Chris leads the way into the ominous cave. Amelia and Harold follow after.
The cave is very dark, so Chris and Amelia send out a few magical lights. A large and spacious cavern is illuminated. They can see crystals and metal veins all around, in the cave ceilings, and on the walls.
Suddenly, they sense movement along the edges of the cavern. It is still pretty dark on the far edges, but they can see that they are not alone.
Simultaneously multiple creatures jump out from the shadows. Harold rushes forward to protect Amelia, but Chris is even faster and instantly summons energy bullets and sends them flying at the creatures.
The creatures are knocked back with a loud wail. "They are wounded", Chris thinks to himself, but then they immediately get back up and rush toward him. He takes a careful look at them, they look like wild and primitive humans. He then raises his fine longsword, which he has refined too of course, and quickly slashes the creatures around him. The creatures just continue coming at him and he switches to burning them with magical flames instead. The creatures are easily turned to dust.
Harold and Amelia were standing behind Chris, dumbfounded and confused. The battle was really quick and intense. Sure, Chris had changed tactics a couple of times, but both he and his opponents had been extremely fast and so it had all been like a blur for Harold and Amelia.
Amelia was first to break the silence, "I believe that they are feral vampires and that we have walked straight into their lair. Vampires are dark creatures that feed off of the life essence of other beings. Low vampires need to do so by drinking blood, but more powerful vampires can drain the life of their prey from some distance using their magic. Fortunately, vampires are very rare. Powerful vampires can turn humans into vampires, but it is draining and most of them turn feral and weak.".
"Even feral vampires are far stronger than humans, or ordinary humans, unlike Chris. We should be careful, there may be a powerful vampire at the source of these ferals. Although they are said to usually kill the ones that turn feral, sometimes they have been found to be used as guard dogs.", she adds.
Chris and Harold nod and remain vigilant as they continue to explore the cavern. "There are a lot of valuable materials here. I need to extract them before we leave the mountains.", Chris says.
They soon find a tunnel leading deeper into the mountain and carefully go deeper. "Is there anything valuable about feral vampires?", Chris asks as they walk.
"Their fangs are quite valuable if you can retrieve them in good condition.", Amelia answers.
"Hmm, my flames won't be good for that. Is there any other way to kill them?", he asks.
"You can decapitate them, but that is far more difficult.", she answers.
"I should be able to solve that.", he says with a sly grin. "I need funds to strengthen the village.", he adds.
"I will continue to focus on protecting Amelia.", Harold adds feeling a bit weak and powerless compared to Chris.
"Thank you, that makes things much easier for me.", Chris says earnestly. He appreciates that Harold is here to protect Amelia. It allows Chris to focus on taking out the enemy.
They start hearing noises in the distance. It sounds like scratching against the walls. The noises are coming closer. "I think there are more ferals approaching", Harold says.
Amelia can feel their dark energy, "I am certain of it.".
As soon as Chris sees the first few of them he conjures a large sawblade and sends it flying forward. It manages to take off a few heads, but also a lot of other parts of the ferals.
"There are a lot of them", he says.
The ferals who weren't decapitated are slowly regenerated and struggle to carry on with their assault. More and more ferals are rushing past and are rapidly nearing Chris.
Chris decides that the saw blade wasn't very efficient and summons a few walls of fire a few meters apart. Effectively blocking and separating the first few waves of ferals and blocking off the rest.
The first five ferals are still on Chris' side of the fire and they quickly lunge at him. He makes a few fast and fluid motions with his sword and takes off all of their heads in just a few seconds.
Then he lowers the first firewall and does the same to the next few ferals. This continues for a long time, and whenever he runs out of firewalls, he creates a few new ones.
An hour later, all of the ferals seem to be dead and they find that the tunnel leads out to a smaller cavern with lots of other tunnels. This seems to be a large cave system. Their current position seems safe.
They spend a few hours gathering vampire fangs and then decide to go back to the initial cavern with a couple of thousand feral vampire fangs. Amelia and Harold are exhausted, so they set up camp in the cavern. Chris uses his magic to block off both the entrance and the tunnel leading deeper. Then he says that he can keep watch for half a night before switching. "I really want to extract the metal anyway.".
The night goes by without any problems and Chris manages to gather a lot of metal using his energy crafting.
...
Chris, Amelia, and Harold are sitting around a magical light orb eating breakfast. "Amelia and Harold, could you go back to Harborton and hire some people to retrieve all the resources we have gathered? Send the vampire fangs to the merchants' guild and the rest to the blacksmith's shop.", Chris says.
"Will you go on all alone?", Amelia answers feeling a bit worried.
"Yes, I will be fine. You have seen how far I have come with my magic and my equipment is really strong as well.", Chris answers in a reassuring tone.
"We can handle your task. Please be careful.", Amelia responds and Harold nods.