Chapter 7 – Monsters

“I’ll be fine.” I say for what is probably the tenth time so to placate Meredith’s worries, but of course that doesn’t really help much. “I’ll pull back at any signs of dangers that I can’t take on, and I won’t be alone.” The married woman merely chews on her lower lip some more before sighing and pulling back.

“I know you will, but…” She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Those caves and tunnels have never been explored. If there’s any Dungeon or monsters in there, they might all be decades if not centuries old!” I’ve already thought of that through the night, and even thought of some monsters that I might run into.

Bats, perhaps some rock-type monsters, maybe even some lizards. Dungeons cause the monsters that reside within their general location to grow stronger and mutate through time, so I do not know if normal animals and creatures can also mutate if they reside near a Dungeon Core.

It’s not going to be easy, that’s for sure, but I need to grow stronger.

“Dear, she’ll be alright.” Jacob speaks up as he pats Meredith’s back, making her sigh one more time before she gives me a hard look. “I already know what you are thinking, and Kaera already thought that you’d do it.” Jacob and I grin, and I give him a thankful nod as he suddenly wraps Meredith in a tight hug while the woman’s eyes widen up.

“I do not know when I’ll be back, so do not stay up late waiting for me.” I give her a smile as I wrap the coat around me, then grab my rifle and turn around to open the door as she starts to protest and trash within her ‘cage’.

I predicted that she’d want to give some Magic Crystals like Health Crystals or other expensive stuff, so I asked Jacob to grab a hold of her when I was about to leave so to give me a chance to escape.

I close the door behind me as I laugh softly at Meredith’s curses and angry shouts, then walk out of the main gate and down the street towards the Guild.

I leave the hood of my cape down as I walk the mostly empty street, my fingers tapping onto the barrel of my rifle as I think about what to do if I do run into dangers that I cannot take on.

Should I escape without Chase and the others, or should I try and bring them out too? What would my duty be in that situation? They did not hire me, so it’s just a collaboration and I have no Master among them, meaning that their lives aren’t a priority.

If it does come to that and I have no other choice, then I’ll just leave. My self-given mission is to simply raise my own Level, not help them in their Quest of finding a Dungeon Core.

I pull myself out of my own thoughts and look forward, ignoring the few gazes I attract as my eyes land on the Guild. I can see Chase and the others already waiting there, their clothing being the same as yesterday, but this time they have their weapons with them.

Chase has a large shield strapped to his back together with what looks like a bastard sword, which is shorter than a normal sword but longer than a shortsword, attached making it perfect for fighting inside narrow places. Albeit wide swings still aren’t good with it.

Markus has a pair of one-handed maces, which fit his muscular body and should pack quite a punch. Beth is the same, with her forearms and hands being clad in large and bulky gauntlets that are meant or punching.

Jessy instead has a small crossbow strapped to her back with a bag of bolts on her right thigh, plus multiple throwing knives and daggers.

I myself have a satchel bag full of Healing Bandages that I prepared last night before going to sleep, which also ended up Leveling it up. I don’t know how much better they became, but I did notice that the Mana/Mind cost is now a bit lower than before.

Too bad I am inside a city, else I’d start training my Frost Bullet too since it seems that constant use does the work. Albeit I’m afraid of breaking my rifle through overuse.

“Kaera!” Chase is the first to notice me, and he raises his arm above his head to wave me over, drawing the attention of his teammates towards me. He seems to be quite the enthusiastic type of guy.

“Chase.” I nod at him with a friendly smile, then do the same for the others as Chase gives me a wide eyes look once I get close enough to them. Yesterday my appearance was covered by the hood of my cloak, so this is the first time they see my face fully.

And Chase is a guy, a rather young one I presume, so I kind of expected him to gape at me for a bit, same for Markus. But Markus had no reaction, the one that replaced him was Beth.

“Are we ready to go?” I ask after Chase received a smack upside the head from Beth, who gave me what was most definitely a flirtatious wink. Chase coughed into his fist, ears a dark red, but quickly regained his composure.

“Yep. It’ll take a bit to get to the entrance though, so we better start moving now just in case.” I nod and turn to the side as he walks past me, followed closely by the rest of his team before I do the same.

“This your first time diving inside caves and stuff?” Beth asks as she glances towards me, her voice being rather deep and strong, perfectly fitting her appearance.

“Yes. I’ve dealt with a group of bandits by myself, some huge corpse eating rats and large Rock Ants, but all of that was nowhere near a Dungeon and in the open.” Actually, I’m sure there’s a Dungeon underground where all those Rock Ants live, else I doubt there would be so many of them, especially those massive ones.

“A group of bandits by yourself?” Beth blinks in surprise. “Didn’t you say you are a ranged Class?” I nod, then lean my arms out of my cloak to show my rifle, drawing a confused gaze from Beth and Jessy while the guys glanced back curiously.

“My weapon can easily punch through armor and kill a target instantly from close range, and unlike arrows, it leaves behind a large bleeding wound. Only problem is that it’s quite loud, and will be even more inside the caves.” The bandits weren’t very well armored, but I am very confident in the fact that my bullets can easily punch through leather, especially since they get stronger with my Spirit Stat.

“The sound could be a problem, but if it’s truly as powerful as you say, then I’m glad that you’re with us.” Jessy sighs out, and I tilt my head in confusion. “The majority of the monsters we run into have hard chitin armor covering them, and while Markus and Beth can smash through them with ease, it tires them out fast and damages their weapons.” That’s understandable. Unless they can destroy the armor and kill the monster in a single blow, it’s natural that constant use and swings will tire them out, while hitting the hard chitin will slowly chip away at their weapons.

My only problem is running out of Mind, but bullets take very little Mind, I can shoot hundreds of them with my current reserves. At least that’s my very rough estimate, so better not rely on it.

“Speaking of monsters, can you tell me what monsters we’ll have to face?”

We spet the rest of the walk talking about the monsters that are within the caves. At first there aren’t many, but the deeper we go the more numerous they become, and the bigger and wider the tunnel become too.

Some of the monsters are exactly bats, which are massive but incredibly weak, but they have fangs that can easily tear through flesh and are poisonous. It’s nearly impossible to miss them since they are all nearly a meter long, but they usually are found in large groups, nearing the dozens.

Another monster is known as Cave Dweller, which is a massive bipedal lizard like monster that has huge claws and hard scales. It’s weaknesses are it’s slow speed and the scales near it’s sides as the back is covered in rock-like armor and the front and head are mostly quite hard to break through, while the scales below the arm and the sides are very thin and weak.

Unfortunately the Cave Dweller is incredibly strong and can easily mangle a corpse with a single swing of it’s arms, and it also has a tail it uses to swipe the legs under anyone near it before stomping them to death.

It’s massive in size, nearing the three or so meters in heigh and being wider than Markus himself. It’s for that fact that it’s considered the strongest monster within the caves so far.

Finally, there are Cave Spiders, which is best if we avoid them. Not only can they tie us down with their webs by spitting them on us, but they also have large numbers on their side and they are never alone. They are very weak to pretty much anything, the only problem is that they reach my knees when it comes to size, and that they always move around in groups of dozens, so we can easily be swarmed in seconds by them.

We discussed how to deal with each monster in case we ran into them, specifically the Cave Dweller since it’s the biggest threat. Chase has a Skill that let’s him draw the attention of any monsters around us, and he’s actually quite agile so he can dodge and protect himself rather well while being the center of attention, allowing us to chip away at the enemies bit by bit.

We arrive at a large camp just as we finish discussing our strategies, and I let my gaze wander around. The area looks like a mining site and is right next to the massive mountain the Royal Capital is attached to.

There’s stones and debris everywhere, coupled with dozens of tents all over the place and an incredible amount of ladders all over the place, probably used to bring others inside the hundreds of holes that are all over the smooth surface of the mountain.

It’s like someone cut a big chunk of the mountain off.

A third of the mountain is missing, and I doubt that third is the stone and debris around me. Just what could have cut the mountain with such precision?

“Did the King decide to just recently send Mercenaries within those caves?” I ask Chase as he leads me and his team towards one of the many tents. It seems a bit stupid to not explore a mountain and seek it’s resources and minerals, then just suddenly flood it with Mercenaries.

“Those weren’t always there.” Chase hummed as he nodded towards the holes in the smooth mountain wall. “The majority of those tunnels were all dug out by monsters. Monsters we never met in any of our explorations.” That made me frown a bit. So there’s monsters that haven’t been cataloged inside those caves… That doesn’t sound good.

I feel like the deeper we go, the lower our chances of survival will be.

“Chase! Back for another dive already?” I perk up and glance at an elderly woman behind a large desks, piles of crates filled with stuffed pouches right behind her. “And who’s the pretty girl? New teammate?” I nod at the woman with a friendly smile, receiving a warm smile in return before she turned her gaze back to Chase.

“Ain’t like we got much of a choice. Our heads are on the line.” Chase sighs while the elderly woman frown softly, then turns to the side and grabs a couple of pouches from the crates behind her and sets them on the table. “And yeah, she’s Kaera. Not really a new teammate, just a helping hand.” That’s true enough. I’m glad he didn’t say I’m a new trainee for their War Company. I’d rather not join one under an ultimatum.

“Here, have this.” Jessy approaches me after she grabs two of the pouches, then offers one to me. I gently grab it, then curiously open it to check the insides.

Only to instantly shut it when I’m nearly blinded by the intense glow coming from the inside.

“Careful, those are Glow Stones.” Jessy giggles as I blink the spots out of my eyes. “We use them to light our path in the caves, both to light them up and to find our way back.” I nod, then tie it to my waists besides my coin pouch and satchel full of bandages. I almost blinded myself with those things.

“Is the boss back yet?” Chase asks the elderly woman as I rub my eyes, a bit annoyed that they didn’t tell me what was inside the pouch before I opened it.

I manage to look up just in time to see the elderly woman flinch slightly at Chase’s question.

“Not yet.” I can feel the tension growing in the air as the elderly woman refused to look at Chase and the others, their faces now slightly pale.

“What cave did he pick?” Chase demanded as he rested his hands on the counter in front of him, fingers tensing and hands nearly clenching into fists. I frown a bit at that, but simply wait and watch.

“Kid, don’t do anything stupid.” The elderly woman frowns. “He took one of the tunnels that led downward, to the unexplored areas. They probably just got lost…” I can tell that the even the elderly woman doesn’t believe her own words and is simply trying to stop Chase from going on a suicide mission. Which I most definitely won’t join.

The monsters within those caves are already a huge danger to us, and going downward sounds like suicide since even this ‘Boss’ person hasn’t come back from there.

“But-” Markus rested a huge hand on Chase’s shoulder, stopping him from saying anything else as he shakes his head with a frown. “Fine. Is there a free cave for us to explore?” I sag my shoulders in relief at that. At least he doesn’t let his own emotions get the better of him.

“The A-Eight cave. A previous team said that they met heavy resistance in that cave, and you know what that might mean.” Chase blinks, then grins and straightens himself while the elderly woman smiles. Either she’s trying to divert his attention or she’s speaking the truth, or both.

“A-Eight huh? That’s on ground floor.” Jenny hums softly as the elderly lady leans back from the counter and nodded her head. “The first Dungeon we found is inside E-Three, quite a distance away, so it might be plausible.” Dungeons inside caves and tunnels sound quite annoying as there can be dozens of them, but it’s nearly impossible to find them inside those maze-like tunnels.

“Alright then, let’s go.” Chase sighs while rolling his shoulders a few times. “Let’s just hope it’s not a waste of time.” Markus nods his head in agreement at that, and we all soon wave our goodbyes to the elderly lady before walking out of the tent and towards the cleanly cut wall of the mountain.

I have a very good eyesight, so I can see that each cave is labeled with a letter and number once we approached them. At the very bottom, those that didn’t need a ladder to get to, are labeled with an A, and above them is those labeled with a B.

Some didn’t have any designation though, so possibly they were those that either connected to other caves or were dead ends.

We stop in front of the rather large entrance, some claw marks visible on the walls of the cave, the stone being a rather eerie dark blue instead of the usual gray. It all is given an even more eerie look by the brightly glowing stones on the ground and leading inside the long tunnel until it took a turn a dozen meters ahead of us.

“Everyone ready?” Chase turned back towards us as he grabbed his shield and sword, keeping them on hand as me and the others nodded. “Jessy, you know what to do then. We’ll be right behind you.” Said Thief nods as she stretches, then breaks out into a quick job and swiftly disappears around the corner of the tunnel.

I watch as Chase counts down from five before finally taking a step forward with Markus right beside him while Beth stands beside me.

“Kaera, watch your steps.” Markus speaks up for the first time since we met up at the Guild, his voice incredibly deep and heavy. “You fall, you’re gonna break something.” I nod as I step on the uneven and messy stone surface, taking a bit of time to get used to it before catching up with the group. I’m surprised Jessy can run on this surface, but I’m sure she has a high Agility Stat since she is a Thief.

I shake my head, take a slow breath and give my wings a slight shake from beneath the cloak, then harden my gaze as I rest my finger on the trigger.

The sound of our steps and breathing being the only sound I can hear once we take the turn, the outside world soon fading from view.

The glowing stones on the uneven floor now look more like a trail of bread crumbs leading the bird into a trap.