The Exiled First-born of the Noble House. Rising to the Top With the Worthless Skill [Null Poison]

Miasma

We continued walking while having all sorts of random chats, and finally reached the designated place that Esta had picked out for us.

In a place from where you could see the border of the miasma covered area, we entered a natural-made narrow cavern.

“Is this the place?”

“Yes. This place was right before the miasma covered area, and the monsters that appear here are mostly similar to the ones that show up at the foot of the mountain. Furthermore, we can hide ourselves inside when the miasma spreads, and even if the monsters detect us, we don’t have to worry about getting surrounded either.”

“I see. So we can wait out the miasma inside here, and then quickly make our way into the second half of the mountains.”

“Precisely. Since the cave is narrow, it is a bit hard to fight in but, in the worst case, I can fire magic in a straight line to deal with any monster that might enter inside so it’s quite the nice spot for us to stop at.”

As expected of Esta.

She really does think of everything and goes above and beyond in terms of preparations.

Around 10 mins after we entered the cave, I could see the miasma spread across this area gradually as well.

It was like a light purple coloured mist, and anyone could tell that it was dangerous.

“hey, it’s really fine to breathe this right!? This looks so poisonous just from the appearance!”

“It should be fine. I cross checked it with multiple adventurers who have experienced it.”

“If you feel even a little bit strange just tell me, we’ll rush back down the mountains instantly.”

“Got it! I’ll speak up if I start feeling sick!”

“More than your health, be more cautious of the monsters that will appear. From what I’ve heard, the number of monsters is going to shoot up by a lot while the mist is here.”

While I was a bit worried about both of their health and Snow’s, she’s also right in that the bigger danger was the horde of monsters that is about to spawn.

I activated all my detection skills, and raised my vigilance towards the surroundings and……….instantly sensed an abnormal amount of monsters appearing in this area out of nowhere.

“Damn, that really is a lot of them. Thankfully, it looks like only a few of them have actually sensed us here though.”

“If the number of monsters gets too big to handle, please draw them all near the cave, I’ll eradicate them with my magic.”

“Well, judging by the average strength of the monsters appearing, I alone will be more than enough. You two and Snow rest inside here in the meantime, we’re still not sure if the miasma has any ill effect on the body or not after all.”

“You sure you’ll be fine alone? I mean I’d love to not go out there!”

“It’s fine. I’ll call if I get in some real danger anyway so you can rest easy.”

Saying that to them, I left the cave by myself.

If there are monster approaching the cave after sensing us, I’ll need to quickly kill them all first and foremost.

It just so happened that I wanted to try out my new [hardening] and [Sticky String manipulation] combination attack, and considering the reach of the attack, this was the perfect opportunity to test it out.

I waited for the monsters to come closer while I manipulated the strings at will, and finally after a while, I saw one approached towards me.

It seems it’s the same monster I hunted on my first trip here, a Blue Ogre.

It noticed my who was hidden in the cave, and made a evil face as it tried to get inside the cave.

The cave was bit too narrow for the giant blue ogre to get inside, so while it was slightly stuck at the entrance,——–I pointed my left hand at him, and fired [Hardening] infused string from my five fingers.

I doubt a single one would have killed it but, 5 super hardened strings would probably do quite some damage.

The 5 strings stabbed right into the Blue Ogre’s head, and when I pulled them back out, the monster instantly fell to the ground with blood spurting out of the five new holes in its head.

I had tested this move out on some scrub monsters as well but, it seems this really is quite the effective attack even against stronger monsters.

The only negative about this is that it can only attack in a straight line, but if I harden the strings after I wrap up an enemy with the normal strings, I can completely restrain an enemy as well which was also very useful.

These two methods were the only ways I could use this combination but, even if the monster is able to block my straight attack, it would still put a lot of doubt and hesitation in the mind of the enemy which was useful in its own way.

Feeling satisfied with my combination attack, I continued taking care of whatever monsters came our way to attack.

“That’s about it huh. Looks like the miasma is dissipating as well.”

“Damn, you really did take care of it all without our help huh! I was watching from the back but, that new attack really is almost cheating!”

“Yeah, and it has a low stamina cost, so it’s a really convenient skill to use………that aside, the entrance has been blocked from the dead bodies of the monsters, so do you mind moving them away?”

“Sure, I can do at least that much! I’ll start feeling useless otherwise!”

“no, let me do it. Burning it all away with magic would be much faster after all.”

Ralf was getting all worked up to begin moving the corpses on the entrance away but, Esta stopped him and simply fired a powerful [Flame Arrow] at it instead.

It was powerful enough that we could feel the heat spread inside the cave as well, and in an instant, all the corpses had been incinerated to ashes.

“Oi Esta! Don’t steal my work!”

“You’ll have lots to do from here onwards, so don’t you worry Ralf. Remember you have to protect us as the wall of this party, even at the cost of your life.”

“Geh…………I do want to be useful, but I’d prefer if I didn’t have to die for it.”

“Enough chitchat, and let’s go. We need to cover as much distance as we can before the next miasma phase right?”

We left the cave we had hidden in and began walking once again towards the Cave of Bahamut.

With the miasma settling down again, so did the abnormal monster appearance, and the monsters that were born with the miasma also disappeared.

Looks like the monsters born out of the miasma can only survive within the thick miasma.

………..but from here on, we are entering an area that is almost permanently covered in said miasma.

While readying ourselves to be prepared from getting attacked from all 4 directions at any time, let us continue our journey.