When the Tunnel Stalker raised its head to look in our direction, I only managed to stop myself from moving when Emilia raised her arm in front of me.
Ah… That’s right… It was blind. It shouldn’t even know we were in front of it unless we make a sound.
But seeing that it was literally within arms reach right now did not ease my worries at all.
Odeta also slowly got back to a crouch after she realised we weren’t actually in any danger.
Yet.
All three of us remained rooted to the spot, even holding our breaths to keep ourselves quiet.
The Tunnel Stalker seemed to be satisfied that there wasn’t any more prey around it and turned its attention to the dead goblin in its hands.
The monster slowly bit into the goblin’s corpse, swallowing both the bones and flesh.
None of us moved as it just continued to slowly devour the goblin in front of us.
Some of the blood even splattered onto me and it took all of my will not to react to it aside from just blinking at it.
For some reason, this little shit is taking its own sweet time eating this particular goblin when it ate the others in a single bite before. It was even taking its time to chew on the goblin before swallowing too, like it was enjoying it like some kind of rare delicacy.
Goddamn it, can’t you just eat it like how you did before and move on?! Are you doing this on purpose?! Do you want me to hit you?!
Thankfully, we managed to stay silent until it finished eating the goblin before turning back to head towards the other dead goblins, using its hands to fumble around the ground looking for their corpses to feast on them as well.
All three of us slowly let out the breath we had been holding.
Unfortunately, the combined sound of the three of us exhaling was enough to get its attention.
The next thing I knew, something had rammed itself against my side, sending me flying towards the wall and smashing into it.
I let out a groan, feeling pain in my sides and I looked down to see a mark against my dress there.
I know this dress was enchanted by Mother to provide increased defence so it must have saved me from getting skewered by that monster. It still hurt like a bitch though and I think that might have broken a rib.
Looking to my sides, I realised Emilia and Odeta were also hit and had crashed into the walls to my left and right. Because they didn’t have the same protection as I did, they were in much worse shape than I was.
At least we were still in one piece.
I turned back just as the Tunnel Stalker jumped towards me with its arm raised to strike at me.
Reacting on instinct, I ducked and rolled away from the wall, letting the monster smash itself into the wall and break off a chunk of the rock face.
The sound of the rocks falling masked my own sounds which made the monster lose me, its head swivelling around to try and find me.
On my left was the exit to the cave and if I were to just make a run for it, I should be able to escape from here.
But that also meant leaving Odeta and Emilia behind which was something that I would most definitely not do.
Guess I’m going to fight it then.
And as if on cue, boss music started in the background too, although I’m wondering who Carmina is and what was their Choir is doing here?
I immediately called up my [Shadow Summons], arming them all with weapons using my [Shadow Forge] and sent them charging towards the monster. At the same time I quickly casted a quick heal on my sides, easing the pain for now.
My small army charged towards the monster, all of them moving silently since they were all made of shadow that allowed them to stay undetected.
The first of them jumped up on the Tunnel Stalker and stabbed at it with their weapons, causing the monster to let out the same shriek that incapacitated everyone else before.
Fortunately, I was already expecting it so I had my ears covered beforehand.
What made this even better was the fact that my summons were completely unaffected by the shriek since they possessed no functional organs of their own and they simply continued stabbing and slicing the monster with their weapons.
The Tunnel Stalker then started attacking them, flailing its arms wildly and stabbing with its spider legs at my shadow summons, killing some while barely missing the others.
I called up more of my summons and armed them with bows this time, commanding them to start firing arrows at the monster that was decimating my shadows in melee.
In the meantime, I focused on charging my [Laser] spell in preparation to try and kill it.
I watched on as the monster continued flailing its arms in a circle and sending my shadows flying in all directions, a few of them dispersing into nothingness from that blow alone.
My archers fired off another volley of arrows that struck the monster on its side and caused it to crash into the wall.
I also took that chance to fire off my [Laser], aiming to cut off its head with the beam.
The monster seemed to have sensed the spell coming towards it and ducked down quickly to avoid it.
Unfortunately for it, my laser was still faster than it could get out of the way and the spell managed to cut off two of its spider limbs.
The monster let out another shriek and I was not prepared for it this time, the sound forcing me to cover my ears to protect my eardrums.
When I looked up again, I found the monster leaping towards me with another of its spider legs poised to skewer me.
I raised up my arms just in time to block it but that blow was still enough to send me flying back and crashing into the ground.
I groaned while trying to push myself up onto an arm, only to fall back down as pain shot up my arm from that action. I looked up just as the monster charged towards me again to finish me off.
That was when a figure blurred into it and smashed the monster away to crash back into the wall.
Odeta let out a roar of challenge before she leapt at the monster herself, punching it across the face and leaving an indent on the cave wall.
The Tunnel Stalker raised up its hand in an attempt to strike at the Amrap, only to have the limb suddenly detach itself from its body.
I looked up to see Emilia standing perpendicular to the wall with her hand on the handle of her katana, the Nekomata kicking against the wall to propel herself towards the monster below her again.
There was the sound of metal striking against flesh and the other arm of the monster was also sliced off.
The Tunnel Stalker opened its mouth to shriek again, only to have Odeta smash its head in with her fist to silence it.
My summons also joined in and started hacking away on the monster, one of them even managing to cut off another one of its spider legs with her greataxe.
The monster spun itself in a circle again, causing everyone to be flung away from her to crash into the ground around it.
Odeta and Emilia quickly recovered but it was clear that they took quite a bit of damage from that.
Using its one remaining spider arm, it slammed it against the ground to send it airborne, flying over my summons as well as Odeta and Emilia to land outside the encirclement.
I quickly directed my summons to start dogpiling on top of it, going so far as to have most of them aim at its remaining limbs.
Emilia and Odeta were late in joining in as the monster let out another ear piercing shriek, but that did not matter since my summons still continued to wail on it like nothing happened.
Another summon using a greatsword swung her weapon at the last spider limb and cut it off, leaving the monster with only its hind legs.
My archers then fired another volley, this time aimed at its feet and turning them into pincushions.
The Tunnel Stalker let out a wail of pain and fell down on its knees, unable to escape.
Seeing my chance, I shot out another charged [Laser], this time hitting it right in the centre of its head and piercing a hole through it.
The monster’s wail slowly got softer and softer before it finally crashed face first onto the ground, dead.
I was breathing hard and my summons remained on standby, just in case it had another trick up its sleeve and it wasn’t actually dead.
I only relaxed when it was clear that it was well and truly dead before I collapsed on my haunches, breathing hard and trying to heal the injuries I sustained. Definitely will need some time to recover from this since I still can’t mend broken bones…
I lost quite a number of my Shadow Summons but at least they were the ones with lower stats so those could be easily replaced.
That was when Odeta came rushing up to me to give me a hug despite her injuries.
“That was so cool sister Aster!! I didn’t know you could do things like that!! You’ve become so strong!!”
Emilia also came up to me, “A monster like that usually would need an entire party of Mercenaries to take down and that’s with proper preparation too… As expected of the young mistress of the Nilm Family I suppose.”𝒐𝓋𝓛xt.𝒸𝞸𝔪
I was just glad that we all managed to make it out of it relatively unscathed… Had we been unlucky, we might have died here to this monster…
Now, there’s only one really important question that I want the answer to right now…
Where are my sweets?