43 That which dwells in darkness

At that moment I heard the footsteps of the elf. She was coming to us with an even more serious face than before. She again stood next to Limy and stared at her with the same narrowed eyes and wrinkled forehead as before. She then crossed her arms and opened her mouth.

"Limy, now you... You used magic, right?"

“No.”

The elf sighed again and shook her head from side to side.

"Limy, I am a Sabnuriali, I can see with the naked eyes when magic is used. What's wrong with you?"

“Nothing.”

‘And I thought she wouldn't notice... Damn elves!’

"Well, I can understand that there is some reason why you do not want to tell me about your skills, but denying something you have shown is meaningless... You seem immune to pain... and I think I'm not wrong if I say that you are hiding many more things from me... Are you really human?"

The question was a murmur she probably made to herself and could hardly be heard as it was overshadowed by the biggest and heaviest sigh she had ever made.

"Anyway, what is really bothering me is not you hiding something, it is your lack of common sense."

Despite thinking of a thousand excuses to give her, the erofu did not inquire too much about Limy’s secrets and let her pass with a simple sermon about how she was too reckless and bla bla bla... In the end, she forbade her to ever face any monster if she didn't allow her.

"Let's go find our true target once and for all. Don't even think about facing a single metallic slime."

“Understood.”

We easily found a cave and entered it. Without a doubt, it was a natural cave, since we could see quite long stalactites from the very moment we entered, but once we went a little further, all the place was engulfed in the dark. The light hardly reached a few meters from the entrance, so I couldn't even know where we were walking.

‘Helpy, you don't have infrared vision, do you?’

[Option not available.]

'I imagined. Wait... How should I interpret this answer?'

"Strange."

Finally, Aeldrya used fla... lit a torch. There was no doubt that she had been walking in the dark the entire time. However, something disturbed her. Apparently, she seemed to have her ways of orienting herself in the dark, but she did not have the ability to fully see into it. This made me think that it was due more to some skill than to her eyes. Although probably she could see better in the darkness than a human. Damn elves...

"Limy, do you notice anything?"

“Nothing.”

"No monsters or animals…”

We left the cave without even finding an annoying bat and went to the next one. After exploring for a long hour, I was able to verify on my map that we had traveled across the cave from top to bottom. We also came out of it without finding anything. That was repeated three more times. Aeldrya's expression was beginning to look concerned.

"This is not normal. It seemed strange to me that we had not found a single monster along the way, but it is impossible that there is absolutely nothing inside the caves."

The next hole we went into was an abandoned mine. It still conserved part of the wooden tracks and structures used to support the roof and walls.

"The walls, the ground, and the tracks are eroded. There is no doubt that metallic slimes have been here until not long ago,” she said as she inspected the surroundings.

'Are you an archer or a ranger?'

"Let's get out of here," limy said.

"Hang on a minute. I want to finish investigating what is happe... ning... Are you okay?"

‘Limy?’

Looking at Limy, Aeldrya was speechless and so was I. Her entire body was trembling and her face had changed expression for the first time in her life.

"Let's get out of here!"

She didn't even think twice. Limy took Aeldrya by the hand and began to run with all her might toward the exit. At that sudden performance, the torch fell from Aeldrya's hand and went out. We stayed all the way out in complete darkness until we were close enough to the exit to see the fine light creeping in through the near hole.

"Calm down for once and tell me what's happening to you!"

"Something terrible is inside this mine!"

—What do you say? Calm down a bit and give a little more inf… waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

"Limy!!!"

It was to take a step out of the mine and I was dragged out of Limy's body by a huge black tentacle that went through her entire chest, right where I was. I was shot out and fell several meters away. Because of that, I could see what had just happened very clearly.

"I'm fine," Limy said as the tentacle retreated back into the mine.

"How can you be okay with a wound like that?! That is completely impossible!"

“Run…”

Aeldrya was dumbfounded. She kept looking between Limy, who was covering the hole in her chest with her hand, and the entrance to the mine from which that tentacle had just emerged. Her head didn't seem to understand what had just happened. Just at that moment, I felt a chill going through my body.

[Magic "Aura of Despair" has reached you. The effect was resisted.]

‘What the hell?!’

“Run!”

Limy screamed again as she leaped towards the elf and pushed with all her might just when another tentacle was shot out right where Aeldrya was previously. Instead of taking the elf ahead, it ripped Limy's arms off.

—The hell is that?! Limy, you have to run too!

Little by little, the noise of something crawling through the entrance of the mine began to be heard and, right after, the culprit appeared. A huge mass that seemed to swallow the very light of the sun began to pour out as multitudes of tentacles flailed around it.

Aeldrya's face completely twisted into a grimace of sheer terror. She could barely take a few steps back, crawling on her ass across the floor, not even bothering to get up. Her body trembled more than Limy's, and it wasn't made of jelly like hers.

"It can't be… We came to hunt high-grade slimes and we met the worst of all…"

'A black... slime?'

In front of us, there was a monster capable of paralyzing Aeldrya with fear and making Limy want to flee...