The group of Adventurers together with Fried ventured inside the cave. For the Adventurers, now accustomed to this scenario, it was not even awe-inspiring anymore, unlike Fried. The latter looked around with a mixture of curiosity and nervousness.
"Is everything all right?" Lucia asked him.
"Yes...this cave makes me a little anxious."
"That's normal. We too were initially like you."
"Have you explored this kind of cave often?" He asked curiously.
"Until now, always."
"And to think, as soon as we got here, we were happy that we didn't end up in another cave." Said Samuele with a small wry smile.
"Yeah, the portal deluded us." Sofia added. Fried looked at them with a curious frown.
"The portal? You came all the way here through a portal?"
"That's right. The portal teleports us from our world to yours." Lucia answered him, getting a surprised look from the boy.
"You come from another world?!" He shouted almost aloud, causing the echo of his voice to be heard throughout the cavern. The Adventurers snapped defensively out of fear that some monster was going to pounce on them at any moment.
After a few seconds of silence, the Adventurers calmed down and relaxed their muscles.
"Please don't scream anymore." Admonished Lucia.
"'Sorry. But are you seriously from another world?"
"You believe that there is a portal, but this doesn't?" Samuele answered with another question.
"Well, Ms. Eve said that the Adventurers always come in time of need. The portal would explain how you arrive so quickly. From your clothing, the way you spoke, I had guessed that you were from a distant country, which Ms. Eve had confirmed, but I didn't think from another world."
"Ms. Eve really knew about the Adventurers, then." Manuele thought aloud. When he answered Ms. Eve's question that they were Adventurers, he saw his eyes widen, albeit almost imperceptibly.
"Yeah, but how?" Sofia wondered.
"Ms. Eve has been away from the village for a long time. She has traveled far and wide. She must have heard about you through rumors. Why, what is strange about that?"
"You see, the portal we told you about allows us to teleport to infinite worlds that need help. If Ms. Eve knew about us, it means that it has already happened that a portal has teleported other Adventurers to this world."
"And isn't that a good thing?"
"It has nothing to do with whether it is good or not. Until now we didn't think that portals could teleport us to the same world multiple times. At least, I didn't know that." Samuele explained. He hadn't even been reading other Adventurer guides lately, so he thought he had missed such information.
"If anyone in our world knew, they just kept it to themselves." Sofia spoke.
"Only theories were made about it, but there was never anything official about it." Lucia replied to their babbling. "Now we have proof that it is indeed possible to return to the same world several times."
"However, Fried..." Samuele spoke. "You were aware of this cave?"
"'Of course. As I have already told you, I know this forest and everything in it very well. However, I had never gone into it until now, because ... well, I think you can guess."
The cave, like many others that Samuele and the group had faced, bore flashlights in the rock walls that illuminated the path and was wide enough that all of them could have walked alongside and there would still be enough room.
"In your world..." Fried began in a curious tone. "Are you all Adventurers?"
"No." Lucia immediately answered him. "Out of nearly eight billion people, only a few hundred thousand have awakened their... power." Explained the girl, trying to simplify in a few words.
"Hundreds of thousands of people going through portals to save other worlds-you are truly heroes." Fried said, looking at them with an admiring gaze. At his words, the group divided into those who tried to hide their embarrassment and those who smiled sweetly at him.
It was only after a few minutes of walking that the group noticed suspicious noises. Everyone stopped in their tracks, in an alert position.
They heard the rock walls crackling. The ground itself crackled. They looked around. Small stones joined mysteriously with others, forming piles of rocks that resembled a more or less human shape. The piles of rocks stood on what looked like two leg-like limbs. There were dozens of them.
"What are those things?" The villager asked with a sting of fear, to which Lucia replied nervously.
"Stone Golems..."
"Are they strong?"
"No, they are weak..."
A Golem had formed right next to Lucia and the boy. This one launched itself at them with surprising agility, but was immediately cut in half by Lucia's slash.
"Then is this an easy quest for you?"
"It would be..."
The upper part of the sheared golem split again into small stones that crawled over the top of the lower part, reforming what used to be the torso.
"... If only they would not regenerate endlessly!" Lucia finished, gritting her teeth and preparing again for the attack.
Samuele and Sofia had destroyed the golems as well, without any actual results. All of them reformed again and again.
"What do we do, Lucia?" Samuele asked her, stepping back slightly into a defensive pose.
"We advance, trying to avoid them as much as possible." She replied. "These Golems are controlled by the magic of the Golem Lord. If we don't defeat him, these monsters will never stop reforming!"
The Adventurers did as they were ordered. They ran forward, trying to avoid any confrontation with the stone monsters. The more time passed, however, the more Golems came to form. After a minute had passed, their numbers had already tripled and an impassable wall of Golems formed in front of them.
"Damn!" Imprecated Lucia, who had to stop, followed by the rest of the group, in front of that wall.
"They don't seem to want us to get to their Lord..." Said Samuele. "If we want to get through, we have to use our skills."
"No way!" Strongly denied the leader of the group. "The Golem Lord is the boss of this quest. He is not an enemy to be taken lightly. If we use our abilities now, by the time we get to him we will be too tired."
"If we don't use our skills, we will never get to him!"
Lucia gritted her teeth for the second time in those few minutes. She had to agree with Samuele. There was no other choice. Those Golems kept growing by leaps and bounds. If destroying, albeit momentarily, some of those stone monsters could give them a chance to go face the boss, then they would do it.
"Adventurers!" The leader called them all back. "If your skills allow you, use them to go on!"
With this order, they all used their skills.
YOU ACTIVATED "ACTIVE SKILL: TIMELY BLESSING"!
Samuele stepped forward and destroyed as many Golems as he could in a short time, so as to save mana points.
YOU ACTIVATED "ACTIVE SKILL: AIR SLASH"!
Lucia was surrounded by five Golems. Activating her ability, she spun her own sword in a circle around her and struck all the enemies in the immediate vicinity.
YOU ACTIVATED "ACTIVE SKILL: PARKOUR"!
Thanks to this skill, Manuele made agile movements that allowed him to dodge all the Golems' attacks. Dodge, acrobatic jump, somersault and slash. Dodge, somersault, acrobatic jump and slash. He performed these movements several times for each Golem he faced.
As Lucia Moretti said, only those who could use her skill to advance used it. Sofia, like someone else, remained in the rear, unable to help because of the support skill she had.
Although she had a skill that could increase both offensive and defensive characteristics, Sofia did not know who to use it on. She did not know how strong the Golem Lord really could be, so she preferred to conserve her mana points, which could have been used against the boss.
With this tactic, the group was able to advance rapidly. Unfortunately, however, the Golems reformed faster than they did.
"If this keeps up, we'll get to the boss dead tired, if we get there at all!" Manuele exclaimed, continuing to move nimbly among the Golems.
"Avoid the confrontation at all costs! We can't keep fighting them!" Lucia ordered.
Fried, who remained close to Lucia the whole time, did not know what to do. He brought no weapons with him, not even a wooden stick. He could not help in any way. But, come to think of it, could he really help them? They were Adventurers. What could he, a wretched inhabitant of a remote village, have done to help them? Actually, he thought, it was a bad idea to follow them. If he really wanted to help them then he had better stay at home. That way he was just in the way. Lucia was risking her life more to defend him, all of them were risking it.
Inwardly, he scoffed at her statement in front of the cave entrance. 'I thought that by doing this I would be brave. Instead I'm just an idiot.'
"GAH!" The group turned toward the cry of one of their comrades, who was hit by one of the Golems. The adventurer struggled to get back up, not so much from the blow he received, which did not cause him any serious damage, but more from using his active skill too much.
Using the active skill consumed stamina for all Adventurers. Mages and healers had their mana points consumed in addition to their stamina.
"I'll go!" Sofia exclaimed. The Golem that attacked the boy was immediately torn to pieces by another companion. Sofia's "Heal" skill not only healed the life points, but also restored the stamina of the person being healed by a certain percentage. Of course, this was also to her detriment. The percentage of stamina that was restored to the ally was subtracted from her. Life points, on the other hand, were restored by converting part of her mana points.
"Thank you."
"I could only give you back a small part of your stamina. Please don't waste it."
The Golems continued to increase. Even all the way through the cave, there seemed to be no end to the number of monsters present.
"Lucia, there are too many!" Samuele exclaimed. "We can't avoid them even if we wanted to."
"We are like rats in a trap!" Manuele added, approaching them.
Lucia did not respond. She did not know what to answer. They were right. They were completely surrounded and could do nothing. She was the leader and should have ordered them what to do. But was there really anything they could do in that situation? Doubts arose in her mind about her abilities. Did she really have the qualities that a leader should have? Was she qualified for that role? Or rather, was she qualified to be a Guild leader someday? Her body trembled. Because of her inability, they would all die. Even the boy, Fried, who should never have been there with them, would die. Why did she allow him to come? All these thoughts weighed on her like a boulder.
"Lucia!"
She did not answer. She could not even move. Tears made their way down her face.
The golems came closer and closer to them. Each stood on the defensive, backing away with each step the stone monsters took toward them, undecided what to do. Instinct told them to use any means to survive, but this would only be temporary. As soon as they ran out of energy, they would all die.
This was the harsh reality that hit them all at that moment.
But reality had something else in store for them.
Some Golems surrounding the group fell apart, destroyed by something. Or rather, by someone.
Behind those Golems, Ms. Eve showed herself carrying a sword, accompanied by Karl and the other villagers. All of them possessed a weapon, ready to launch their attacks.
"What are you doing standing there, boy?" Ms. Eve asked, turning to Fried, who stood there in disbelief at the sight. He was not the only one, considering that all the Adventurers also had surprised looks on their faces.
"What, did you not expect us to arrive? If we inhabitants are not the first to risk our lives to save the village, how can we expect others to help us? Remember who taught you that!"
The Golems they had just destroyed reformed, but Ms. Eve and the villagers were not unprepared and moved to attack again.
The Golems they had just destroyed reformed, but Ms. Eve and the inhabitants were not unprepared and moved to attack again.
"I don't know what's going on here, but we can very well manage on our own. You adventurers go ahead and do what you have to do! We've got your backs!" Ms. Eve affirmed with confidence and determination.
All the eyes of the Adventurers went to Lucia, who sensed their gazes without even looking at them, hopefully waiting for her order. The tears that previously adorned her face disappeared without a trace. This was their opportunity and they would not waste it. His eyes lit up again with determination and he spoke to all his comrades.
"Let us advance! Conserve your energy for the Golem Lord!"
All of them ran wildly, not waiting a single second. The Golems in front of them were quickly destroyed by the Adventurers. When they reformed, they did not have a chance to follow because they were immediately hunted down by the inhabitants.
Fried did not follow Lucia and the others. He realized he could do nothing to help them.
"You're the only one sitting on your hands." Ms. Eve affirmed, waking him from his trance-like state. Fried saw at the last second a sword thrown toward him and clumsily grabbed it. "Do you want to help them or not?" The woman asked again and again.
Fried looked at the sword he received. It was his first time handling a sharp weapon, but he immediately knew what he had to do at that moment. Although not directly, there was a way he could help the group of Adventurers.
"I will stop these Golems at any cost."
END OF CHAPTER.
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Finally, things are getting busier! Also, I did two different introspections in the space of a thousand words. Do they fit? Don't they fit? Let me know so that I can improve.
Since I always tell you what to do if you liked the chapter, this time I will tell you what to do if you did NOT like the chapter.
*cough cough* leave a comment, a review and a power stone. I know the whole process might sound identical, but trust me, it is not.... For example, you can give me the power stone because you pity my story.
Me being a dick aside, see you tomorrow, same time. Bye!