The mine entrance we were guided to was closed off with wooden fences and ropes.
Apparently to prevent giant spiders from bursting out and attacking the houses?
It looked like a crude barricade that I doubted would be effective, but from what I heard, it seemed to have been somewhat effective.
They said the number of missing persons in the mining village had drastically decreased since blocking the entrance.
“Let’s go in.”
We removed the firmly secured fence with ropes and entered the mine shaft.
Kikel walked in front, shielding his upper body with his newly bought shield and sniffing around, while Laute and I followed behind him.
Wolfgang stood next to Kikel, holding a torch high to light up the surroundings. Like an ancient ape that discovered fire and heralded the beginning of human history.
Whooosh!
The light seemed ten times brighter than usual.
The torch light reflecting off the inhuman head unique to octopus humans lit up the inside of the mine shaft as bright as day.
It was almost blinding, as if some saint had descended.
Though in reality, he was the profession furthest from a saint.
Unlike a saint whose mere presence conveys piety and holiness, calming one’s heart, the bald unarmed combat warrior was a being that shouldn’t exist.
Just looking at him hurt the eyes and made anger well up.
…Anyway, we entered the mine shaft relying on the torch light like that.
In fact, experienced adventurers preferred lanterns worn at the waist or rechargeable magical lighting tools over torches.
Carrying a torch meant one arm was tied up for lighting.
You couldn’t properly wield two-handed weapons, and even for shields, unless it was the type strapped to the arm, you had to give up on the kind with handles.
The only advantages gained in exchange for giving these up were that it was slightly brighter than a lantern and much cheaper than magical tools.
Therefore, Kikel and I also usually carried lanterns instead of torches… but this time there was no reason to do so.
Why bother wasting fuel on a lantern when there’s a chimpanzee with both hands completely free?
We just had to put a torch in the useless chimpanzee’s left hand.
That was the choice that benefited all of us. It was good for me and Laute because we could see well in front, and good for Kikel because it was warm beside him.
It was even good for Wolf-chimpanzee.
Rather than swinging bare fists against giant spiders, wouldn’t it be more effective to sear them with the torch?
His damage output had increased by 2 times… no, at least 10 times, so he couldn’t help but be happy.
* * *
As is typical of mine interiors, this place too had very dirty air from the start.
The air was stuffy and murky due to poor ventilation.
The smell of rotten earth mixed with a fishy odor, and even the faint smell of small animal droppings wafted in.
It wasn’t just the smell.
Perhaps because quite some time had passed since people stopped coming here?
Dust had piled up thickly on the walls and ground, rising like smoke with every step, and dewy spider webs filled every direction, forcing us to clear them away as we moved.
“…Could these be giant spider webs?”
Laute asked quietly, clearing away spider webs with a branch she had picked up while walking.
“Wrong. Babies. Full-grown spider, web big. This small.”
Kikel shook his head and answered.
These spider webs were a bit small to be the work of giant spiders, so they were probably webs spun by their offspring.
Judging by how he was certain it wasn’t the work of adults just by looking at the size of the webs, it seemed he had experience dealing with full-grown ones.
We walked like that for about five minutes.
“Close. Ten steps. Watch head.”
Kikel stopped walking and warned us, pointing at the ceiling with the harpoon in his right hand.
It was a signal to prepare for battle. Laute and I drew our weapons and lightly loosened our shoulders.
Holding sharp blades made it feel like our attack power had increased about 20 times.
“Oh, finally!”
The bald one just stood still. Well, he probably had nothing to do. He was just an unarmed combat trash who didn’t understand the concept of weapons.
I don’t understand why he chose bipedal walking if he wasn’t going to use tools.
If he was going to be like that, wouldn’t it have been more efficient to run on all fours, using both front and hind legs?
There was proof right before our eyes that evolution doesn’t always work in a positive direction.
“Let’s go!”
Kikel, after confirming that Laute and I had finished our battle preparations, raised his voice and shouted as he began to run with quick steps.
“Keek! Keeek!”
Perhaps they had just noticed our presence?
The giant spiders that had been clinging tightly to the ceiling about ten meters ahead all swarmed in with sharp screeches.
Six of them. Perhaps because we were still at the entrance of the mine shaft, their numbers weren’t that great.
“Kishaaaah!”
Kikel roared back, wrapping rock fragments from the mine shaft with his tail and throwing them like baseballs towards the spiders crawling in at high speed.
Splat!
A stone throw enhanced by the lizardman’s strength and rotational force.
The face of the giant spider leading the charge was crushed like clay, spewing yellow fluid.
“Keeek?!”
“Kiiieek!”
The two spiders following behind were also caught in the impact and fell towards the ground.
And so the battle began.
* * *
“Haaap! Take my Dragon Fang Sky Pierce!”
As soon as the two giant spiders fell to the ground, Wolfgang leapt forward with an exaggerated technique name and swung his fist.
True to being an unarmed combat warrior worse than a chimpanzee, he seemed to have already forgotten about the tool in his left hand.
Thud!
The leather-gloved fist struck the giant spider’s back. A heavy impact sound. The spider’s carapace caved in slightly in the shape of a fist.
“Kiiiiek?”
So, about 0.5cm deep.
I had hoped otherwise, but as expected. It was an obvious result.
Unless he was wearing steel gauntlets, there was no way a fist thrown with ordinary leather gloves could break a monster’s carapace.
If he was capable of that, he would have been wearing at least a copper tag around his neck.
“Ugh…! Surprisingly hard!”
And your head is surprisingly stupid.
“Then how about my Thousand Blood Devil Horn!”
Wolfgang, still unable to think of using the tool in his left arm, pulled his leg back to try and kick the giant spider.
Yes, if it’s a kick, it would be much better than a punch.
Not only is there a big difference in power between arms and legs, but unlike the gloves which were just leather, the toe part of his boots had metal plates embedded for protection.
However―
“Kiiiieek!”
The giant spider had legs too. Eight of them, in fact.
“Kiiiek!”
The giant spider, as big as a person’s torso, leapt towards Wolfgang, thrusting its sharp legs like spear tips.
“Urgh…!”
Wolfgang hastily pulled his body back. The giant spider’s foreleg grazed his forearm, leaving a thin wound.
For him, dressed in a uniform made of sewn cloth, it was impossible to even block the spider’s leg tips.
Unlike Laute who wore quilted armor with leather protection on top, or Kikel whose body itself was no different from scale armor.
“Kiiiiiie!”
The giant spider that missed its claw attack curled its body in mid-air and thrust its rear end towards Wolfgang.
Was it called a spinneret, that thing?
A white spider web shot out from the spider’s rear end, aiming for Wolfgang’s face.
“Ranged attack is cowardly!”
Wolfgang hastily rolled on the ground to avoid the spider web.
He didn’t even dodge it properly, as his shoulder was still stuck with a dusty spider web when he got up again.
“Haah…”
A sight that made my contempt for unarmed combat warriors grow even stronger.
“What, one?”
Kikel, unable to watch anymore, thrust his harpoon down vertically, skewering one giant spider to the ground, then drew his axe and swung it to smash the other one into the mine shaft wall.
It was a fierce attack that fully displayed the lizardman’s brute strength, incomparable to Wolfgang’s pathetic display.
“Hmm, a stronger foe than I thought…!”
Wolfgang muttered, picking up the dropped torch and wiping the blood flowing down his forearm.
I had no words.
Yes, this is the average for unarmed combat brats. I hadn’t expected anything from him to begin with.
“Haah…”
I let out a light sigh and ran forward to face the spiders jumping down from the ceiling.
Kikel had dealt with two of them, and what remained was one that was writhing, unable to move properly with its face crushed, and three that were still clinging to the ceiling.
Two of them leapt down towards us, swinging their claws, while the other one remained clinging to the ceiling, aiming its rear end at us to spew spider webs.
“Ms. Laute!”
“Yes!”
I swung my longsword towards the air, cutting off three legs of the spider rushing towards us, while Laute raised her round shield to block the spider web.
“Keeeek!”
“Kiiiek!”
The giant spider that had its front legs cut off rolled on the ground, leaking yellow fluid.
“Haaap!”
Laute let out a sharp battle cry and brought down her mace like lightning, smashing the head of one of them.
Splat!
I too thrust my longsword forward, impaling a giant spider from mouth to rear end.
Unlike Wolfgang’s punches that didn’t inflict much damage, sharp blades and heavy metal objects had enough power to shatter the spider’s carapace.
It was literally the victory of civilization, you could say.
Kikel pulled his harpoon out of the dead body and shot it like a javelin towards the last one, successfully concluding our first battle.
It was hard to even call it a battle… it was truly a one-sided massacre.
“You’re all amazing! I’m impressed!”
Except for the chimpanzee brat who almost got massacred instead.