Chapter 22 – A Hole as Deep as Someone’s Hole
When the door opened with a sound like the ground cracking, a dreary air flowed from within the mine.
It wasn’t that the hero didn’t have experience in attacking dungeons inhabited by many demons, but the thought of entering a space full of demons from now on made me nervous.
“Mr Horde. It’s dangerous from here on out, so please stay close behind us.”
“Yes…”
The mines were narrow and straight, so there would be no leaking monsters, but it was something you never knew.
The hero was in the lead, and in the middle were Yuria, Martha, Horde, and Lina.
And Mirian stood at the very end, just in case, to prepare for the monster that would come out from behind by something like a side road.
“I wouldn’t want to take Mr. Hod inside if possible, but… You might find something you need or something to pack.”
“… No. It could be.”
Horde said that, but he seemed a little frightened at the thought of going into a mine infested with witches from now on.
“More than that, hero, are you really okay? If you arrange it like this, you would have to block all the monsters in front of you by yourself, right?”
The answer to Mirian’s question was not the hero, but Martha right behind her.
“If that’s the case, in case of an emergency, I will spread a protective shield to block it.”
“I have my arrows and YuRia’s magic, so you won’t have to worry about firepower.”
“I’m talking about firepower… Mr. Yuria? You must know the magic that shouldn’t be used in the mine, right?”
“I know… I won’t use flames and magic with a wide range.”
After the deployment was decided, Hero’s group put on their masks and cautiously stepped into the mine.
It was a road that hadn’t been used for a long time, but it was well cleaned when I first made it, so I went forward, but there was no inconvenience.
There was no worry of getting lost as soon as he entered, but the hero moved forward, carving a thread into Ariadne just in case.
“I haven’t seen the Witchbeast yet…”
“Huh… It’s about as big as a bat.”
It was a place that didn’t look very dangerous, but the dungeon was a place where you didn’t know what would happen as there were many monsters.
In addition, there was a high possibility that there might be some kind of trap here as there might be an officer of the Demon King’s army.
“Yuria. Can you feel anything?”
“… Don’t you want to be there yet? There are no traps, and I don’t feel any magic watching.”
“What about Martha?”
“Me too… I don’t really feel anything. Of course, as much as there are demons, you can feel the demonic energy, but at least at this stage, it’s not to the point of being very wary.”
The hero then looked back at Lina, but she said that Lina didn’t feel anything special either.
The three with the ability to sense said they couldn’t feel anything, but the hero moved forward without letting go of tension.
How far did they go through this narrow and deep mine? By the time it got to the point where it was difficult to wield a sword because of the narrowness, Hero’s party entered the mine and faced a fork in the road for the first time.
Seeing the first fork in the road, Mirian, who was at the end, asked Lina.
“Lina, does the map show which way to go?”
“They both lead somewhere, but… Are both of them cut off in the middle? Hero, where do you want to go?”
“Hmm… Let’s go left first. If it’s blocked, you’ll have to go right again.”
Moving to the left like that, Hero’s party soon saw a deep and wide cliff with no end in sight waiting for Hero’s party.
“This… Is it quite wide?”
As Lina said that to her cliff, there was an echoing sound that followed.
“This… You don’t have to go right. If you look at the width, there should be something similar on the right side.”
“I know… Mr. Horde. Could you get me a torch from your backpack?”
The hero lit the torch given to him by the Horde and threw it at the cliff.
… Widely!
I threw the torch and it didn’t take long before I heard the sound of the torch falling to the ground.
Seeing the faint flames visible in the distance, Hero and the others were relieved that the precipice was not very deep.
“It’s deep, but… It doesn’t seem like you can’t get in.”
“I know… Yuria, can you make stairs with earth magic?”
“Is it enough to go down there? It’s easy.”
YuRia said so and she touched the ground and made the stairs leading to the floor sprout from the wall.
“Warrior… Do you think you should look at the wall when you go down here?”
“A wall? Why is there anything?”
“The hole… A lot.”
The hero didn’t understand what the word “Lots of holes” Meant, but he waited for the stairs to open, thinking that he would understand once he went there.
And when there was a way down to the floor, the hero and the others who went down to the floor went to the place where the torch they threw earlier and looked at the wall.
“It’s too dark, I can’t see…”
However, it was so dark inside the mine that even if there was a hole, it was hard to see.
“Then I will reveal it.”
A warm light began to illuminate the mine as Martha put her hands together and performed her miracle.
The range of the light gradually increased as time passed, and it was enough to light up the entire mine before I knew it.
So when the hole in the wall was visible, Hero and the others were shocked to see the hole that Yuria said they had to look for.
“… What is that?”
Who was it who said that?
She seemed to be a hero, and she seemed to be Rina right next to her.
There was a hole in the wall. There were so many holes, not just one, but dozens.
If it was only that, neither Hero nor Yuria would have been surprised, but the problem was the size of the hole.
The size of the hole was several times larger than the passage through which Hero and his party passed, and they were all of the same size.
Looking at those holes, which were hardly believed to have occurred naturally, Hero and the others realized.
That hole is not a natural occurrence, but someone artificially created it.
Then who?
Who the hell, how and for what purpose made so many holes?
“Lina, that hole… Where does it lead to?”
“I don’t know. Shall we go in for a moment?”
“… Let’s move forward, there might be more holes like that.”
The party of warriors moved forward looking for another hole in front of them.
Moving forward, there were holes in the floor as well as in the walls, but the direction of the holes was not straight, but curved forward.
When we reached the end of the cavity we descended, sure enough, there were several holes in the opposite wall, just like the ones we had seen in the first one.
“It’s like a long tunnel… Are you going to go in like you said before?”
“It should be…”
As the saying goes, you have to enter the tiger’s den to catch the tiger.
The party of warriors immediately drew their swords or prepared to activate magic, preparing for an unknown enemy that might come at any time.
As the hero took a step into the hole, the other comrades followed and entered the hole.
Everyone was so nervous that they couldn’t make a single sound, and in the midst of the gulping sound, the sound of something approaching could be heard in the distance.
“Something is coming…”
Hero and the others, who had already entered combat readiness, did not need any other preparations.
If there was anything that had changed, it was that Mirian, who was behind, stood in front with the hero, since there was nothing to be careful of.
The footsteps approaching the hero’s party got louder and louder, and the louder the footsteps, the louder the heartbeat of the hero’s party began.
“That… !!”
Before long, the owner appeared at the sound of footsteps in front of Hero and the others, who were ready for battle.
“It’s a man-eating spider!!”
I had never seen the hero’s party, but Lina, who had a lot of experience, was a beast she had seen several times.
Man-eating spiders originally built their nests in dark places like mines and hunted monsters and humans.
All of them were larger than adult males, and their sharp claws were hard iron armor, so they could pierce them with one shot.
“Let’s go Mirian!!”
“Okay!!”
To stop the man-eating spiders rushing forward, the hero and Mirian rushed forward.
The hero and Mirian immediately cut off the two legs of the first man-eating spider that came forward, but it did not collapse because it still had 6 legs.
“Kuweeaek!!”
Without being surprised by the roar of the spider he heard for the first time, six sharp legs attacked the hero and Mirian.
However, the hero and Mirian skillfully avoided those sharp legs, and in the meantime, Yuria perfected her magic and fired it.
A huge vacuum blade sliced through the man-eating spider, splitting the spiders behind it in two.
However, because there were a lot of spiders, the power was reduced, so I couldn’t deal with all the spiders behind me.
The surviving spiders trampled on the corpses of their comrades and came forward to charge at Hero’s group.
“What the hell… ?”
Seeing that figure not afraid of death, Hero and the others felt suspicious.
Witchbeasts don’t have the same high level of intelligence as humans, but that doesn’t mean they’re stupid.
When they felt fear and were considered inferior, they often ran away in front of the enemy.
But why did he rush at it when he saw his comrades being slaughtered?
“Warrior!! Something is wrong!!”
“I know that!! Why aren’t these bastards running away?!”
“There is that too!! In the first place, these guys are the ones who don’t move in their nest! The fact that they came all the way here… !!”
As if to prove Lina’s guess was correct, the hole echoed and the sound of something huge approaching was heard.
“It came… It means I was kicked out by someone else!!”
“Retreat! Retreat at once!!”
Hearing only the sound of footsteps, the sound was unusual, so the hero chose to retreat.
Even with man-eating spiders in between in such a confined space, it wasn’t a good idea to fight a huge enemy.
Hero’s group ran out of the hole, praying that Marta would put up a shield and hold on for as long as possible.
– Clink!!
The sound of the shield breaking was heard in the ears of Hero and the others as they ran out of the hole with all their might.
Then, goosebumps began to rise up the spines of Hero and his party as they heard the death rage of the man-eating spiders that followed.
“Aww!!”
When he had almost reached the end of the hole, Horde, who was running in haste, tripped over a rock and fell, so the hero stopped and looked back at Horde.
“Mr Horde!!”
Terrified, the Horde immediately tried to get back up, but the champion realized it was too late when he saw the enemy’s head approaching his direction.
“Marta, Yuria. Strengthen it, please.”
“Warrior?!”
“Hero?!”
The hero trusted the two people behind him and rushed towards the witch beast running towards him.
A terrifying and hideous head with huge, sharp teeth, like a combination of an earthworm and a dragon, attacked the hero.
In a situation where anyone would be frightened, the brave accepted the beast’s head without fear.
The Witchbeast opened his mouth and tried to swallow the warrior in one bite, but the Hero held on to the Witchbeast’s long fangs and endured.
– Hard!!
The hero who couldn’t stand the power of the beast was pushed back little by little and the ground began to dig.
“Ooooo!!!”
Thinking of the comrades behind him, he barely persevered, and Yuria’s support magic and Martha’s miracle, which he requested earlier, energized the hero’s body.
As soon as the strength of the body came in, the hero who had been pushed back a moment ago began to push the beast away as if it were a lie.
“Warrior!!”
In addition, when Mirian, who came back after grasping the situation, joined in, the Witchbeast, who was completely out of power, separated from the hero and Mirian.
Then, when he wanted to go back, he plunged his head into the ground and began to run away, digging the ground with his sharp, hard teeth.
Seeing that, Hero and the others immediately realized what the hole was.
“This hole… Was it a sign that he moved?”
While everyone, including Mirian, thought so, only one person, Rina, denied that opinion.
“No…”
“What do you mean it’s not… ?”
Lina, who continued to prick her ears at Mirian’s question, pointed to the ceiling and said,
“… To be precise, these are traces of the movement of those ‘guys’.”
“… Guys?”
As if saying that was the correct answer, another hole echoed the same vibration sound as before.
-Goo-gu-gu-gu!!!
Hero and the others all turned blue at the vibrating sound that made it impossible to guess how many monsters there were.
The vibrating sound that gave goosebumps all over the body continued for a while, and as soon as the vibrating sound went away, everyone seemed to have moved to the other side, and the warrior spoke for everyone.
“Wow… Crazy.”
