Legends: The Emerald World

"Not just you. It's a habit." She looked at him with a nonchalant face, "We were stuck naked in the middle of the snow, you'd expect us to get sick or injured somehow. I was keeping an eye in case any of us got injured."

"Even if we can't heal our injuries it'll be better if we knew about them." He looked forward and kept walking, "The cold numbs the flesh after all…"

'What a liar, as expected of a merchant.' Shin had seen many people like her, smart, calculated, and only focused on their gains. They like as naturally as they breathe, working with them is sometimes more dangerous than fighting monsters. He couldn't even count how many talented cultivators failed to reach their peak thanks to merchants exploiting them with scammy deals and rigged auctions.

His entire success might've been solely carried by a man called Alaric, a gold-loving silver werewolf that he tamed. The bastard was an animal both in trade and combat, using every trick in the book to get richer.

Whenever Shin went to see him he found him resting on a mountain of gold and gems like a dragon, and that mountain only grew each time he saw him.

Mary could see her worth declining rapidly and she knew that Shin must've gotten spoked by her. She started to get worried but kept to herself, putting on a nonchalant face. If she spoke immediately he might get spoked even more, so she kept watching him, trying to figure out a way to get him to trust her further.

'If even being naked with him isn't getting my worth up in his eyes, he's as stoic as a monk.' She knew that she must look for another way to get his attention, the good kind of attention.

Alaric was probably one of the scummiest people that Shin knew, a bastard who knew no bounds to his actions. But he was Shin's bastard, his villain. To many, he was a horrifying monster, but to Shin, he was his monster.

He stole a glance back at Mary, she's a gold digger, he knows she's trying to exploit him somehow, but then he'll do the same and exploit her network. He had learned several tricks from Alaric and it'll be fun to test them against her.

Mary noticed Shin's glare followed by her worth skyrocketing out of nowhere. For some reason, she felt scared. He had glanced at her, so she knew he was up to something. She's glad her worth increased but still feels scared about what made him change his mind. 'I must be careful.'

As they were walking, they soon reached a part of the cave that was filled with old and dusty black webbing. Countless monsters and animal skeletons can be seen stuck on the threads, dripping dust as Shin touched them. The newest one must be several decades old.

Shin ignited the fire on his fingertip and looked around, "This is her webbing. She wraps her unfertilized eggs in it and buries them."

He extended his hand up toward the threads and then stopped, "We've got a problem. With this much webbing, we might not be able to breathe."

"Can't we just cut our way in?" Ase extended her claws out.

"You'll just entangle yourself." He reached into his hair and pulled Char, "You should be able to walk on the webs without any problem." He put her on the web and as he expected, she didn't get stuck.

"We'll repeat what happened while fighting that Lizard. Relax and let's move forward." He sat on the ground and Char crawled deeper into the darkness.

"You two protect me. I'm sure several abominations would attack us." He looked forward, closing his eyes, "Remember, no fire unless necessary, and don't touch the webs with it. There is too much to burn that we won't be able to breathe. Understood?"

"Got it." Mary looked around for any monster.

"And… We don't touch the threads either, right?" Ase seemed to have been paying attention.

"I'm counting on you." Shin's consciousness mixed with Char's as she crawled through the webs, seeing the cave get tighter and tighter. It seems to have collapsed a while ago, if they had decided to push in they would've been stuck. Having the small Char explore ahead was the right decision.

"Are you in my head?" Char stopped and looked around.

'Yeah. I'm seeing everything, the egg should be a bit further ahead. Keep going forward.' He kept sensing the demonic magic and directed Char through the cracks and webbing until she reached a massive cocoon, that thing was almost ten yards tall and wide. It looked like a massive mountain before little Char.

'That's it, the egg is inside. Bite it open and crawl in.'

Char started biting on the cocoon but even after several minutes, she had only dug enough to squeeze her head inside. "It's tough, my fangs hurt."

'We've got other problems. Abomination is behind you.' When Char looked, she saw several small spiders like her, all crackling with demonic magic.

'They look like phase spiders, but those look deformed and they are dripping with demonic magic. They might've mutated from living so close to the egg.' Not many creatures besides the spiders could safely crawl this close to the egg so only spiders live inside this place.

"Are you the ones living in this place?" Char asked but the spiders didn't reply, they only grunted like zombies as they approached her.

"I've got the power of a titan." She lunged at them under Shin's command.

Back around Shin's body, Ase spotted something moving in the darkness, she took a few steps forward to check but found nothing but a hole in the ground. "What was that?" Mary asked her.

The moment Ase smelled the ground she yelled, "Move Shin!"

Mary immediately jumped at Shin and pushed him aside. In that moment a red mole burst from the ground beneath where Shin was sitting and pierced the ceiling, digging his way back into the walls.

"It attacks from the ground, ceiling, and wall, Carry Shin and keep moving!" Ase jumped the moment she saw a dent appear in one of the walls, punching the mole before it could even fully open the hole. Blood poured out, but it was quickly followed by several more dents in the wall. It wasn't just one mole, but tens of them.

Mary carried Shin on her back and the torch in her hand as she started running around to make it harder for the moles to target her. All the while Ase played wack-a-mole, dancing around Mary as she punched the life out of every mole that dared show its head up.