112 That Which Comes From the Depths (2/2)

I knock back the other spider that fell from on top of me with my handle and smash it against the wall. Another one that pulls its body back before charging at me gets pierced by me from the top and then pinned to the ground before I stomp on the place that looks like its head.

In the end, they are nothing but spiders; they aren't solid but move quickly and irregularly. The weapons of the dwarves – the hammers and giant axes – are not compatible against the spiders though.

「Guah!」

One of the dwarves near me looks like he got bitten and is holding his arm. I swing my spear from below to knock back the spider, who is coming to attack again, and then bisect the spider in midair.

「Are you alright?」

「T-this is...uu, guguguguguu...」

The wound itself seems to only reach the flesh, but the man starts to foam at the mouth and faints in agony.

「Be careful, they're poisonous!!」

Balbano shouts. You should say that kind of stuff in advance.

「Celia, don't get hurt. Be careful!!」

「Yessir!」

Celia rolls down her cloak below her thighs and takes out her short sword, throwing it around as if she was dancing. It's difficult to kill them in one strike, but if she aims for the spiders hanging on the ceiling and drops them to the ground so they can be hit, it makes things a little easier.

「Watch out!! 」

There are two on the right, one on the left and one behind. As if matching their timing, they jump altogether, but I'm thankful they did that.

「Fuun!!」

After holding my breath, I exhale all at once and swing my spear all around me. I can hear the sound of their soft flesh getting hit, and all four large spiders are instantly flung away. Three of them collide into a wall and get smashed, while the last one gets flung into a furnace and makes a dying screech unbearable to my ears.

「Is it over now!?」

I roar after I swing my spear down with all my might on the motionless spider and smash it to pieces. The spider's fluids are disgusting, but at least they're better than a human's entrails.

The surrounding dwarves also cheer and seems to be regaining their spirit as they finish off the spiders one after the other. The ones who got poisoned are dragged to the back and alcohol is poured in their mouths. They use alcohol for everything, don't they.

「There's no end to them. What should we do?」

「The hole they're breaking out of should be further up ahead! The cave-in might be connected to this hell.」

I don't really get what's going on, but it's up ahead, right? If the poison is enough to make a bulky dwarf collapse, then it will definitely be bad if Celia gets wounded. I have to deal with this fast.

With Balbano's guidance, we advance further and reach a small plaza-like place with a slightly high ceiling. But there is a large sinkhole in the center of the room and most of the room has become filled with holes. The bottom of the hole is pitch black and I can't tell how many of them there are.

「Is it here ...? This hole has opened all the way to hell! 」

With a disgusting fidgeting sound from the hole, the large spiders climb out.

「What should we do? Should we throw some fire in there?」

「That hell hole is large. It would be meaningless if we do that...we have to seal the hole...」

Stabbing the spiders that climb up and flinging them back down into the hole, Balbano heads above my head. Celia slices off the two forelegs of the one spider that turns back and stabs the head with her sword. Hurry up, Celia's going to get hurt.

「Alright... over there... oh no!!」

When I thought Balbano found something, he turns towards me and his short legs are sent flying.

Getting a bad feeling, he grabs onto Celia and rolls backward. A moment later, something strange grows out of the hole and skewers one of the soldiers of the escort unit.

「Gobuaa!!」

The poor soldier doesn't know what is going on as his stomach gets pierced through his armor and is dragged down into the hole.

「That thing is...oh no.」

I figured out the identity of that unknown thing instantly. That was a giant spider's leg...something incomparable to all the large spiders we've seen up until this point, an enormous spider that could be as large as 5 m.

「Nuuu...」

「This is...」

Celia and Balbano seem to be at a loss for words. From first glance, it doesn't look like it would be an opponent a human could win against. In order to defeat it, we need an open space and an army.

「No time to talk about luxuries.」

If I let something like this back behind me, the other dwarves will be wiped out in an instant, and then Leah and the others will be in danger. I have no choice but to finish it off here.

I resolve myself and take a stance with my spear. My weapon really seems small at 3 meters compared to that huge thing.

「Can you do it!?」

「I'll have to try.」

After just saying that, I charge forward and swing at the spider's forelegs. I felt the impact but its large size prevented me from splitting it apart. In a flash, countless legs come at me, but I block two hits while avoiding the rest of them.

The tips of the legs I dodged are swung down at me again but when I rolled out of the way, its fangs come for me next.

「Tch!」

I reflexively slice at the spider's head, but since there wasn't much power behind that attack, it was far from being a fatal wound. This thing is annoying.

It is an opponent with eight legs after all. It uses four of them to support its body while it uses the remaining four legs to attack, whereas I only have one spear. Not to mention its attacks can inflict fatal wounds through armor as it just finished demonstrating with my subordinate. If only I had one more weapon.

「Balbano, lend me your axe.」

「Axe?　...Alright.」

Seeing how I don't have much breathing room, he doesn't ask anything else and tosses his giant axe over. The super heavy object falls straight into the ground and makes a dull thud.

「Here I go, monster.」

I switch my spear over to my left hand and hold the large axe with my right hand. My spear is already heavy but the axe is more than twice as heavy. It's really tiresome to support each weapon using only one hand, but unlike the time Balbano and I compared strength, my life is at stake here. Besides, this amount of weight should be enough to finish this thing off.

I rush in with my large spear and axe. I evade the swinging forelegs without getting hit and swing my ax with all my strength at one of the legs that stood in place. With a crunching sound similar to when a thick tree trunk splits, one of its legs is torn off.

「That's one down!」

I approach the screeching giant spider even closer as I brush away the attacking legs. I intercept another leg swinging down from above my head with my axe, but because I was in a bad position, it digs halfway into the leg and stops. But I'm not done yet. I strike the axe with my spear and forcefully cut my way through the limb.

「That's the second!」

However, it was then that the remaining two legs attacked me at the same time and although I intercept and block the attack with my weapons, I was knocked back. I crash into the wall and I feel the wind getting knocked out of me.

「Aegir-samaa!!」

Celia hurls a sword instead of her short dagger, but the thick skin of its body prevents it from getting stabbed. You should just be good and wait. I won't die yet.

A leg swings down to finish me off but I use my axe to split apart the limb vertically, then let the last leg swing-and-miss before grabbing it with my bare hands and squeezing. The hairy leg should be the most unpleasant feeling but somehow I'm starting to get use to it.

「Ooooooh!!」

While continuing to hold the leg, I twist in the opposite direction of the joint, snapping the leg with a crisp, wet sound.

「That's four! Is it over!?」

But the gigantic spider turns towards me while writhing in pain and uses all its effort to charge. It is using its fangs instead of its legs now...I might possibly have to crush its entire body.

「That's fine though. I can reach you with my blade like that.」

It's so huge that I couldn't attack anything but its legs if it was just standing, but now that the fangs are being used, its head should get closer too. Let's settle this.

I hurl my spear at the charging enemy to get the jump on it. The spear roughly hit its mark and sticks into the head of the spider, but because of the hard exoskeleton, it doesn't penetrate all the way through and isn't a fatal wound. But that's fine.

The spear is stabbed in between its eyes, causing the enemy to stop its movements for a brief moment and allowing me to run up and tackle it. It would be meaningless to do so on its main body so I aim to ram against the handle of the protruding spear.

Half of the 3-meter spear is buried in the arachnid's head accompanied by an ear-shattering shriek. The giant spider writhes in pain, but it isn't over yet.

I let go of my spear and swing the large axe with both hands.

I take a deep breath before leaping, then swing down my weapon with the full force of my body on top of the large spider's head.

The strange screaming echoing in the cave stops suddenly and the large body of the spider crumbles slowly to the ground. Its head split open with a crack and a flood of green liquid flows out. Losing its strength, the giant spider slides down to the bottom of the hole.

Oh crap, it carried my spear along for the ride. I liked that one too.

A silence surrounds everyone around me. Neither Balbano nor Celia nor any of the escort unit soldiers utters a word. We still haven't even controlled the situation yet though.

「Are you going to hurry and do something about the hole? If another of the same species comes out, I'm also going to run.」

My words bring them back to reality and Balbano rushes to the front. He is holding a large axe, which looks more like a hammer.

「This crack...is it here?!」

Balbano jumps skillfully with his short legs and bashes a point on the ceiling with his hammer. When he did so, rocks start to split and shatter and shards of the stones start falling from above our heads.

「I'm caving this room in! Go outside!」

Everyone hurries outside the room and the ceiling simultaneously crumbles, with countless rocks falling down to fill the hole. The cave-in continues for a while until the room eventually becomes entirely buried in rocks and dirt.

「The hole is sealed...all we have to do is to plaster something to solidify it and we won't have to worry about it anymore.」

「That's the most important. I'm so tired.」

I stretch out my arms and legs and let Celia strip off my armor, who desperately checks to see if I got injured. I could use a little alcohol right about now.

「So ultimately, what were those things?」

I feel like lazing around and chatting until Celia finishes her inspection.

「In the depths of the mountain...there lies an abyss way deeper than the tunnel we have burrowed through. That abyss spreads out infinitely underground where the entire area is packed with unknown monsters.」

He adds that there hasn't been anyone who has come back after seeing it.

「There are rare cases in which the hole that leads to that abyss ends up connecting with the tunnel. Nevertheless, the abyss is deep and monsters shouldn't be able to climb up so easily...」

「Spiders can climb up though.」

「My friend, it would have been a horrible catastrophe if you weren't here. The dwarves here may have all been killed.」

「That is also fate.」

I didn't put my life on the line for their sake. I intended just to protect Celia and the others, but the end result is the same.

Celia finishes my treatment and after she confirms there are no major injuries, I re-clothe myself. Besides the single soldier who got killed, the escort unit didn't suffer too many major injuries either.

「Did the guy who died earlier have any family?」

「Yes.」

I recall seeing his wife sending him off. 1

Balbano lowers his head.

「Something horrible happened due to my ineptitude. I will make amends.」

This may also be fate. The other nine are still alive.2 It just means he had bad luck.

「You also lost your spear.」

「Yeah...」

If that was the Dual Crater, Nonna would be sobbing. In that sense, I am still quite fortunate.

Balbano stands up energetically. His legs are short so his height didn't change much.

「Alright! The dwarves will make you a new weapon, pal! What would you like? An Axe? A war hammer?」

「No, a spear is fine. I don't face off against a monster every time after all.」

Their axes are way too heavy to use against a human opponent.

「I see...I understand. When will you be coming here again?」

It would be after I go to the mountain nation territory.

「I don't know the exact date but it will be around a week.」

「One round? Where will you go around?」3

「...about the time you finish 20 meals.」

「Alright. We'll have it ready for you then.」

Balbano slams his manly chest once with his fist.

「Make it as sturdy as you can. I don't care about the detailed ornaments or fancy additions.」

It would be just like jewelled spear I received from the King. Just recently, I tried swinging it out of curiosity but it bent slightly. If I bent it the opposite direction, I don't think anyone will find out.

「Dwarves only create sturdy things. Sturdy and heavy!」

That's right up my alley. I look forward to it.

「Then let's finish this soon. To celebrate driving that thing away, let's drink buckets full of alcohol!!」

「Ooooooh!!」「To our new friend!」「To our strong friend!!」

After expelling the spider that snuck out of the hole, the dwarves bring a large metallic pot filled with alcohol and the grand party begins.

「Give the injured some alcohol!」「Give the poisoned some alcohol!」「Let's drink to our victory!」

The big party continues for the whole night; Celia faints just from the smell and Leah falls over after a single sip. Adolph drinks one cup of alcohol, then turns pale and vomits in the corner.

This is pretty absurd but I prefer it to be lively. I feel sorry for the dead soldier but even if we act depressed, it's not like he would come back to life.

「My human friend, I heard you're quite the ladies' man.」

All of a sudden, one of the dwarves talk to me while holding alcohol in one hand. I wonder what's up.

「How about it, she's a widow and desires to be with a man. Would you like to enjoy her for the night?」

Is that person you brought with you...a woman? She stares at me with a slightly feverish gaze.

「A female dwarf is nice too. Unlike humans, their flesh is packed tightly together and they're heavy.」

It's unusual for heavy to be a compliment for a woman. I guess it's the large difference in cultures, since this widow also has quite the thick body hair and quite an incredible figure. If Irijina is compressed vertically and becomes much hairier, would she look like this? Perhaps because of the harsh liquor, I also felt that this could be a fresh experience.

「Use the room over there.」

The man motions with his finger and smiles, then I take the woman by the hand and enter the room.

The next day, the heavy female is using my arm as a pillow and sleeping with a blushing face.

Her chest hair is touching me ...it feels like ever since I got here, I've had some sort of connection with hairy things.