The Saga of Eden

Chapter 2, part 10

Fingers slowly walk into the cave with a moderate amount of alertness, they never know what might await inside. However, their worries were unfounded, Astraka creates a simple light spell in the cave, which is no bigger than a large bedroom, and finds no traces of life inside.

“I guess you’re right, Lela.” Harmani finally relaxes and says. “There’s nothing in here.”

“Aww, I was hoping there would be something in here,” Eden says disappointingly, then turns to Lela, who is staring deep inside the cave. “Sorry about that, Lela. Let’s head back.”

Lela seems to ignore what Eden is saying. Instead, she slowly walks deeper into the cave until she’s in front of a side of a wall.

“Lela?” Eden asks. 

The young lady doesn’t answer. Instead, Lela puts her right ear at the wall, as if she’s trying to listen to the other side, and starts knocking on the rock wall.

“Harmani, can you come over here real quick?” Lela waves her hand at Harmani, telling him to come.

“...Sure?” Harmani isn’t sure what she’s trying to do, but he walks to her anyway.

“Punch really hard at this part right here.” Lela pulls her head out and points at a spot on the wall.

Harmani looks at her, confused, but Lela just stares back at him, frowning. Harmani shrugs and makes a hard punch at the spot she showed. Immediately, a large part of the wall surrounding that spot begins to crumble, that part of the wall is very thin. What remains behind the crumbled wall is a tunnel leading even deeper inside.

“Amazing...I’ve been here before and never knew there’s a secret tunnel inside this cave,” Astraka says in disbelief.

“That’s because it doesn’t have one,” Lela says, her face still frowning while she stares into the tunnel. “This route is artificially made for sure. Someone dug up this whole thing very recently.” She continues after carefully analyzing the newly discovered route.

The rest of the team starts approaching the tunnel. Astraka stares at the rubbles below.

“Then they must have covered this whole thing up by creating a rock layer using magic… Whoever did this is very clever.”

“I guess we have no other choice but to explore this secret route, then?” Eden says with a smile on his face, barely containing his excitement. 

“It’s not like we have a choice now, do we?” Lela also smiles and says sarcastically. Eden’s sense of adventure and curiosity are very contagious.

The five of them cautiously walk into this dugged up tunnel. After a while, Nara suddenly stops, her face is frowning.

“This place is full of undead.” She explains before anyone can ask. “I was very unsure back at the entrance. But now, there’s no doubt about it.” 

Most priests of the Godian, Main Branch religious group are extensively trained to detect, counteract, and destroy undead, and Nara is no exception.

“That’s good to know, I’ll change my plan accordingly.” Eden smiles and nods at Nara, making her blush and looks away. “Good thing I can still kill undead with a sword.”

“That makes things harder for me, though.” Lela stares at the dagger on her hand, her best chance to kill an undead would be to stab through its skull, which is certainly difficult, even for her. “Anyway, can you cast some curse resistance spell, then?”

“Sure.”

{Blessing of Protection.} Nara whispers, then a wave of breeze gusts through them all, leaving behind a comfortable feeling. Nara can cast a superior version of this spell, but it’d be a waste if the enemy turns out to be weak.

It’s worth noting that undead exists thanks to curse magic holding them up. Wizards can turn themselves into undead and become Necromancers, but there’s no going back. Necromancers regenerate certain amounts of Undead life force continuously, like stamina for living beings, which they can then transform into Curse magic to fuel their Undead minions, and control them. Undead will look the same as their living states, but they’re usually very pale due to lack of blood, and smell like rotten flesh. They are easier to kill than their living counterparts, but curse magic is devastating towards living beings (lower Level ones at least). 

Of course, Necromancy is illegal almost everywhere in Civilla Continent… except for when they’re legal, like during the Crisis War. Human laws are complicated.

Fingers continue walking further inside, and unsurprisingly, they encounter a large undead wolf blocking the way. Eden knows how a wolf would behave quite well, he hunted for them quite often when he was young. An undead wolf should not react differently. The wolf raises his head up, it’s about to howl and alarm Finger’s intrusion. 

“Oh no, you don’t!” Eden lunges forward at the wolf and cuts its head off in one swift blow. Immediately, its flesh crumbles into dust, leaving behind only the bones.

“It seems this place will have a lot of undead, going against so many of them at once might not be a good idea.” Lela begins to think. “It might be best for a few of us to go up ahead and stealthily kill them one by one.” 

“Hmm...I disagree. If one of us is caught, that person will be isolated, too risky.” Eden is now also in deep thoughts. “The one who designed this place probably didn’t think someone would find their hideout. In a tight space like this tunnel, their number doesn’t matter, we can systematically kill them one by one, it’s safer.”

“Jeez, Eden, you’re supposed to be on my team!” Lela smiles nervously, she sees Eden’s point but she doesn’t like to be wrong. She’s also fearing for her life, like a normal human being, and sometimes humans use humor to mitigate their fear… I think?

“Let’s just say we do that, hordes of undead will eventually wear us out if there’s too many of them.” Astraka suddenly says, then he turns to Nara and asks. “Do you know how many undead are in here?”

Nara closes her eyes and holds her staff tightly. The staff begins to glow bright blue for a brief moment, then returns to normal. After a few seconds, she opens her eyes, her face full of fear. 

“M-more than a hundred, less than two hundred. Mostly human undead. And their Levels are...a-at least 50.” She finally says, her lips are trembling.

“Welp, we tried.” Lela shrugs and sheaths her dagger, immediately turns back.

Lela walks past her teammates, towards the entrance they came in from. Not hearing footsteps, she turns back and sees the rest are still standing where they are, not following her.  

“...Uhm, aren’t you guys going?”

“Are you planning to give up?” Astraka smirks at her.

“And are you planning to get yourself killed?” Lela looks at them incredulously. 

“We can beat at Level 50 Undead, no problems,” Eden tells her.

“What are you even thinking right now?? There are at least A HUNDRED of them, not one!” She whispers, not wanting to alarm the enemies, but her face shows true anger. “Not to mention we might be hard-pressed even against a Level 60 Undead, which is likely! I know I might die in this profession, but I am NOT going to let myself turn into an Undead!”

“I said I had a plan, remember? We force them into a choke point and handle them one by one.” Eden quietly replies, frustration shown in his face. “Trust me on this. Turning back is not an option.”

“He’s right, you know. If we return and ask for backup, what good will it do?” Astraka supports Eden’s point. “Zesnisia has like a dozen Talented combatants available, none can even touch Eden’s Level. Besides, once we live, the necromancer responsible for this will surely flee before we return.”

[...I said not to turn back for dramatic effects. Good thing Astraka came up with a valid reason to convince her.] Eden thinks.

“I-I can’t run away when there’s Undead threatening the people, either!” Nara suddenly says.

Lela then lets out a long sigh. “Ughhhhhh… Why do I team up with such a suicidal team?” She then stares at the others, who are focusing their attention on her. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go before they get to us first!”