of saying "Help us scout around our location," he had accidentally used a verb that more closely meant to "Help us clear around our location."

The difference between the two words was slight—practically homonyms, and Kain's mouth, unaccustomed to the language, hadn't enunciated the word clearly enough. Therefore, to the other person it might have sounded more like he was giving permission—no, asking—for them to dig the escape route themselves rather than waiting for Serena and Kain to assess the structure first.

Kain ran a hand roughly through his hair, biting back a curse. He had gotten cocky. Wayyy too cocky.

He was so used to understanding things immediately using Bea as a shortcut that he had underestimated how easy it was to mess up a single phrase due to lack of actual practice and had nearly gotten himself and Serena killed in the process.

'Dammit. Dammit. Dammit…'

Above them, the ice gave another ominous loud creak. Getting out safely suddenly became much harder...