Chapter 48: Questing

"Did we really have to take this quest? The four of us?" Mark asked in anger. He walked in front of the group. Leon, Kira, and Sophia followed behind him.

"Roger asked us to handle this while the both of them handle another issue," Sophia stated.

"An undead is hidden somewhere in the cave network. If we get it, it could further our experiments and help us gather more and better information," Kira explained, almost salivating from her mouth.

"Did the quest tell us what monster exactly? What type of undead?" Leon asked.

"No, it did not, but the man that found it said it was extremely fast and powerful. It ripped through the group of miners that were underground in seconds, and only he managed to get away," Kira stated.

"How convenient that an undead that could kill all of them did not kill him," Mark said while clicking his tongue.

"Do you think he lied?" Leon asked.

"Kid, listen to me." Mark said. He put both his hands in his pockets as he walked while leaning forward in a weird way. "Never trust the word of mouth from anyone. Humans are savages, and the faster you learn that, the better."

"I know that," Leon replied. "I met someone that made me trust them and then tried to kill me," he explained.

"Tch, do you have to have all the experience by the age of ten already? Come on, dude," Mark said while throwing his hands into the air.

Kira chuckled.

"Actually, it happened when I was five and had just become an adventurer. I almost died back then," Leon casually said.

Mark, Kira, and Sophia paused when they heard that, but they had started getting used to how absurd Leon was. They swallowed that shock and kept walking.

They arrived at the cave entrance. It had been sealed off with wooden planks and more. It was used for mining crystals, but after they spotted an undead, no one dared to enter anymore.

"This is the place," Sophia said. "Let’s take this blockage down."

"Haha, leave that to me," Mark said, his gauntlets already armed and ready to go. He blasted forward and crossed the distance in a second, throwing an explosive punch. He slammed into the wood, his fist shattering the wood instantly, sending debris in all directions.

"Yeah, brute force everything?" Sophia said in a mocking tone.

"It worked, didn’t it?" Mark asked.

She walked past him and entered. Leon followed after her and then Kira before Mark. They walked inside quietly. Leon, Kira, and Mark lit flames with magic to brighten the place.

The inside seemed like a normal cave as they started their descent. Nothing happened for a few minutes, and their guards were beginning to drop, but then suddenly, in the next moment, a loud screech reached their ears and forced them to cover their ears in pain.

"What the fuck is that?!" Mark screamed.

Leon looked up and spotted a shadow rushing in their direction while screaming at them. He had to remove his hand from his ear and grab his wand. He pointed it forward and unleashed a blast of ice. The attack slammed into the figure and threw it back, forcing it to stop screeching.

"Good work," Sophia said.

They all looked at the figure on the ground. It slowly staggered to rise again. The figure was in a black cloak from head to toe and floated above the ground. Only its skeletal hands showed from under the cloak.

"It’s an undead," Mark said.

"Take it down," Sophia ordered. Mark nodded and dashed ahead, his fist covered in flames as he leaped into the air and punched the undead, only for the undead to burst into a cloud of darkness and appear right behind Mark, then attack.

Kira moved fast. She pulled her staff and cast a flame spell. A massive stream of flames slammed into the undead and caused it to screech wildly.

Before their minds could settle, another undead flew in very fast, and then another and another and another until over ten were flying around them in circles and at once they all started screeching.

The sound was so loud it sent them to their knees. Leon grabbed his ear to stop himself from bleeding, but they could not hold on too long as the undead came in fast to attack.

Leon pulled his wand again and cast a massive flame spell that was extremely bright and blinding. He did not know if that would work, but it did. The undead stopped making noise for a moment and moved away from the brightness.

"Flame, flame, and bright lights, that’s what they fear," Leon yelled.

Everyone nodded at the same time and moved, attacking the undead.

One flew toward Leon fast. He pulled his sword and held it in his left hand while his wand stayed in his right. He moved the wand in a simple pattern. Multiple ice lances formed in the air and shot at the undead. It vanished and reappeared multiple times to evade the attack until it dodged the last one and was about to attack Leon, but Leon had moved.

He rushed forward with his sword in hand. He controlled his flame to cover the sword and went for a stab right into the darkness inside the hoodie where the head was meant to be. It tried to screech, but Leon blasted it clean with powerful flames before it could do that.

It let out painful cries and began struggling.

"Seems killing you is pretty easy," Leon said and pointed his wand at it, using a stream of flames to burn it. As the undead died, he gained mana fragments. The moment he sensed them rush into his body, Leon froze.

He had been fighting the undead ever since the pillar started releasing, and he had barely gained mana fragments from them, yet this one had given him some. It was extremely unusual and new. He needed to know what caused it.