What connection is there between the trophy’s positives and negatives?

They can’t just be random. That wouldn’t make any sense.

Every trophy up until now had a connection between its benefits and consequences. The weather brought a storm. The large biomes brought their natural predators.

But who are these things? They are most likely the not natural predators of the fey forest, as they live deep underground.

So, these must be the ‘monsters in pink’, right?

“Wait… why did the trophy say ‘monster’ instead of ‘monsters’?”

If it was a person, Tanuki would’ve just shrugged it off as them stumbling with their words and accidentally saying it like that. But it was the Gaia Core’s system, which wasn’t a person, but a basic foundation of the world, the immune system of the universe.

At that moment, while Maduka trembled in fear as she raised her spear and Tanuki was lost deep in his thoughts, something appeared. It was a small white bubble of light, flying with two small wings. It looked like a bug, though not like how the Expansion Points resembled golden bumblebees.

“Huh?” Tanuki raised his head as the small creature flew before him.

It was conscious, there was no question about it. The light observed Tanuki up close, then flew back. It gently approached the wall, then signaled with small bright flashes of light.

It was trying to say something.

“What do you mean, little light? What secret do you want to reveal?”

Tanuki leaned closer to the wall. It was dirty from dust, and the creature’s light wasn’t enough to penetrate it.

As Tanuki tried to wipe off the dust, the creature quickly flew away from the wall. He gazed back at it, confused as to what its problem was.

Then it dawned upon him.

Looking at the wall caused no effect. But as soon as he wiped off the dust and pulled his light source closer, his reflection appeared and a monster began charging him from afar.

These beings weren’t sentient. They weren’t randomly charging at them, but only when a certain condition was met, that being them looking at their reflection.

The crystalline humanoids weren’t their true enemy. It was the crystal around the hole that they had to fear.

“Maduka, pop the balloon!” Tanuki yelled.

The goblin looked at him, confused.

“But if Maduka does that, then there won’t be any light!”

“If you don’t pop that balloon, we’ll die! Do you understand?”

His voice was desperate. Though Maduka didn’t understand his intentions, she knew Tanuki could be trusted. After all, it was thanks to him, that she was still alive.

She launched her spear into the balloon while Tanuki bashed it into the wall with his bat. The blue spores escaped their prison and flew to the ceiling. And then…

Craaash!

Crystal shards flew everywhere. A dozen monsters jumped through the walls. Some of the dropped from the ceiling, while others burst through the ground.

The blue spores on the ceiling were picked up by the traversing hot gas. And as hot air is lighter than cold air, it was being pushed out of the cave. Due to that, the spores too began traveling towards the entrance.

The jack-o-lantern smiles glowed with dim orange light. The monsters gazed at the blue spores above. Darkness coated the ground, so they couldn’t see their true enemy.

Tanuki and Maduka lay on the ground. Both of them were as quiet as they could be, even holding their breaths just to be sure. The small white creature flew before them. It shone with just enough light not to reflect from the ground.

It moved across the monster crowd with little momentum. Tanuki crawled after it, followed by a confused Maduka.

They weren’t sure whether the monsters would’ve been scarier if they made sounds, deep roars or high-pitched cries. Still, their complete lack of voice furthered the silence that covered the cave like a suffocating blanket.

It was a huge crowd. Thankfully, none of them moved, as their attention was taken away by the small light show.

The winged creature flew further away and revealed a dark-green vine curtain at the end of the room. The sound of rushing water came in from the other side.

“An underground river?” Tanuki thought to himself.

Maduka had no idea about Tanuki’s intentions, but she remained vigilant and followed her friend. She looked around to observe the monsters so she wouldn’t accidentally bump into one and get the crowd’s attention.

She looked up to the spores on the ceiling. They danced around the pink crystals like tiny stars, bumping into one another as if they were playing catch. Some of them joined each other hand in hand and flew as a group.

Between the beautiful stars, Maduka noticed something in the pink crystal. It was her reflection, gazing at the stars with glittering eyes. And behind her eyes was a pink monster, running full force towards her.

“Mhh!” She muffled her scream by putting her hand over her mouth. She grabbed Tanuki’s slippers to get his attention.

“Hm?” Tanuki looked back at the gobbo.

“Mmm!” She pointed upwards.

Tanuki looked up and saw the monster running towards Maduka. That’s also when he accidentally looked at his reflection and realized just how dumb he truly is.

Now two monsters were charging at them.

“MMM!” Maduka let out another muffled scream, though this one was a bit louder. Some of the monsters looked around, searching for the enemy.

Tanuki picked up the tempo and crawled faster towards the green curtain. Maduka was faster, but because she was behind Tanuki and she began to panic, her instincts took over.

She began to climb over Tanuki.

“Mmm!” He grunted as Maduka crawled through him, then as she accidentally kicked his face, he stumbled and bumped into one of the monsters.

When he looked up, the monster’s jack-o-lantern smile met him back, and also its sharp hand, now aimed at his head.

“Maduka, run!” He yelled while rolling away from the attack.

The other monsters noticed the boy. The ceiling shattered as two more jumped down and charged the duo. The other monsters joined in, chasing them at full speed.

Maduka quickly arrived at the green curtain and ran through it. Suddenly, she let out a scream, then her voice disappeared.

Tanuki was a bit slower. He kicked off his slippers to speed himself up. Unfortunately for him, that only slowed him down even more, as he had to now experience the sharp crystal shards scattered across the ground with his bare feet.

“Geeh!” He clenched his teeth to bear the pain.

The monsters were close to catching him. If only they could’ve chased him for a second more, Tanuki could’ve been impaled by at least twenty sharp arms.

But he was fast enough to arrive at the dark green curtain. He rushed through wet vines and saw a light at the end.

“Safety!” The word echoed in his mind.

He broke free from the dark and entered into the light. And as he did, the ground disappeared…