While Finn went on another round of fighting, the adventurers did their best to handle their wounds, as well as kicking and shooting down the monsters climbing their cave.
They were very creepy, disgusting-looking critters squeezed together, hoping to get a bit of their flesh.
At the front line was the bulky blonde, swinging his sword and stabbing at the beasts climbing up. They were almost entirely of Brootrats, which wasn’t a surprise because it was their nest that got opened up by the idiot mage, now arrogantly sitting at the side and not helping them.
The blonde gritted his teeth and wanted to drag the bastard to force him to help out, but the half-dwarf next to him stopped him.
"It’s useless. Just focus on the fight that can kill us," he said calmly. As the oldest in his team, everyone tended to seriously consider whatever he said.
Durgan was a stout half-dwarf, and he was also the team’s tanker. His own body might be short, and his shield and his axe may be much shorter than the ones humans used, but his wisdom and fighting spirit had proved that he made an excellent teammate.
For example, this time. "Stay steady, stay in your lane, there are our teammates behind you."
The opening to their cave was not big, and Marcus guarded one part, while Durgan guarded the other. The half-dwarf set his shield on the other side, poking with the tip of his axe in the gap to damage the monsters if he wasn’t pushing them off with his shield.
The damage definitely could not be compared to his companions—he was the tank, after all—but it was better than sitting idly like the person at fault.
The main damage on this side was from the half-elf archer behind him, continuously shooting fast and accurate shots.
Her greenish-blonde hair was tied up in a high ponytail, flowing along the wind that was the byproduct of her own attacks.
Her arrows were sharp, but were not entirely physical. They would disappear as soon as they landed on the target, leaving the wound they caused behind.
While she was shooting an arrow a second, a certain swordsman was swinging his sword against the enemies, stabbing and kicking them out with his feet.
Still, he couldn’t help but feel irked that they were fighting like this when a certain mage was just standing at the side. Couldn’t they just throw him out?
"But Durgan..." Marcus said, pouting, looking very wronged, though his body did not forget to swing his sword to push back the damned things. "It’s not fair...why do we have to clean up his mess?"
Brootrats were quite fast. Fortunately, their party’s level was far above the rats, and that was the only reason they were still alive even when they were being hounded by hundreds of them for the past few hours.
"What will you do if he uses his magic on you instead?" Durgan asked, pushing his shield by an inch, which caused two rats to fall. "I won’t put it past him."
At the same time, they also had to make sure they had enough mana to guard against emergencies—including a possible attack on the back from the bastard. It was why he and Marcus hadn’t used their skills at all.
At some point, a blade swiped near Marcus’ face, taking down a rat that he did not notice was already about to bite his face. It had apparently managed to jump over the side of the shield and leapt straight at him.
"Stop being distracted," the dark-haired girl appeared next to him. "Next time it will be your nose."
Marcus gasped. "You used to love my nose when we were kids!"
Nona rolled her eyes, and the dagger in her hand practically disappeared from sight. However, in front of her, there would be brootrats getting swiped away, often with a slash on their bodies.
While their levels were relatively high, especially compared to monsters of the lowest level, they had been fighting like this for more than a day now, and they were exhausted.
"This can’t go on..." Durgan muttered, and he walked to the center of the cave’s opening. He used the sharp bottom of his shield to stab the cave’s mouth at an angle.
"Cover me."
The others cleared the rats while he did his thing, though they couldn’t help but be concerned when they realized what he was doing.
From what they could tell, the half-dwarf was planning on destroying a portion of the slope so that the rats would slide down.
However, this was a bit of a gamble. One, it might not work at all, and he’d just wasted precious energy and stamina. Second, it could break in a disadvantageous slope and could make it easier for the rats to get to them, instead.
"This is a bit risky..."
"What choice do we have?" he said, raising his shield and continuously pounding on the ground.
SLAM! SLAM!
Marcus cleared the way for him, making sure no rat approached him. Seeing him expend so much energy, though, he couldn’t help but sigh. "If only someone could do earth spells..."
There were only two mages in there: Leiah and Frago. Both of their affinities were wind, and it wasn’t like one of them was willing to help out.
SLAM! SLAM!
Crack!
Durgan and the others immediately stepped back as they felt the ground move a bit. A portion of the mouth started to slide down, taking all the rats near the top along with it.
If this were any other monster, making such a big mob slide down wouldn’t have been possible. However, brootrats were small and they stepped over each other to climb up, causing their bodies to tightly link together.
Hence, if those on the upper parts slid down, it’d be a chain reaction, and the rest of the rats right below them would also be pulled down by the momentum, which was what happened here.
Most rats didn’t die from this, but they did find the mountain of carcasses more attractive than them.
Although the monsters liked humanoid creatures as food, especially when they were alive, if there was a literal mountain of easy food, they could instinctively gobble that up first and then rush over to the humanoid creatures.
Seeing as the reckless plan actually worked, the group took deep breaths as they could finally relax a bit. They did not dare to let go of their guards, but they allowed themselves to rest and get healed.