Who are you?

Part 6

She woke up before dawn. It was the best time for harvesting the mushroom she was looking for. So she packed up her things and made a storage seal on the ground. Once she sealed everything, she used a few complex safe lock seals to ensure no one would be able to steal her things if they entered her room.

Then, like any other respectable shinobi, she trapped her entire room. She made sure to warn the innkeeper that no one should enter the room while she was gone.

She tried asking the locals about the lake, but everyone dodged the question. They obviously didn't want to talk about it. One of the older men outright told her no one was allowed to go there or even talk about it.

Combined with the fact that how the only maps of the area were old and the incident from yesterday, she was sure that something more was going on. She could already connect some dots but wasn't ready to draw conclusions.

She was carrying a big basket, well big with respect to her size, and had her tools tied to her belt. She headed out peacefully. She was excited about the new experiments she could do once she got the plants she was looking for.

She passed by the forest and tall trees. Her footsteps were light and quiet, trying not to disturb the wildlife. She once had an accident of waking up a sleeping bear in a cave where she was hunting for mushrooms. Let's just say she learned her lesson to be careful in her hunts.

She followed her path towards a small lake. This type of mushroom needed a lot of moisture to grow, so a body of water was the place to look for. She knew that it grew between stones and needed dim light, so she looked for rock formations that allowed plants to grow in them without direct sunlight.

She climbed a nearby tree to survey the area. The lake was not too large. So she could see well around it. She channeled chakra to her eyes to improve her vision. She located 3-7 possible locations. She couldn't be sure of the number unless she checked some of them close up, so she got to work.

The first area lead to no results. There was nothing between the pile of rocks. She tried not to get disappointed and moved to the second area. Nothing there either, no matter how carefully she looked.

She moved to the third one. After all, the third time is the charm. She saw the large rock formation and looked through the stones carefully. The formation seemed to go deeper into the ground. It was probably an opening for a well.

Why was a well near a lake? She didn't care because she finally spotted her target, deep into the rock formation. She bent down to grab the mushroom, focusing on keeping herself attached to the edge so she wouldn't fall down.

Her fingers were so close to her target. Just a little more. She stretched herself, trying to get a hold of the plant. Just then, she felt a force from behind, as if someone shoved her into the well, and it made her lose her grip.

She fell.

She landed on sharp rocks, but it wasn't her first time falling, and she enhanced her body with chakra to toughen her skin and form a shield. She positioned her arms to hold her head, neck, and legs in a way to take the least amount of damage.

She still fell quite hard, and the impact knocked the wind out of her lungs. Her body was scrapped and bruised, but nothing compared to the certain death she would have been subjected to otherwise.

She was sure that someone pushed her in, but the question was who and why. She couldn't risk getting seen. They would probably come looking for her here, so she had to move quickly. She got up and walked deeper into the cave in front of her.

All of this was too strange. There shouldn't be a naturally formed cave this deep near a lake. What prevented the water from getting in?

She could see that the walls looked like solid stone. It was not smooth by any means, but compared to the soft dirt of the surrounding area, it was a contrast. She calmed her nerves. However, the cave was formed from the number of spider webs and natural organisms growing, so it was evident that the cave was old.