小嫂子的味道

Everything went dark in an instant, the sound of a droplet of water dripping into a puddle resounded in the labyrinth.

"Xara!" Spene commanded; he didn\'t particularly say anything, but just calling out the name was enough for her to understand.

"Agghhh! How many times do I have to say it, huh?! You don\'t need to remind me of everything," she cursed hurriedly, and then began chanting the incantation.

She finished it in about 5 seconds, and once again a shining ball of fire appeared above the green gem on the top of her staff. The light radiated from the fireball scattered in the whole area, illuminating our surroundings.

"Aren\'t there anymore— "

Favian released an arrow in Xara\'s direction before she could even speak, the arrow went at a great speed and passed above her head.

"Phew, that was close," Favian exhaled in relaxation.

"What the fuck were you doing?!" Xara shouted at him.

"Look behind."

"Huh?"

"I said turn around and look," said Favian as he pointed behind Xara with his right index finger.

She turned and saw what he was referring to. Behind her on the ground lay another spider; an arrow was drilled in its head and the insides were coming out—its brains and blood.

It was impossible for a normal arrow to do that since the spider\'s head was basically cracked open in half, so Favian\'s arrows were either made out of a magic-steel—a type of ore that\'s also found in the labyrinths and is filled with mana, or he was using his own mana to power the arrows up.

"Gross," Xara mumbled as she looked at the dead spider with disgust. It sure wasn\'t the best thing in the world to look at, but I thought they would\'ve gotten used to seeing grotesque sights, seems like I was wrong.

"Hey, hey, this ain\'t the time to relax; more of them are coming!" Spene announced.

He was right. In the shade of Xara\'s light, I could see some shadows moving on the ceiling and walls. They were the spiders, and this time they were more than one.

"Everyone, get into positions, and don\'t let your guard down! And make sure not a single one of them can reach Ichigo!" Spene declared as he readied his sword and got into the battle posture.

Xara and Favian nodded and took a battle posture as well. Favian took out three arrows from his quiver and loaded all of them at the same time. Xara chanted a few more incantations, and now there were a total of five fireballs floating on top of her staff.

The light coming from them, of course, increased as well, and now I was able to clearly see the spiders. And to be honest, there were a lot of them.

Crawling on the ceiling and walls, all of their bodies were pitch black with eight legs attached out of their lower stomach like normal spiders. They had two long and razor-like fangs coming out of their mouth, and they had shining crimson eyes that were looking at us as of this moment.

\'These are probably low-level monsters. While they can\'t be much of a threat alone, but if a group or whole colony attacks, you are more or less finished. At least that\'s what their description said in the novel.\'

I can take them out by creating a big firestorm with my elemental magic, but why should I? I\'ll wait until all of these adventurers are either worn out or killed. After all, I\'ve saved up my mana for later—can\'t afford to get stressed out now.

"They are coming!" Spene warned and the next moment the spiders jumped down to the floor at once.

The three adventurers covered me and Challes as they got ready to take on the monsters.

The first to attack was Favian; he released the three arrows he was holding, all together.

Piercing the air with a whistle the arrows flew toward the spiders, two of them hit their targets—which was the head of the spiders, but the last one missed. He instantly reloaded three more arrows and launched them; again and again, he repeated the process.

Two spiders came crawling at Spene, without wasting a single second he stabbed one of them with his sword. However, when he was about to pull out his sword and go for the second one, he suddenly felt as if his movements were being disturbed by something.

Then he realized that the spiders on the walls and ceilings were spraying their web on him. Currently, his whole back was painted in white, and half of his arms too; if it went on like this then it won\'t be long before he turns into a ball of the sticky web.

He somehow pulled his sword from the spider\'s corpse and then tried to remove the web from his body. But it was so sticky that instead of tearing off, it was getting stuck on his palms too.

"Damn it! This is irritating!" he grumbled.

Opposite Spene was Xara. As soon as the spiders began their assault, she used her fireballs and propelled them toward the monsters.

This time, since the spiders were close to each other, one fireball at least burned two of them at once. She then hurled another one at the spiders and took out two more.

She was constantly chanting the incantations too, so new fireballs were appearing whenever she ran out of them. The spiders were not stopping despite the fact that they were getting massacred, but neither was she.

"Hey, Xara! I think... I need a little bit of help here!" said Spene.

The upper half of his body was almost covered with a thick layer of spider web, hence he wasn\'t able to move properly. The web was also stuck to his palms, so he wasn\'t able to hold his sword properly, too.

"Can\'t you see I\'m busy here?!" Xara responded. She was right, even replying was hard for her since she had to stop with the incantations for that time.

"Please, please, please! Otherwise, I\'ll really die!" he pleaded.

"Ugh! Fine."

She cleared the spiders that were near her with the fireballs she already had, and then began with a new incantation. Apparently, this was a short one; she finished it instantly.

Finishing off the spell by shouting its name as the final part of the incantation: "Conjurinio Vexectus!" she said as she held her staff up in the air.

A surge of scarlet lightning brewed around the gem of her staff before she pointed it toward the horde of spiders coming at her; the lightning—as red as blood, struck down the earth.

A loud thundering sound was heard as crimson flashed all around the cave—since she\'d used all the fireballs beforehand, so the only light remaining in the cave was of the flashing lightning.

The lightning exploded over the spiders and electrocuted a number of them—at least 10 or 15 before it cooled down and vanished into thin air.

Instantly after that, Xara created 2 more fireballs, one she kept for illuminating the area, and tossed the other one toward Spene—who was still struggling with the spiders and defending himself by kicking the shit out of them and surviving somehow.

The fireball sent by Xara landed on his back and swiftly burned the spider-web on him; as the fire was controlled, it extinguished before harming his skin.

"Thanks a lot," Spene exclaimed as he cracked the bones of his shoulders and back, then got ready to fight again—this time for real.

"Fuck you! Do you even know how much mana that spell took?!" Xara, as usual, wasn\'t happy about this, hence she didn\'t even try to talk more and went back to killing spiders with her constant fireballs.

Since Spene had been taught a lesson by the spiders, this time he fought more carefully and avoided being entangled in the webs.

Favian, on the other hand, was going just fine. He was using a bow and arrows, so he killed the spiders even before they reached him, and his speed in changing between arrows was above average too.

However, there was just this one little problem... he didn\'t have an infinite supply of arrows. Sure his quiver was fully packed with them, but they certainly weren\'t going to last forever, probably he knew it too.