Who Needs Magic in a Fantasy World Anyway?

Chapter 99: Missing Adventurers

"Sooo... do we just wait here or should we go help them?" Koko asked impatiently as they'd already waited for ten hours and the adventurers that ventured inside of the nest still hadn't returned. There wasn't a sign of any retreating ants either, so simply standing outside of one of the few openings made for a terribly boring day, not to mention a long one a she wanted desperately to take a shower even though the gunk that had been on her before had disappeared with the defeat of the mini-boss.

"Our job is to guard the entrances and hope that there are no more collapses." Austin replied while giving Koko a meaningful look.

"Hey, the monster did that, not me!" Koko defended herself.

"Uh huh." He replied doubtfully. "If the adventurers still haven't returned in an hour, then seeing as I'm a rogue and can slip past any enemies that I find, I'll check on them. Though If I'm not back an hour after I leave, send some of your classmates back to the academy and ask the headmaster for reinforcements. But under no circumstances are any of you to enter the nest, do you understand?"

"Normally I might bug you about it, but this time I wont." Koko joked before shivering slightly. She'd definitely had enough creepy-crawlies for one day, perhaps even enough for a few years, though she did slightly regret making her pun now as everyone was looking away from her as if pretending not to know her.

"Bad jokes aside, I don't want to go down there either." Richard agreed. "All of the walls are probably covered in slime or something."

"You'd better get over it fast, because that'll be you delving into unknown monster lairs in the future." Austin replied, making several members of their class gulp and even making Koko shiver slightly as she wondered just what kind of disgusting monster lairs she would possibly have to enter in the future. And while she'd thought that it was part of the adventure before, just imagining the slime covered walls, totems of human bones and the possible feces littering the floors made her second guess entering any inhabited caves in the future.

"Hey, we get to chose our contracts after we graduate, right?" Koko asked hesitantly.

"Of course you do, but that doesn't mean that the guild wont assign you to be doing stuff like this on special requests. Special requests that you will not be able to decline." Austin replied and her shoulders slumped as she realized that she would most likely have to invest in some thicker boots as soon as possible. And a rubber suit as well, if she could find one.

"Definitely looking forward to that..." Richard replied in a tone that betrayed that he was feeling the same as she was.

"Austin, did they take anything to help them in case they fell into a pit or something?" Christina asked. "The walls inside are smooth and will be impossible to climb if they're vertical, right?"

"They brought several mages with them, so though should be fine in such a situation." Austin replied. "Though if the mages were somehow disabled, then they would be out of luck until the reinforcements come to rescue them."

"It's been over ten hours now, so shouldn't they have at least sent word?" Christina asked.

"I guess there's no helping it then." Austin sighed before he started walking forward. "Again, if I'm not back in an hour, send word to the academy."

"Good luck! Try not to get eaten!" Koko wished him luck and, for some reason, he only sneered at her in reply before he walked into nest's entrance and disappeared from sight.

"W-will he get eaten?" One of their classmates asked.

"Of course not!" Koko exclaimed while looking at the girl before becoming thoughtful. "Probably not anyway... That's why I told him not to."

"And since when as he ever listened to you before?" Richard asked.

"Oh well, Austin's dead." Koko shrugged. "So who wants to run back to the academy?"

"I can still hear you, you damn brats!" Austin reemerged from the hole and sent them a glare before going back inside.

"You know he loves us." Koko smiled as she spoke before she grew serious. "But still, I hope those adventurers are all right... And if we do have to report to the academy, then I'll do it. I'm the fastest one here, after all."

"Actually, Christina can use her magic to fly, so she might be the best for it." Richard pointed out.

"You can fly?!" Koko asked in shock. "Why are you just standing there?! If I could fly, I would never touch he ground again!"

"I might be able to fly, but I haven't practiced with it at all so you would still be the best option." Christina replied while looking at Koko, and she responded only by nodding her head before they waited silently for another thirty minutes with still no sign of anyone that went inside.

"Okay, I joked about it before, but Austin had better not have gotten himself eaten." Koko spoke in concern as she started pacing in front of the opening. "To heck with an hour, I'm giving him another fifteen minutes."

"You need to learn how to follow orders, otherwise you're going to cause nothing but trouble for people." Austin suddenly appeared from the opening while scratching the back of his head. "Koko and Richard, come with me. The rest of you continue guarding the entrance."

"There's not any slime on the walls, is there?" Koko asked, though she started following him despite her worry.

"No, there's no slime." He answered, and after the two followed the instructor for roughly five minutes down a steep slope with Richard thankfully giving them light in the darkness, they finally came to a chamber which had over seven different passages to choose from.

"Wow, did you manage to find them even with so many choices?" Koko asked.

"Whisper, otherwise the ants might find us!" Austin hissed at her. "And for your information, when a tunnel or dungeon passage splits, adventurers are always supposed to leave an indicator as to where they have gone."

Watching as the instructor pointed to the right-most passage, she only now saw that a white arrow mark was on the side of the wall that looked like it had been drawn by chalk. And after seeing it, it wasn't difficult to know which passage the adventurers had taken before Austin continued to lead them. However, he stopped when they eventually arrived at a large and seemingly empty  underground chamber that had several discarded swords and shields simply laying on the floor right at the passageway's entrance. Though even if she recognized the equipment as belonging to the adventurers, she still didn't see the actual people anywhere.

"Richard, shine your light up at the ceiling." Austin whispered his order.

"Oh, that is so gross." Koko couldn't help but comment as, when Richard's lights made it to the top of the room, they revealed an enormous spider web which currently had ten humanoid-shaped cocoons hanging from it. "Are they alive?"

"They should still be alive and I've already killed the spiders." Austin replied before turning towards Richard. "Either burn the webs or use some other spell to cut in a line at the sides of where they're hanging. Koko, you'll then grab the web and then pull it down while lowering them gently so that Richard and I can free them."

"You mean that I have to touch a web? On purpose?" Koko asked in a loud whisper while remembering how grossed out she'd been every time that she'd run into smaller webs on accident.

"Would you rather leave them up there?" Austin asked.

"No, but what happens when the web breaks and they fall?" Koko asked.

"The web is really elastic, so it wont break that easily." Austin explained.

"Alright then- Wait a minute, if the spiders are dead, then why is there still a web?" Koko asked in confusion.

"Because some parts of monsters remain in the world even after dying." Austin explained. "Just like some weapons might remain after a humanoid monster dies, so to can webs and waste."

"I knew that there was a reason that I wanted to take a shower so badly." Koko cried as silently as possible as she felt as if she were covered in bug blood all over again.

"Stop complaining and get to work." Austin interrupted her pouting. "Let's get them out of here before more spiders show up."