CHAPTER 86: BAT CAVE

Maybe if the bullets were a little cheaper, but they weren’t. This is perhaps because it is a new weapon.

As it becomes more common, better ways will be found to make each bullet, and their prices will come down.

But for now, it was too expensive. Or perhaps simply the pay here was too low.

Besides, her rifle was very large; surely she used a powerful bullet type.

"What kind of bullet does your rifle use?" he asked, to get rid of doubt.

"It can use almost any type. 308, 338, or even the .50, although I tend to go for the cheapest, the 308."

’More expensive than I thought.’ He sighed.

He also started servicing his gun after that, though he didn’t worry about bullets. He had plenty of those left over for now, and he could buy more at any time.

After finishing the casual maintenance, they both started with the preparation of runes.

She could make them with relative ease. It took her 3-5 minutes to create one. While it was still taking Louis quite a while, he had managed to reduce the time to less than 20 minutes.

That’s how they spent the whole night, until midnight when they both stopped.

Laura stretched and made several sounds as she relaxed.

"I think that will be enough. We can take some time each night to prepare more, " she said. "Do you sleep first, or shall I sleep?"

"Okay, you go to sleep. I’ll stand guard first."

She smiled. "Very well. Wake me up if anything happens." She said before slipping into the tent they had made.

Louis was left alone, with the sound of crickets and all sorts of insects echoing in the night. A few nocturnal fish moved gently through the waters and occasionally jumped out.

The sound of midnight... a peaceful whistling... began to echo in the surroundings, bringing him peace.

He hadn’t felt this kind of atmosphere in too many years... The last time he felt it was when he went on an adventure to the mountains with Rebecca, the Earth traitor.

And that was in the early years of the wedding.

Now, he was in a different world and felt much better than the last time. Even though he was alone, the feeling of tranquility and peace that hit him was like nothing he had ever felt before.

So he could relax and enjoy himself while taking care of the place.

--

The next morning.

Laura woke Louis at the time he instructed, and they both washed up in the river. They had a quick breakfast and began to decide which dungeon to go to.

"I think the best option would come to be the Bat Cave, then. The name of the castle sounds dangerous to me. We could try to level up in the Cave, and then we would have an easier time beating that Castle." Louis suggested.

She nodded. "I think that’s a good idea. I had heard something about the Castle before... It was a dangerous dungeon with death traps, spirits, and vampires."

"Spirits? Where do they come from?"

"I don’t know. Rumor has it they come out of victims who have died there, but there are too many of them."

"And do they have the ability to harm you physically or just mentally?"

"I think the damage they can do is to the soul, but they can use the surroundings to trap you or enter you and drive you insane."

He nodded. ’Undoubtedly sounds like a dangerous dungeon.’ He thought.

"If so, let’s proceed to the Cave. If we’re lucky and finish it quickly, we could try the Castle today, " he said.

"Very well. Since we’re going to the cave where there are bats..." She looked at dry tree branches from the surrounding area.

"We should bring supplies of dry branches. With rag and some fuel, we could light a lot of torches and kill them, in case there are many. It would save us Runes." She suggested.

Louis nodded. It was a very good idea. "Do you have fuel with you?" he asked.

She smiled. "Of course. I always have stuff in my inventory." She said, showing a carboy of fuel.

"Good then." He smiled and started collecting sticks that might be useful.

To save time, they wrapped rags around the ends of each stick and carefully stored them in the inventory. She shared some of the fuel she had with him, so he would be prepared, and so they finished the preparations.

After finishing, they set off for the Bat Cave to the north.

It was the nearest dungeon. And it was a cave located on a mountain.

The entrance was huge, very different from the previous one. It was more than 4 meters long. It had no stairs; they only went down like a spiral, but a big enough spiral that you couldn’t see the middle of it.

Inside, it was completely dark, and there were bats everywhere. But they were all asleep.

"Should we keep moving or kill them?" Louis asked, looking at the hordes of bats there.

"In a cave like this, if we burn at the entrances, then we’ll run out of oxygen when we get to the end. It’s best to leave it for later. They’re not attacking for now, so let’s keep moving."

After nodding in agreement with her, they both continued down the path downhill.

The occasional bat hordes made them silent, but none reacted, allowing them to move in quickly.

Soon, they came to flat ground. Laura looked carefully with her night vision, while Louis had it a little easier, as he used the Threads to see the surroundings.

These emitted a small magical light that helped him see. Although not too much, he had to find a way to get some glasses like those, it would help him a lot.

This was more so because seeing by following the Threads threw him off his concentration a bit, because of the patterns that occasionally formed, but for now, he had to make do.

They both looked at the cave they had entered and realized that there were a ridiculously large number of bats there.

But they were all asleep. Completely silent.

The cave (room) was huge, with some rock pillars ascending from the bottom to the top. After studying them, they came across a small lake.

"Toxic?"

"No." Louis touched it to verify. "It’s pure water."

"Strange. Is there a beast underneath?" she asked, and he shook his head.

"There’s nothing."

"Even stranger..." She frowned and looked around.

They hadn’t found any bosses here, and those bats...

Suddenly, they both felt danger emerge from behind them.

Louis moved at high speeds and pulled her by the arm. She took a little trip through the air, until they both crashed into a wall...

Just then, a huge, strange claw struck the wall where they had been.

The "claw" seemed to break and several ’chunks’ fell to the ground, but when that happened, new "chunks" covered their places.

They both looked in shock at the huge horde of bats that seemed to form a giant bat.

It was about 4 meters tall, and its limbs were not small at all. The wings were about 8 meters long, while its normally small legs were two and a half meters long.

"What the hell is that?"