After leaving the spider web area their journey was rather peaceful.
They were occasionally attacked by undead and huge spiders, but these were all put down easily by Ritz’s party. Loren’s party didn’t need to intervene at all, so he uttered:
“Exactly what’s expected from a party of silver rank adventurers.”
“Don’t know why, but I feel like we’re getting too much praise.”
Ritz responded with a wry smile. An adult huge spider appearing alone should have been a formidable enemy due to its sheer size, the thread it spat out, and the poison transmitted through its bite. Yet just Ritz and Jack were able to kill those lone spiders as if it was their routine work.
Jack stood in front of the remains of the one such spider they had killed and grumbled:
“We don’t have time to collect raw materials, right?”
Hearing him, Loren asked, just for the sake of future reference:
“Which part of this spider can be used as raw material?”
“Shell and poison gland. The thread sacs too.”
“What’s a thread sac?”
“It’s an organ storing the fluid that will become silk thread when spat out. I don’t know its official name either. I can cut it open to show you, but if we stop, the next one will come soon.”
Jack explained that the shell was used to make armors and such, and the poison gland were often used in medicine. The thread sacs would be used as a fiber after being treated. Despite the body size, each huge spider only had few of them, making it difficult to collect them in quantity. Huge spiders’ thread sacs were actually fairly valuable.
“Can we collect them on the way back?”
“That reminds me, what will we do on the way back?”
Their two parties were working together due to circumstances, but they had originally come here for different purposes. If collecting intel was Loren party’s only purpose and if the situation allowed, continuing to work together like this was indeed an option. But collecting intel was only an excuse for Loren’s party, their actual purpose, was to visit Lapis’ house. They definitely couldn’t bring Ritz party there.
“We’ll go a bit deeper into the demon territory… What about you?”
“We’re fine at the outer edge. We don’t want to go deeper.”
Loren believed such an answer would be sufficient for a party of iron rank adventurers, and Ritz nodded:
“In that case, maybe we should part ways after exiting this tunnel…”
Loren was puzzled at Ritz’ vague choice of words. Ritz looked towards Dig, who was leading their group, and told Loren in a small voice:
“There should be another dwarves’ village by the exit. Originally, we plan to ask them to guide us on our way back…”
“In the current situation, the chance of the village still being safe is slim.”
The number of spiders inhabiting the tunnel was too large to have been bred solely inside it. And no matter how frequent people passed through this tunnel, the number of travelers wouldn’t be able to provide food for all those spiders. And considering the dwarves’ village by the entrance side was still safe, the chance of the village on the exit side becoming preys was exceedingly high.
“It’s still possible that some stupidly big game was inside the tunnel.”
Ritz was being overly optimistic. If there was such a creature inside the tunnel, the dwarves would have noticed it.
“Well, it isn’t.”
“Right, it isn’t.”
“So, you want to leave Dig with us?”
To Loren, Ritz’ words sounded like a subtle offer that wasn’t really helpful.
Dig’s original role was to guide them through the tunnel. Since they would also have to go through the tunnel on their way back to human’s territory, he was someone they needed to have, no matter what. Without him, they wouldn’t be able to go back. Ritz’ offer actually came off one-sided and high-handed in this case.
But Loren’s party would have to go to Lapis’ house after this, and Loren wasn’t very willing to have Dig accompany them, as he didn’t know what would happen. It was actually better for them if Dig went with Ritz’s party, but then the return trip would be a worry.
When Loren was still wondering how to answer him, Ritz continued, seemingly knowing beforehand what Loren was thinking:
“We’ll collect intel for about two days before going back. Then we’ll wait in the area near the tunnel for another day. If you can survive those three days, we’ll pick you up.”
“I see.”
Loren looked at Lapis, who was walking beside him, to ask for her opinion. Since he didn’t know where her house was, he wasn’t sure if the three days Ritz mentioned would be enough or not. Only Lapis knew.
“It’s probably alright.”
Lapis answered as if it was just a trivial matter. Loren looked at her, it seemed like it would really be alright. He nodded at Ritz:
“So we’ll leave it in your hands.”
“Ah, don’t worry. We’ll definitely pick you up if you’re alive.”
Loren was grateful for Ritz’s offer to look for them, and he presumed on it. Loren’s party didn’t have any rogues, but Ritz party had Jack the thief and Nim the elf hunter, so they were obviously more skilled in terms of searching and exploring.
“We still have to get out of here safely first.”
Jack cut in. He stopped in front of a passage a bit ahead and signaled everyone to halt. Noticing the sign of something happening, they all stopped. With a serious face, Jack pointed at the passage ahead with his thumb and said:
“Something’s no good there.”
“And quite big, too.”
Nim, who was listening attentively next to Jack, added. Recalling something, Dig suddenly lifted his face:
“Ahead should be our work hall.”
According to Dig, there was a hall near the entrance on the demons’ side, where the dwarves performed simple tasks and stored goods. In short, once they passed the hall, it would be a short distance to the exit.
But now, Jack and Nim sensed something at that place.
Loren moved the lantern further away to prevent its light reaching the vast hall ahead and asked in a small voice:
“What’s no good?”
“Don’t know, but quite big.”
“The footstep is heavy. It’s something huge.”
Since they had encountered mainly spiders so far, it might be a spider boss. This was the more favorable scenario. Regarding their opponents and the chance of winning, there were too many possibilities to narrow down.
“Can something that big even get in there?”
No matter how big the hall was, the creature still needed to go through the tunnel to get in. Something as big as a huge spider could easily move in this tunnel, but it was difficult to think of something big enough for Jack and Nim to be wary of could.
“It probably grew big inside the hall.”
“Something that grew in there… What a sad story.”
They didn’t know what that thing fed on, but if it couldn’t get out, then it couldn’t catch preys. As fewer and fewer people travelled through this tunnel, dying from starvation was its only future. While Loren was feeling pity for the creature, Gula disagreed:
“If it eats other spiders, it won’t have to worry about preys, right?”
The other spiders could go in and out of the tunnel and catch preys outside. If that creature was feeding on spiders that had grown to some extent, it wouldn’t need to go out.
“What a troublesome story.”
If the tunnel was completely dominated by spiders, the surrounding area would become spiders’ feeding ground. The area on the demon side probably had already been devastated, and with time spiders would start flooding the area on the other end of the tunnel. The timing was truly dangerous.
“If you don’t think of a way to exterminate them, you’ll become their food.”
“Ngh… Should I place a request with the Adventurer Guild?”
Lapis explained to Loren in secret that dwarves did set up villages, but they weren’t very organized. There were no organized armed troops to fend off attacks. If they truly needed fighting power, they would commission it from outside.
“They don’t have a proper country. They move away once a mine is exhausted, after all.”
“This mine doesn’t seem to be exhausted yet.”
“The mountains above are still safe, so it probably hasn’t.”
Loren turned to Lapis with a surprised face. He didn’t understand what she had just said at all.
“Once dwarves have mined all the ore veins in the area, the mine will be exhausted and cave in, and the mountain above it will collapse.”
“What a troublesome race…”
“In the worst case, there will be a pit after the mountain collapses.”
“They don’t even care about the underground…”
Lapis said that it was in the dwarves’ nature to mine as much ore as possible. In the worst case, they might mine enough to turn part of the mountain range separating demons and the outsider world into level ground. Only then would they decide that the mine was exhausted.
“Isn’t that too foolish?”
“Well, rather than the dwarves’ nature, the huge thing waiting ahead should be our first priority.”
Lapis said as if to calm Loren down and looked towards Jack and Nim, who was peering into the path in front of them. They were going a bit ahead of the group to check out the situation in the hall. Slowly returning, they told the group, who was looking at them.
“As expected, it’s a stupidly big spider. It’s grayish, and it covered all the hall in hanging webs like curtains.”
“It’s a species superior to huge spiders, I think. It’ll be difficult to pass without being noticed.”
After hearing their report, Ritz grimaced and looked at their group.
“It can’t be helped then. We’ll have to kill it to go forward. Any objections?”
If anyone objected, they would have to come up with a way to pass by a spider superior to huge spiders without being noticed. No one had such a brilliant idea in mind.
And so, everyone exchanged glances with each other and decided that there was no other option but to kill the superior spider like Ritz proposed.