Trena was a very small town. It took less than an hour for the group to walk in a straight line towards the southeast for them to be out in the wilds, and the smell of rotting fish was replaced with the smell of rotting wood and animals. The group walked behind Ferguson through a narrow road: to the left, vegetation was more or less dense, but the plants and trees looked decayed, the grass was yellowish, and there was little wildlife to be heard. Maybe a lonely bird here and there, and sometimes a random bush or tree would rustle, keeping Nero in high alert. To the right the small sea waves could be heard coming and going softly, and when looking down on the waters one could see they were not their usual beautiful blue, but a dark green, almost black.

Then, the road opened to a wider area. Nero observed small parcels of land being tended by a few farmers, with some farm animals running about.

"...is this the location?", asked Nero.

"Yeah. Let's ask the locals for information.", said Ferguson, walking up to a bald man with a rather big mustache sitting on a wooden bench by the road, "Good morning, sir. How's everything today?"

The bald man seemed to be taking a small break and was drinking some hot soup from a clay cup.

"If you're looking for work, I don't have any to offer. I'm not hiring anyone else for the time being."

"Oh, we're here for work alright, but these people come from the College. We hear you're having trouble with some crawlers?"

The farmer looked up to him, his eyes lit with interest.

"You mean you're here to help with that?"

Ferguson smiled, and nodded. The bald man then turned to look at the two youths and lastly, his eyes stopped on Sharmon.

"I see, I see," he said, probably convinced by the sorcerer, "we have been raided by those damn things a lot lately. They try to eat our crops, but will also kill our livestock if we're not careful."

"When was the last attack?", asked Ferguson.

"Two days ago. It was three of them bastards, my son and my three farmhands helped me chase them off, but I got a pretty nasty cut on my leg and they dragged away one of my farmers. Now I'm just sitting here being useless."

Dragged away one of the farmers...

"I'm a medic. Can I take a look at your leg?", asked Araven.

The man raised his eyebrows.

"You're a medic?", he asked in disbelief. He was talking to a teenager, after all.

"Well, a medic in training," admitted Araven, "but maybe I can help out. Would you mind showing me your wound?"

"Yes, of course."

The man carefully rolled up the left side of his pants, revealing a rather nasty cut on the foreleg.

Araven knelt in front of him and observed the injury without touching it for a few seconds before bringing his hands close to it, as if it was a fire and his hands were cold, and a tenuous yellow light started to glow from them. Araven pressed his lips and focused hard, and after a good minute or two, very slowly the wound began to close.

"...this is going to itch and burn at the same time. Please bare with it."

The man bit his lower lip, but did as he was told. He was shaking, visibly trying to resist the urge to scratch his wound or move his leg as a reaction to the pain.

"Close your eyes, and focus on taking deep breaths."

Again, the man obeyed. This seemed to distract him a little.

After a few silent minutes, Araven lowered his hands.

"All done. I suggest you change your clothes and wash these ones, since they have blood and traces of the animal. Also, keep the leg away from the sun for ten days, and try your best not to scratch it."

The man's eyes widened to the size of plates when he looked at his leg and saw the cut was gone.

"This... this is incredible...! It's a miracle...!"

"Not at all, I'm just a student of the arts.", said Araven with a humble smile.

"That was a pretty deep cut... what kind of beasts are these crawlers?", asked Nero.

"Bugs.", said the man, "they're enormous, almost six feet tall."

Oh, you've gotta be kidding me.

Nero turned to Ferguson, who gave him an apologetic smile. He knew he hated bugs and purposefully kept it from him, that clever bastard.

"Do you know where their nest is?", he asked, turning away from Nero.

"Yeah. They are nesting in a cave to the west, not far from here.", the man pointed his finger in a specific direction, "it's a straight line if you follow my hand."

Araven crossed his arms.

"Looks like we'll be doing some pest control."

Ugh.

"Listen, those things are no joke. They'll tear off one of your limbs if you're not careful."

"How did you fight them off?", asked Araven.

"Well, they're bugs at the end of the day, so we focused on their limbs; that's their weakest point. You gotta break them with a blunt object or slice them off with a sharp weapon."

Both of which Nero had none. There was only Sharmon's cane and Araven's staff to work with. Ferguson couldn't fight, after all, so Nero would have to try and provide backup for the other two.

"Do you have any idea how many crawlers we're talking about?"

"Well, the other day it was just two, but we're thinking there must be about five of them."

"Alright, we better get going now. Thanks for the info."

"No, no! Thank you, I'm in your debt...!", his eyes sparkled with gratitude.

The group waved him goodbye and headed into the wilds.

"To think he would be impressed by such common healing magic...", Nero thought out loud while looking down.

"These people lead very difficult lives, and there's almost no education here... what might be normal or mildly interesting to us is completely out of their reach.", said Araven, "That man didn't even have a bandage over his wound. It's likely they don't even have that kind of stuff."

Nero felt his heart weighing heavily on his chest; the dusty bookstore he had always complained so much about looked completely different to this reality. A part of him was starting to feel like he was no different from that girl who had bought that romance novel the other week: a blissful ignorant who spent their time reading and daydreaming, far detached from the outside world.

Nero clenched his fist, and raised his head up in determination. Five giant insects... whatever. If there was anything he could do to help these people, no matter how small, then he would do it. No time for chickening out, now.

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The wilderness past the fields was quiet, and after a few minutes, Ferguson noticed the entrance to the cave. It was essentially an enormous rock with a hole in it, and the cave extended itself underground.

"This must be it.", he said.

"Are we ready?", asked Araven.

"Ready when you are."

"The cave is bound to be pitch black inside. I will spearhead the group and provide vision. Araven, you back me up with your staff. Boy, you know what to do.", said Sharmon.

"And what about me?", asked Ferguson.

"If you cannot fight, then you may either wait here or come with us, but staying last. We cannot afford you hindering our efforts in a cramped space."

"I... I see. Then, I guess I'll go back to the farm and wait for you."

"This may take us few hours. Make use of this chance to talk to the locals and gather information on the plague and its effects here. We must know more about this place if we are to stay for several days."

"You got it. Then, good luck, and take care."

Sharmon nodded.

"And you, as well."

Ferguson left quickly, not wasting any time.

"Well... here goes nothing.", said Araven.

Sharmon took a step forward, and the other two followed closely. The sorcerer lit up a bright sphere and headed into the cave.

"Keep one meter of distance from me and each other.", said the sorcerer.

"Let's hope we don't get lost...", said Nero.

"Touch the right wall and don't separate yourselves from it."

"And how's that going to help?"

Sharmon turned to look at him.

"If you hug one of the walls and keep walking without letting go of it, sooner or later you are bound to find yourself back at the entrance. Such is the way with all caves in the world, assuming you do not fall unto a pit."

"Huh, I didn't know that.", said Araven.

"The more you know...", murmured Nero.

A rustling sound in the darkness ahead interrupted their conversation.

"Ready yourselves.", said Sharmon.

Araven took out his staff and Nero half raised both arms, ready to barrier up. For a few seconds, silence, and then...

There was a horribly loud shrieking sound, and then an enormous insect came out of the dark like a shot, attacking with two sharp legs in consecutive movements.

Sharmon leapt backwards, making use of the space Araven had left between the two of them, and took out his cane.

The crawler pressed the attack, unrelenting, but Sharmon and Araven blocked his right and left legs respectively with their weapons, counterattacking with sweeping strikes on their legs.

CRAC, CRAC.

Both Araven and Sharmon landed their hits, the first one breaking the crawler's upper left leg, and Sharmon breaking its lower right one.

The crawler shrieked again, turned around and headed back further into the cave. Araven tried to hit it while it retreated, but its strike met a tough carapace and his attack was nullified entirely.

"After it.", said Sharmon, lunging forward in hot pursuit.

Nero ran behind Araven, noticing a fork up ahead.

"Where do we go!?"

"Do not leave the right wall.", reiterated Sharmon from the front.

The group eventually reached a wider area of the cave: a circular space that smelled atrociously bad. Another shriek; several ones, in fact.

"Look out...! There's three of them here...!"

Araven barely had time to warn everyone about it; Sharmon immediately found himself fighting two crawlers, and Araven was in a one-on-one with the wounded crawler.

"Boy, assist him with that one!"

"You got it...!", Nero put up a half barrier, covering only Araven's body from the waist up.

"You're covered from its frontal attacks! Crouch and hit it on the lower legs!"

Araven immediately swept the crawler's legs with his staff.

CRAC, CRAC.

The crawler cried loudly and fell on its belly; Nero jumped and landed both feet on one of its scythed forward legs, crushing it on the spot, and Araven did the same with his staff to get rid of the other one. It was now completely unable to move or attack.

"Kill it, now...!", shouted Nero.

Araven raised his staff, and gave its head a heavy beating, splattering green blood everywhere.

"Sharmon! We did that one in, we're on our way to assist you...!", said Araven.

SHRIEEEEEEEEEEEK.

Nero turned to the tunnel where they had come from.

Oh, no.

"Nero...! Where are you going!?"

"There's more of them approaching from where we came from...!", he shouted.

He barely made it in time to raise a barrier and blocking the entrance to the chamber with his barrier.

CLINK, CLANK.

Two more crawlers had tried to come out of the tunnel, and were hitting their sharp legs against his barrier.

"Where the hell did they come from!?", asked Araven.

"Probably from the other side of the fork! We were baited in here to get surrounded...!"

"Keep up the barrier, boy! Do not let it falter!"

"I'll try...! Just hurry up...!", Nero was forced to turn his back on Sharmon and Araven, and could only hope they would manage against the two healthy crawlers.

Sharmon had his hands full blocking all four upper legs attacking him at once, avoiding every hit but unable to fight back, and walking back in circles to avoid being surrounded.

Araven approached one of the crawlers from the side and hit it on the lower leg with its staff, breaking its leg and making it lose balance, then jumped over it and hit the other one in the head while it was busy with Sharmon, forcing it to tumble back in confusion; Sharmon immediately took advantage of its stunned state and lunged forward, delivering a flurry of precise strikes on all of its legs. It fell on the floor just like the one Nero and Araven had killed, and Sharmon did it in with one precise stomp on its head, splattering his boots and beautiful outfit with its blood.

They both turned to the third and last one, who was shrieking in anger. It was flailing its sharp forward legs wildly.

Sharmon and Araven attacked it from both flanks instead of the front, each taking care of one of its legs, and then they both hit it in the head with a single, powerful strike of their blunt weapons.

It stopped moving.

"Are you done, yet...!?", panted Nero.

"We are...! But, what do we do now!? We're trapped!"

"Sho-Should I drop the barrier and let you fight them...?".

"No need."

Sharmon walked up to Nero, and beckoned Araven to follow him.

"Place your hand on the barrier, and feed it your arcana.", he said.

The blonde nodded, and did as told.

The barrier strengthened notoriously. If the two crawlers were having a hard time breaking it before, now it was flat-out impossible for them to pass through.

"What... what now?"

"Now, we do this."

Sharmon readied his cane, and gave Nero's barrier a precise jab with its cane.

TAC.

KABOOM...!!

SHRIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK....!!!!

The barrier's arcana was immediately released in a forward beam that pierced through the giant insects; they both dropped facing up, flailing their legs wildly as they burned before dying in a matter of seconds.

"Wha...what in the...?", Nero couldn't believe his eyes.

"No time for questions, boy. We have to make sure we are clear of hostiles."

"...right."

The group walked past the dead bugs, returned to the fork, and headed down the left path, which ended on another chamber... that offered a little different sight.

There was a skeleton lying up on the floor, and there were a lot of what can only be described as giant insect eggs.

Sharmon walked up to the corpse and examined it: it was full of cuts and marks.

"This must be the abducted farmhand. He was eaten."

Nero grit his teeth.

Shit, I knew it...

Sharmon looked around some more, and picked up a rather large cloth bag that was lying around -probably belonged to the unfortunate man- and picked up the bones one by one, placing them on the bag.

"Let us backtrack and cut off the crawler's heads. We will present them as proof of our success, and give the farmers the remains of this man for them to dispose as they see fit."

"Alright."

"Before that, however..."

Sharmon turned around and looked at the eggs.

"We must get rid of these."

"What do you propose...?"

"Cast a barrier. A smaller one, this time."

Nero projected a barrier that was a quarter of the one he had used in the battle against the crawlers.

Again, Sharmon hit it with his staff, and a much weaker -though precise enough- beam released forward, destroying a large portion of the eggs in a straight line, oozing out a horribly smelly liquid.

Nero was made to repeat the process three more times until the whole cave had been fumigated, then the group returned to the crawlers.

"Point your finger at the insect.", he told Araven, "focus your arcana on the tip of it, and use it as if you were to cauterize a wound, but keep the surface to the size of a dot, and project it forward."

Araven obeyed and, to his surprise, a very thin beam of light arcana came out of his finger. It burned, and was so concentrated it could cut through the bug like a laser.

"This is a common technique used by medics to amputate. I want you to cut all five of the crawler's heads using this technique."

"Yes, right away."

Araven promptly put in use the spell Sharmon had taught him, and the sorcerer collected the crawler's heads one by one and put them in the sack with the bones.

"This should be all. Let us return to the farmers.", he announced, closing the bag tightly.

Nero was all too happy to go outside again. Sure, the wilds were still ugly, but the combination of humidity and the smell of giant bug compost, rotten flesh, burned carapaces and squished eggs was nearly intolerable. Also, the sunlight felt good compared to the darkness of the cave.

With their loot -and the remains- in hand, the group began the bittersweet trip back to the farmers, ready to report the success of that day's task.