## Chapter 352 – Dungeons and Adventurers (19)
These beings, sometimes called “Earth Fairies” or “Gnomes.”
They were small creatures with yellowish skin, about half the height of a human, similar to dwarves. Though they had childlike statures, their appearance was far from human.
Their large, marble-like eyes, seemingly bulging out and covered with thick membranes, served as dust protection for their subterranean lives.
And despite their unassuming appearance, they possessed limbs filled with thick muscles, and claws that had evolved to dig into the earth, extending like rakes.
Unlike goblins, green monsters with similar appearances but smaller eyes, who lived in large colonies in the undergrowth, or the green gremlins of Barmhausen, who lived alone and had a peculiar taste for the metallic smell of machinery, eating metal and causing malfunctions.
The jade-like eyes of some Earth Fairies, clinging to the edge of the cliff and revealing only their large pupils, shone with a chilling stillness.
Silently concealing the cruelty within.
“Fall away from the cracks in the floor!!
Prepare for battle!! Tighten the formation!!
Stay sharp and protect each other!!”
With Lucia’s shout, the students rushed to their feet, huddling together and beginning to form a circular formation, back-to-back.
The students, drawing their swords and guarding each other, swallowed nervously or gasped for breath, their faces tense as they thoroughly scanned their surroundings.
Unfortunately, this place was a wasteland with large cracks in the ground, perfect for the Earth Fairies to move around.
The Earth Fairies would have hidden and moved unnoticed through the cracks in the floor, preparing to ambush them, and considering the missing students, it had already begun.
“Watch your surroundings!! Don’t miss anything…!!”
“Come next to me!! Quickly!!”
Although the location favored them, they were only good at ambushes, not at direct combat.
With the students was Lucia, boasting the best skills among the academy students and working as an assistant instructor.
Now that she had noticed the ambush and identified their target, the Earth Fairies could no longer pose a threat.
“Just defend.
I’ll take care of these things for now.”
Anne also took a spot in the defensive line, stepping forward to protect her friends.
The moment Lucia, seeing that the students had completed their defensive formation, showed signs of moving.
The Earth Fairies, who had been quietly watching the students, immediately reacted, quickly hiding back into the cracks in the ground.
Lucia’s expression twisted fiercely, as much as her anger, when she saw the red substance smeared around their mouths.
“I… won’t forgive… my juniors…”
But even she wouldn’t recklessly chase after the enemy without thinking.
Even if the cracks weren’t dangerously deep, they were at least three times the height of a person.
Moreover, she wouldn’t be able to freely swing her sword in such a narrow space where small Earth Fairies could come and go.
Even for Lucia, recklessly jumping in with such environmental disadvantages was something she would never do.
“Is it there…!!”
Hearing the sudden sound of wind being cut, she turned her greatsword behind her. The moment she covered her face with the side of the blade that spread out with a whooshing sound.
A clear metallic sound rang out, and stone dust crumbled and flowed down from the side of the sword.
Lucia easily blocked the dangerous attacks of the Earth Fairies, who were throwing commonly found stones from the blind spots as they poked out of the cracks.
– Glug
But as she tried to chase after the place where they had poked out, the Earth Fairies had already disappeared back into the cracks, hiding themselves.
“I won’t let you escape…!!”
– Kkirireuk!!
As proof of Lucia’s skill, she reflexively pulled out a dagger and threw it into the crack. Inside, the sound of metal bouncing off the ground and the scream of one of the Earth Fairies could be heard.
But there was a limit to the weapons she had to continue using such tactics.
Against the Earth Fairies, whose numbers she didn’t know, she only had three daggers.
Lucia’s expression slightly frowned at the situation where she might have to throw stones at the monster.
“This will never end…”
But Lucia wasn’t the only one fighting.
“Ugh!!”
“Be careful…!!”
The students, who were on guard while in a circular formation, wary of the monsters that might pop out from anywhere, were barely managing to block the stones thrown at them, following the shouts they heard.
“You bastards!!”
“Don’t compare us to those things.
Apologize to the dogs!!”
The cunning creatures didn’t target those who were looking at them, but only those who were looking elsewhere.
The students were able to defend themselves by helping each other, but there was a reason why they were just students.
“Ah!! Aah!!”
“S… Sorry…!!”
“Why are you swinging your sword like that…!!
Look around properly…!!”
“Here it comes again…!! Ugh…!!”
Although it was an act of helping and protecting each other, mistakes were bound to happen, and those who ended up hurting each other began to panic.
Among the inexperienced students who couldn’t maintain a calm mind, the bond slowly began to crumble.
“He got hit by a stone…!! Bring him inside…!!”
“Jeffrey!! Wake up…!!
You rotten bastards……!!
Uwaaaaaah!!”
“N… No…!! Hold your position…!! St… Ack!!”
Sporadic stone throwing, the impulsive actions of students burning with revenge for their sacrificed friends.
And the mistakes of students who were deeply troubled by anxiety and ended up making mistakes one after another.
In a situation where they couldn’t even properly maintain the status quo that Lucia had demanded, Anne cooperated with the few students who maintained their composure and tried to calm the others…
“Anne… what do I do…?
The bleeding won’t stop…!!
Jeffrey…!! Please wake up…!!”
“Ah… Aah……”
In this chaotic mess, Anne was also just an inexperienced girl.
“Anne…?”
“We have to break through…… at this rate……”
“But…!! What about the instructor…!!”
“If we can stop them from attacking from those cracks…!!
Focus on defense as much as possible…!!”
“Anne…!!”
Leaving behind the almost desperate cry of a female student who was hugging a male student bleeding from his head, Anne stepped forward, drawing Vivian’s folding greatsword instead of the ordinary sword she usually used in the dungeon.
Judging that this was the best for her and the other students, she prepared to pour out everything she had learned.
Anne’s face, as she approached the cracks, was filled with indescribable determination.
“Hoo… Hoo…”
– Ggudeuk
“Dieee…!!”
One of the Earth Fairies, who was about to poke its face out of the crack, was stabbed in the forehead and died by Anne’s sword strike, which was thrust out at the same time as an ominous sound was heard.
After dealing with one, she thought it wasn’t as difficult as she had thought. The moment she raised her sword for the next attack.
“Anne…!! Next to you……!!”
Hearing someone’s urgent shout, she barely turned her eyes. In her vision, stones were flying at her at a rapid pace, covering her like a barrage.
“Ugh!!”
Anne belatedly tried to swing her sword to deflect some of the stones, but there was no way to fix her posture, which had collapsed due to her hasty actions.
At that moment, she felt something grabbing her ankle. The moment she was startled, the chilling eyes of the Earth Fairy, looking at Anne’s pupils as she fell sideways, were gradually getting closer, telling her that her death was approaching.
“Aah……”
Along with her body being sucked into the dark crack where no sunlight reached, her last vision, as she instinctively closed her eyes in fear.
Something orange fluttering and waving in front of her nose, as she closed her eyes with a death cry, was vaguely visible.
“Anne…!! Instructor……!!”
.
.
.
When she opened her eyes a moment later, Anne instinctively tried to scream at the strange sensation she felt behind her back.
But with the sound of someone blocking her mouth and a low voice, Anne focused on the voice, breathing heavily in fear.
“Don’t move, and listen.
We’re surrounded.”
“How……”
Although she couldn’t see her surroundings properly because of the darkness, considering that her feet weren’t touching anything, this place was inside a narrow crack.
Meanwhile, thanks to Lucia’s hand holding her so she wouldn’t be sucked further down, Anne was able to maintain the situation while dangling in the air.
Feeling the warmth from Lucia’s hand tightly gripping the back of her neck, she was startled and regained her senses. She turned around with difficulty and
“You only saved your life, Anne.
I can’t say we’re safe now either.”
“Hiiit…!!”
“Can you touch the wall?”
“Okay… They’re still aiming for us, so stay focused.
Your sword didn’t fall with you. Take this instead.”
Anne fumbled for the dagger that Lucia handed her and took it in one hand. Then, like doing gymnastics, she slowly spread her legs and stepped on both walls as if hooking her feet on them.
Her whole body swayed at the strange posture she was trying for the first time, but it was an unavoidable situation due to the nature of the crack, which was formed like two cliffs facing each other.
Concentrating on maintaining her balance as much as possible, she touched the wall with one hand and turned her body, feeling Lucia’s back touching hers, and a small groan momentarily flowed out as if she was startled.
“Ah……”
“There are five on this side.”
“There are… three… on this side… but…”
Anne’s mouth let out a low voice at the sight of the clear eyes of the Earth Fairies staring at them, as if it was strange that they hadn’t attacked the moment Anne lost consciousness.
“Can you hold out?”
“Y… Yes…!!”
Anne, answering Lucia’s question, tightly gripped the dagger in her hand.
At least until just now, Lucia had to protect her, so she couldn’t fight recklessly, but Lucia would surely be able to cut down the Earth Fairies in this situation.
Frankly speaking, the situation was the worst.
Their main weapon, the long greatsword, was unusable in such a narrow space.
They might be able to swing it up and down, but there would be gaps in a sword that couldn’t be swung sideways.
And Anne was relying only on a short dagger borrowed from Lucia, not her own weapon. If the creatures, who moved through the cracks like their own home, swarmed them all at once, it would be virtually impossible to block them alone.
She didn’t know what kind of training they had been through, but believing in Lucia’s ability to move to some extent while stepping on both walls even in this environment, she thought that holding out as much as possible was the only way to survive.
Following the chilling feeling, she wiggled her sweaty palms again and gripped the dagger again, raising it to her chest. She kept looking ahead, up, and down, checking if there were any creatures approaching.
“Then I’m going.”
The moment she heard Lucia’s footsteps kicking off the wall with a short word.
Anne could realize that Lucia had charged at the Earth Fairies from the sound of the wind rushing from her back and the sound of kicking off the wall alternately.
“Iiit…!!”
While Anne was protecting herself from the Earth Fairies who started approaching as soon as she was separated from Lucia, Lucia was running forward, alternately kicking off both walls like a ninja, holding the remaining two daggers in both hands.
With a hardened gaze that looked more ferocious than usual, she didn’t miss the twitching gap of one of the Earth Fairies who was watching her while maintaining a distance in the narrow gap, and quickly slashed the creature’s head as it was.
Then, as if the cut Earth Fairy had lost strength in its hands and feet, its body, which had been hanging between the cracks, fell straight down.
While the creature’s body was hitting both walls and rolling down with a rough dirt sound, Lucia quickly sensed the Earth Fairy that had approached her from behind and was showing off a movement close to art.
“Heeup…!!”
She pushed off the wall as if springing off the walls with her arms and legs, twisted her waist and rotated, and turned her body 180 degrees in mid-air, stabbing the dagger she was holding into the chest of the Earth Fairy that had approached from behind.
But in the process, she had to quickly touch the wall again, so Lucia, who couldn’t recover the dagger from the body of the Earth Fairy falling down the crack, frowned and briefly looked down at the falling Earth Fairy’s corpse.
Watching the creature disappear as if swallowed into the darkness in an instant, she pulled out the last dagger from her waist, briefly bit the blade with her teeth, and used her freed hand to readjust her posture.
“Tch… It’s going to be a long fight…
Hold on… no matter what…!!”
“I… I can do it……!! Ah…”
The moment she answered Lucia’s shout.
Anne, surprised by the cold sensation falling on her cheek, inadvertently looked up.
‘Rain……?’
Well, it was an instinctive action in a moment of great tension, but it might have been unavoidable that she allowed the Earth Fairies to approach with their quick and strange movements, who did not miss such a gap.
“Ugh…!! G… Get away…!!”
Anne, who was instantly grabbed by one arm and leg by two Earth Fairies, was struggling her waist, giving strength to the arms and legs that were barely holding onto the wall, trying to fold and drop them.
Even if the crack wasn’t high enough to die if she fell, if she fell from this height, she would definitely seriously injure one part of her body.
And a girl injured among the monsters without a decent weapon was truly an easy and delicious prey.
The reason why they were trying to drop Anne instead of directly attacking her must be for that reason.
If they accidentally killed the luscious prey that could possibly be ‘raised’ by making a reckless and severe attack, it would be a waste.
‘Why do you cut the wings…?’
‘Ah, if you cut the wings, they can’t escape.
That’s why it’s easier to raise them.
That guy tastes good, but his flapping is too strong.’
One innocent and pure time.
Passing through the market street with her parents, the question she had thrown at her parents after seeing a merchant cutting the wings of a bird with a large body like a turkey was flashing through her mind.
The thought came to her, and Anne’s body was trembling at the fact that it might soon become her story.
Meanwhile, the rain that started falling from the sky was falling more and more heavily, and she felt like her body, which was gradually getting wet, was getting heavier and heavier.
As the whole world was getting wet, Anne’s eyes were also getting wet together.
“I don’t want to… I don’t want to……!!”
“Anne……!!”
Lucia was trying to pull herself out as quickly as possible, swinging her dagger at the Earth Fairies who were checking her to help Anne as if they were hunting in a pack.
But since another Earth Fairy filled the gap between the two women, which had been completely split by the previous charge attack, it would take time for them to reunite.
In addition, the walls were getting slippery and soft due to the rain that started falling, which was a bonus that made it difficult for her to move.
Even Lucia, who could almost fly by kicking off the wall until just now, couldn’t recklessly run wild in such adverse conditions where a single mistake could lead to a major disaster.
“Calm down!! Respond calmly…!!
You… can do it!!”
A total mess caused by just one rain.
Lucia’s shout, trying to calm Anne and make her cope instead of going to help her right away, didn’t reach Anne, who was already half panicked.
In the end, Lucia realized that she had to reach Anne somehow in order to help her.
“I’ll be there soon… hold on!!”
With her feet and hands firmly gripping the slippery mud wall, just as she was about to charge at the Earth Fairy who was firmly guarding her front.
“Uwaaaaaaaack…!!”
Her body was sinking down because of something heavy that fell from the sky.
“Uaaaaaa……!! Save me…!!”
– Thud
“Lyndell…!!”
The heavy presence that had fallen on Lucia’s head briefly seemed to catch on her body, but was bounced into the air by the reaction, and was falling down again with a scream, making a dull sound.
