The remaining adventurers continued, each step crunching and dragging along the stray roots. There wasn't a convenient passageway to follow anymore, it looked like everything had been overtaken by the same roots they saw outside. The smell was a sick concoction of rotting flesh and molding earth mixed together.
None of them had a good feeling about where they were going. But the roots kept moving as if it was leading them directly to their deaths.
They stopped before a hole caved in by roots, leading into a vast room of darkness.
Jule moved her floating blue lantern closer. There were just roots, all roots, everything was wrapped and strung by roots. The lantern hovered a little higher as everyone drew their faces in horror.
Unrecognizable human bodies hung in the air with their mouths and gaping wounds filled with roots. Some were stretched apart by vines and stuck to the walls with pieces of their flesh missing. They weren't alive nor did that make it any easier to digest. The smell heavily permeated the air to the point none of them could hide their reaction. The bodies must have been sitting down here for weeks, maybe months, slowly decomposing within this darkness.
Dean deeply exhaled. "Dear god…"
Mave was the first to enter, not giving any extra mind to the dead human bodies hanging above them. She wanted to get this quest done as quickly as possible.
They had no choice but to follow her lead. Once they stepped inside the room, the thick roots behind had moved and sealed the way they came. Whatever mana beast that was in control of these roots knew the adventurers were here.
Hoss sliced away any annoying wall of roots in their way with his greatsword. He sliced one again, indirectly cutting loose one of the bodies strung in the air.
The body dropped into the ground into a mess of limbs and torn organs as if the roots had been keeping it intact.
The room had thick pillars of roots connecting to what seemed to be the ceiling even if it was just still roots. Michael thought he was going crazy by how many roots that were woven across each other, it was like they had entered a whole different world just a few minutes ago.
Mave put away her torch. If there was even the slightest spark of fire, this entire place could have erupted in flames. Michael wasn't sure if that floating lantern followed the same principle but it was magic, so most likely not. Apart from that blue glow around them, it was still darkness and silence within this graveyard of roots.
There was that sound of rolling again. The adventurers turned around and found nothing. Ellis was the most disturbed out of all of them.
"Jule," he said. "Move your lantern up."
She followed his request, pushing the lantern higher than their heads.
They all looked up to find small and shelled critters crawling along the long roots connecting to the ground. They had eight pincers, each digging and hooking the walls, and sharp mandibles that most likely tore through human flesh. It could have been thirty of them, all waiting above as if the light had suddenly halted their crawling.
Hoss immediately ran for cover. "Fleas!"
The fleas dropped from above, curling into a ball as its pincers pulled away from the roots.
Michael dove under a thick root, shielding his head from the raining balls of critters. He didn't know why they were so terrified of something that was barely a foot tall.
But once it hit the ground, his face dropped. It sounded like a heavy rock falling from the skies. They almost acted like slimes, waiting for prey to stand under them. Instead of falling on a human's head, the little critter wanted to kill the human from just the sheer impact and force alone. Then with its clicking mandibles, they feast all together. That must have explained the injuries on those dead bodies Michael had seen earlier.
After the fleas dropped to the ground, they unfolded from their shell and crawled to the nearest adventurer.
Michael pulled himself out of his cover. He heard them hiss and crawl behind his feet. The sounds of the fleas still hitting the ground above and the shouts of the adventurers were being blurred in the back of his mind. He got back on his feet and positioned his sword ready for the flea to follow him.
The flea crawled out in the most perfect spot. Michael didn't hesitate a second and drove his sword down to its back.
It didn't go through. It was like stabbing a rock that weighed tons, even sending a painful shiver down his hands. The shells of these fleas were hard, that must have been the reason why they found out how to kill clueless adventurers from above.
Obviously for Hoss, and his staggering size of muscle, his greatsword cut completely through the flea. He chopped one after another while actively avoiding the falling ones above. Jule and Dean worked behind him, trying to fend off more than tried to surround them.
Mave kicked another one over and stabbed her sword into its underside which turned out amazingly effective. The hard part was trying to maneuver around the flea with its claws and mandibles ready to latch onto any part of their limbs.
Ellis drawed his shortbow and fired, watching the arrow just ricochet off the shell of the flea. He cursed to himself and pulled a dagger behind his waist, carefully dashing around them to his disadvantage.
Michael was still running around. He wasn't brave like Mave to reach his legs to flip them over. The fleas were slow but they were dangerously determined to crawl on the adventurer's bodies to tear them apart. And looking around at all these shelled balls of hissing critters, they started to close in with the full intention of having these adventurers as their afternoon meal.
The blue lantern was unfortunately knocked down, being hit from one of the fleas above. Now in this dark room of stringing roots, only a weak blue glow was emitting their only source of light.
But this was far too ridiculous to be their end. The Adventuring guild had sent the top two parties on a quest, it would look pitiful if they had never returned.
While Jule yelled to the fleas about how expensive her magical lantern was, as if they could understand her, Hoss kept slamming the edge of his greatsword over the fleas like it was a grudge. The dark blood that stained his lower torso made him look like a meat butcher.
Mave kicked them over with purpose, ignoring their desperate throes of trying to flip themselves back to be met with a sword through their body. It was those two who were mostly doing the work.
Then the room started to glow yellow. Wide flowers sprouted from the roots above, on the walls, and beside them, sprinkling a dust of pollen through the air. Roots on the ground moved and slithered around their feet, wrapping pulling them tight, hindering their movements for the fleas.
Everybody yelled, hacking their swords over the roots at their feet. They coughed, breathing in the pollen, and squinted their eyes through the dust. But for Michael, none of this was affecting him.
"Don't breathe it in!" Ellis shouted to them, pulling up a cowl from his neck.
"Do you think we're trying to breathe it in?!" Dean shouted back. "What type of mana beast is this?!"
Mave sharply cried out. A flea had stuck on the back of her calves, latching its claws and mandibles deeper through her armor and flesh.
Hoss jumped over and forcefully ripped it away, having her yell out a louder cry than before. She cursed at him but knowing these fleas and their first time seeing a group of humans wander inside, her injuries could have been worse.
Jule coughed, inching away from the crawling fleas as she swung her sword. Even if it would simply bounce off its shell, it was enough to push them away before they could latch on her body.
"No—achoo!" Mave sneezed. "Don't! You'll kill us all!"
Ellis gritted his teeth, placing the small bottle back inside his bag.
Dean overheard them. "What's he doing?"
"Just—achoo!" Mave sneezed again. "Just keep fighting!"
Michael didn't know how far he ran away from the group. These fleas were the most annoying creatures he's faced, almost comparable to the insects he found inside his home in Almore. They kept crawling to him no matter where he was going. He hopped over them, cut directions, and climbed over roots. There were multiple times where they tried to fall on top of him but he was extremely vigilant because of what happened to Ari.
What the hell are you doing, the voice said, are you trying to play around with them?
He thought she was crazy. There was no absolute way he would reach his legs over like Mave and kick them. Their sharp claws were enough to convince him that he should just leave it to the professionals. Even so, if they saw him running around, completely unaffected by this yellow cloud coming from the roots, they would easily suspect something.
But she was right, what was he really doing? He didn't tag along this adventure so he could run around and be useless. He was tired of doing that already.
Michael drifted back, running towards the fleas behind them. The fleas were slow and their claws under their shells only allowed them to move forward. Their difficult appendages couldn't rotate their body fast enough for a human dashing around them. Michael used the flat side of his sword to turn them over, revealing their creepy claws desperately wriggling for mercy.
He sank his sword through the center of the flea's body, jolting them still then falling limp.
The fleas hesitantly kept crawling towards Michael. It looked like they didn't understand why the roots couldn't wrap around his legs. Compared to the other adventurers in the room, he was the only one moving freely with no trouble breathing in the supposed pollen.
One after another, Michael did the same process for each flea. He maneuvered around their claws, sticking his sword underneath their body, and flipped them over to their underside with no shell. Some even tried to curl in response but weren't quick enough.
Michael was even more determined than them, it was like he was falling under a trance of repetitive killing.