Chapter 22: Arachnid Caverns

Neo looked at the two with an eyebrow raised as he expected them to be thugs or something that wanted his money and such, but again, the scene was not going according to the script. He asked, "Do I know you?"

Myra felt a little embarrassed as they came out too blunt, so she tried to salvage the situation and said, "Can we go somewhere to talk?"

Neo scrutinized them for a while before nodding and walked toward a restaurant. It was 1 pm, and he spent a little too long learning the art of butchery. Myra and Mira followed him and entered one.

Neo ordered some dishes and asked, "Who are you?"

Myra was silent, mulling over what to tell him.

"My name is Myra, and this is Mira."

She knew Neo had [Inspect] skill of a high level, so telling lies about this was just distrust, and she didn't want to start their cooperation based on a lie. But she didn't know that Neo had already used [Inspect] and knew their names were.

He was just saying that as a formality and didn't expect them to answer truthfully. He nodded as the dishes arrived, and he asked, "What do you need my help with?"

Myra was surprised, as he didn't ask for their background or why they asked for his help and such, which made her a little wary. Still, she controlled herself and said, "There's a dungeon. We need your help with it. You can take anything you want except for a specific item."

"Ok."

Blaze nodded as he started eating. Mira was stunned, as this wasn't what she expected. She expected him to haggle and ask what the thing they were aiming for was or something like that along the line, meaning that getting his help would've cost them an arm and a leg, but here.

He agreed!?

Myra also had the same thoughts, but she had good control over herself.

"When are you free?"

"After eating this," Blaze replied, like he was stating the obvious.

Both of them watched as he gobbled through everything, which made Mira gulp.

"You should order some."

He said without looking up, but Mira knew he was talking to her.

"I'm not hungry."

He nodded as he finished eating and paid the bill.

"You lead, I'll follow."

Myra took one more look at him and started moving toward where the dungeon was.

{I hope this one is more exciting than the last one.}

Neo didn't comment about it but asked, 'Why am I helping them? I don't even know one thing about them.'

{Because of her family name.}

Neo looked at Myra's name again.

[Myra Verres]

'Verres?'

Neo didn't know anyone by that name, and his memory jogged a little.

{Verres, One of the 7 original families. Come on, it is right there. I want to know what happened to them.}

Neo now remembers the Verres family, which was said to be one of the 7 top families in the federation, but it was replaced later by another family. Nobody knew how or why that happened.

{I want to see why she is so desperate, and I smell a desire on her that needs to be fulfilled…}

' Great, now I can smell such things.'

Neo got the full picture and followed Myra silently. Mira wanted to interrogate Neo about why he agreed so readily but held herself back as Myra would've asked if it was necessary.

…

After travelling silently for a while, they arrived in front of a cave which crawled with spiders, as many small ones and some big ones could be seen crawling out. Mira shivered as she still couldn't get used to this place even after fighting against them for days now.

"The dungeon is over there."

Neo nodded as he saw them sprung into action and dealing with the spiders. Neo found that Myra was a sword user as she held a broadsword and ended every monster in 2 hits or sometimes one.

Mira, meanwhile, held a pair of short blades or what one called daggers and sneak attacked the monsters. She was also able to finish a monster in 2 strikes and if her sneak attack hit a vulnerable spot it would be a one hit kill.

Neo also wasn't sitting still as he formed a black blade, only one this time because he wanted to get used to this as he got powerful too quickly and couldn't control his strength.

{Try hitting one spot only, preferably eyes or places that are vulnerable, otherwise the monster must not die before three hits.}

Neo tried but failed as sometimes he used too much force and ended up killing the monster in one hit even while not hitting the vital areas while other time he used too little and monster retaliated back but get pierced by a gauntlet made of Nether energy. Overall, it was quite bad seeing how he was faring.

Myra frowned when she saw how Neo was doing and looked toward Mira, who was also surprised by what was going on. The ship had already set sail, so they didn't comment and kept ongoing.

Neo improved a little and could now use 3 strikes to finish a monster, but still he wasn't that accurate and would use too much force from time to time.

The group spent some time clearing the mob.

Myra stood in front of the Cave, her expression cold, but if one could see under the veil, it had a hint of helplessness in it as well.

"Ready." Myra took a deep breath and asked. Neo nodded and followed. Now he wanted to see if his being there with them would affect the dungeon or not. Because the novice dungeon was influenced, he would like to see if the same was true in the Tower.

And he got his answer.

『 Entering Arachnid Caverns.』

『 Difficulty Rank: Hell.』

Neo's lip twitched as he looked toward the two stunned statues, which obviously were Myra and Mia. Both of them felt a chill ran down their spine as they saw the notification. Normal dungeon runs were already impossible for them. Now the Tower sucker punched them by playing this prank.

Blood drained from their faces, but Neo could not see because both of them wore a veil and covered themselves with a cloak.

'It's pretty shady for them to dress like that.'

{Might be that they are going through some complications.}

Still, he knew what was going on in their minds and moved forward as Blaze said, "Let's go."

Myra found his confidence weird and wanted to stop him, but she felt something different with Neo this time, and hesitated for a moment before following him into the dungeon.

Mira, who was shocked to the core, felt this surreal and wanted to cry when she saw Myra and Neo going into the dungeon. She felt they got a different notification than her and ran behind them to tell them to turn back, but it was already too late, as they were in the first chamber already. When she arrived, she got a notification.

『 Myra Verres invited you to a party.』

Mira wanted to ask if Myra was okay going on this suicide mission because she was not, but still reluctantly accepted, as she couldn't do anything about that.

As Blaze entered the dungeon, he found himself in the first chamber of the Arachnid Caverns. The room was dimly lit, with faint light filtering in from cracks in the ceiling, and the air was thick with the musty smell of decay. Cobwebs hung from the walls and ceiling, and dust and debris covered the floor.

In the center of the room, there was a large stone pedestal, on top of which sat a single torch that flickered and danced in the darkness. He could see movement in the shadows at the edges of the room, but he couldn't quite make out what it was.

As he looked closer, he realized that the shadows were filled with thousands of tiny spiders, each one no bigger than a finger. They scurried around the edges of the room, weaving their webs and creating a cacophony of clicking and skittering sounds.

Such sheer amounts gave even Neo a chill when he saw them, while Myra and Mira were trembling as if they had already been through this before, but the amount of spiders increased drastically from hundreds to thousands, and that was only in the light. They had no idea how many of them had covered the walls and ceiling.

Neo checked their levels and found them to be a level 3 arachnid and had a measly 150 health. But he had already learned his lesson about underestimating an opponent.

"They are afraid of fire?"

To which Myra nodded as they stayed next to the fire and fought off the spiders the last time. Blaze had other plans though as his mouth arched up as he activated [Authority of Flames]

"Let's fry some spiders."

The flame engulfed the black blade in his hand and he slashed it out, which produced an arc of flame and moved toward the spiders.

-150

-150

-150

Such damage appeared as the flaming slash moved forward and burned the spider to ashes before hitting the wall and burning the spiders on the wall.

Seeing such a scene stunned Myra and Mira, as they didn't expect Neo to have such a skill. She even felt a newfound hope that she could finally clear this dungeon, but then she remembered the Hell level difficulty and cold water got poured on her hope.

'We can try again.'

But her hopes would be dashed if she tried that because as long as Neo went in with them, they'll have the same result. They wanted to help but couldn't do anything as Blaze had pretty much massacred the spider and with one last flame slash, the last spider got incinerated, and they heard a clinking voice as the door to the next chamber opened.

Neo walked forward with the torch in hand (He pulled it from the first chamber). He saw the mana cores, but they were very small, like the size of sesame seed. He thought about picking them up later.

As Neo progressed into the second chamber of the Arachnid Caverns, he found himself surrounded by sticky spiderwebs that covered the walls and ceiling. The webs were thick and pulsated with a strange energy, as if they were alive. The air was thick with the musty smell of decay, and Neo could hear the skittering of tiny legs coming from all directions.

In the dim light of his torch, he could just make out the shapes of 2 foot tall spiders lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce on their prey. A blade formed as he slashed, but Neo was surprised to find that it didn't cut through the spider and made the spider skid back. He used [Inspect] on one of them.

[ Corpseweaver Spider

Type: Arachnid

Level: 5

Health: 300/300

Attack: 75~100

Defense: 100~120

Magic Defense: nil

Skill: Tough skin: Their skin is hard to pierce through.

Sticky Web: The Corpseweaver spits out a sticky web that can ensnare targets and slow them down. Targets caught in the web will be immobilized for a short period.]

"Be careful of their web."

Neo set the blade on flames once more as black flame flickered and attacked the spider. This time he thrust the sword directly into the arachnid's creepy 16 eyes, piercing some of them.

-200

And the spider was dead, but this was not the only arachnid, so more and more spiders jumped down from the ceiling and the walls. The group got surrounded by them. Seeing so many eyes looking at them gave the girls goosebumps.

Neo used the flaming slash once more before saying, "Can you handle them?"

Myra nodded as they had been through this chamber for over dozens of times, so they could handle these monsters even if their numbers were higher than before.

Neo dashed toward the monsters and started the grind as Blaze instructed him about how to fight. Even in this situation, which Myra and Mira felt was severe, Neo took it as a training ground to control his body well.

The training regime continued as he cut down spiders. Neo was getting better as his attacks were a little precise, like in every 5 attacks, 3 will be on the targeted spot. So this was better in his diary and still bad in Blaze's.

After killing the never ending wave, they were finally done as Myra killed the last spider. Mira sat down, panting hard. Myra also took deep breaths as this battle was taxing on their stamina.

Neo, meanwhile, felt as good as new because he or to say Blaze was using the breathing technique to give him a better perception and also regenerate stamina.

Neo saw Myra and Mia out of breath.

"You can rest here for now."

After which he went back to collect those small spheres. Myra looked at Neo's silhouette, deep in thought, as she sat down and rested to regain her stamina.