The reptile-like monster does not seem very aware of its surroundings. If anything, it was looking somewhat lost as it used two of its arms to shield its eyes while seemingly looking for something on the ground.

  Must be because it was a cave dweller who hadn't seen the light of day before today! That was something I could take advantage of. I swiftly went down the cavern opening, using the same route I always used when there was an occasion to harvest some goblins.

  It wasn’t exactly a discreet way to approach, but the monster was too preoccupied to notice, allowing me to sneak up… Now, should I murder this thing directly or allow it to cast some spells in defence first?

  I did think about enhancing my energy resistance upgrade, but I wasn’t foolish. For all I knew, this fellow could obliterate me with a single spell, but also, considering his rather elaborate robes, this guy was definitely part of something, of a group… So it was a good occasion to gauge what a member of what I assumed to be a cult was capable of.

  Mmh… Let’s just-

  Reeling my head back, I calculate my move with precision that would have made my teacher of mathematics cry tears of joy, and with a sudden move forward, like an alligator lunging at its unsuspecting prey. My jaws clamped down, biting right through the monster’s two left arms, ripping them off the shoulders.

  My victim emits a shrill cry and throws… Himself, I believe? He throws himself to the side whilst speaking words from a language I don’t understand, all I get is that he is freaking out.

  Come on, man… It’s just a handful of limbs. No need to overreact like that.

  He is bleeding blue for some reason, not that it matters, as the blood that splashed over my teeth and face is absorbed just like regular blood without any issue. Not like I could get a stomach ache anyway, my stomach only exists in the realm of metaphors.

  “Hoi, speak–k Hullidis, I can’t appreciate your pain be–because of the language barrier”

  My words fell on deaf ears as the monster hastily attempted to get up, only to slip into his own blood and fall again. I watched the scene with a dubious gaze, at least as dubious as two unchanging dots could allow, and waited until he finally managed to actually steady himself.

  Nearly thirty seconds had passed since he had first tried to rise, so it was safe to say this was getting a bit awkward.

  With a face contorted in delectable agony, he pointed one hand at me, and from the top of one of his claws, a bluish, somewhat round object manifested. A classical mana bullet was fired at me.

  Which I slapped out of the air like a fly.

  “Are–you–serious? My grandma cou–could dodge this shit, and she’s de–dead!”

  The damned mage in the graveyard had been more competent than this! There was no speed, no power, no oomph, no nothing! He might as well have thrown a small pebble at me. It would have been as effective without wasting mana.

  “Come on! Sure–Surely, you can do better than th–this!”

  More mana bullets came my way, but they were harmless to me, and I just lazily swatted them away… The only reason I wasn’t dodging was for the sake of making my upgrade work, but it frankly did not feel worth the hassle.

  Was this a rookie or something? Did they send the guy with no experience who had just gotten started to get his eyes burned by the sun, looking for something that probably wasn’t here? Was this guy getting bullied?

  Sucks to be you, Buddy.

  At one point, the reptile-faced creature realised that this was going nowhere, and tried to take off running toward a gap in the stone that had not been there before today, but I was faster than him.

  I caught up and grabbed both of his jaws, crushing them in my grasp as I pulled them in opposite directions, and before I even realised it, I had already torn him apart.

  Oh…Not quite as tough as I imagined… In fact, that guy was squishy! He was way weaker than his looks implied. That wide chest and back had implied a little bit of constitution, but it seemed like books couldn’t be judged by their covers… What a stupid saying, a book can obviously be judged by its cover, everyone judges books by their covers!

  Anyway, after I am done gobbling my catch, I approach the hole in the stone, and instead of darkness, I am met with luminescent moss and mushrooms all over the place, all of them shining a mana blue, which I would assume means that they were actually rich in mana.

  The glow they emitted was weak and soft. It was no wonder that the monster had been blinded by the sun. It would be like introducing an unwashed serf to spices. The bloke would probably die from the excessive action his taste buds were getting.

  “Annie, you are the fas–fastest girl I know. You and Elowen will be in charge of patrolling the woods while me and the others are b–u–s–y here, alright?”

  The meal I just had was quite nutritious, arousing my interest in harvesting these four-armed cultists for food, and also, the negative emotions I had just obtained were those of a sapient. That monster had been considered on a level equivalent to a human in terms of intellect.

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  So once Poppy, Gigi, and Nessa were here, I sent them ahead to scout. This was probably the biggest boon of having them at my disposal. Unlike me, who was bound to a physical vessel, they could easily get out of trouble by just phasing into a wall, and their spiritual form allowed them to sneak around much more effectively.

  In the meantime, I simply stood outside the hole in the wall.

  They could probably locate caves or any empty space in any given structure… I have no idea how this could be useful right now, but that’s definitely something to think about.

  Nessa was the first to come back. She was fidgeting and holding her head down, as she always did.

  I asked her if she found anything of note, but apparently, the three ghosts each went down a different tunnel, as there just so happened to be three of them, and the one the shy spectre picked was an empty dead end.

  Although it was meaningless, Nessa went and hid behind me as I waited for the other two.

  The next one to show up was Gigi, and the short demon bounced around whilst explaining what she had seen in excruciating detail, but in short, she too had ended up in a dead end, it was just that the dead end in question had been much longer.

  The playful spirit just kept on circling me afterwards.

  Lastly, Poppy came back up nearly an hour later than Gigi had, and naturally, she was the one bearing the important news.

  “Miss…Mara…There…Are…Hundreds…Of…Them…Down…Here…”

  “They…are…Worshipping…Some…Sort…Of…Statue…And…Sacrificing…Themselves…To…It…”

  She explained, in the depths of the cave, an entire civilisation of monsters who looked just like the one I had just killed, and they were apparently spending the majority of their time praying and making offerings to a statue that Poppy described as looking like a big snake, with a bear’s head, and far too many arms.

  I didn’t have a single clue what this was, but Poppy claimed that they were all gathered down here, and that she had encountered none along the way…

  So what was this one doing here? Did he just wander about and somehow break the wall? And then he just stepped into the sun despite its light blinding him? Either I was missing something, or the one I just killed was an idiot of impressive heights.

  I’ll just focus on the rest for now.

  Three tunnels, two dead ends, and one leading to a probably heretical cult, huh? I have an idea to deal with them.

  I made a little trip back and forth to my cabin, bringing back as much wood as possible, which was usually used for my fire baths, and put it inside the tunnel leading to the cult, quite a fair distance down, before coating it all in fuel alongside the walls.

  A single spark was all that was needed for fire to roar to life.

  Once I was out of there, I draped several layers of beast skin over the gap in the stone wall to somewhat seal the entrance, letting the smog accumulate inside.

  “W–W–Watch this and learn, girls. This is how you deal with pests that hide in caves”

  “But…We…Can’t…Light…A…Fire…”

  “F-For now, that is”

  “Let’s gi–ve it a few hours, I’ll go get mo–mo–more wood”

  To make sure that the smoke would spread where I wanted it to go, I didn’t hold back and kept the flames going for nearly ten hours. Only then did I send the three phantoms in to check on the state of affairs inside.

  “Miss…Mara…A…Few…Are…Not…Dead…”

  “They…Are…Using…Blue…Bubbles…”

  “Big B–Bubbles around them?”

  “Yes…”

  Mmh… Mages are using bubbles to protect themselves from the smoke, huh?

  According to what my cute assistants were saying, it did not seem to be straining them much at all, and they were actually in the process of looking for the source of the flames, only struggling because their vision was impaired as not only was there smoke everywhere, but the luminescent moss and mushrooms weren’t quite enjoying the experience and had died for the most part.

  They must be quite good if they can maintain a spell without problem like this…

  Of course, ‘good’ here didn’t mean much. I was just inept at magic myself, so I had never gotten the chance to actually experience what it was like to be a junior mage, and the exact difficulties an apprentice might run into.

  I honestly have no idea whether this is actually impressive or not, but considering that most of the monsters have suffocated to death, I’ll assume that it is.

  The advantage still belongs to me as long as they have to deal with the smoke, so I couldn’t let them put out the fire.

  I made my way inside in the company of Poppy, Gigi, and Nessa, quietly moving through the thick smoke, and it didn’t take too long until a blue shine peered through the smoke in the distance. It was faint but noticeable enough.

  Can they not cast another spell while maintaining this one, or did they never even consider learning an illumination spell? That fellow was clearly struggling to find their way, trying to slowly follow the wall.

  I covered my eyes, sending my three minions forward.

  Nessa did the usual and produced a choking noise from behind the monster’s back, making the creature jump up and turn around in fright, only for its four eyes to see the vague outline of Poppy and Gigi through the smoke, which only made the four-armed cultist step backwards, right into me.

  Well, the bubbles hit me rather than the monster. Turns out it was completely solid like a barrier.

  I was fairly certain it had been phasing through the wall just fine, though…

  With perfect timing on my part, the result of much training and coaching from Nara, I screamed right in the cultist’s face just as they turned around to look at what they had just bumped into.

  Using ‘Embodiment Of Negativity’ alongside this little manoeuvre had proven very effective every time it had been employed, to put it in a crass manner, it made them shit bricks like no tomorrow.

  In this case, fear swelled up uncontrollably inside the already disturbed monster, and in sheer panic, the bubble was cancelled due to a lack of concentration.

  …Not that good, otherwise your spell wouldn’t be solely dependent on your attention to it…

  I tackled the cultist to the ground, and like a bear would end its prey, bit them in the neck–Judging by the cry, I think this one was a woman.

  That was easy enough… Almost too easy, in fact.

  Surely, there is at least one who will be capable of fighting back a little bit…