The Moon Thief

Chapter 11: Inside the Subdawn Caves

"What the hell is this thing?" Hanfran crouched beside the creature and began to examine it.

"Disgusting!" Tanya gagged her nose. The creature's flesh was burned, and pus was flowing from all wounds on its body.

"This is a one of the Cursed Race. I read a book about them. Thousands of years ago, during the time of Ancient Ainsar, an Ainsar named Loysius started working on a forbidden curse. However, during his experiments, an accident happened and the curse infected the creatures around the experiment area. Thousands of years have passed,but this curse has not disappeared."

Leina said in a low voice what she knew about the Cursed Ones.

Heinald pondered. He hadn't heard of the background of the Cursed Ones before. Sometimes terrible accidents could happen during the Ainsar experiments. The accident that caused the appearance of the damned happened in the time of Ancient Ainsar. The Ainsars of that time were those who were able to dig deep into magic and reveal great secrets.

Unfortunately, little was known about the ancients. There were many books written about them, but the information was either always the same or just fake. It is said a war between Ancient Ainsars brought great destruction to the Ainsar World. Most of the high-level information and remains were destroyed in this war. However, it is thought that there are still hidden Ancient Ainsar tombs in some parts of the world. The cause of this devastating war is unknown; it was an ancient secret buried in the darkness of history.

"That man who called himself as the Moon Thief... Is he an Ancient Ainsar too?" Various thoughts started running through Heinald's mind.

"Do you think there are other cursed ones around?" Henra looked around and asked.

"I don't know, but it's good for us to get away from here quickly." Leina stood out and said.

"Wait,I see her." An Apprentice Ainsar was pointing a place with his hand. They found Ennie's mutilated body where he showed it, and without much distraction, they prepared a grave for her and buried her.

After buried her, everyone quickly got on their horses.They started to move on inside the forest. They moved on for two days without stopping and finally got out of the forest without any further incidents. When they got out of the forest,they camped again and rested well.

When they left the camp, they were already very close to the Subdawn Caves. The entrance to the Subdawn Caves was located in the middle of two hills.

The Starfall Group had arrived in front of the Subdawn Caves within couple of hours. Heinald began to look around.There was nothing that looked abnormal, but the surroundings were too quiet. After everyone tied their horses and made their final preparations, they entered the cave.

Everyone was on the alert when they started to make their way through the cave. The unfortunate incident in Yellowleaf Forest left a slight effect on everyone. Many dangerous creatures lived in the desolate areas,so it was important to be on alert.

Heinald was particularly careful while observing his surroundings. Unlike others, he could observe places where torches were not illuminated. He hadn't even seen an insect on the ground since they had moved forward through the cave. This was interesting to him because there would be so many insects in the caves in normal.

"Wait! Did you feel it?" Heinald felt the ground shake.

"What?" Leina asked.

"The ground is shaking." Heinald frowned.

"Cave Worms!" Henra shouted.He realized what was happening. Soon the soil began to split and giant worms began to emerge from it. "Let's stand together, if we attack together, we can easily finish them."

Heinald immediately drew his sword, and when he looked around he saw a total of seven worms." Let's take care of the two on our right!" Leina called to her team.

"Alright!"

Tanya stretched her bow and sent an arrow through one of the worms,which had penetrated the worm's skin but did not go too deep.

"Their skin looks too hard. Looks like Basic Fireball won't work." Heinald observed the worm and made an inference.

"Heinald, I'll attack its back. You attack its forepart!" Leina took out two daggers from under her robe.

"Let's go!" Heinald nodded.

Heinald rushed towards the worm, jumped on it and stuck his sword into the worm's head with all his might. At the same time, Leina pierced the back of the worm with her daggers. The worm began to squirm and eventually died. When Heinald looked around he saw that other worms had been killed.

"Is everyone okay?" Henra stood out and asked.

Once everyone was confirmed to be fine,  they kept moving forward. After moving forward for a while,they saw different tunnel entrances. There were twelve diffrent tunnel entrances.

"Alright!Each team will choose a different tunnel and move forward. According to the information I have acquired,spiders will appear from here on. We will kill as many spiders as we can and collect their venom, teeth and eggs. Then we will gather where we are right now and come back."

Henra,briefly explained the plan again.

After everyone approved,the teams started walking over the tunnel they chose. Heinald was also looking at the Messoy Mushrooms, which was his main purpose of coming here, but he hadn't seen one yet.

"Need to go deeper?" Heinald thought.

"Chii!"

As Heinald's team continued walking, a giant spider appeared in front of them. Its red eyes glowed menacingly in the darkness.

"Be careful!" Leina took up her daggers.

"Basic Fireball!" Heinald immediately started casting spell.

At that time, other members of the team started attacking the spider with their weapons. Tanya began shooting arrows at the spider one after another.

Hanfrand was attacking the spider's legs with his short sword.

Rigaz was casting a spell like Heinald.

Leina climbed the wall and jumped on the spider and stabbed her daggers into the spider's back.

"Chiiiii!" The spider made a shrill noise and began to wobble.

Leina immediately went down.

"Dark Thorn!" Rigaz murmured, and a black thorn emerged from the ground and stuck into the spider's belly.

By that time Heinald had finished his spell too, and sent the fireball to the spider. However, the spider suddenly jumped onto the ceiling and dodged the attack. While the spider was on the ceiling, he threw a web towards Heinald, but Heinald showed a quick reflex and cut the web with his sword in the air.

The spider jumped from the ceiling onto Hanfran, who immediately flipped to the right and avoided being crushed.

One of the arrows that Tanya shot, hit one of the spider's eyes.

"Chiiii!"

"Here is the opportunity! Everybody attack together!" Heinald shouted. As the spider was wobbling, everyone at the same time attacked the spider with their weapons. The spider, already injured, could not stand long and died.

"Good job!" Rigaz cheered.

"Yes, but my Magic Energy has run out. It takes at least a few hours to recover again. "Heinald let out a loud sigh. Since he was still the Apprentice Ainsar, he had very little Magic Energy. Even Basic Fireball, a Low Rank spell, consumed all Magic Energy in one use.

"Same." Rigaz also had run out of Magic Energy. He also used a Low Rank spell called Dark Thorn.

"No problem. We can deal with spiders with our weapons. I haven't used any magic yet. I will use it if necessary." Leina slowly looked around.

"It makes sense. I wish I didn't use it right away. We wouldn't know what we would encounter." Heinald thought.

They carefully poured the venom of the spider into the jar and ripped its teeth. Then they continued to walk carefully. The tunnel they walked through was quite a wide one, and if Heinald had not had the Moon Thief's eyes, he would have thought he had overlooked mushrooms.

"Your moves are pretty fast and your dagger skills are very good. Have you been trained by an expert?" Heinald looked at Leina walking beside him,as he observed,she was quite experienced in close combat.

"I didn't get training from anyone. I just participated in too many expeditions like this." Leina smiled lightly and shrugged.

"I wonder what others are doing?" Tanya asked.

"Although these spiders are difficult to kill for a single person,they are not hard to kill for a team. I don't think they had much trouble. " Leina tried to think positively.

"Be careful!" Heinald noticed that the spider above was about to jump on Leina. He immediately embraced her and jumped sideways,so the spider landed on the empty floor.

"Tanya, try to aim just the spider's eyes. Leave the rest to us." Hanfran raised his sword and started running towards the spider.

Heinald also drew his sword and started running to the back of the spider.

"Chiiii!" Tanya's arrow hit one of the spider's eyes. Heinald immediately rushed to the back of the spider and swung his sword violently. The sword chopped off the back of the spider.

Hanfran was making cuts on the spider's legs, but the cuts did not cause deep wounds.

The Spider jumped and landed in front of Leina,attacked her with its front legs. However, Leina reacted quickly and jumped to the left. Thus,she avoided the attack. Then she jumped towards the spider and stabbed her daggers into the spider's eyes.

"Chiiiiiiii!"

Heinald immediately jumped to make the finishing move and stabbed his sword the spider's head.

"Its dead." Heinald sighed with relief. During the time he spent with his grandfather, he received various trainings from him to strengthen his psychology. The world the Ainsars lived in was a cruel world, and in an Ainsar's path there would be many deaths that he would see. After years of training, even if he killed any living thing, including humans, his psychology would not be harmed.

"Good job!" Hanfran smiled slightly.

"Thank you Heinald,you just saved my life." Leina looked at Heinald with a grateful expression.

"Its all good." Heinald waved his hand.

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