The group moved with Lucas as a guide, although he didn't see the entirety of the cave system, they just needed to find every spider there was. Havi ordered the elimination of every monster, so Lucas felt compelled to do so.
'The strange this is, how would we know if we're done? What counts as a monster, what happens when a monster enters after we cleared it out?'
'Since the contract forces us to listen to the baron, we must follow his meaning. So when he commanded to kill all monsters we need to know what Havi sees as monsters in the first place. If we kill enough to make the mine operable again, would that be enough?'
'The more important question is if we can force our own meaning into his orders, if we suggest something with a different meaning in mind, would we be compelled to follow our own meaning, or his?'
The most important part was to get rid of the nest, as long as their breeding ground was destroyed it could become a good source of income again. Lucas was in front and used the new spell to see heat signatures. He had grown proficient enough in pronouncing runes that he could immediately start using it. Since it didn't require any technique, the mana flowed to his eyes before exiting and creating a lens that had an orange hue. With his new vision, the cave looked cool blue, while the torches that the soldiers were carrying and the group itself was bright yellow. His depth perception was a bit off, but he would get used to it before he started any fight, no he would make sure of it.
Taking the same route as before they arrived at the room with multiple tunnels branching off. Seeing the room in temperatures, he couldn't exactly pinpoint the tunnels with the webs in, it all somewhat looked the same. There was only one tunnel that did contain a bit more warmth because it looked a bit less like bleu and more like a soft shade of orange. The blood of the spider differentiated it because it lost most of its warmth, but was still a different temperature than the floor of the mine.
"Lucas, which tunnel should we take? I see three tunnels filled with webbings, one looks like it has a lot more than the others, should we take that one?" Venion was asking, not because he was testing Lucas, but merely because he just didn't know a whole lot about the monsters. 'Magic is my forte, why should someone of my standing care about a monster's habit, that is beneath me.'
Thinking back to what he remembered when he first came here, he looked toward the tunnel where the spider came out off. Coincidentally, it was the same tunnel that looked a bit warmer. "I think we should take that one, the ones with webbings in them are probably just feeding grounds. We won't find the nest there.". Using the knowledge he got out of the tome and his speculations he figured that the warmer tunnel would lead to the correct destination. The tunnel was a bit below the ceiling above another mineshaft, 'How do we get up there?'. Lucas was thinking about making some kind of stone staircase before Venion used a spell that made the entire group float towards the tunnel. "Wow, what's going on!?", the soldiers were panicking, but Lucas stayed calm, he recognized a few air runes so he thought something like this would've happened.
Landing softly in the mineshaft they, except Lucas, could see a bunch of strange markings on the wall, like a bear would sharpen his nails, it felt like this tunnel was used for the same purpose. Lucas didn't see these markings, but he was rather focused on the fact that there were lifeforms further inside of the tunnel. The soldiers could only see what the torch lit up, Venion wasn't worried so he was just watching Lucas. "Let's move, there are 2 spiders up ahead, I'll take care of one." Lucas said quietly, carefully not giving any orders to the soldiers or Venion.
There was an attempt to stay hidden but the moment they entered that tunnel the spiders were already aware of their presence. Although there weren't any extremely obvious webs, there were still a few strings hidden on the ground. The moment they stepped on it, the entire nest knew about their presence. The strange thing was that they were waiting, it felt like they didn't want to go inside the tunnel.
'Shouldn't they now come running? Why are they waiting?'
'Could it be Venion?'
'Are they scared of him?'
'No, if they were scared they should start running away, this has to be something else, a trap.'
Thinking it was a trap Lucas was a bit more cautious. The heat signatures suddenly disappeared, like they were running away.
'The heat signatures disappeared...did they run away?'
'Is it instinct that helps them out? I can't feel anything from him.'
'I guess he's nonchalant for a reason.'
Moving forward looking out for a trap out of paranoia, they reached another smaller room. The torch lighted up the room, and as Lucas was thinking that the spiders must have gone to warn the main nest one of the soldiers spoke.
"Weren't there supposed to be 2 spiders here? Were you just trying to sca-" The soldier suddenly stopped speaking before letting out an anguished cry before two steel legs pierced his head and chest, killing him on the spot. Another soldier saw what happened to his friend and looked toward the source. There was a spider on the ceiling, but before he could even process that information, he felt some kind of slimy liquid fall on his face. Completely looking up he saw the face of the spider, seeing his own reflection in its eyes. He let out a blood-curdling scream before his head was bitten off. The blood sprayed out like a fountain, Lucas drew his sword before panicking a little.
'Of course they wouldn't need to inform the nest, they're spiders, communication doesn't happen verbally. I'm an idiot'
'No, you're not, it's our first time coming into contact with the world of monsters, making rookie mistakes is part of the course.'
Shocked that his predictions were completely screwed, he focused on calming down so he could battle with a cool head. Venion peacefully walked out of the room while the other soldiers were being slaughtered.
One of the spiders was still occupied with one of the soldiers when Lucas had a stare-off with the other spider. The spider could obviously not actually see Lucas, but he made enough noise to make the spider aware of his location. He rushed towards the spider but wasn't planning on swinging his sword, rather waiting for it to attack. Thinking back on how the other spider fought he adopted a strategy.
'First, front legs.'
The spider acted as predicted and tried to pierce his body with its front legs. Dodging became easier and easier, with his training he could perfectly envision where the attacks would land, all he had to do was avoid those spots. That didn't take much effort and Lucas avoided the first two attacks and swung his sword towards the creature's face. Yet, it didn't go as planned, the spider backed up and used its fangs to hold the sword back, biting it in two.
'The hell is that biting strength?!'
Since he was close to its face, the spider immediately tried to eat Lucas with its fangs. Out of options, he grabbed the fangs with his hands before strengthening his arms with earth magic. Due to the situation, he couldn't do it perfectly making his arms a bit more stony than he wanted. Luckily this made the fangs not sharp enough to cut his skin. The creature yelled and spit some kind of disgusting-smelling saliva, preparing its meal. Lucas was pushed to the ground. Holding the monster back with his bare hands wasn't a simple feat, those big spiders weigh quite a lot, and while Lucas was trained to the point he could overpower an adult, he was still a kid.
Thinking about a possible solution, he was hit with inspiration. His hands were occupied, but his mouth was free, he didn't have a whole lot of time and energy was being depleted at a high speed because of the muscle strengthening. Optimizing his leftover energy, combined multiple beginner runes of fire in front of his face, with the final bit of energy he blow as hard as he could, creating a fiery breath. The fire breath wasn't very strong, but it did completely burn the insides of the spider, killing it.