Chapter 7. Cat in a Spider's Nest.

Exiting the mountain dungeon and saving the people. We also get introduced to Lilly who will be apart of Rin's training team of trackers later on. 

As Rin is dragged down into the snow, he held his hands up to his eyes to block the incoming snow. He could faintly hear Rocky growling in distress as he was carried through the snow tunnel deep into the ground. After a minute of being dragged he is lifted into the air and spun rapidly as he is coated in threads, wrapping around him tightly and restraining him. Rin groans in pain but doesn't struggle as he is wrapped into a cocoon of silk which is when he gets a look at the creature in front of him. Just as expected, it was a spitfire spider. It was large with red and black patterning's and eyes covering its head that were all focused on him.

"What are you doing here? You are a long way from your own dungeon. From memory, your dungeon is somewhere in Korea." He mumbles. 

The spider clicks its pincers a few times before dragging Rin into a large open space made deep under the snow. Rin glanced around the space, noticing that the walls were made out of an ice like material. It was interesting, it seemed like the spider heated up the snow just enough to freeze it over into ice, originally these spiders would heat up sand and make glass burrows in deserts. It had adapted to the environment quite well. If Rin had to take a guess, it is storing up food. The dungeon the Spitfire Spiders come from are dark and cold half of the year while having a scorching heat the other half. During the cold months the Spitfire Spiders hibernate as they can't stand the cold temperatures and store up food to satiate themselves. 

He looks around to see several monsters strung up around the cave and then he finally spots a group of humans strung up near the back area of the cave. The spider conveniently takes him over to them and strings him up beside them before scurrying away. Rin takes the chance to check over the guild members' conditions, most of them seem physically alright but are tired and hungry, probably from being strung up for a few days. "Are you all alright?" Rin asks, squirming a little in his cocoon.

"No!" A man's voice sounds from beside him causing him to jump slightly. "We've been strung up for days to use as snacks and now our rescue is stuck here with us." The man was squirming around in his cocoon and yelling to the point his voice was echoing off the ealls.

Rin rolled his eyes, it seemed like he was at least feeling energized. He turns his head to the rest of the team, "Are you two alright? Was there anyone else with you?"

A smaller girl who seemed to be only 16 or 17 with short, shoulder length brown hair and her big brow doe like eyes were on the verge of tears and she was trembling but she still shook her head, "No, It's just us three but Keith got hurt." 

Rin glances over to a man who is a few meters away from him, his skin is pale and struggling to keep his eyes open, falling in and out of consciousness. "I have a healing skill I'll be able to apply to him when we get down. I can't say it'll do much but it'll help a little."

"When?! You mean if! In case you didn't notice, you are strung up here with us. How are you going to get us down?" The angry man yelled, glaring at Rin and scowling at him.

Rin ignored him and shuffled slightly, helping Puffy to crawl out of his shirt. "Recon you can help us out, Puffy?" The monster cooed and spat some acid out onto Rin's ties, slowly melting through them. "We need to be careful and stick together, Spitfire Spiders have powerful fire attacks and their nests are often like a maze. I remember the path out but we need to be quiet, they mainly use their sense of sound to hunt prey." 

After a moment, Rin's ties snap but instead of falling to the ground he reaches up with his chains, digging them into the ice to keep himself suspended. The other people look surprised by his sudden escape but Rin puts a finger up to his lips to tell them to stay quiet the girl nods while the ma just glares at him. He takes Puffy in his hands and moves her over to the angry man next to him. Rin feeds her a seed and gets her to spit out some acid, once the man is untied he grabs him by his arm and wraps a length of chain around his wrist before slowly lowering him to the ground, "Stay still until I get everyone else down." He scowls but nods his head quietly. 

He repeats this process one more time for the girl before he gets to Keith. He burns through the thread before grabbing onto him, wrapping chain around the both of them and lowering them both to the ground. "Now what?" Rin glances up at the man who is folding his arms and tapping his foot impatiently while Rin is focused on healing up Keith. 

"Now we follow the tunnel out." He adjusts Keith so that he is resting on his back, holding him in place with chains as he points to the exit. "Follow me and be quiet, try to walk carefully if you don't want to make noise."

The people nod and follow Rin through the winding tunnels which are lit by small fires set up by the spiders due to their terrible vision. Rin started to wonder what a desert monster doing in a mountain dungeon? It must be a glitch like in the S-grade dungeon. Rin takes another turn, getting closer and closer to the exit. If these instances keep occurring, people would keep getting hurt and being put in danger. Rin needed to get out and report as quickly as possible. The ground rumbles as a spider moves through the tunnels. Rin's eyes narrow as he quickly cuts the ice above the fire nearby with his chain, quickly extinguishing it and plunging the tunnel into darkness. "What are you doing?!" The man yells. "We can't see!"

"Shut up. Move to the side of the tunnel and be quiet, it won't be able to see us." Rin responded, pushing himself against the wall and applying his night vision. 

"Were just going to sit still and let it eat us?" It was already too late to argue as they heard as the spider roared and rumbled their way. They all got quiet and pressed themselves against the wall while Rin applied his sight ability to help him see what was coming. The spider was slowly making its way by, its movements slowed down by the low visibility while Rin watched it intently, waiting for it to pass. As he was focusing he felt something touch around his arm, he glanced down to see the smaller girl clutching his arm and trembling. He wasn't used to comforting people, he didn't know what to do. Suddenly a memory popped into his mind that made his stomach sink but he reached out a hand ad softly patted her head. The monster got closer to the wall, closing in on the angry man who was shaking a little. He tried to back away from it but accidently kicked a piece of ice that echoed throughout the tunnel. There was silence for a moment before the spider started to growl. 

"Get back!" Rin yelled, tugging them behind him with his chains before they returned to him. Rin's chains floated in the air around him, wrapping around him protectively while clattering as he tapped them together, making noise to draw its attention. It came sprinting towards him, pincers outstretched but before it could reach Rin, he ducked underneath its legs, sliding across the ice. He reached up with his chains, dragging them across the monster's stomach and cutting into it causing stinking black blood to spill out over him. The spider screeched in pain while Rin took a step away from it, his chains returning to their defensive position continuing to make the clacking noise. Rin was about to attack again when he smelt something familiar so instead of jumping into action he grinned and whistled loudly. 

After a moment, Rocky blasted through the nearby wall and pounced on the spider, digging his fangs into its flesh making it screech in agony. "What is that thing?" The smaller girl asked, her eyes filled with both wonder and slight fear.

Rin moves back over to them, watching Rocky intently. "It's Rocky, he's a monster I've raised… Rocky! Here!" Rin yells, picking up Keith again. Rocky perks his head up at Rin's call, moving his paw off the spider he has pinned down and running over to him. Once he reached Rin he wined pitifully and rubbed his face against him sadly. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He scratched Rocky's head and pressed his forehead against him as an apology. "Let's get out of here kid." He turns to the guild members. "Climb up, we'll get you out of here in no time."

The members nodded and quickly climbed up onto Rocky who wined in displeasure. "I know, but we'll get to go across the mountains on the way back so don't be too annoyed." Rin climbed up last and patted Rocky on the neck to tell him to get moving. Rocky raced through the tunnels before springing up through the snow and climbing up the mountains, heading towards the gate exit seemingly ecstatic about getting to climb over the mountains. 

"Was there anything else different about the dungeon other than that monster?" He asked pointedly looking at the smaller girl who was looking around in wonder.

She still seemed a little dazed because she was riding on top of a dungeon boss but she still had the mind to answer, snapping her attention to Rin. "Uh, no. It was just that."

"Strange. It seems like something is going wrong with the dungeon resets. I'll have to talk to Mr. Burton." The girl looked a little scared by this so Rin petted her head again. "Don't worry, we're working on it." 

The girl smiled slightly and nodded quite happy with the hand on top of her head, "... Thank you for coming to rescue us. My name is Lilly. I'm a B-grade long distance attacker."

Rin took his hand away and fiddled with some of his gear. "Rin. C-grade tracker." 

Her eyes lit up, "Tracker! You are the tracker class hunter?" 

Rin nods slightly completely stunned by her enthusiasm, "Yeah that's me. I'm in the country for a while to help with clearing the dungeons."

"Wow, it is incredible to meet you, I've always been a fan but I've never been able to find much about you online." She explains, smiling brightly and staring at him like he was some kind of idol.

"I like to keep my online presence to a minimum so that I am not recognized in public. I like to live a normal life when I am not rescuing people from dungeons."

She laughs slightly. "I guess that is one of the perks of being an independent." Rin nods and smiles slightly at her, noticing that they had come to the exit gate. They climb down from Rocky, who returns to his smaller size before going through the exit tunnel. All the bystanders were pleased and relieved to see the group come out and Rin handed off the man on his back to the waiting healer. Lilly politely said goodbye to him before following Keith to go get treated. Rin takes a moment to breathe, picking up Rocky and putting him on his shoulders before looking around for Colt.