After taking a deep breath I walk into the mine, my curiosity isn't going to let me walk away at this point. I am just going to go in and have a quick look at the beast and that's it. At first, with the sunlight coming in behind me it isn't so bad, but the further I go the worse it gets.

The feeling of all that weight hanging above me ready to crush me brings back all sorts of bad memories. In my old life I had no problems with caves or tight spaces, it's only since I was thrown into the pit that it has become an issue. I hate the fact that I have become so weak that a simple cave can get to me.

This might be a good chance for me to work on overcoming my fears. In fact I am starting to think that staying in the cave until I have conquered my fear might be a good idea. After all, these caves just seem to keep popping up, everywhere I go I seem to end up underground.

At some point I am sure I am going to have to go back down into the caves under the capital. I can't do that if I don't get myself back under proper control, I can't afford this kind of weakness. As I continue into the cave the light coming from behind fades, and as I round the first bend it disappears completely.

To my surprise I can see just fine, these new eyes of mine seem to have more benefits than I thought. The further I walk into the cave the worse the feeling of pressure gets. Instead of trying to ignore it I run all the worst case scenarios through my mind.

Each time I imagine being buried alive and dying slowly of suffocation I am a little less afraid. Several times the fear makes me slow down or stop all together, but every time I manage to make myself keep moving forward. I soon start passing side tunnels, but I ignore them, and keep following the main tunnel.

Only if I reach the end of the main tunnel without finding the cavern will I bother looking into the side tunnels. The plan is to get in, take a quick peek, and get out. That is until a smell stops me in my tracks, I don't know what it is but it smells absolutely delicious.

The smell leads me to a small crack in the wall, as I get closer to the crack I smell other things including animals. As I lean forward to try and look through the crack placing my hands to either side of it the wall crumbles. There is now a hole that I should just barely be able to squeeze through, and the smell is much stronger.

Taking a deep breath I lean down and stick my head through the hole, on the other side is a small natural cave. Inside I see lots of mushrooms and five rats, the rats are about the size of large dogs. As I start squeezing my way into the cave I see the rats all run off and disappear into other small tunnels.

'Guess there are benefits to being a cat!'

Once inside I follow my nose to the far corner of the cave, there I find a strange mushroom. The cap isn't solid, it looks more like a spider web than a mushroom. All I do is touch it lightly and the piece I touched breaks off.

It smells so good I just can't resist, so I toss the piece into my mouth. The second it hits my tongue it dissolves and my tastebuds are in heaven. Before I even realize it I've eaten the entire mushroom, and I don't regret it.

Other than feeling energized I don't feel any different so I doubt it was poisonous. I look around for more but it seems to have been the only one of that type. There may be more down the various tunnels the rats used to escape but I decide not to explore any further and return to the main tunnel.

If the mushroom had given me stat boosts or something like that then it would be a different story. I am not going crawling around in those tiny tunnels just for something delicious. Besides, if I stay in here too long I am sure someone will decide to come looking for me.

With that in mind I quicken my steps, risking myself is fine but endangering others is not part of the plan. After all, this is nothing more than me satisfying my curiosity and facing my fears. Although, the more I think about it the less it has to do with being underground.

My realization comes to me in a flash, it was about how I was treated like trash and forced to struggle to survive. My issue with being underground is all because it brings back those feelings of being a victim. I am no longer weak like I was when I first arrived, but to end these feelings I need to kill the king.

He is the one who did this to me, he is the one who started all this when I was first summoned. Everything I have been through up until now is all because of him and how he treated me. The thing is I am sure if Krenocia had put me in a human body the king would have treated me like the other heroes.

This all comes down to the king's prejudice against beastmen, if he wasn't a racist things would have turned out differently. He would already be dead if it wasn't for the shadow demon, I just need to be able to kill the shadow demon. I need to get stronger, strong enough to beat the shadow demon, after that Mercy can deal with the king.

While I would like to kill him myself, Mercy has a far better claim on him, and all I really want is him dead. I have to keep in mind that this kingdom is not all there is, Krenocia brought me here to protect the entire peninsula. Mercy becoming queen will help me when it comes time to unite the nations to fight the demons.

If the beastmen can be forged into a nation, then that will give me the support of two out of four nations. I am not counting Illium since it is basically just a city-state, it doesn't have enough power to match up to the other nations. From what Mercy and Zamart have said I think Illium will support an alliance anyway.

I won't write them off just yet, I want to see the place before I make a judgment. Even if they lack military power the fact that they have survived this long indicates there is something else to them. Once this is taken care of I will go there and learn more about the place.

The tunnel which until now has been fairly large starts to narrow, looks like I am approaching the end finally. Due to how distracted I have been I am not sure how long I have been down here, more than an hour is my best guess. The tunnel ends but I see a human sized hole to one side, and beyond it I can sense a large open space.