Rin continued pouting, “Those old men made me clear out a nest a few years ago. No one warned me how fast they are on their webs. I’ve still got scars all over from that.”
She shuddered a little, but calmed and her eyes carried an intense desire for revenge. “We can start whenever you two are ready, if something happens and you need to, don’t be afraid to run. I‘ll be fine no matter what.”
Adrest looked to Alissa as she’d been silent the whole conversation, what he saw was a passive face with her trademark grin and eyes filled with excitement. He sighed, her love in life truly was chaos.
“Well, no time like the present. We’ll follow you. You can watch from a distance Belle, you haven’t fought these guys before and there’s some things you can learn to watch out for.” Adrest pulled out his trusty ceremonial sword and nodded to Rin. Alissa pulled out two large knives with heavy knuckle guards excitedly.
After leaving Belle at the treeline the team approached the inky black opening. Already from a distance Adrest could hear sharp clacking on stone and quiet scurrying. As Adrest’s eye were naturally attuned for the dark, it did not take long for him to make out thick, white-grey webs like pulled cotton taking up much of the interior. He could also see the basketball sized spiders deftly maneuvering every which way, just the ones Adrest could see numbered over a dozen.
Strangely, even though the trio were just a few dozen feet from the entrance, the spiders didn’t seem to react, as if they were ignoring the approaching meals. This wasn’t normal, Mantulas and insect type monsters were notoriously simple-minded. They should have attacked as soon as the three were noticed.
Rin seemed to think the same as the twin swords in her hand were poised in anticipation but seeing them continue dashing around the cave, she shot questioning glances at Adrest and Alissa, as if one of them had any idea what was happening. Seeing the two shake their heads, she did a very Rin thing and decided to stop thinking so hard.
Rin threw herself into the den, blades twirling as they sliced open a path through the spiders and web, Rin not slowing even a fraction or she'd be surrounded.
As soon as Rin entered it was as if a switch had been flipped, so many of the Mantulas hissed at the intruder the mountain vibrated with pebbles rolling down the incline. Adrest and Alissa weren’t fazed however, and walked just past the cave mouth to serve as distractions. It seemed they were great bait as no sooner than their feet landed on the stone floor did nearly two dozen of them come running at the new invaders. Thick spears of chitin came at Adrest’s legs and stomach while some used the web remains to rush open mouthed at Adrest’s throat. He thought that even their teeth are fucking mean-spirited, they weren’t designed for efficient kills or to defend themselves better. No, they just had to be serrated with sharp “j” like spikes running up the side and the same texture to them as sandpaper.
If they dug in, there’s no way to nicely get it out, flesh would be caught and ripped out along with it. These things seemed more like sadists than predators in Adrest’s mind, but looking at it another way he could see it falling under self defence as no same predator would bother messing with the vindictive little things.
With too many teeth and spears coming towards him, Adrest had no choice but to drop that train of thought. He ducked, sidestepped, and parried a whirlwind of spiders. Thankfully for Adrest they were still weak enough that his sword could slice right through them with no resistance, leaving a slowly growing pile of gore at his feet.
This wasn’t his first time dealing with being besieged on all sides in tight spaces, Alissa’s hell training made sure of that, so even with the little room to maneuver and growing hazards of his own making Adrest stayed in generally the same space at the cave entrance, doing his job of a distraction quite well.
When he had a spare fraction of a second, he would occasionally glance towards Alissa, not out of concern, but curiosity. She held her Bowie knives in a reverse grip, slicing anything that got close to her into little piles. She swiped at legs and through fangs, and if the occasional one slipped through her defense, she would use the heavy knuckle guards as a weapon, blowing the head sized spiders into a painting on the webs and walls.
Adrest couldn’t believe the footwork at play, he knew the distance between them, but it always stung a bit when he directly compared himself to Alissa. Where he was dodging, ducking, and slicing his way around the spiders frantically, Alissa moved like she was dancing to music only she could hear. Her every step and twirl skating right through the mess of fangs and limbs by the narrowest of margins. Her actions flowed from one to another so smoothly Adrest had trouble predicting what she would do next.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Alissa seemed to be enjoying her time with the playmates, making sure to not do more than an extraordinary C rank could, catching Adrest looking her way, she gave a sweet smile that had no place in such a bloody scene, but somehow Adrest still found it enchanting.
Shaking him from his distractions was a loud rumble from farther back in the cave, even with Adrest’s eyesight, he couldn’t see through all the webs and dust obscuring his vision.
He said loudly to his teacher a few meters away, “Will Rin be okay? Sounds like a big one.”
Alissa let out a giggle at the concern, and instead of answering she just lightly shook her head saying, “Wait and see for yourself.”
They continued the impromptu dodging drill for almost a half an hour, marked intermittently with loud crashing, the ground shaking and shrill inhuman shrieks. Adrest had accumulated a few trophies from the fight, a bit of a leg stuck firmly in his calf, a new tooth protruding from his shoulder, and small hairs stuck in his arms, among others. Adrest really REALLY hated Mantulas now. He swore he would just burn the entire mountain next time.
In contrast, Alissa was nearly spotless, still dancing around the enemies and killing them when she felt like it. The only difference between now and before the fight was Alissa now had blood and ichor all over her very light purple jacket and white pants, her smile never faded, even as she slaughtered and played with her prey.
Finally, blissfully, there was a loud and sudden shriek that seemed to have been cut off partway through, and the last of the spiders scattered out of the cave and into the walls. Now that their leader was killed the more mindless drones acted on the instinct of survival.
Adrest was taking heavy breaths and leaned on his blade to rest for a bit. While he wasn't physically exhausted from the last 30 minutes, it was still mentally taxing to keep hyper-focused on so many dangers for so long, it would have only taken one mistake for the spiders to pile on Adrest.
Alissa, with her breathing not even slightly disturbed, walked up to the tired Adrest and in Alissa fashion had to poke a six inch section of fang that was sticking out of his upper arm.
The pain had Adrest hiss through gritted teeth and then glare at the dragon, “And may I ask, what the hell that’s for?”
Alissa stopped playing with the tooth and shrugged, “I just felt like it.”
“Well stop it, I don’t want it dug in anymore than it al- AHH“ That was as far as he got before being forced to let out a short and sharp yelp of pain.
Looking over at the culprit, Alissa was holding a long fang that has half covered in blood and flesh. His shoulder was on fire and leaking blood, but Adrest knew that she’d done it for his own good. It would’ve been much more painful if he’d waited until the arm swelled and became inflamed around it.
Gritting his teeth as he adjusted to the new pain he said to the dragon still holding a significant amount of his body attached to a fang, “We might as well do the other ones too, do it quickly Alissa?”
“Sure thing! Don’t crack a tooth Ady.” Alissa never missed a chance to tease Adrest, but he still took the advice as he didn’t want to deal with a broken tooth too, even if it would be temporary. He bit down on a scrap of leather, and in the blink of an eye he saw Alissa standing back in front of him with 7 new objects in hand, all leaking crimson blood down her arm though she seemed undisturbed.
As soon as Adrest registered what he was seeing, the pain came in and he made a perfect indent of his teeth in the leather and choked back a scream. It was an excruciating 30 or so seconds before Alissa came over and handed him a blue bottle, “Drink.”
Doing as told, the blue beverage tasted bitter like grass but he forced it down. Afterward a surging wave of relief flooded his beaten body. The wounds scabbed over and started to heal and Adrest was steady on his feet once again.
He had only just stood up before he heard a loud rumbling coming towards them from deeper in the cave. It was like something huge was rushing this way, and it was confirmed when he could just barely make out a large shadow approaching rapidly.
Adrenaline surged and he was ready for a fight, but seeing Alissa so calm he settled down as well.
As usual Alissa was right. When the looming shape closed in Adrest saw the small figure of a girl underneath, propping the entire thing up. The two figures got closer and Adrest could now clearly see the details.
The Mantula was enormous, each leg was as thick around as Adrest and the main body was hulking. All over the figure were shockingly deep cuts, each one leaving a sharp edge on the thick chitin before decimating any organs underneath. Almost half of the legs were either missing or mangled and the head was missing a large chunk.
The hero that killed the beast wasn’t quite unscathed either. Her hair was in disarray, patted down with light sweat. There was dust and grime marring her outfit and even a few spots of red that were slowly growing. Though nothing serious, she certainly was not unscathed.
With a crash, Rin threw the carcass down and had a panicked look as she took in her friends. She had been in a hurry to kill the leader as soon as possible so she could scare off the rest from Adrest and Alissa. Though Rin knew they weren’t incapable, there were a lot more Mantula here than she thought. The idea of some of her first friends outside the school dying in a wave of tooth and claw filled her mind the entire fight. In the end Rin was happy to trade injury for injury with the big bastard in front of her to get back to the cave entrance a bit sooner to be safe.
Rin scanned the two bodies for injuries, but she was surprised when she only found a few wounds on Adrest and some blood on Alissa’s clothes. Rin cutely tilted her head to the side confused, and let out an “Eh?”
Alissa walked over and gave the injured hero a quick hug, “I’ve said we aren’t pushovers before Rin, you have to be tough to wander around like us. Even Belle could’ve played with one or two at a time.”
Rin gave an embarrassed laugh and rubbed her already messy hair, “Well, that’s perfect actually. I think there’s something I’d like your guys help with.”