Time: Morning, 8th Era, Year 431, Fifth Month
Location: Calderran Outskirts, Mine.
[A/T: Arachnids have now been changed to Cave Spiders. :) ]
In front of the mining tunnel entrance, Gabriel stood as he examines the inside of the tunnel from afar.
"I'm only at the entrance and i could already see cobwebs, there must be hundreds of them....."
Gabriel opens his bag and takes out a makeshift torch and a box of matchsticks.
"It's very convenient to have matches in this world.....technology is a very wonderful thing."
Gabriel lights up the torch and enters the tunnel with his sword in hand.
Inside, the tunnel was blocked with cobwebs so Gabriel had to cut them with his sword as he trekked deeper.
"There's so much cobwebs but no spiders in sight...are they lying in ambush or something or is the mission actually a cleaning mission not a hunting one..."
About 20 minutes goes by and he still couldn't find any cave spiders...this was bad for Gabriel as he slowly tires from walking and cutting cobwebs.
"I'm beginning to think that the cobwebs were deliberately placed to slowly tire out incoming adventurers so they can ambush them without resistance..."
A few more minutes goes by and Gabriel was starting to get annoyed of the walking and cutting. He stopped and glared at the cobwebs in annoyance....then suddenly.....he had an idea.
"ooohhhhh...wait a minute....if tiring people out is their plan.....then i think i might have an idea..."
With a smirk on his face, Gabriel continued to walk and cut the cobwebs in front of him.
After a few minutes later, Gabriel pretended to be exhausted and sits besides the tunnel wall. He was both waiting for them to strike and to rest for a brief moment as the walking and cutting did tire him out a bit.
If Gabriel's assumption were to be true, then he could most likely turn the tables against the conniving spider bastards.
Lo and behold, in just a few moments later....he heard crawling noises....Gabriel then carefully grabs a molotov and waited until he was able to see them with the torch's light.....
"Goddamn...there's so many of them.....and they're as big as a motorcycle helmet!?.....his sh*t ain't normal....i don't think 7 silver and 50 bronze coins is enough for this kind of bullsh*t..."
Gabriel then lights up the molotov with the torch's flame and throws it towards the cave spiders which shattered, spreading fire and burning the spiders to ashes.
*HISS!!!!* *HISS!!!!* *HISS!!!!* *HISS!!!!*
"HAHAHAHAHAH It's worki-- *cough* *cough* F*CK I FORGOT ABOUT THE SMOKE!!!" screamed the suffocating Gabriel
He quickly opens his bag and takes out a cloth which he doused with water and tied it to his lower face. "I gotta get outta here!!!!...but first....let me throw the other molotovs first...."
Gabriel quickly lights up the other molotovs and throws it towards the deeper parts of the tunnel then grabs his bag and bolted back to the entrance.
Despite taking over 20 minutes to get tohere from the entrance, Gabriel managed to get back to the entrabce in just 6 minutes by running.
Gabriel takes off the wet cloth from his face and takes a few deep breaths. "ughhh f*ck....how the hell did i forget about the damn smoke...7 silver and 50 bronze coins really isn't enough for this sh*t....but at least i'll be able to kill them without spending much energy....."
The reason why Gabriel threw the other molotovs in the tunnel was to not only kill the arachnids with fire.....but to also suffocate them...though he knew that being spiders, they have a different system of breathing than humans so they could survive for extended periods of time without oxygen.
However, due to being exposed in smoke for a long period of time, it could most likely make them disoriented.....so if Gabriel were to come across that survived the onslaught of fire...taking them out would be more easier.
Due to immense smoke that was still inside the mining tunnel, Gabriel decided to take a quick rest near the entrance to wait for the smoke to diminish.
After about an hour or two, Gabriel lights up his torch once more and grabs his sword to enter the tunnel once more.
After a bit of walking, Gabriel arrived at the place where he threw the molotovs. The path ahead was filled with burnt arachnids.
"Would you like at that...maybe some of them were cooked for consumption.....nope.....they're both spider and ashes....."
Gabriel continued to walk ahead to check whether or not the spider nest was affected by the fire and smoke.
"Ohh...this doesn't look good" murmurred Gabriel.
He hasn't even reached the spider nest and he could already see spiders in a disoriented state. Though it was a good thing, it also meant that the smoke wasn't able to reach the spider nest and they were probably very alive and unaffected there.
Gabriel lets out a sigh and began killing the spiders one by one. First, it was easy due to the disoriented state of the spiders.....but as he gets deeper....he comes across spiders that were either just slightly affected by the smoke or not at all, making them much more difficult to kill.
After 15 minutes of walking and killing spiders, Gabriel finally arrived at an open cave room which stemmed from the mining tunnel.
"They must have accidentally mined through this place which led to the spider infestation."
From a distance, Gabriel could see a huge spider that was taller and bigger than other spiders, surrounded by other cave spiders. "That must be the Spider Mother....it's surrounded by so many of its children...and they're compacted!?.....it appears luck is on my side today...it looks like it's time for me to use my backup plan....."
Gabriel looked at the cave spiders with a devious smirk. He opens his bag and takes out a whole bottle of alcohol which he kept as a backup molotov, then throws it towards the compacted spiders followed by his torch.
In just a matter seconds....fire quickly began to spread everywhere, enveloping the Spider Motjer and its children with fire....slowly burning them to a crisp.
Gabriel puts the wet cloth on his face once more and watches from a distance.
".....i like working smarter not harder."
As the fire continued to burn, Gabriel checked the area for any spider escapees and killed them mercilessly.
After making sure that every spider was either killed or burnt to ashes, Gabriel leaves the mining tunnel and heads back to the Adventurer's Guild building.
End of Chapter