I met up with Soldat's party at the gate of the city the next day.
The day I accepted to join them, Soldat advised me to get warmer gear as the cave gets freezing cold.
He recommended me to get Snow Hedgehogs gear, as it's the most common around the Northern Territories.
And so, I did, and we headed for the Ilbi Cave.
In that time, I got to know how the party is build-up.
For starters, there are three swordsmen, one warrior, and one magician.
Soldat is a swordsman, advanced level at Sword God Style and intermediate at Water God Style. The other two, Kaleb and Ingolt, are intermediate at Sword God Style.
The warrior, Connor, doesn't use a style in particular, but is said to be slightly below Soldat in terms of strength.
The magician, Anastasia, who is the only girl in this group, is advanced in Fire and Wind Magic.
Now, onto the formation and roles.
Soldat and Kaleb, are at the front, acting as the main attackers.
Ingolt and Connor are acting as defense support for when a monster gets through the front.
Anastasia and I are simply supporting from the rear… or rather I am.
Due to my magic prowess exceeding hers by far, the attacks I deal do had more effect, making her input nearly unnoticeable.
While we went through the Ilbi Cave, we encountered some other monsters and dealt with them quickly.
[Stepped Leader] has something that my old party didn't. Teamwork. They coordinated their moves with each other like real professionals.
Maybe once I integrated myself to them, I could be of proper support as well.
The monsters we've fought were just minor ones, not our scaly main target.
It took about three hours until we arrived at what might be their nest. Dozens of white lizards cooped up together and sleeping.
As to not wake them up, we stayed in the heightened exit, crouched down and observing the situation.
"Alright. A surprise attack should be our first move. Anastasia."
By Soldat's order, the Magician girl went forward and readied her staff.
Before she was able to cast her spell, I held her mouth shut with [Specter Force], ultimately cancelling her spell.
"Hey, brat, what are you doing?" Connor asked me in a whisper.
They all looked at me demanding an explanation.
"Those aren't all of them. There are obviously other groups hiding behind the other paths. A normal advanced class spell won't do it here."
"How do know that? You aren't even looking at them?" Soldat asked.
"I have detection abilities that let me sense other beings in a certain range, similar to a Superd's third eye."
All of them gave me skeptical looks, which was understandable since I didn't tell them about it because of the lack of credible evidence.
"Look, I can tell you guys more about that later, but the fact stands that if we don't act careful here, then we're gonna get overwhelmed from the back up they have installed."
"Then I guess it's your time to shine?" Soldat sarcastically asked.
"Funny that you said that." He looked dumbfounded by my sudden reply.
I crouched forward and went before Anastasia.
This will be slightly like the hunt against the Luster Grizzlies.
First, I will cast small spheres of [Waterball] in dozens. Next, I'll prepare for a small but strong [Electric].
To make sure that other Snow Drakes don't come around before we defeat the first ones in sight, I will close the other paths with [Stonewall].
As preparations were done and the small orbs of water floating in between the slumbering lizards, I quickly closed the paths and released my spell.
What came was a light show of an electrical net spun between every Snow Drake that woke up from the world's most painful alarm clock.
This went on for a short while until I cancelled the input of mana.
Smoke rose from the carcasses and the previously white monsters had burned marks on them.
Some of them twitched a bit while emitting occasional small electrical sparks.
"Well, is this good enough for-" When I turned around to get my evaluation, I was answered with wide eyes and dropped jaws.
"… too much?"
"'Too much' you say?" Anastasia exclaimed. "All of that without a staff. Wait, are you using a Magic Item?"
"No, I don't have one of those. I never even held one before."
Anastasia started to have the corners of her mouth twitch and slightly cackling.
"But this is no time to talk. The other Snow Drakes are already scratching on the walls. Let's make sure that these are already dead before fighting against them."
"Hmph. I agree. But don't go off doing your own thing, alright?" Soldat said.
"Didn't plan to."
From then on, the six of us stepped into the nest and eliminated any Snow Drake that was still alive.
Turns out there were none, so we decided to engage in attacking those behind my walls.
There are 3 in total and as we stood before each, I turned the walls into dust and the lizards came running to us.
As we exterminated them each path at a time, no problems arose until the last one.
The Snow Drakes that were in that path went further into it. Those must've noticed that their kin on the other side get slaughtered mercilessly and fled.
But as we came here to exterminate all of them, we followed them, of course.
The tunnel went longer than expected but with the traces of claw marks and scales we knew exactly where they went.
We arrived in a large area, built as if it was man made.
"I thought this was supposed to be a cave, not a ruin." I said.
"Wait, look at those."
Looking further around here, there were monuments like pillars and ceilings.
We also found traces of the Snow Drakes coming from here. At first, it looked like they came here to escape, but I noticed the actual situation.
"Above us!" I yelled, and all of them did so.
Like geckos, the Snow Drakes were clawing on the ceiling and jumped down to us for an ambush attack from above.
Everyone got ready to engage in sudden battle, with Anastasia going behind Connor, as he was using a shield for defense as well, and Anastasia being a Magician, she has the least defense out of all of us.
Since I have no need for speaking the incantation, I have plenty of quick defensive options.
As it rained wingless dragons, I used various methods of killing them, shouting out my spells as a warning to the others.
Whenever I noticed another one getting pushed back, I would use Gravity Magic to make them levitate in the air and bringing out of balance, giving the person a chance to attack.
Soon enough, a few of them tried attacking us by surrounding and overwhelming us from all directions.
"This seems tricky." Soldat says, barely breaking a sweat. Not just him, the others too.
Meanwhile, I do. Proof that I don't have enough stamina for things like this.
Together with Ruijerd and Eris things were… smoother.
The people I'm working with now are experienced, but they are all rather lower in strength and talent than those two.
I may be the most excelling person here, but they still have the upper hand on me in terms of working with the other.
My electrical net may have shown them my prowess, but that doesn't prove my use for this team. I need to put up better results than that.
"All of you, get ready."
Putting both my hands on the ground, I concentrated on another spell, this time to end it all.
Using [Earth Hedgehog] beneath all the Snow Drakes on the ground, the ones on the ground got skewered by numerous straight and thin stone spikes.
That was not all of it, though. With Voice Magic, I held my hands at the sides of my mouth and yelled at the Snow Drakes at the ceiling.
Those ended up getting paralyzed and falling to their doom, which involved them getting stabbed by the numerous stone spikes.
Even for me, the caster, and perpetrator, that was getting above extreme.
But then I realized my mistake. I did my own thing.
I was about to apologize to them for my actions, but the wave of fear hit me. When I looked at them, some had pale faces. But not looking at me.
When I directed my attention to where they looked at, I noticed that a handful of Snow Drakes were still alive even after getting immobilized by the numerous stone spikes.
I turned back to them and said:"I got too worked up."
I must've said it wrong because now they looked at me with blank faces.
This is certainly a laughable situation I got myself mingled into.
*Rumble*
See? Even the world is struggling to hold back its laughter at me…
"Ah crap."
The reason for the ground rumbling is already obvious. My Voice Magic most likely let the ceiling loose, causing it to fall down.
"Got any spell for that now?" Ingolt retorted.
"As a matter of fact, I do."
He didn't see that confidence of mine coming, and so did the others before they thought about running.
To take matters into my own hands (appropriately this time), I decided to make a grand finale.
Taking out a handful of random seeds I picked up from the forest, I scattered them before me with some soil made from Earth Magic, opposite from where the others are.
With Healing Magic, I made the seeds grow rapidly and soon enough a massive tree with multiple trunks sprouted.
Roots planting itself into the stone ground and branches going high up to the ceiling, keeping it in place and stabilizing the cave.
I admired my work but unfortunately got down from it as it remembered me about my tree that I planted at Buena.
No, bad thoughts. Bad thoughts! This is still part of an evaluation. Get it together, me.
"Okay, this should hold for now. Mister Soldat, I think we should look around to… Mister Soldat?"
He was now standing before me. No, the rest is hiding behind him.
*Sigh* This means I'm going to get scolded for breaking the cave. Well, I can still try to go solo labyrinth diving.
"Just for the record, you're human, right?" Soldat asked.
"Yes. These eyes and hair color are the result of a big accident."
Am I right to deduce that this profiling is the Millis religion's fault?
Soldat didn't say anything else, but Anastasia did.
"I didn't know you could use Healing Magic for that. And in a manor of Attack Magic."
"Yeah, Earth Magic would have a similar stabilizing effect but would have been a bit too complex to pull out." I said.
"That's not what she meant." Kaleb said and then pointed at somewhere.
And when I turned around, I saw the source of their shock.
Some of the roots reached the impaled Snow Drakes and rooted into them. The previously flawless white skin is now shriveled down to the point of leaving a skinny and flappy carcass.
Perhaps the salt deposit of the Ilbi Cave made the plants seek a better source of moisture.
So that's what Anastasia meant with 'in a manor of Attack Magic'. Terrifying indeed.
"Let's just finish before something happens. Rudeus, any other Snow Drakes around?"
"Let me check."
As I was about to close my eyes, I sensed something. Something big.
"There were, but…"
"But, what?"
I opened my eyes to look at Soldat.
"Were there other people supposed to subjugate some monsters here?"
"What? No, there shouldn't be. We made sure to tell that we were going Snow Drakes hunting."
I looked over to the direction the thing was coming from.
Suddenly, a sense of dread overwhelmed me and I grabbed everyone with [Specter Force] and moved them out of the way.
At a hair's breadth, before Soldat got hit, the thing I sensed earlier came rolling on to us with a cold wind.
Quite literally.
Like a certain hedgehog from a video game, it spun at terrifying speed. And in its path is left a trail of ice.
It wasn't even slowing down when it came close to the wall, it was rolling up on it.
"Everyone, get ready!" Soldat shouted, the shock in his voice imminent.
As we all got into position, but we had to evade again.
When it got right above us, it stopped its attachment to the ceiling and descended towards us.
It was faster due to the winds It's producing suddenly only exhausting from the top.
With an overcharged spell, I shot right at it.
"[Stone Conan]!!!" I shouted, warning the others to use this as an opportunity to get out of the way.
With a loud crash and spark igniting against it, the [Stone Conan] hit the monster.
We were all now separated and surrounded the rolling being already, waiting for the dust to dissipate.
As it did, the monster screeched out in a roar, the sound proving my sense of dread.
This thing means danger.
///