"Behind you! Daigo, six o'clock!"
The warning didn't come from Ren. It came from Itsuki Haruma.
Daigo spun around, his massive shield scraping against the stone floor, but he was too slow. A Venom-Weaver—the third one to drop from the ceiling in the last minute—had already coiled its legs, ready to launch itself at the Vanguard's exposed back.
"Shit!" Daigo flinched, bracing for a bite that would melt his armor.
It never came.
WHOOSH.
A blade of invisible, pressurized air sliced through the cavern. It was so sharp it hummed like a high-tension wire.
The spider didn't even screech. It simply fell apart mid-air. Its head slid off its body with a wet shluck, and the two halves dropped to the floor on either side of Daigo's boots. Green blood pooled instantly.
Daigo stared at the bisected corpse, then looked back at Itsuki.
The [Sage] pushed his glasses up his nose with a knuckle. His staff was glowing with a faint, pale green light. He didn't look like he was fighting for his life; he looked like he was solving a calculus problem.
"Your blind spot is thirty degrees to your right," Itsuki stated calmly, stepping over a twitching spider leg. "Adjust your stance, Daigo. If I have to waste mana saving your ass again, I'm billing you."
"Yeah, yeah," Daigo grunted, though he looked relieved. "Thanks, four-eyes."
"Clear!" Ren shouted, swinging his sword to flick spider guts off the blade. He scanned the room. "Any movement?"
"Negative," Rika whispered. She was leaning against the wall, breathing hard. Her daggers were black with ichor. She looked pale, but she hadn't run away. She had stabbed two of them. "I think... I think that's all of them."
Ren lowered his sword, his shoulder throbbing. He looked at Grog.
The Guild Master was still leaning against the tunnel entrance, blowing smoke rings. He hadn't lifted a finger. He hadn't even drawn his axe.
"Not bad," Grog grunted, tapping ash from his cigar onto the corpse of a spider. "Messy. Loud. But not bad for a bunch of high school kids."
"We cleared the room," Ren said, his voice hard. "Now tell us where the crystals are. We're done playing games."
Grog opened his mouth to reply, but the cave answered first.
RRROOOOOAAAARRRR.
The sound vibrated through the soles of their boots. It wasn't the high-pitched hiss of the spiders they had just killed. This was deep. Guttural. It sounded like tectonic plates grinding together, mixed with the wet, clicking shriek of something massive.
Dust fell from the ceiling, dusting Ren's hair white.
Rika froze. "What the fuck was that?"
"That," Grog grinned, showing his yellow teeth, "is the landlord."
Grog pushed himself off the wall and pointed his cigar down the large tunnel at the far end of the chamber.
"The Arachne Broodmother," Grog said casually. "Zone Boss. Big nasty bitch. She likes to hoard shiny things. And guess what she uses to decorate her nest?"
"Azure Crystals," Itsuki deduced, his eyes narrowing.
"Bingo," Grog clapped a heavy hand on Ren's shoulder. Ren flinched, pulling away. "She's sitting on a goldmine, kid. All we gotta do is walk in there, grab the rocks, and walk out."
"And the Broodmother?" Ren asked. "Is she just going to let us?"
"She's asleep," Grog lied. It was a bad lie. Even Ren could tell. "Most of the time. We sneak in. Rogue grabs the loot. We leave. Easy money."
"This feels like a trap," Daigo whispered to Ren as they fell into formation. "Ren, the guy is smiling. He hasn't smiled since we met him."
"I know," Ren whispered back, gripping his sword handle until his knuckles turned white. "Stay close. If anything happens, formation Delta. Shield up, back-to-back."
"Understood," Itsuki murmured. "I'm saving my mana for a heavy barrier. Just in case."
"Let's move, ladies!" Grog barked, taking the lead for the first time. "Time is money!"
They walked deeper into the mountain.
The tunnel grew wider, but the air grew heavier. It smelled less like rot and more like... sweetness. A sickly, cloying scent like overripe fruit and copper. The walls here weren't rough stone anymore. They were smooth, coated in layers of thick, translucent silk.
It was quiet. Too quiet. Even the wind had stopped.
"My [Danger Sense] is screaming," Rika whispered, her voice barely audible. She was walking in Ren's shadow, clutching his tunic again. "Ren, seriously. I feel sick."
"Just a little further," Grog called out from the front. He had doused his torch, relying on the faint, bio-luminescent moss growing on the webs. "Right around this corner."
Ren stepped forward, turning the final bend.
He stopped. His breath caught in his throat.
The tunnel opened up into a cavern that was impossibly huge. The ceiling was lost in darkness hundreds of feet above.
But it wasn't the size that made them freeze.
In the center of the vast crater-like room, a forest of glowing blue spikes Jutted out of the ground. Azure Crystals. Thousands of them. They pulsed with a soft, rhythmic light, illuminating the chamber in a ghostly aquatic glow.
But they weren't growing on rock.
They were growing out of sacks.
Hundreds of white, leathery eggs, each the size of a small car, were clustered around the crystals. The eggs were translucent. Inside, curled shadows twitched and writhed in the blue light.
And in the center of the nest, suspended by thick cables of web that looked like steel chains, hung a shape that defied logic.
The lower half was a spider—bulbous, armored in black chitin, with legs as thick as tree trunks. The upper half... was the torso of a woman. A giant, pale woman with long, stringy black hair that hung down over her face, motionless.
She was sleeping. Her massive chest rose and fell with a rattling wheeze that shook the webs.
"Jackpot," Grog whispered, his eyes reflecting the blue greed of the crystals.
Ren stared at the monstrosity. He stared at the eggs. And then he looked at the ground near the entrance.
There were bones there. Fresh ones. Wearing pieces of scratched, dented armor.
Iron Hound armor.
Ren's blood ran cold. He looked at Grog.
"Grog," Ren said slowly, stepping back. "Where is the last team you brought down here?"
Grog didn't look at him. He just reached into his pouch and pulled out something that wasn't a mining pick. It was a scroll with a red seal.
"Like I said, kid," Grog turned to face them, the smile gone. "Heroes work for their pay."