Chương 79: Forest Froth Spiders

Damion listened as Halsey dictated to the others who was going to get to run the dungeon and when. Damion was happy he was going to get first crack at it, but he needed a team, and he had no idea how to put one together. There was one person who Damion thought would be willing to help him.

"Mage Fletcher," Damion said as he turned to the master of Arica.

"Would…"

"Say no more my boy," Fletcher told him cheerfully.

"I've already messaged my apprentice and your master. Your team from the last dungeon will be put together soon and head out with the first wave of teams. First things first though, hold on to something." Just as Mage Fletcher told him to hang on, the ground beneath Damion seemed to shake. The walls of the chamber seemed to be flowing like a waterfall down to the ground. Damion looked up and saw the ceiling was doing the same, flowing away from the center and into the walls.

As the ground continued to shake, Damion looked over and saw Mage Glint with his hands placed on the ground. When Damion saw him, he understood what was happening. Mage Glint was raising the floor by moving the stone and dirt from the ceiling through the walls and into the floor. Damion was not sure how long the process took, but it seemed to take forever. When finally sunlight appeared above their heads as the ceiling opened up until it reached the walls.

Along one wall Damion saw a staircase appear and wrap around the walls of the former cavern, now crater, until it reached the surface. If Damion had not seen Mage Glint raise the dungeon chamber out of the cave and open up the ceiling to the sky, he would have not believed it possible. The crater looked like it had been here with the dungeon the entire time.

'This is the power of a B Rank Earth affinity mage,' Damion thought as he watched Mage Glint in awe.

'He could bury me in the ground effortlessly, or kill me in a hundred different ways before I even knew it. I need to be stronger.'

"Mage Fletcher, should my team have someone D Rank? Just in case we encounter something too strong for us. After all, my team was all E Rank."

"I'm sure your teacher will arrange someone. And while this is a D Rank dungeon, I doubt there will be too much danger inside. Aerico are quite passive, they tend to only attack after you have already attacked them, but since most people can kill them in one blow, even stronger ones don't pose much risk."

"What if there are other things in the dungeon?"

"We didn't see any other Demonic Beasts in the caves and in this area there has never been anything but the Aerico. Their aura drives away all the wildlife, Ferocious and Demonic Beasts alike."

"But if the Aerico crowd around the Breach, wouldn't that mean if there is something else, it would stay away and not cross over?" If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Quite an interesting conclusion. You are, of course, quite correct. Due to the repelling nature of the Aerico, other Demonic Beasts could very well be trapped inside the dungeon. In fact, now that we have cleared out the Aerico from this area, it is possible they will emerge.

"Titus!" Mage Fletcher shouted to the earth mage as he was meditating to replenish his mana.

"Hurry up and get the wall up around the dungeon portal. We could very well be in for a rude surprise." Just as Fletcher was issuing his command, the portal shimmered and from it leapt something multilegged. Damion did not catch much more than a glimpse, but the creature appeared to be around a meter long. Thankfully, Mage Fletcher's shout at Mage Glint and gotten the attention of Knight Heath and Knight Raiford. Before the Demonic Beast even had a chance to hit the ground Knight Raiford had sliced it in two.

With the two halves lying on the ground, Damion could recognize what it was. A spider. Easily the biggest spider Damion had ever seen. It had brown and green hairy stripes along its legs and thorax and wicked looking pincers by its mouth. Of all the Demonic Beasts Damion had encountered so far, this one was by far the most sinister looking.

"Forest Froth Spider!" Mage Fletcher shouted looking at the corpse.

"Great and our healer has gone back to the city. Don't let them near you. Even just a graze of the hairs on its body will transfer a poison to you that will make you foam at the mouth until you choke to death on it." Hearing Mage Fletcher's warning made Damion instinctively step away from the corpse instead of inspecting it more closely. As curious as Damion was, he did not reckon it was worth the risk of getting poisoned.

"Working on the wall now," Mage Glint said as he rose to his feet. The ground began to sink as a wall was forming around the dungeon portal. Seeing an opportunity, Damion ran and jumped on top of the growing wall and let Mage Glint raise him along with the stone. When Mage Glint was done with the wall it stood about three meters high with a single opening. This meant if more Demonic Beasts came out of the dungeon, they had but one way to go.

"What are you doing up there?" Knight Heath asked, looking up at Damion on the wall.

"Spiders are usually good climbers, figured I'd take the high ground and make sure none climbed the walls instead of heading to the exit."

"Good idea," Mage Fletcher called out.

"Just don't fall. I've already sent a message to Halsey, we should be getting reinforcements soon." As Mage Fletcher spoke, more Forest Froth Spiders began emerging from the dungeon portal. First one, then three, then a dozen. It was clear the Aerico had been keeping other Demonic Beasts at bay with their aura, a weird blessing in disguise from the poison spreading Demonic Beasts, but now Damion and the others had to focus on killing the spiders coming out of the Breach. Damion focused on the walls.

Whenever a Forest Froth Spider started climbing on the wall around the dungeon portal, he would send out a fire attack from his sword. As more and more spiders began pouring out of the portal, Knights Heath and Raiford focused only on killing the ones that came close to the gap in the walls, Damion was then responsible for killing more and more spiders as they began climbing the walls to escape.

"Do these Forest Froth Spiders have valuable materials other than their cores?" Damion asked as he blasted another spider that was climbing the wall under him.

"Not really. Their eyes and talons can be used for a few things, but since the hair on their bodies secrete poison, few people want to deal with the danger of harvesting materials."

"Wouldn't that make their material more valuable?" Damion questioned.

"Not when you can get the same materials from less dangerous spiders," Mage Fletcher said.

"If you want permission to go all out, go ahead, but just when there are a lot. Don't waste your mana. This could be a long fight."