Chapter 31 - A Grand Scheme (4)

It was early morning when we set out again, we headed north as I planned, and encountered a cave. The cave entrance looked relatively normal, minus the impending doom signs, but other than that, it looked safe.

"My Liege, we should be cautious here, i am getting a not-so-good feeling from this place," Arwan said with a tone of concern.

"What, did the 'DO NOT ENTER YOU WILL FACE DEATH' signs scare you or something?" I teased him jokingly.

"No, I'm just getting another eerie feeling from this place, that's all," He then paused, "I simply want to know that you are safe."

"...Arwan we are in a plain of mountains that surround a giant fucking volcano that is said to house a sealed god, I don't think we are safe anywhere here," I said, sharing my honest feelings.

I then waltzed right into the cave with the impending doom signs, dragging Arwan in with me, who followed but very reluctantly, taking any chance he could to try and use his strength to drag me back out of the cave, but I didn't budge.

'I must thank the Og. Lev later for having all this built up muscle.' I thought half joking.

Entering the cave, there was a path that split into two, so I pulled out the map to see if it had anything to show for it, but it only showed the same thing it did when we first woke up.

"Does the map show which way to go?"

"No, we'll have to take a gamble this time, should we perhaps split up?"

"Absolutely not! Isn't the whole reason I'm here to help you?" Arwan expressed his discontent with my comment.

"Sorry, you're right, alright let's go right then, right is right, right?" I joked, trying to lift the mood.

We walked for around 20 minutes before we reached a large cavern, it had stalagmites and stalactites all over the ceiling and floors, there were also a few glow worms here and there, and glowing gems that lit up what seemed to be multiple paths.

"Great, just great, a maze…Are you any good at mazes or puzzles?" I said to Arwan.

"Not really, but I have good instincts and a good sense of direction!" He replied.

"Haaaaaa, let's just do our best," I sighed, then took out a lantern case from my bag and put one of the glowing gems in it, "Come on, we shouldn't dilly dally for so long."

"Right," He said while putting a hand on the hilt of his sword.

It had been roughly 5 minutes since we entered the maze, and we were already lost in where we were. I looked at the map again to see if anything new showed up, but it was still the exact same.

'Damn god, couldn't you at least give a path for this bloody maze!'

 A little while later we entered an open space, that was probably the center of the maze, but not the achieved end. Instead, there were around 10 different directions we could go, including the one we entered from. Looking up, I saw another opening, this time it was in the ceiling directly above us.

"Hey Arwan, do you think you could fit up there in you're dragon form?" I asked him, wanting to at least go check it out.

"Hm, maybe not in my dragon form, but I could either use some wind magic to go look up there, or I could transform into my half-form," Arwan speculated.

"You're half-form, what's that?" I asked, not having heard of it, not even from the novel.

"It's pretty much just my human form but with my horns, wings, and a smaller version of my tail," He explained.

"Alright, then could you do that and-" I had started to say but was then cut off by the sound of my lantern and the gem inside of it being knocked right out my hand and then smashed to bits.

At the same time, all of the other glowing gems in the area were destroyed, and the only thing that was left was the glow worms, but they didn't give enough light to see with.

"My Liege, are you alright!?" Arwan said, grabbing my arm so that I knew he was there.

"I'm fine, you can still see right?" I asked and saw his silhouette nodd, " Alright, then could you bring your wings out and take us up to the entrance in the ceiling?"

"Understood," I then felt myself being picked up in a bridal carry, and the feeling of the air around me descending.

A few moments later I heard Arwan's feet tap on a smooth stone-like texture, and then he started to put me down and I slipped out of his arm. While still holding onto his shoulder I looked around the space we were in to see if I could find any light sources.

As I turned to the side I saw a small opening with a green light of sorts shining, i seemed to be at least 20 feet away, which helped me get an estimate of how large the space was.

"My Liege, what should we do from here?" Arwan asked, startling me a bit.

"This seems to be a large space, and there is a light coming from over there," I said pointing at the light I saw earlier, "I want to try and make my way over there, is there anything that could harm me on the floor?"

"Hmmmm, not that I can see, the space is pretty much empty other than a few stalagmites and stalactites near the walls, oh and don't worry about corners, the space is shaped like an arena," Arwan confirmed.

"Alright then let's start heading that way," I said pointing over to the light and holding Arwan's hand, "You'll guide me, right?"

"Of course, please follow my lead!" Arwan said hastily while gripping my hand and walking me in the direction of the small cave cropping.

'Ha, who knew that Arwans ability to see in the dark would be this handy!'

As we started walking in the direction of the faint light, a sudden strong gust of wind blew in our direction, I found it odd since I didn't see any daylight shining into the cavern, and Arwan didn't point out any openings here.

Then suddenly Arwan startled me by yelling, "My Liege, duck!" before grabbing hold of me and shoving my body closer to the ground, making me bend my knees.

"What is it-" I had started to say before hearing Arwan groan and a clanging sound, "Arwan?! What just happened?!"

"Some sort of creature just appeared and attacked us, it looked like a moth and human-man hybrid," He explained.

"You're trying to tell me that the fucking moth man is real and just tried to harm us? What utter bullshit!" I exclaimed, remembering the old tale from my old world.

"Do you really think I would lie about something like that?" He said before I heard another clanging noise, "Stay here, I'll take care of it quickly!"

"Arwan! Haaaa and he's left," I mumbled, not feeling his presence nor being able to reach him, "oh what the hell, YOU BETTER NOT GET INJURED!"

"I'll try my hardest not to!" Arwan responded, before a couple more clanging noises, "Damn Bird!"

"..."

'Do I just stand here or…I mean I could just run over to the light since Arwan said there weren't any obstacles, but at the same time I could get the creature's attention that way…'

Right as I had that thought a retching screech pierced my ears, startling me. Immediately, there were more gusts of wind, which was three times stronger than the first.

"What the bloody hell was that?!" I yelled at Arwan.

"Uh, so how should i put this…there are more moth men now…" He said reluctantly.

"...well isn't that just lovely?" I said sarcastically, "Can you handle them all or do you need my help?"

"I'm alright, just make sure not to make any sudden movements, and stay where you are," He reaffirmed.

Right as he said that a light showed from behind me, which was also where the dimly lit cropping of the cavern was. As I slowly turned my head behind me to see what it was, I started to regret my life decisions.

"You have to be fucking kidding me!" I burst out.

Behind me was a large golem, it looked like it was made out of magma and lava, and it was also lit on fire on the top of its head.

'Huh, it kinda looks like Hades from Hercules haha! But also ten times worse.'

"My Liege!" Arwan gave a worried yell in my direction.

"I'm fine! Just focus on your side alright!" I said without turning back around, "Alright big guy, looks like it's you versus me."

"Arghhhhhhh!" the golem gave a large battle cry before slamming his fist towards me.

I quickly jumped out of the way and rolled to the side, and in turn, the golem tried to stomp on me like a pancake, but I just dodged again. I quickly summoned my scythe and tried to slash its leg off but my scythe just made a screeching noise against the rock.

'That clearly won't work then, oh shit!'

The golem brought both of its large hands down to try and grab me, but I used my scythe as a barrier to keep his hands from grabbing a hold of me. Then i hoisted myself up to where i was doing a handstand on the handle of the scythe and pushed myself against it before releasing myself back and taking the scythe back with me.

'Thank god for Lev having all this muscle and muscle memory!'

As i freed my scythe from the golem's hands, it's hands slammed together and started to fall over, and when it reached the ground it made a loud thud. I was startled and immediately remembered that Arwan was also in the cavern fighting of the moth men, so i turned my head to check on him, only to find that it really was moth men and that they all had now glanced in my direction.

"Fuck…" I cursed before over half of the moth men started to fly in my direction, "Arwan, I'm sorry I said you were talking bullshit!"

I immediately took a break for the opening that the green light was coming from, at that point I didn't care what was there, I just bolted and took my chances. As I was running suddenly a giant fireball flew past me, making me realize that the golem had gotten up.

"Shit shit shitttt," I sang, making the last 'Shit' sound like an opera tune.

When I reached the opening for the green light I dashed inside, not caring if there was another golem in here of not. 

'Wait…I left Arwan out there…meh I'm sure he's fine!'

Looking at my surroundings, i was in a wide corridor, it was a tall as the magma golem was. At the end of the corridor was the green light, but it was much more brighter, it seemed to be flickering like a flame in a fire place.

Walking closer to the light, the temperature in the corridor got hotter and i started to sweat. I took the handkerchief from my back pocket and whipped the sweat off of my forehead with it.

Once i was only a few steps away from the entrance, the temperature rose dramatically, i started breathing hard and sweating a lot more. Pushing through the heat i entered the space at the end of the corridor, where i saw a large green flame sitting on top of a large fire place.

Just then, i felt the map Hunapo gave me vibrate once more. Taking it out of my pocket, it saw that it had changed, it no longer showed a map of the mountains, it now had words on it and a few pictures.

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Congratulations on reaching the fire attribute divine power "Prometheus' Fire!" I knew you could do it!What is on the map now is the ways to obtain the power without turning to dust, good luck!

-Hunapo

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"..."

'ARGHHHHHHH! He couldn't have told me about this earlier!?'

I took a careful look at the map, the pictures showed that i had to reinforce some bones with dead mana, then somehow turn them into gauntlets and absorb the fire through them.

"Well this will be fun!"