We finally arrived back at the camp. Everyone seemed relieved that I managed to retrieve most of those who got kidnapped. However, It did turn out that I was late and a few were either hidden elsewhere or already eaten.
I was hoping to bring everyone back, however, that didn't happen but at least I managed to get most of them. I can't let myself worry too much about this. Worrying about others only brings more pain.
Around noon the self-assigned leader of the refugees decided to call a meeting and wanted me to explain to everyone what situation we are in and what are the possible ways to get out of it.
I got up and stood in front of the crowd. Everyone was silently staring at me.
"Hey, you know me but you don't know the situation we are in so well let me explain. As you probably know we have a slight issue with spiders. That is because we are inside the Spider Queen's magic realm. To put it simply, we are stuck here and will have to deal with spider attacks consistently. So now that brings us to the question of `how do we get out?` Well, we have two solutions. We either wait out for the Spider Queen to run out of mana or we go slay the Spider Queen. Any questions? Or are we good to decide on which one we will do?"
"How long would we need to wait for the Spider Queen to run out of mana?" Asked a young man at the front.
"That's a great question! Which I have no answer for but from what I can guess, it would be between a few weeks to eternity."
"What! Why eternity?" Another man screamed out.
"Well, you see. Though maintaining a magical realm of this size has a pretty large mana consumption, the Spider Queen has an enormous supply of manga. Like most beasts do. Why? I have yet to find out. The study of magic is quite fascinating. However, Since the Queen has a huge amount of mana, it would require constant feeding and resting. She doesn't move around so she's constantly resting. Food is collected by her baby spiders so she's consistently fed." I explained.
"So we just cut off her food supply?" Asked a young boy.
"Well, at that point you have to fight every single spider as well as make sure she doesn't produce more. We would be exhausted after fighting a dozen of the spiders and then kidnapped by the rest and eaten by the queen."
"How hard would it be to kill the Queen?" The young man asked again.
"Easier than all the other options, that's for sure. However, it will still require a lot of effort and we will need everyone who can fight to help. I believe it's something we can manage, but I can't promise that we will all see the end of it."
Everyone went silent. No one moved a single muscle. I was hoping for a better response but nothing much can be done. As I began moving away Maelyrra barged through the crowd and came to the front.
"Cowards!" She yelled at the top of her voice. "All of you here are nothing but a bunch of helpless cowards. He has done so much for us, he went out and did all he could to fight the spiders to save our people. Yet none of you even dare to try anything near as dangerous as that. Embarrassment to our race."
"Why don't you go help then?" someone from the crowd yelled.
"Who said I won't? I came out here to the front because I felt disappointed by you all. We can't rely on someone to do all the work. We are all in this together, we need to stand up together against the enemy." She replied.
Everyone in the crowd began talking between themselves. A few people started stepping forward.
"Glad to see at least a few of you are brave enough to stand up for those weaklings." Maelyrra shouted.
Never knew that she was such an inspiring speaker. Her speech even gave me goosebumps. A few more people started coming up. Good to see that I won't have to deal with this alone.
"So, Fiwen, now that we have a few people with us, what's the plan?" She asked me.
"We will do a small training session to see all their abilities and work out the best tactic we can with what we have." I replied.
"I like the sound of that. Shall we get going with it then?" She asked.
"You're quite eager today. What caused this?"
"I am fully energised and ready to get my revenge against those spiders!" She replied.
"Sounds great. Glad to see we are on the same page"
We looked around for a good spot to do some quick examinations of them and a quick training session to make it easier for them. Our food supplies were starting to run low and there weren't many ways to gather food around the realm. We will have to quickly kill the Spider Queen and break her realm apart.
Those who decided to come with us weren't half bad, most had a bit of combat experience, enough to fight off the smaller spiders. The Queen will have to be dealt with by me and Maelyrra. She is surprisingly much more competent than I had originally expected.
Maybe they all have more potential if they get trained. If it all works out we might be able to build up a force and get the humans out of our home. However, we are far from competent to do that as of now.
"We don't have much time. We will be heading out first thing in the morning. Eat well and get good rest. Early wake up call tomorrow." I yelled out.
Everyone started to get their stuff and move it into their tents. We made a quick stew as supper and headed off to our tents.
I stayed up to make sure that the camp was safe and that there were no signs of any spiders nearby.
"You're not asleep yet?" Maelyrra whispered in my ear.
I jumped out of surprise. I turned around to see what it was. It was just Maelyrra. She was wearing a black see-through dressing gown slightly hiding away her dark red lingerie underneath.
"Shouldn't you be asleep?"
"Waiting for you to join me." She replied in a flirty tone.
"I still have some stuff to check before I head to sleep."
She gripped my hand and said, "You can check me instead." She dragged me towards her tent.
"Is there something in your tent that I need to check?"
"Yes, come in and I'll give you a closer look." She said while pushing me into the tent.
As she took her dressing gown off she pushed me down into the tent. There were candles placed around the sleeping bag. A very strong pleasing scent flew around inside the tent.
"So… what's here to check? I don't see any issues, it's quite the cosy tent."
"Why don't you get cosy with me here as well." She smirked as she started crawling over me.
Her bust was in clear view. She came closer to my face and began kissing me from neck to ear. I gasped in shock and became speechless as if I was too flustered, there was nothing I could do to stop her.
She forced her arm under my t-shirt and began caressing my chest. My body was starting to get hot. She forced my cloak and shirt off and began kissing it. My body keeps getting hotter and hotter.
"You really have a really well-built body, Fiwen," Maelyrra said under her breath as she licked all over my chest.
My mind is beginning to fade away, I'm unable to respond in any way.
"Is this your first time, Fiwen?" she asked in a cheeky tone.
Before I was even able to give any form of reply she took my trousers off. She threw off the rest of her clothes and forced herself on me. I haven't ever felt like this. My mind faded away, pleasure overfilled my brain and my consciousness faded away.
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The sound of birds had awoken me from my deep sleep. Last night felt like a lucid dream, one beyond reality.
My whole body feels drained. My memories are still hazy and my head is still spinning. I can't remember much of what happened last night. I tried getting up but my arm wasn't moving, I looked around and Maelyrra was lying on top of my arm. Clothes were scattered all over the tent. Maybe the lucid dream was just a wild night.
Me moving around must have woken Maelyrra up, she finally released my arm as she got up herself.
"Oh good morning," She said with a cheeky smile on her half awoken face.
"Uh yeah. Morning." I replied in an uncertain tone.
I'm still trying to understand what has happened here. How did we get here? Why did this happen?
"Did you enjoy last night?" She asked while blushing behind the blanket.
"I don't understand what happened last night, I can vaguely remember what happened as well."
"Must have been a great experience if you can't remember anything, haha." She replied happily. "I enjoyed myself as well. Glad I was your first one, makes me happy." She added.
I don't understand what she is talking about. However, there is no time to think about this. We need to get going to the Queen Spider.
"Hey, we should start getting ready, we got stuff to do today," I told her.
"Can't we just stay here a little longer?" She pleaded in a soft tone.
"I don't even know what time it is. We should start preparing before the supplies run out. I am certain you wouldn't want to be eating small rations."
"Well, no I wouldn't but you will have to make up for this, okay?" She replied.
"Yeah, sure, are you going to get ready now?" I asked while quickly getting dressed.
"Hmph, sure" with a pout on her face she got up and began getting dressed.
I haven't noticed till now that Maelyrra has a fairly well-toned body. She seems to have a few cut marks here and there, wondering what caused those. Though I couldn't help but admire her body.
"Aren't you staring for a bit too long?" She said with a grin on her face.
"I just got lost in the train of thoughts." I tried to avoid the confrontation.
She smiled and carried on getting dressed. I should stop letting myself get distracted. I quickly finished off getting dressed and headed out of the tent. I had forgotten that I was inside Maelyrra's tent, as I walked out a few of the guys looked at me and nodded.
Not too sure what that means, but good to see that they are awake, makes everything easier.
I grabbed a pan and spoon and walked around all the tents smashing them together to make sure the remainder of the group was up, also to let them know its time for breakfast.
"I want to avoid wasting too much time, so eat up. After eating we will have a short warmup session and we will start heading towards the cave." I told them.
Everyone agreed and began having their breakfast. We didn't have much food, to begin with since we don't intend on taking too long with defeating the Spider Queen.
"Hey, Fiwen. I have an idea." Maelyrra said quietly.
I got up and followed her a bit away from the camp.
"So what's the idea?" I asked
"I think fighting within the cave will give us a huge disadvantage. We should try lore all the spiders, including the Queen out of the cave into the open." She suggested.
Logically speaking that would be quite the ideal situation for us, but the big issue will be how to lore the Queen Spider out of the cave.
"Do you have a plan for this?"
"Obviously even if we lored out the spiders the Queen wouldn't more, so logically we have to force the Queen to leave herself by making the environment inside the cave unbearable." She replied
"Logical, any suggestions on how to force the Queen out though?"
"I was thinking about this, and the only solution I can currently think of is by either flooding the cave or setting it on fire. Both ways it should become unbearable within the cave. Also, we could try combining the two to make the cave extremely humid to the point it's too hard to breathe inside." She explained.
"This might work. If it does, we will have a huge advantage. If it doesn't we don't lose much either way. We should try it, worth the shot. Good thinking Maelyrra." I patted her head and walked back to the camp.
She came back to the camp with a fat smile on her face and sat down beside me. She seems like a happy person, she smiles a lot. Glad to know there's still positivity around here.
Everyone finished off their food and we did a short warmup and a few exercises so we are mentally prepared for what is to come. As soon as that was done, we quickly packed up the tent and headed towards the cave.
We very soon arrived at the cave, we put our equipment nearby to make sure it didn't get damaged.
Trying out Maelyrra's plan is the first option. Maelyrra got one of the flame magic guys with her and she began with her plan. The only issue I can see with this plan is them running low on their mana. I'm not fully sure how large those caves are and if they are really large then it could take a lot of mana to flood and burn the whole place.
However, Maelyrra probably won't have too many issues with it. The more concerning part is the other guy. Not too sure what his mana limit would be, however, it shouldn't be too low from what I have seen.
Maelyrra pulled out her estoc and began to create huge quantities of water blasting at the cave entrance.
Around ten minutes have passed since she started blasting water at the cave, she is still holding her ground, however, the cave seems to be deeper than we anticipated. Hopefully, she can hold on for a bit longer.
Another ten minutes have passed, however, this time we have started to see progress water seems to be now piling up so the accessible areas must all be flooded giving the water nowhere else to go but to the exit. Maelyrra seems to be close to her limit now, she's sweating and struggling to hold herself up.
A few spiders began to sail out of the cave with the others just sliced up as they each floated out of the entrance. So far the plan has been working out, smoother than I expected, but it's only thanks to Maelyrra's endurance. Even so, she's really pushing herself at the moment. If we had other water magic users here it would be so much simpler.
"Maelyrra, how are you doing?" I asked
"I'm doing god awful. Thanks for asking tho." She replied angrily.
"How long can you keep going for?"
"Maybe another few minutes, but how long exactly I can't tell you. You will know when I drop." she quickly replied to avoid losing her concentration.
I should probably leave her to do her thing. The cave seems to be full now since water is fully starting to pour out.
"Hey, you with ground magic, can you cover up the entrance to the cave but leave a gap for Maelyrra's water to go in?" I yelled
He nodded in agreement and did as I asked. Hopefully this way we will be able to fill up the cave as much as possible without wasting Maelyrra's energy.
Five minutes had passed and Maelyrra finally fell to her knees. She drained herself to the extreme. She will need plenty of rest now. We moved her back to where we left our stuff to make sure she was a safe distance away from the action.
"Open up the cave now!" I yelled.
The cover to the cave was smashed open and the water burst out. A bunch of spiders began to flood out from the cave. Each one got sliced up as they came out. This made everything easier and safer for us. Although I am still worried about the Spider Queen, she is pretty large, not sure how she would come out that easily.
Once all of the water finally finished pouring out, we will need to spend huge amounts of heat into the cave and cause all that water that hasn't left the cave to evaporate. The fire can also potentially kill off any leftovers inside, any others will either suffocate from the immense humidity or run out into us.
Quickly the fire magic guys lined up and began to force their fire deep into the cave. Their powerful flames caused the water to start very soon and begin evaporating. Even standing near the cave entrance was dreadful, we had to move slightly further away from it.
We sat around for twenty minutes turning the cave into a furnace, turning all the spiders inside into a nice spider soup. A boiled Queen Spider sounds like quite the fancy meal, make start a restaurant with that. Since we had a few people with fire magic, it was going a bit smoother and they can probably last a bit longer than Maelyrra alone.
Another ten minutes have passed. A lot of the water has evaporated and turned the cave into a deadly sauna. Huge amounts of spiders had been rushing out, however, there still has been no sign of the Spider Queen herself.
I wonder if all of this already caused the Spider Queen to die already. Although she is a massive pile of mana, it would make sense that not even her could survive that. Unless she used some kind of magic to protect herself.
"Halt the fire. I want to check something, take this to have a break." I yelled at the guys firing fire.
All of them dropped to the ground, happy that they finally get a break. I went close to the cave entrance and sat down. The only way to find out if the Spider Queen is still alive without physically having to go search for her will be to try to spot her mana. Her vast mana levels should be easy to spot, if I cant spot it then it can mean two things. She either is dead, in which the mana should have dispersed and I won't find any or she is extremely weak from trying to protect herself, in this case, I should be able to spot some kind of active mana going around.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I concentrated my mind on one thing. I send my mana throughout the cave, searching each corner of the place. The cave was silent. There were no living forms inside. All that was there was the mana within the humid air.
This could only mean that the Spider Queen didn't make it. Despite being a powerful monster, being cooked alive was too much for her. The realm she created should fall apart soon, or at least I would like to hope so. Considering she is now dead, all that can maintain the realm is the leftover mana which dispersed after her death.
"There seems to be no trace of any life within the cave. We should be free soon." I told everyone.
They all cheered and dropped to the ground. They can all finally rest happily without any worry. I went back to check on Maelyrra to make sure she was doing fine. She was was still fast asleep, she does deserve all the rest she needs.
"Your plan worked like a dream," I said as I patted her sleeping head. "Rest well, we have a long way still to go before we escape from the mainland."
Looking up, the sky finally began to fall apart. The realm finally had no mana powering it. We are free from the Spider Queen. All that's left is to get the others and get moving, we lost a lot of time here. The assassin's guild most likely already sent out people to find us, we will need to increase our speed to make up for the time we lost.