Snake Hunt

Virion vanished as he made his way to the first location. Art was managing to barely keep up but each time he did so, Virion increased in speed, forcing Art to keep pushing his speed higher.

After a solid 2 hours of running Virion stopped on top of a large branch of a tree looking towards a cave not too far in the distance. Art arrived soon after out of breath and panting.

"Okay brat. We have arrived at the first target. You have 20 minutes to rest and gather your breath before you will go in that cave and eliminate the targets.

The targets are a bed of black collar snakes. This group of snakes are only E rank and should be within your capabilities. You are allowed to use whatever means you want to kill them but you have 30 minutes maximum to take them all out, so I would recommend not spending time setting up traps."

Art sat down to rest and regain his stamina while looking at the cave in which the snakes are in. 'The cave is only a few meters in diameter meaning there won't be much room to move around. Since there are multiple snakes, the cave might open up but I don't expect it to be that much larger.

Virion doesn't seem to want to tell me the number of snakes so I can only assume their number. From what I remember about black collar snakes, is that they are quite small in comparison to most creatures of this world. Their head and body are normally around half a meter while their length can grow up to around 20 meters.

These snakes also don't have anything particular that makes them strong. The average group or family only consists of no more than 5, they only have weak paralytic poison, they don't have good stealth skills. The only reason they can survive is due to their small size and nimbleness.

That doesn't mean they aren't dangerous though. Considering their size, nimbleness and the tightness of the cave, fighting them inside will be a very bad option.

It would be best to lure them out into the open in front of the cave, but I need to be careful since I don't want to be swarmed by multiple at once. The average amount is normally 3-4 but since this group is selected by Virion I shouldn't expect it to be normal.

I should estimate and expect at least 7-10 with the possibility that there is a leader or abnormal once amongst them which is stronger. Even if there is only the normal amount and there are no abnormalities, I would rather over prepare for the worst outcome than just simply preparing for the average one.

First, I need to limit how many I fight at once, to do that I will have to block off the entrance after a few have come through or reduce the size of the entrance so its big enough for just singular opponents to fit through.

Time is the problem, that would normally require quite a bit of prep, but I don't have that luxury. Instead, I will have to use earth magic to create the walls. Even though I am still new to actual magic and manipulating elements beyond imbuing it into a sword, I should be able to create some solid enough walls.

I could block them in completely and either flood the cave or smoke them out using wood and my fire magic but I don't have that much faith in the walls. Leaving a hole means the stress on the walls will be much less and might allow them to stand a better chance against possibly many snakes rushing at them.

Its like a door in a room. If there's a door then obviously everyone will filter through that and leave the walls alone. But if there was no door and the room was slowly filling up with water or smoke then obviously you would try to smash down the walls to get out.

There are a few more things to think about like what moves I should use against snakes, and then also prepare for other scenarios. Like if not all of the snakes are within the cave, I mean it wouldn't be odd if one or two left to hunt so I should prepare for that so I don't get sneak attacked.'

The 20 minutes rest quickly passed by and Art was now into his 30 minutes attacking period. Not wanting to waste time, he rushes forward between the trees, until he was over the cave which was half in a mound and half in the ground that goes diagonally down.

Before going down to start his plan he does a quick scout on the area by heightening his hearing to just listen for any outstanding sounds. Hearing and seeing nothing he hop's down from the tree silently and get his plan in motion.

Channelling mana into the ground he makes a wall appear at the cave entrance with a single hole left leading outside. Using some more concentration he then starts to channel his water magic to create miniature sharp blades on the hole he left in the wall.

He made them razor thin and hopes that as the snake's filter through they take some cuts from the blades. Art then backed off from the cave and held his blade more firmly in his hand.

It didn't take long before the commotion of the wall being built caused the snakes inside to react. A bunch ominous hissing could be heard echoing from the hole.

No longer than 20 seconds later did a large head half a meter wide appear behind the hole he left. The large snake head sprang forward through the hole, with its side scraping against the side.

A painful hiss came from the snake head as it lunged out of the entrance and multiple light streams of blood could be seen flowing from cuts made right down its body.

Art didn't allow the snake much time to react as he charged forward with his sword and sliced off its head. The sudden damage of its sides being sliced plus the hidden dust that Art left at the entrance making its eyes irritable gave a large enough window to take it out without much effort.

After dealing with that snake another quickly appeared and rushed through the hole. One after other snakes came pouring out of the hole 1 by 1, with their sides sliced open and their eyes partially red from irritation.

One by one their heads where either chopped off or a stab mark could be seen on the top of their skull, leading into their brain. After the first 5 snakes had been killed did Art find it weird and multitask creating platforms using earth magic and killing the snakes.

The snakes kept coming, 5, 7, 10, 12. Snakes big enough to swallow a man whole kept funnelling out to their deaths. After killing the 13th snake did Art notice that the hissing sounds dimmed.

He also saw that his water blades started doing less damage and was just barely enough to cause some pain for the 13th snake instead of serious wounds. Luckily though from the start he had infused wind into his blade, to increase its cutting force so it still allowed him to instantly kill the snake, just barely at least.

Even though 13 snakes had been killed only 5 minutes have passed since they rushed out one after another. The next snake was different from the rest however and didn't rush out like a mindless beast.

This snake was bigger than the others with its head nearing a meter in width. Its eyes where like car lights, and hatred could be seen when the sun's rays bounced off them.

Unlike the others it couldn't fit through the hole, but instead after a few slams against the wall Art created, the wall collapsed allowing it to get out. Art through that this must be the last snake, the big boss of the group.

However, he was shocked to see over 10 normal sized snakes following the big one. The 10 other snakes rushed forward with rage seeing the corpses of its kin.

Art didn't expect this but either way, he had already prepared for something unexpected. Using his speed, he retreated a few meters back to where multiple raised platforms could be seen.

Art skilfully manoeuvred between the platforms, and just before any of the snakes could hit him, he dodged, gave a counter strike and moved to the next platform.

Unfortunately, that strategy didn't last long. The snakes started to adapt rapidly to his movements and even synchronised attacks making him have to focus more on dodging.

'Damn these snakes. Their way too nimble and cunning. The moment I dodge an attack they either use their tail as a whip to hit me or have another snake launch an attack the moment I dodge.

At this rate I will lose and not finish in time, if at all. I am simply unable to attack them with my sword. Damn, its situations like this which make me wish I focused more on the earth element. If I did then I might have been able to create some stone spikes and used that to attack while I dodge, but my understanding and practice with earth magic simply isn't high enough for that.

Seems I will have to use my wind and fire to do the damage. Problem is their scales are resistance to most wind blades I can create without expanding way too much mana, and fire is also less effective.

I will have to combine them. If I create a spear of wind and then place some fire inside it, then the wind will allow it to penetrate their defence and the fire will burst forth directly hitting the flesh which would also be boosted by the wind.

I do need to be careful with my mana consumption though as there is still that big guy in the back just watching from the cave. Welp time to put some effort in I guess.'