Danger

5 more grave spiders appeared from behind the corpse and looked in the direction that the arrow had come from.

"SKREEE!"

To my surprise they immediately spotted me in and began moving quickly in my direction.

I didn't have time to think what I had done wrong and quickly nocked and released two more arrows.

*TWSS*

I had imbued them with slight wind mana to make them faster and they found their target, piercing the abdomen of two spiders and pinning them to the wall as their legs moved erratically.

The other three were approaching from different directions, climbing the cave walls as clicking noises echoed through the empty caves.

I shot the one approaching to the left, the arrow went through one of its eyes, creating a disgusting noise, as its body went limp and fell to the ground.

I then took out my dagger as the other two jumped at me, intending to impale me with their legs.

I tilted my body to the left and slashed at the two spiders, bisecting one of them and taking off three legs from the other.

"SKR-"

The other began to cry in pain but I dug the knife deep into its eyes, causing blood to spurt onto my hand and the spider went motionless.

I pulled the knife out, and with it came the eye of the spider as brain matter poured onto the floor along with blood.

I jumped away from the pool of flesh and blood that came from the corpses and tried not to gag as I removed the spider eye from the tip of the knife.

I would have preferred to fight exclusively with my bow as the dagger always made a mess, but I couldn't retreat in time.

'How did they spot me?'

I coated myself in dark mana so I should have blended in with the surroundings, but they spotted me as soon as they looked in my general direction.

Inspecting the coating of dark mana, I couldn't understand what I had done wrong, it was even and covered the entire body as I had practiced, so why?

It didn't matter, I was sure the area I was looking for wasn't too far away and I didn't have enough time to retreat.

I had to get that manual.

I went to the corpses and retrieved the arrows, trying not to get blood on me.

I was still getting used to the amount of gore I had to witness as plenty of viscera poured out when I removed the arrows, but I knew I has to get used to it.

I began to go deeper into the cave, going into areas with high concentrations of dark mana.

I only knew the landmark right before the manual not how to get there, so I figured that the latent mana released by the manual would be noticeable.

Unfortunately, more dark mana meant more spiders, but I learnt my lesson this time, I took my time to aim, piercing their brain to prevent them from making noise.

Eventually I got to an area where the dark mana was very thick, and my perception wasn't able to find one path with higher concentration.

I tried quite a few paths, picking up ore along the way and killing one or two lone spiders but a lot of them were dead ends so I had to backtrack quite a few times.

Weirdly, I wasn't tired despite having kept up concentration on both the cloak and night vision, in fact I felt more energetic than ever as I traversed the caves.

*TAP*

I stopped moving as I heard what sounded like a footstep coming from the left of one of the tunnels I was exploring.

I cut off all sound I was making, holding my breath as I looked around the corner.

Way down the tunnel, I saw a human like figure, I couldn't see the details, but the figure was extremely tall as its head reached the tunnel ceiling and caused it to move with its head constantly tilted to the side.

Its arms were as long as its torso and legs as they swayed back and forth with every step.

I ducked back into cover before gathering wind mana in my feet and preparing to run away.

I felt my pulse quicken as I hid, that was it, the reason no one came to these caves, I was thankful it was too far to see the details.

My rationality began to melt away as I felt fear take hold of my mind.

No! I came here knowing this could happen! Why am I afraid? I've dealt with monsters before.

The truth is I was always somewhat scared, grave spiders were scary, but I could suppress that fear, I kept telling myself that I wouldn't amount to anything if I was scared of such things.

However, the very appearance of this monster was enough to scare even the people of this world and by the description in the novel, it truly wasn't something I wanted to see with my own eyes.

I felt a sense of dread I never had before, not even in my death as I heard its footsteps getting closer.

I was scared, I wanted to run away, I could sense the thing getting closer with dark mana.

But I couldn't, what if that tunnel was the one that had the manual, it was a G+ rank monster, the only thing frightening about it was its appearance.

Was I really willing to sacrifice the manual just because I was scared?

No, no I wasn't but I wished I was.

I nocked an arrow while dispersing the mana at my feet, as it collected at the back of the arrow creating a charged shot, the first and basic technique of my fives star manual.

I took a deep breath and drew the bowstring as I turned around the corner having made my decision.

'What?'

My resolve crumbled instantly as I saw what was around the corner.