Soon after, the trio went over everything about the city and the cavern amongst themselves, they went back over to the rest of the members of the expedition to discuss it with them and see what their thoughts on the matter are. Since they would be the ones risking their lives to fight the spiders it's only fair that they get to decide whether or not they want to. Even though he is the guild master he can't force his members to lay down their lives when it isn't necessary.
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Once the guild master finally finished explaining everything to the rest of the expedition members, there were mixed reactions from the group. Some of them were in shock because they believe every word the guild master told them, others were outraged and hostile because they didn't believe what James told the guild master and especially because they killed these spiders so easily, they think that James is making it up. They also don't believe him because of the amount of mana it would take to have ones clone go that far away from them to even scout out the city let alone an underground cavern.
An hour goes by as the group discusses all the information and what they should do going forward. During this discussion quite a few people were swayed by others to believe that what they're being told can't be the truth, due to the mana cost needed to have a clone go that far away and to the fact that they killed these spiders relatively easily.
A whole other hour elapses when the group finally reaches a decision on what they feel should be the next course of action. After heavy debating the majority won in the decision that James's clone couldn't possibly have scouted everything that they were told and that they want to continue on with the expedition. After the long discussion a lot of the members also lost all the respect they had for James after his defeat of all the spiders because they believe he's lying about what's in the city for some reason.
"Alright, since the majority wants to continue on with the exploration then that's what we will do, but from here on out everyone will be extra cautious and if anyone dies, I don't want to hear you crying about it," the guild master says to everyone with an angry expression on his face.
Now that everything has been settled, the group begins to head towards the city's main gate once again. Once they reach the main gate, they see that it has been broken outwards indicating that the spiders originated from inside the city instead of coming from the outside in. They make their way through the gates and finally see inside the city only to see that all the buildings are covered in webs and that they place is almost unrecognizable to be that of dwarven make. They slowly enter the city's main street making sure to not be caught unawares in case any spiders are hiding in some of the webbed buildings.
As they progressed through the Main Street, I sense a handful of spiders making their way towards them from the city center, there are five in total, three advancing down the city street and one on either side of the street coming along the building faces.
"There are five spiders heading this way straight ahead of us, they're coming from the city center," I inform the groups as I summon my clone along with casting magic bullet.
A minute later five spiders appear in front of the group coming at them very quickly, three are on the street and the two remaining spiders are each running along the building faces.
I decide to take on the three on the roads surface.
"You all can have the two on the buildings I'll take these three in the center," I state as I walk down the middle of the road towards the three spiders.
The rest of the group divided into two as they went to kill the other two spiders coming towards them along the buildings. Each group began to overwhelm the spiders with sheer numbers and brutality, inflating their false sense of superiority to the spider's strength.
Meanwhile my clone and I launch all twenty-four magic bullets at the spiders while rushing towards them, the spiders jump dodging most of the magic bullets but still ended up getting hit by several of them. One of them lost a leg and has a few holes in its thorax, and as it lands, I lunge at it with my spear piercing its chest. Unfortunately, I miss its heart, so my thrust doesn't kill the spider, but the spider is now bleeding from its chest and from several holes in its body along with its missing leg. Knowing that it will die shortly due to excessive blood loss, I turn and attacks one of the other spiders that got hit by a couple of my magic bullet while my clone is fighting the third spider.
The second spider I am fighting took a magic bullet to its thorax causing it to lose a fair amount of blood. Seeing that it was moving a lot slower due to blood loss I thrust my spear rapidly causing numerous after images of the spear's blade as I repeatedly stab the spider cause holes to appear all over its body.
While I am fighting the second spider my clone is currently using his dagger because his spear got hit by a web and was cut in half. This third spider was only minimally injury unlike its two brothers. As my clone sprints towards the spider, he launches more magic bullets at if trying to force it to jump, as expected the spider jumps to the side and just as its landing my clone is waiting for it and uses Slash with his dagger sending two slash marks in the shape of an X at the spider cutting it into four separate pieces.
As my clone is killing the third spider I dispatch the second one also.
(Killed Scarlet Death Spider)
(Killed Scarlet Death Spider)
(Killed Scarlet Death Spider)
Now that all three spiders are dead my clone and I collect the monster cores and I notice that one of the spiders has dropped an item. I walk over and pick it up and examine it to see what it is.
Scorching Silk – A rare grade item that can be used for crafting. When used to make armor the armor will gain fire resistance based on the grade of materials used.
I have successfully killed all three spiders as the two groups finish off their spiders slightly slower than I did. As they turn to see how many spiders are left not expecting me to be able to kill all three, they witness my clone and I walking back towards them, heading over to stand by the guild leader. They were left speechless because it hadn't even been three minutes since they all started fighting the spiders and they had several people attacking the spiders where, as it was only my clone and I.
"Alright everyone, let's keep moving," the guild master says after everyone was staring at me as if I'm some kind of monster.
They continued down the Main Street while they kept thinking about my performance in killing the three spiders single handedly, they knew from years of experience that it's not an easy feat to defeat a monster that are further along in rank than oneself, let alone three of them at the same time, even while having a clone . Yet here I am killing three monsters that were all that much higher than me in less than three minutes. This was simply impossible and if somebody had told them about it without them having witnessed it, they would have called them insane.
As everyone was thinking about his kills I was busy thinking about my stats and how much I have grown in the last day.
(You have definitely grown much stronger since we began this expedition, not only stat wise but your battle sense and killing intent have grown by leaps and bounds. It's no wonder you can easily take on multiple enemies of the same rank as yourself)
After hearing Neph's response I began to think about it deeply and that it was highly likely that this was indeed the case. I started to think back to all of his fights and realized that I've always been a lot stronger than my opponents even when I'm in the lower spectrum for E Rank.
The group continued down the Main Street towards the city center once again after having encountered the drive spiders. After an hour goes by, they finally see the center square ahead of them. The group got excited because they're finally reaching their goal for the day, and they hadn't encountered as many spiders as they had initially expected to. Although this is weird, they didn't think too much about it because they've been able to kill all of the spiders with ease.