Author's note:-

Ah man, I'm sorry but i couldn't complete the chapter. it's still unfinished, but I'm going to sleep now. So, I'll have to complete it tomorrow.

But for now...

Enjoy.

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Third person P.O.V:-

They crawled and crawled and crawled, but nothing happened. The Knight crawling at front had his shield up in front of him while the others behind him had their faces down. The knight was really stressed, he had been crawling expecting one or more monsters to jump come out of blue to attack them, but so far everything had remained calm.

His eyes were now bright red, after giving it his all to look ahead in this pitch black darkness. Even though no monsters attacked them but he noticed one thing, they had not even traveled 30 meters, yet they were already sweating like crazy. He had sweat flowing out of his body like water from a waterfall. His heavy equipment and shield that he was very proud of, today become a source of his agitation and misery.

While crawling forward, their leader ‘the swordsman’ was keeping his eyes in front and beyond the knight. He had a duty to fulfill and in this pitch blackness, he needed to depend on his vision to complete it, but in the darkness where he couldn’t even see face of the knight, who was crawling in front of him, he was also frowning.

He looked back and saw a tinge of light entering from the surface hole and lightening the mouth of this horrible tunnel.

The tunnel wasn’t really so bad, but the vision problem really was. In the tunnel, they had enough space to walk on their knees and wiggle about somewhat, but the space was not enough to stand up.

Even though they had enough space to walk comfortably, they still decided to stay low to the ground and crawl. The most dangerous situation that they could get into had nothing to do with their comfort, but it related to them being discovered and attacked by the whole colony of ants. So, after the constant nagging and nitpicking form some members of their team ended, they decided to stay low and crawl.

While the leader was straining his eyes to look ahead he heard a voice calling out to him.

“Ummm…leader, this tunnel is too dark, can I light a fire or something to help us see?”

“Now are you an idiot or something, tell me where are we right now.” He whispered, his voice almost breaking before reaching the fire mage.

“I know, I know we are in a tunnel, moreover underground, but this is too eerie. I am scared.” she replied with tears in her puppy eyes, but the swordsman couldn’t see the spectacle.

His eyes were also red and tired by looking ahead trying to watch out for any kind of movement, but now he was provided with another massive headache by the mage. He couldn’t hold his building anger and almost yelled at her; shouting, “you, who made you a mage? Don’t you know we need oxygen to live and fire also needs oxygen to burn? Right now we are underground, and here the oxygen level is already very low. So tell me what will happen to us if your fire spell burned all of the remaining oxygen from our surrounding? Huh?”

His reasoning and knowledge left everyone questioning. The thing was that, all of them were tired of crawling inside the narrow and dark tunnel. Because they couldn’t change the width of the tunnel without wasting time, they wanted to atleast get rid of the darkness, but all of them who wanted to support the mages decision closed their mouths tightly with their hands, after hearing their leader refuting and getting angry at her. They didn’t want to accidently spit out something undesirable. The memory of Roby ‘The Archer’ getting his ass kicked was still fresh in their minds.

“But I can create fire without using oxygen.” Martha groaned; not out of pain, but frustration from not being trusted.

‘Huh…’ it was not something that one of them uttered, but it was their collective reaction. well, at least they behaved like a party for one moment.

After hearing her say that James ’the swordsman’ couldn’t help but look back, he was going to ask her the reason behind her answer, but the archer couldn’t control his excitement. He opened his mouth and said, “How is this possible. Like leader said, fire needs oxygen to burn. Why can you create fire without using it? Is it a secret art or something?”

“It’s not a secret or anything. Like I said when we were introducing each other, although my level is not that great, but my skill mastery and elemental control is top notch.” She explained while crawling through the tunnel.

The archer was again going to ask her ‘so?’ but somehow or another James eyes connected with his and the look in them was not pleasing at all. They were already red from staring without blinking into the darkness, but now it looked like his eyes demanded blood. So this time instead of asking her the question, he backed away and the swordsman asked her, “So, what kind of a relation does it have with oxygen less fire?”

She didn’t answer his question straight away, but looked at the ground and pondered on whether to tell him the reason or not, but maybe the dread of darkness won over her and she finally answered saying, “It’s because I can directly use mana as the fuel and create fire burning mana. So, I don’t think it will affect the oxygen level at all.”

“Nice so there are also such skills in the mages skill list. But it must be a very consuming skill, considering you a directly using your mana, Right? Moreover it will create a lot of light and I don’t want unwanted attention on us right now. So, we don’t need it, for now. Save it, conserve your mana, we’ll need it very soon, but the time is still not ripe. You and your fire magic will play a very large role in killing the ants because they are weak to fire.” with a smile on his face and slanted brows he said.

“No, no. actually, the mana consumption is not very high and I can also control the light it emits so that it emits only enough light for us to see and…” She was still continuing her explanations, when the earth mage crawling behind her called her an ‘Idiot’.

Her voice stopped and she couldn’t speak anything after that. She wanted to refute her, but her chance was stolen by the assassin, who started speaking in his language, “Kill llik kil l lick, killll ll iill.”

Hearing him say that an ‘AH!’ rang out inside the tunnel. Their leader stopped and motioned for others to stop as well. He looked towards the archer who could understand those words and he asked him, “What happened? What did he say?”

The archer who was already very frightened of the leader now couldn’t even lift his eyes from the ground to look at him. When they were still outside the tunnel and he was kicked by the leader, he had thought he was going to die, but instead of dying he only felt air blowing him away and out of luck or maybe cause of luck he was flung inside the hole, but instead of falling into the pit he landed outside it, near the tunnel.

He felt an impact on his head after landing and felt large amount of pain from the back of his head. He almost lost conscious due to pain. Even though the pain came only for a moment, but he felt his soul leaving from his body. He was sure that it was the first time that he had felt such an excruciating pain, but he was also sure that if he didn’t hold onto his life, then it surely was going to be his last one.

His fight with severe pain continued for half an eternity long minute, but then it went away like it was never there. The pain had only just subsided, when the memories from the moment before he was kicked started flashing in front of his eyes without his control. The vanishing of swordsman, a lightning fast kick and a hurricane like wind blowing him away, only he knows how may time this memory looped inside his head.

When the looping scenes ended, the only feeling it left inside him was the feeling of hatred. Hatred so strong, that all of his other emotions were killed by it. He wanted to get revenge, he wanted to kill him, to destroy every little speck of him, to crush him into paste was what he wanted to do, but no matter how much such feeling of hate governed his mind, it couldn’t hold control of him and as time passed by, his hatred also passed by. Soon his rational mind took over his body, but the seed of hatred was already planted inside him. Now, it was going to wait for him to get angry. Because this seed of hate would someday spurt and as it grows it would keep on corrupting his mind, until he loses control over his body and soul.

When his hate subsided and he came about, he noticed that he had changed somehow. Before this mission, he was a somewhat timid and shy person, but right now he was thinking about killing someone and reducing his body to a paste. But even though the thoughts of killing were gone and the hate had disappeared, he still had expectations towards meeting his leader again. He felt regret, regret that he wasn’t even strong enough to take care of a single human being. He wanted to take revenge, he didn’t care how, when or where, but he wanted to make him regret crossing his path.

He was still thinking about taking his revenge and everything, when he heard that bastards voice again. Before when their eyes met, it wasn’t because of fear that he looked away, but he knew that it was not the right time yet and that his eyes would show the hate that he has for him and it would lead to trouble. So to keep the situation normal, he answered while looking at the floor “He said that the tunnel is ending and there is a room big enough for one person to stand at the end of it. Oh, there is also an ant inside it, waiting.”

“What? Really? If so then, Miss Martha.”

“Yes?”She asked feeling a little down, from not being of any help.

James passed a smile to her before saying “Why don’t you show us how powerful your mana burning skill really is? Deploy a fireball or something at it and kill it. That would also create some light inside here, but please don’t use too much power and end up creating a fire storm that would come bite our knight’s face. Okay. Also D’sue, please lower your shield and until I tell you, don’t raise it no matter what happens. ”

Martha was left a bit confused, ‘why would he want the knight to lower his shield’ is what she thought, but then she looked at the front and saw a huge shield blocking most of her vision. She understood the reason and without wasting any time she started preparing a small fireball the size of a clenched fist over their heads. Thought its size never changed but, the glow it radiated grew to frightening degrees. The light it created was enough to see how tired everyone was after crawling for 20 something minutes inside the narrow and dark tunnel.

Though the light radiating from the fire ball hovering over their head was very strong but it was not strong enough to shine outside the tunnel and into the room, so they couldn’t look at the Ant that was waiting for them.

Maybe the Ant was blind, but even after there came a sudden light inside the tunnel, that ant didn’t move. It kept on standing wherever it was standing at.

James ‘The swordsman’ got impatient and he couldn’t help but ask the assassin where the ant was, and according to the archers interpretation of the assassins answer, their first monster inside this supposed ant colony was standing dead in the centre of the so called room, looking towards them with its mandibles open, waiting for them to come out of the tunnel and into its mouth.

Hearing that, a smile flashed on James face. He looked toward the mage who was controlling the fireball over everyone’s head and nodded his head to her. Just as he nodded his head, the mage without wasting any time pointed the index finger of her left white hand toward the Ant. The fireball buzzed away, flying closely from the swordsman’s face and after going straight for a while, it made impact on the monster.

Everyone waited, but no explosion occurred. The all looked at Martha who pointed in front of her; and just as she did, a loud cry rang out. A cry so loud that even the wails of a ghost would seem nothing in front of it. When everyone looked in the front, they saw a monster 3 feet high and 2 feet wide covered in fire, wailing at the top of its voice. It wanted to move but before it could even move two steps, the fire burned it down to ashes and its body crumbled away, leaving behind a heap of ash.

The thing is that, the fireball she created was specially made so that it wouldn’t create an explosion and would only burn anything that it touches.

Seeing that the Earth mage ‘Dust’ who was behind her couldn’t help but utter, “how is this possible? What did you do?”

To her muttering, Martha happily replied, “This skill is very useful and with high mastery, stuff like this becomes possible.”

“But why isn’t the fire extinguishing? Why is it still burning? How long is it going to burn?”

“Oh! I put a lot of my mana in it you know. This skill uses mana as fuel, so the fire will keep on burning until the fuel lasts. With the amount of mana that I poured inside it, it is probably going to burn for 3-4 hours top.” She felt butterflies in her stomach, praising herself. So, she giggled a bit while replying to her.

When their leader saw the Ant burning to ash, he could help but feel a grave shadow covering over him. Others might have not paid any attention to her skill, but how could he have done so. A fire that could keep on burning for all the eternity if enough mana was used, he could only guess what other abilities she might have if her simple fireball could already create such amazing results.

He thought that he would have to chide her for her explosion, but now only words of praise left his mouth.

“Good job kid, Good job. Everyone let’s move out and see what kind of a monster this is.”