Directing Lionel from the back, we slowly began approaching the spot where the webs began getting thicker and the forest started getting darker. As we walked, Lionel easily took care of any spiders that showed up as well as any webs with lazy swings of his sword. Even though it wasn't the true Lionel, I really had to admire the grace and efficiency of the way he moved. Each swing correctly targeted each spider and directly bisected it in half in a manner that allowed the spider to fall without touching him and there was not a single wasted movement.
As we continued walking, a cheerful voice broke the silence.
"Oooh core!" Lina happily squatted down and began slicing away at the body of a spider with a miniature scythe she pulled out of somewhere.
"Lina." I called her name with a dangerous smile, "is now really the time for this?"
"Yes! Money first! I have to grab it now before it gets eaten." without even looking back, she continued digging at the body.
Sighing in annoyance, I walked over and kicked her squatting figure over.
"Do this later. I don't have the time or patience for your shenanigans."
"Just one more second." She complained as she got up and continued digging into the body.
Ignoring her nonsense, I grabbed her by her pack and began trying to drag her along the ground however she was heavier than expected and didn't budge an inch.
"Why are you so damn heavy?" I grumbled.
"Hehe. Preparation is key and I'm fully loaded." She held up a peace sign with a green liquid covered hands and I gagged at the horrendous smell.
"Clean yourself up before you come near me."
Ignoring the stares from the other two, I released her and just continued walking. She would catch up whenever she was ready.
As we got closer to the spider den, I called them to a stop and pointed Julius to the front.
"We're close now so Julius, start clearing the way from here. We'll follow behind you, and once we get close, the rest of us will split up. It's all you from then on. Try to keep the trees intact, especially around the den since I need them."
"On it. Don't stay too close. It's going to get hot."
He took a deep breath and as he exhaled slowly, a wide wall of blue flame flared in front of him, immediately charring everything black. As he walked forward slowly, the flame wall moved with him and began spreading in a fan shape, catching the surrounding brush and ground on fire.
As Lionel began walking closer to Julius, I cleared my throat loudly and pointed my gun at him with a sardonic smile.
"Not too close Lionheart. Circle around and head to the back of the den like I told you."
"I'm just watching his back before I head out."
"No need, I can handle it. Get moving. You have students to rescue."
Lionel stared at me and his eyes flashed black before regaining their bright red color. He narrowed his eyes and took a step toward me as he loosened the sword in his scabbard.
"If I didn't know any better I would say you didn't trust me trash."
"I don't trust anybody including you, Julius, or Lina. We're simply here on a mission and everyone has their part to do. Now, are you going to get going or am I taking practice shots first?"
"I can knock that gun out of your hand before you pull the trigger trash." He smirked fully pulling his sword out now.
"Try me," I warned him.
"With pleasure. I've been wanting to beat that arrogant look off your face."
Arrogant? If anyone was arrogant wouldn't it be him for calling me trash all the time? What a delusional punk.
As he took another step closer, I retreated and crafted three mana arrows behind me while resting my hand on my short sword. My eyes flicked between his feet, hands, and back to his fae, waiting for the twitch to indicate him moving.
As we stared each other down, a jet of flame flew back, lightly brushing over Lionel before dissipating.
Seemed Julius was still close enough to interfere. Looking at Lionel, I gave him a bright smile.
"Shall we continue?"
"Tsk." Lionel clicked his teeth before putting his sword away while turning and running off to the side.
"Funny punk."
"What did I miss? Who's funny?" Lina asked as she finally appeared.
"You. For wasting my time." I willed the arrows away while smacking her on the head, "Let's go."
While avoiding Julius' spray of fire, I led her to the tree I had previously climbed while observing the swarm of spiders that were screeching while leaping and dropping toward Julius who now looked like a human blow torch.
I began quickly scaling the tree, slicing away at webs in my way until I reached my previous branch. Comfortably sitting on the branch, I observed everything happening below.
Julius, sea of flames, drawing attention, check.
Seeing Lionel creeping toward the back entrance of the den yet hesitating once in a while, I crafted a shotgun and sent a warning shot near him to let him know I was watching him before focusing back on Julius.
Lina slowly made her way to sit next to me without her pack and just as she opened her mouth, a small spider dropped onto my head squeaking with displeasure.
As her mana-covered hand immediately shot toward it, I crafted a barrier to block her fist. Feeling the hairy legs scrabbling in my hair, I quickly grabbed the scrabbling spider and tossed it onto the branch.
"Gross. Change back." I ordered it.
With an offended squeak, the mimic changed back into bird form before leaping onto my head and pecking at my hair in anger.
"Okay. Okay. My bad. Sorry for leaving you with the spiders. There, there. I'll give you treats later." I gently patted its head before turning to Lina who was looking at me incredulously.
"…What the hell is that?"
"Julius's pet." I blandly replied before continuing to watch Lionel.
She was silent for a moment before she began complaining again.
"So, what exactly am I supposed to be doing? Shouldn't I go help Julius or at least keep an eye on 'Lionel' to make sure nothing happens to the students? You might be okay taking it easy but I could be helping out or at least collecting cores before Julius burns everything."
"I'm keeping an eye on Lionel and you have a different job."
"Which is what exactly? You never explained."
"You're going to be creating a golem cannonball and sending it through when I tell you to." I pointed at the webbed bridge between the two rocks.
"…why?"
At her blank expression, I sighed before explaining, "It looks pretty gross and you probably can't see through it, but that section is just straight webs with tons of spiders inside. Inside, there's a huge spider I don't particularly want to deal with it one-on-one, especially if 'Lionel' becomes unoccupied since I still fully don't know what he's planning."
I paused and fired my shotgun at a stray spider coming close, before continuing.
"I know you have metal in the materials you bought so use it. I need you to create the biggest heaviest golem you can possibly make, float it into the sky for me, and drop it from as high as possible to the spot I point you to. Got it?" I turned to glance at her before turning back to focus on what was going on below.
"From high up?"
"Yep. I don't like stress and the best way to kill a bug is to squash it, so let's have gravity work for us. You can do it right miss Metalsmith?" I gave her a knowing smile.
"You- you analyzed me! It was you."
"I didn't. It was Nova but he told me about it. Said you might come in useful and to use it against you." I shamelessly dumped all the blame on Solomon. He was the reason I was in this mess anyway.
"That bastard! He's not supposed to tell! When get my hands on him, I'm going to kill him!"
"Yeah yeah, be quiet and prep your golem. The bigger the better."
"But my mana. My monster cores…"
As she started whining while hanging her head like a child, I knocked her on the head. "I don't care. By the time we're done, you can replace what you've lost with all the spider's cores. Prep yourself." I instructed her before turning to look at what was going on below.
She ignored me, legs swinging as she continued grumbling.
At my glare, she explained, "It doesn't take that long to make and I told you my mana is bad and the consumption for my skill is high even if I use mana potions. If you want a big golem and for me to levitate it into the air and drop it, it will take everything I've got and I can only keep it up for a couple minutes. You only get one shot. Maybe two if you're lucky."
"Useless." I clicked my tongue blocking her with a barrier as she tried to punch me.
I watched as Julius continued slowly walking toward the cave entrance, flames licking his bare feet and expanding bit by bit. The flames slowly grew in intensity, illuminating the dark space in a ghostly blue light.
As the flames continued spreading, I was satisfied seeing the white webbing catch on fire although it was a slow process that wasn't as quick as the ground or spiders being burnt to a crisp. Numerous small spiders began scuttling from the cave and the surrounding trees as they began attacking him but before they could get close, they continually burst into flames.
Watching as he snatched one leaping at him straight out of the air, crushing it with his fist and igniting it while it shrieked, I couldn't help but whistle. It was damn impressive. What a damn useful gift and he didn't even look tired. I was almost jealous.
"Oiiiii, Asani. Asani. Asani."
"What?"
"Where exactly am I supposed to drop this golem so I can get the positioning right?"
"I'll show you."
Seeing that Julius was successfully drawing the attention of the spiders, Lionel was obediently hacking away at the webs in the back, and the large spider hadn't moved inside the den. I stood up and carefully walked to the edge of the branch, loaded up my gun with explosive bullets, and began aiming at the web bridge.
I emptied the entire clip expecting the webs to catch fire and begin burning.
Instead, all I saw was the explosion of the bullet and then nothing. Not a single spark could be sighted. Fuck.
"Is that supposed to happen?" Lina snickered and I shot her a glare before crafting stronger bullets and emptying my entire clip on the webbing.
Nothing. Not even a stray spark.
"Wow wow wow, amazing. The most amazing display of uselessness I've seen today. And you dared to call me useless. Do you need help? Shall I go call Julius?" Lina asked as she began slowly clapping.
"No. He needs to stay down there. The plan is for your golem to go through a hole so I'll make a hole. Instead of giggling, I suggest you start chugging potions and get ready. If I finish and you're not ready, I'll make you regret it." Smiling, I crafted earmuffs for myself and put them on before I crafted a large basket and gently poured out all my mana sludge potions inside. Walking carefully to the end of the branch until I was right above my target point, I tightly held onto the branch before tipping everything over.
Watching as the small black portion bottles slowly fell down, I couldn't help but whisper,
"Bombs away."
The first potion stuck to the webbing and did nothing. As Lina began to laugh again, the rest of them crashed into the webs. All being caught and not igniting. Seeing the nice even distribution and the little mountain of potions precariously balanced, I aimed my gun at the pile and shot it.
Then the explosions began.
Each explosion rattled the branch I stood on causing Lina to fall straight to the ground as well as smaller leaves and branches on the tree.
As the bottles began exploding, each one caused a nice jet of flame to erupt upwards and begin burning through the webbing. Tossing additional sludge potions, I was satisfied to see a hole being burned through the web layers. Now all Lina needed to do was craft a golem and send it flying through and we would be more than 50% of the way done with this nonsense.
Satisfied that everything was going to plan, I leaned over to glance down at Lina to make sure she was fine and ready to go.
That's when everything started to go wrong.
A large figure suddenly dropped out of nowhere and slammed my body off the tree. As I fell, I quickly crafted a barrier to cover the front of my body from head to toe while quickly analyzing my unwanted guest whose legs were scrabbling to dig into me.
Steel Legged Darwin Bark Spider
[Rank D]
[ Strength - D]
[ Intelligence: D ]
[ Perception – C]
[ Speed: D ]
[ Magic power – D]
[Abilities: ▷Paralyzing Venom (D) ▷Camouflage (C)]
"You sneaky fucker." I whispered trying to kick it off before I slammed into the ground.
Chittering with what looked like laughter as it's green bulbous eyes flashed, the spider reared back and struck hard at the barrier, shattering it and sending a sharp pain shooting through my head while sticking a thread to me.
As I slowly began reforming the barrier through the pain of my aching head, the spider shot fine threads of silk backward and caught a branch before wrenching its body upwards, dragging me along with it.
As we swung back like a pendulum and it began dragging me upward, it began to strike at me with its legs and tried to bite my face.
"Arghhhhh!"
Hearing Lina screaming, I snuck a glance down but could only see flashes of her red hair amoung the blue flames and black bodies of spiders surging toward her.
As I began crafting mana arrows to take out the one that held me, three things happened simultaneously.
Another spider dropped down, its green eyes glowing as it slammed down and shattered my barrier once more.
I felt multiple small bites digging into my left arm and numbness began spreading throughout my body.
Then, my vision went black.