Chapter 80 : Chapter 80

Chapter 80. Terror in the Cavern

The cold wind at the edge of the Forgotten Rift wailed as it swept up fine grit and lashed it against the steep, icy rock walls.

Eli stood at the edge of that vast chasm, as though it had been cleaved open by a giant god, and leaned forward to look down.

The entrance indicated by the intelligence system lay somewhere beneath this sheer cliff.

“Let us go down,” Irene said calmly.

Eli nodded and was just about to search for a way to climb down when Irene had already raised her hand.

A gentle yet irresistible force instantly wrapped around him.

In the next second, both of his feet were already standing on solid ground.

All light had been completely swallowed here, leaving behind nothing but darkness so thick it seemed impossible to dissolve.

“Waaah—!” Gulu let out a shrill scream.

It leaped straight from Irene’s shoulder onto Eli’s head and buried its whole body in Eli’s white hair.

“It is dark! So dark! Darker than the deepest burrow the great Lord Gulu has ever dug through!

This place is no fun at all! Treasure or whatever... the great Lord Gulu does not care about it!”

Eli’s scalp hurt from being yanked.

Annoyed, he grabbed the noisy ball of fur off his head in one motion and stuffed it into the leather pocket at the front of his armor.

“Shut up. If you keep screaming, I will leave you here to feed the bats.”

Eli steadied himself. He held his breath and listened carefully.

There was only the cold wind that kept blowing out of the depths of the cavern, making a low, mournful sound.

Apart from that, there was absolute silence. He turned to look at Irene beside him.

“Princess Irene?”

Irene did not answer. She merely lifted a hand slightly. A few seconds later, she lowered it again.

“I did not sense any powerful threat to life. We may proceed.”

Eli felt slightly reassured.

He groped through his pack and pulled out a torch wrapped in thick oiled cloth.

Carefully, he raised it to his mouth and lit it with a fire striker.

With a hiss, an orange-red flame sprang up, illuminating a small patch of the surrounding darkness.

Ahead of them, a narrow passage twisted its way into the unknown depths of the dark.

“Wah! Fire! It is fire!” Gulu instantly came back to life inside the pocket.

It stuck half its body out and cried out indignantly,

“If you had a torch, why did you not take it out earlier?!

You made the great Lord Gulu panic for so long! You do not care about small animals at all!”

Eli could not be bothered to answer. He simply raised the torch and cautiously stepped into the passage first.

Irene followed lightly half a step behind him.

The farther they went, the colder it became.

The chill wind blowing from the depths also grew stronger, causing the torch flame to sway violently and shadows to dance in disorder.

Eli’s mind remained on high alert. The torchlight could only illuminate so much, and he had to stay aware of any traps or dangerous creatures that might appear above or below him at any moment.

After walking for roughly half an hour, the sight ahead forced Eli to stop.

At the farthest reach of the torchlight, the passage was no longer empty.

Instead, the way ahead had been completely sealed by layer upon layer of dense gray-white spiderwebs.

Hanging from the webs were the long-dried bones of small animals and the remains of insects.

Eli’s brows drew tightly together.

He stepped closer for a careful look. The webs were so thick that they were nearly opaque, and a strong, foul stench hit him in the face.

“Tch.” Eli could not help muttering to himself.

“This really does feel like grave-robbing... no, archaeology.”

Countless scenes from the tomb-raiding adventure novels he had read in his previous life instantly flooded into his mind.

“Wah! What a huge spiderweb!” Gulu poked its head out again, its black bead-like eyes wide and round.

“Eli! Quick! Burn it with your torch!”

For once, Gulu had said something sensible.

Eli brought the torch close to the outermost layer of webbing.

With a sharp hiss, the flames licked over the sticky silk, and the thick strands curled rapidly under the heat.

Wherever the fire passed, the webs turned to ash, exposing an even deeper darkness behind them.

At last, after spending quite some time on it, the final thick layer of webbing crumbled to ashes in the flames, and the passage ahead reappeared.

Eli let out a breath of relief and raised the torch, preparing to keep moving forward.

But the instant he lifted his foot—

Whoosh!

A gust of wind far stronger than before, thick with a heavy stench, burst violently out from the passage that had just been cleared.

Poof!

The torch in Eli’s hand—their only source of light—went out at once.

Absolute darkness, like a tide of ice-cold water, swallowed all three of them in an instant.

“Ahhh—!!!” Gulu’s scream was utterly hysterical as it echoed through the narrow cavern.

Eli’s heart sank violently!

Every classic scene from the horror films he had watched in his previous life flashed through his mind in an instant—the flame goes out, and danger follows.

He did not hesitate for even a moment. His body moved faster than thought, and he yanked Silver from his waist.

With a sharp ring, the cold blade lay horizontally across his chest as every muscle in Eli’s body tensed and his senses sharpened to their utmost.

The last remaining ember flickered like a final flash before death.

Just before it was fully extinguished, it leaped once more, and Eli caught a glimpse of the full shape.

His pupils contracted violently.

What gust of wind?!

Crouched in the shadows at the mouth of the passage was an enormous and terrifying shape.

It was a spider.

Its body almost filled the entire entrance to the passage, and it was covered in black bristles like steel needles.

Its eight compound eyes glimmered with a cold crimson light in the last fading trace of the torch’s glow.

Clearly, it had been thoroughly enraged by the fire and by the intruders.

Its eight thick legs, each as heavy as an adult’s arm and ending in cruel hooked points, spread wide.

In the next second, it shot at Eli like a bolt of black lightning, bringing a gust of foul air as it lunged for the one standing closest to it.

“You are courting death.” Eli’s eyes turned cold.

He did not retreat in the slightest. Adrenaline was roaring through his body.

At the very instant the giant spider’s hooked foreleg, covered in bristles, was about to pierce his face,

Eli suddenly dropped low and slid sideways.

Whoosh!

The sharp spider leg, lined with hooks, swept past his scalp, and the wind it carried left his cheek stinging.

In that lightning-fast instant, Silver drew a bleak arc through the air.

With perfect precision, Eli slashed at the joint of one of the giant spider’s hind legs that supported its body.

Slash!

A fountain of foul-smelling dark green fluid sprayed out wildly.

The giant spider let out a piercing and ear-splitting shriek.

The pain of the severed leg instantly threw its massive body off balance, and it lurched hard to one side.

But the agony also fully awakened its ferocity. Its seven remaining legs clawed frantically at the ground.

Its huge mouthparts snapped open and shut as it spewed another blast of foul poisonous vapor at Eli.

At the same time, another spear-like foreleg stabbed toward Eli’s chest with a shrill sound of tearing air.

Holding his breath, Eli bent backward once again like a wildcat, narrowly avoiding both the lethal poison and the stabbing leg.

The instant the giant spider pitched forward slightly after missing its strike—

There!

He slammed a foot against the ground and surged forward.

Using the force of that charge and the advantage of his lowered stance, Eli drove Silver upward and viciously into the spider’s soft belly.

Stab!

Silver’s blade sank in almost to the hilt.

The giant spider let out an earth-shaking scream as its huge body twisted madly.

Eli gripped the hilt with both hands, the muscles in his arms bulging.

Putting all his strength into it, and borrowing the force of the spider’s convulsions, he ripped Silver savagely sideways.

Rip—!

The giant spider’s bloated abdomen was split open by Eli’s blade into a massive gash nearly a meter long.

Its reeking body fluid and shattered organs poured out like a burst dam.

The spider’s shriek stopped abruptly. The crimson light vanished from its eight compound eyes at once.

Its enormous body collapsed like something that had suddenly lost all its bones.

With a heavy thud, it slumped motionless into the foul-smelling pool of blood and slime.

“G-good... good job, Eli!” Gulu’s trembling voice broke the silence.

It stuck its whole head out of Eli’s pocket and patted Eli’s breastplate with one paw.

“You... you did not disgrace the great Lord Gulu! Well done!”

Eli ignored its after-the-fact praise.

Breathing hard, he pulled Silver free from the giant spider’s corpse.

Then, with a trace of complaint, he looked at Irene.

“Princess Irene, so this is what you meant by... no powerful threat to life?”

There was a helpless note in his voice.

With the princess’s ability, she could clearly have crushed that thing as easily as stepping on an ant.

Faced with Eli’s challenge, the corners of Irene’s lips curved upward in the faintest sly smile.

“You were able to deal with it yourself... and you still call that a powerful threat to life?”

Eli was left speechless by that utterly matter-of-fact reply.

Resigned, he let out a sigh and relit the torch. Orange-red light once more drove back the darkness.

“Let us go.” Holding the torch high, Eli once again took up the role of leading the way.

Before long, the passage seemed to reach its end.

The space ahead suddenly opened wide, and even the torchlight could not fully illuminate the edges of this chamber.

Eli stepped cautiously into the open space.

By the flickering firelight, he saw that in the center of the cavern lay a small pool of water.

The water was crystal clear, reflecting the dancing firelight.

Around the pool, sparse clusters of strangely shaped plants were growing.

“Hm? These herbs...” Eli’s eyes lit up.

Some of these might be valuable medicinal plants. He intended to gather them and ask Scholar Alva about them when he returned.

Just as he reached out, preparing to carefully pluck one of the plants bearing little golden bell-shaped flowers,

Irene’s ethereal voice sounded behind him once again.

“Golden Bellflower. Its petals are mildly poisonous, numb the nerves, and can induce hallucinations.”

“Mutegrass. Grind the roots and stems into powder, and it can induce hallucinations, but an excessive dose can permanently rob one of speech.”

“Hm, the Magebane Orchid is somewhat rare. Consuming too much of it can temporarily disrupt the guidance of magic...”

“And there is also Virility Vine... yes, its primary effect is... to strengthen virility and arouse desire. Its medicinal properties are fierce, so it must be used with caution.”

Eli’s outstretched hand froze stiffly in midair.

As though she did not see his embarrassment at all, Irene turned her gaze toward the unremarkable little pool in the center of the cavern.

“The truly precious thing is not on the ground. It is in the water.”

In the water?

Puzzled, Eli looked toward the clear pool.

The water was not deep. In the torchlight, he could see the smooth pebbles at the bottom, and it seemed empty.

But Irene’s gaze turned instead toward Gulu, which was clinging to the edge of Eli’s pocket and peering curiously at the water.

“Gulu.”

Just those two simple syllables made the marmot’s whole body stiffen.

“Uh... Princess Irene?” Gulu shrank back a little.

“Go down and bring up the box at the bottom of the pool,” Irene said in a tone as casual as though she were asking it to pick up a stone.

“W-what?! G-go into the water?!” Gulu’s fur stood on end at once as it waved its little paws frantically.

“No! The great Lord Gulu hates water the most! And there might be fish hiding down there that eat mice!

The great Lord Gulu is a mighty bear, so how could I possibly—”

“Hm?” Irene responded with nothing more than a faint nasal sound.

In the next second, the great Lord Gulu instantly puffed out its chest, its face full of the tragic resolve of someone marching to a heroic death.

It drew a deep breath, sprang out of Eli’s pocket, and plunged into the icy pool with a splash.

“Gulu... so cold...” Gulu’s head bobbed back up to the surface.

Its little paws flailed wildly, and then it quickly sank back down.

A few minutes later, the water churned.

Gulu’s drenched little head emerged once more from the surface, clutching something tightly in both paws.

“Gulu... the great Lord Gulu... found it...”

Shivering violently, Gulu crawled up onto the bank with the box in its arms, its teeth chattering from the cold.