“Are you familiar with hand signs, movements, or whatever they call it?” I ask, voicing my concern.Chloe and Prince Faelar look at each other at first before shrugging their shoulders. Prince Faelar afterward raises his hand, hoping he can somehow guess his way from my question.“Is that the part where mages use hand signs to cast a spell?”If only I had a head, I would’ve already shaken it. “No. That’s possible, but it’s from a different franchise. We don’t do that here.”“Now, hand signs are like these….” I say, and begin my lengthy speech, hoping this can save us later.And then… we finally move forward.There is a cliff in front of us. So Chloe and Prince Faelar have to be careful before reaching the bottom. Thankfully, Prince Faelar and Chloe manoeuvre their way and descend to the ledge, where we meet face-to-face in front of the den of freaking spiders.Looking them up close is different. These arachnids have multiple eyes, which are eight of them, if I am not mistaken. Each ey
Prince Faelar walks backward for two minutes straight and avoids stepping his feet on the critters’ limbs. Chloe is also right beside the prince. However, not everything goes as planned.Eventually, Prince Faelar knocks over a sleeping spider, which ultimately wakes the arachnid up and startles the rest of the herd. Prince Faelar afterward falls over the spider he has tripped over, and stares face to face with the insect.It isn’t just that. When Chloe turns to the side, the mother spider widens all her eight eyes and glares in Prince Faelar’s direction. For a few seconds, it becomes quiet. It’s not because the spider chooses to neglect Chloe and Prince Faelar, but… they study their prey before devouring them for their next meal.The name of the mother arachnid is “Brood Mother”. It’s an iconic name, but this is not the right time for me to paint a beam on my face just because we’re facing a legendary enemy. If Chloe dies, it will be the end of our journey. And if this prince bites th
“I… I see,” Chloe reacts, and nods. “I’ll do just that, Kuro!”And so, Chloe does the job. As soon as the princess reloads the gun, she uses the first [Meld] bullet and adds water and ice elements on the shell. The floor instantly changes. It doesn’t turn into something, but the entire ground becomes slippier and more difficult to move in. Furthermore, the temperature decreases… Naturally, because the [Meld] bullet fills one fourth of the area with ice that is nearly impossible to thaw. “Brr… It became chilling, Owari. Do you feel that?” Chloe reacts, and grits through the cold.The Prince feels the same thing as he hopelessly brace himself with his own hand and shakes his head. He then mumbles to himself how he regrets not bringing any coat to protect him from the cold. If my face is showing right now, my mouth would’ve already curled downward. “I’m a gun, remember? I can’t feel anything, unless they’re emotions - the cold one, you know?. Now that’s a different thing,” I kid around
The spiders continue appearing one after the other. A screeching sound envelops the place as the spider desperately awakens itself from its slumber and joins in the fight with the rest of its family. The funniest part is that the Brood Mother doesn’t care if it accidentally kills one of its kind. Apparently, it even eats her own children for the sake of regenerating itself once it falls from the icy floor or Chloe shoots it with the regular gun. I also want to note that these bullets fired by Chloe are all headshots, meaning they deal more damage than regular shots. But it is to no avail. “How many eggs can you even produce?!” I mutter. But my voice doesn’t reach anyone, not even the Brood Mother herself. Those eggs hung from above are the cause of this all. If one spider dies, another egg hatches, and it flows into a pseudo-infinite cycle. I tell Chloe to try and shoot one of the eggs dangling over our heads, but… there’s too many of them. Again, fire is also effective. And I wou
We have one major problem. It’s not about the plan I have mentioned but the arachnids circling and obstructing our way. If we don’t deal with these midget spiders, we will have to face them even before performing our task.I voice that concern to Chloe and the Prince Faelar about the situation. For a second, nobody can come up with an answer. Everyone thinks that dealing with the swarm of spiders hinders our plan. We have to make an escape plan while fighting against these small-fries of an enemy. And that is when the guy beside us shows up and becomes useful. The Prince is the one who stretches his mind to come up with an answer. His veins pops up on his head, despite being a few years younger than us. Prince Faelar is also desperate enough to want to help. So I let him be. This is the best opportunity for him to fight and gain experience in surviving while using his spells to its utmost value. Basically, this occurrence is a test for him to prove his wits.“You know how flame wor
Chleo then turns to me for help. “Do you have any suggestions, Kuro? We need to save Prince Faelar!”The princess, as much as possible, loves accomplishing tasks on her own. And most times, she needs my help. Regardless, Chloe will do everything in her knowledge and power to solve things by herself without asking for my help.So hearing something like this from Chloe means she really wants to make a difference. I check the distance up ahead and notice that the Prince and Chloe are already near the exit. Right now, if everything goes well, we should reach the entrance. But change of plans. That’s not happening, unless Prince Faelar pulls off a manoeuver only he can do.Prince Faelar keeps casting his spell in every direction and hitting the spiders swarming over him. Chloe also has the same battle against the Brood Mother who is ten times our size. We are in a pickle. And we are on a timer to save Prince Faelar before the cavern can cave us in.“I do, Chloe! But you have to listen to
Chloe does what she has instructed her and begins making her move. She uses seven bullets to protect Prince Faelar while using the rest to repair the icy slide. The seven bullets, which is also a lucky number, does the job and kills a couple of spiders in the area. Some still get loose and hit Prince Faeler. But just as I have suggested, Prince Faelar shrugs the pain away and manages to steer him out from trouble, at least for now.It takes Chloe twenty magazines after a minute, and she hits them all. Dozens of windows congratulate us about the experience and money we have received for killing these small-fry monsters, and they appear before our eyes. Prince Faelar blinks a million times whenever he sees these notifications. But he neglects the alert and focuses on what I have instructed him to do. And now that I have realised it, Chloe has shot a total of three hundred bullets. And all of them hit their targets. I am reminded about the past battle experience Chloe had and messed up
“PRINCE FAELAR! COME ON!” Chloe shouts, as she gets up from the ground and catches the boy before he can even crash against the floor.“ZOE!” Prince Faelar shouts back, Soon after, the Brood Mother desperately clings to its last hope and stretches its limbs, hoping it can pierce Prince Faelar. However, her efforts were to no avail. By the time Prince Faelar has been caught by Chloe, the ingress collapses behind us, leaving the spiders and the Brood Mother caving in by the tunnel. It all happened within two minutes. Those two minutes of my life were the most thrilling I have ever experienced. We could’ve died back there. But we didn’t. Thanks to the plan I had in mind, we perfectly survived the fight and ran away, while defeating the spiders at the other side of the tunnel.“Is it really… over?” Prince Faelar is the first one to ask, as he crawls away from the ingress, with his hand ready to cast his charcoal spell.“From the looks of it, those spiders can’t reach this place… They’re