SSS-Ranked Trash Hero: I Was Scammed Into Being Summoned-Chapter 50: Left in the Dark

Hiroshi looked at the man on the ground one last time and then turned and pushed forward and the others followed. Grief was for later. Right now later was the only thing that mattered.

The goblins behind them were loud now. Not trying to be quiet anymore. The chattering had turned into something more like a roar. More voices joining from deeper tunnels. Hiroshi didn’t look back. Looking back slowed you down.

"How many," the woman guard said.

"Too many," Elias said.

That was answer enough.

They ran.

The tunnel sloped upward which helped their speed but punished their legs. Hiroshi’s thighs were burning within the first minute. The woman guard kept pace beside him. Baros was just behind, heavier on his feet but keeping up. Elias moved quietly and fast like he had done this kind of thing before.

The goblin noise behind them grew. It wasn’t just sound anymore. Hiroshi could feel it in the stone under his boots. The vibration of many feet moving fast.

A torch came flying out of the dark behind them and hit the tunnel wall and scattered sparks. Then another. They weren’t just chasing. They were throwing things.

"Left," Elias said sharply.

Hiroshi didn’t question it. He cut left into a branching passage without slowing. The others followed. The passage was narrower here and the ceiling dropped and he had to tuck his head slightly but he kept moving.

Behind them the goblin noise shifted. They had reached the junction. There was a moment of confusion in the sound, a brief scattering of voices, and then it concentrated again. Coming their way.

They hadn’t lost them.

"Faster," Hiroshi said.

The passage twisted twice and then opened into a larger space. Not a room exactly. More like a natural cavity in the rock, wide and irregular with a high ceiling that disappeared into darkness above. There were three other tunnel openings along the walls. Crates were stacked near one of them. Old ones, rotting at the corners.

Hiroshi stopped in the middle of the space and turned. The others stopped with him.

The goblin sound was close. Very close.

"We can’t outrun them forever," the woman guard said. She was pressing her hand against the cut on her arm. It had soaked through.

She was right. Running only worked if you were running toward something.

"Block it," Baros said. He was already moving toward the crates. "Help me."

Hiroshi grabbed the nearest crate and dragged it toward the passage opening they had come through. Baros took the other side. They stacked two together in the opening. Elias found a long piece of timber leaning against the wall and wedged it across as a brace.

It wouldn’t hold long. But long didn’t need to be very long. Just long enough.

The first goblins hit it from the other side almost immediately. The whole stack shuddered. Hiroshi braced against it with his shoulder.

"Go," he said to the others. "Find the way out. I’ll hold this."

"You can’t hold that alone," the woman guard said.

"Then find something fast."

She moved. Baros moved with her. They checked the three other tunnel openings quickly. Elias was already at the far one, crouched down, looking at the floor the same way he had before.

The crates shuddered again. Something cracked. Hiroshi pushed back harder.

"This one," Elias said. "Air is moving. Something is open on the other end."

"Go," Hiroshi said again.

The woman guard went first this time. Then Baros. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Hiroshi held the crates for another few seconds. The goblin noise on the other side was frantic. He could hear claws on stone. He could see the timber brace starting to bow.

He let go and ran.

He made it to the tunnel Elias had pointed to and threw himself in. Behind him the crates gave way with a crash and the goblin voices flooded into the cavity. He didn’t look back.

The tunnel was long and the air moving through it was cold and real.

He came out.

Not outside exactly. A room. Stone walls but with a wooden floor and a wooden ceiling and actual constructed walls. A basement or a cellar. There were barrels along one side and a staircase going up at the far end. Light came through the gaps in the ceiling above. Real light.

The woman guard was already there. Baros beside her.

Hiroshi bent over with his hands on his knees and breathed.

"Did they follow," Baros said.

Hiroshi listened. The goblin noise was there but distant now. Muffled by stone and distance. They hadn’t come through yet.

"Not yet," he said.

He straightened and looked around the room properly.

He looked at the others.

Something was wrong.

He counted.

The woman guard. Baros. Himself.

"Where is Elias," Hiroshi said.

Baros looked around. The woman guard turned.

Nobody answered because nobody had an answer.

Hiroshi looked back at the tunnel opening they had come through. Dark and silent. The cold air was still moving through it.

He tried to think back through the last few minutes. Elias had pointed to the tunnel. Elias had been first to identify it. Hiroshi had told the others to go and they had gone and he had held the crates and then run. He had assumed Elias went through with the others.

He had not confirmed it.

"Did anyone see him come through," Hiroshi said.

The woman guard shook her head slowly.

Baros said nothing.

Hiroshi stared at the tunnel opening for a moment. The goblin noise was still there behind it. Going back in meant going back into that.

He didn’t know if Elias had fallen behind. He didn’t know if Elias had taken a different tunnel in the confusion. He didn’t know if Elias had made a choice.

That last thought landed uncomfortably.

He filed it away.

"We go up," Hiroshi said. "We need to get out of this cursed place."

He looked at the tunnel one more time.

Then he turned and walked toward the stairs.