Cold Collection [Solo Job]

"It's cold here."

With this thought, Zeshin adjusted his scarf to cover his face. Honestly, he wasn't sure if accepting this job was a good decision. He preferred hot climates over the cold ones, simply because he liked warm things. Who didn't? Also, he wouldn't have to wear so many layers of clothes. While he normally had higher body temperature than healthy, it wasn't enough for this place. That was the reason why his shirt was buttoned-up and why he wore a fur cloak and scarf over it. Plus warm, winter gloves. Redhead also had a small backpack with a few important things. Usually, he only had a shirt and pants on his person. Sometimes he even walked barefoot around. In comparison to his clothes now, it was a major difference.

With a headshake, he got rid of these thoughts and focused on his job. After all, he already accepted it. Changing his mind wouldn't give him a good reputation. While he didn't care much about his reputation, it would possibly hurt his guild reputation by extension. Mages make guild after all. And that was a big no-no in his book. He didn't want to damage Crystal Swan, simply because of laziness. Putting one hand on the hilt of the blade that his teacher gave him, he went into the cave. Apparently, when people found this cave, they wanted to explore it. A natural occurrence, if someone asked Zesh. Problem was, they didn't come back. It could mean many things. Maybe they found a magic item that teleported them somewhere, maybe they got lost or maybe there was a dragon living deeper in the cave. Still, this marked cave as dangerous. That's why it needed to be checked out by someone. Fortunately for people living in nearby settlements, Zeshin had to go through Silent Glaciers to reach Xysse. What Xysse is, is a story for another time. The point was if he could help people in these regions and it didn't need him to go out of his way too much, then for sure he was gonna do it. Maybe he had dark, untold and buried past, but he changed. Redhead unconsciously wanted to believe that he is a good guy, not a bad guy.

A few minutes after entering the cave, his adventure was quite uneventful. The frozen cave corridors were quite small, at least at the start. He already spend 5 minutes on his knees, trying to move forward while avoiding sharp breaks in the wall. Plus, the inside of the frozen cave was really cold when compared to a temperature outside of it. His elbows already hurt from touching the floor. A cloak was so far useless because he had to place his arms on cold ground to crawl forward. He also could try moving through the small river which ran along the length of the cave, but it wouldn't be really smart. Unless he wanted to catch hypothermia of course. After a few more minutes, narrow corridor finally ended, allowing redhead to stand up and look around. The current corridor was 7 meters tall, and about 4 meters wide. There wasn't really anything interesting. Cave looked like unoccupied so far, so Zeshin doubted some monster was a problem. Still, he couldn't be sure until he reached the end of it. With a sight, young mage started moving forward... only to stumble because of a random earthquake. It wasn't long before he heard the sound of something breaking above him. Zesh slowly looked at the cave ceiling and saw thousands of icicles. Cursing under his breath, he took out his sword in the same moment icicles started falling.

Young mage crushed the first one with a strong sword swing, dodged the second one and hard punched the third one. Of course, it was only the beginning. Next icicle was dodged, grabbed and swung at the two others. They didn't break, but their trajectory changed. It was enough for the redhead to kick another one, effectively crushing it. Zeshin spend next few seconds like that. Mostly he was unharmed, though few "enemies" nicked him. Seeing that there is no end to these icicles, the redhead decided that it is time to get out of this corridor. He started collecting magic power in his fist, dodged a few more "enemies" which tried to impale him and 'Superpunched' the air. Generated shockwave destroyed few waves of ice spikes, allowing Zesh to start running towards deeper parts of the cave. It took him about 2 minutes of running and avoiding next waves of "enemies" before he was safe. He also noticed that there were a few skeletons lying on the ground, but he didn't have time to think about them. Death was a common occurrence after all.

"Stupid Murphy's law. Of course there needs to be an earthquake when I'm here. Why the hell not." Redhead grumbled under his breath. Was his luck stat 0 or something? Or did god enjoy pranking him? He couldn't be sure. Rolling his shoulder, Zesh noticed that the river still was near him, so he probably went the right way. Well, not like the cave was really that complicated. People in the town said that it was carved by the water or something like that. It had to be simple. Redhead quickly looked around, and after making sure that there is nothing that wants to eat him, he took off a small backpack from his back and looked inside. There was a small empty jar, a thermos with warm tea, pen and paper.  Zesh grabbed the paper and quickly drew something similar to the map. Very, very simple map. He was sure that after he will take care of the problem, some professionals will visit this cave and map it out. After that, he poured himself some warm tea and took a few sips. Suddenly, he was thankful for bringing it along with a fur cloak and gloves. Feeling a little warmer, he threw everything into the backpack and slowly continued his journey.

After a few minutes of walking, Zeshin yawned and stretched because of boredom. It was quite clear at this point, that the reason for the death of so many people must have been deeper. He saw a few skeletons here and there, but not much. And they probably died from natural reasons, like icicles or temperature. Professional explores wouldn't get killed by something like that, so there had to be something different. Redhead started looking around the corridor with a thoughtful look, searching for something on the walls. Maybe there were some mini caves with deadly insects or something like that? Still, why there would be a monster in a cave like this? Maybe ethernano in the air reacted in a mysterious way with something and now it is dangerous? Tons of unanswered questions were on Zesh's mind, and he couldn't answer them simply because his knowledge was limited. He didn't study magic that much like some people.

Young mage jumped backward suddenly when he noticed something in the corner of his eye. It was a white crab. Big white crab. The redhead was sure then a few seconds ago, this not-so-little animal was sitting in the river. His theory turned out to be true when even more white crabs came out of the water. About thirty. And they all started crawling towards him.

'Okay. So it is somewhat probable that this little army killed adventurers... nah, there needs to be something stronger than them. Even sheer number of this little guys shouldn't be enough to put adventurers down.'

With this in mind, Zesh took out his sword and duplicated it. Quite convenient ability it was. Redhead then smiled and jumped towards white, big crabs. He had a clear advantage over them, simply because of his bigger range. When one tried to pinch him, the redhead took of its arms with a quick cut. When another tried to sneak up behind him, he pierced his head with quick trust. One good swing of his sword and one crab was dead on the ground. They would be more problematic if they were tougher, but so far it wasn't too bad. Also, quick dodges and jumps allowed him to stay unharmed... mostly. The number of them was a little overwhelming, that's why they were able to hurt him two times. One pinched his ankle, and the second one cut his calf. Zeshin did not refrain from stomping them in anger, so after the battle, it was a bloody mess on the ground.

Seeing that there wasn't any alive crab, young mage he canceled his twin sword and went to the water, hoping to clean the main blade a little. After all, it was quite important to keep a clean appearance, even when doing a job. At one point he will exit this cave and go back to town, to tell what was in the cave. Redhead was sure civilians would appreciate non-bloodied blade on his persona. Satisfied with the cleanliness of the blade, the boy stood up and moved on into the depths of the frozen cave.

A little further into his journey, redhead saw something strange. So far, he saw some skeletons here and there. It wasn't really strange as he concluded earlier. Now, what was strange, was a path filled with dead bodies. Maybe not hundreds, but dozens for sure. Some didn't decompose yet. It kinda looked like crossing some kind of line would be deadly. Zeshin wasn't disgusted by the sight of death, which probably would be very disturbing. Perks of being a blood mage and killing some people in his not-so-legal yet hidden past. Deciding to be more careful in his approach, Zesh crossed the invisible "line", grabbed one of the fresher bodies and quickly returned to his previous position. Now, maybe Zesh wasn't the best specialist on the human body in the whole world but he could at least guess what killed someone. And the strange thing was, the body he grabbed didn't have any signs of combat. Sure, there were some cuts on his legs, but they were probably thanks to crabs. Something minor like that wouldn't kill anyone. Now, there was a chance that temperature simple was too much for this guy. Redhead didn't take this into the consideration, simply because it would be strange if so many people died at the same time. So there had to be another reason, and young mage got an idea how to check it.

"Uh... this is gonna suck so much." Zeshin said with a cringe and grabbed his sword. Grabbing it with two hands, he pierced the corpse's heart. Even after lying in the frozen cave, it should have at least enough blood to cover his blade a little. Not wanting to make this anymore disgusting, he quickly retraced traveling blade and with a satisfaction saw a small drop of blood on it. Quickly he licked it and got assaulted by knowledge and memories of the corpse. Zesh hissed and leaned his back on the wall while trying to sort through corpses memories. It always hurts like hell when he tries to separate his memories and another's person. Especially, if that someone was dead. It made them much more dramatic. After a few minutes, he took a deep breath and calmed down. Sorting through memories of the cold corpse, Zesh noticed that before death he had problems with breathing, which ultimately lead to his end. It was very important information, but he knew something even more significant. The reason for so many dead, was some moss growing on the wall at the end of a cave. Apparently, it was releasing some deadly poison in the air. At least deadly if no one knew about it because that poison worked slowly. Basically, it was a race against time. This one almost won it, but almost wasn't enough.

With these things in mind, Crystal Swan mage left the corpse aside after silent prayer for his soul and sheathed his sword - after cutting open his palm a little. He also had to take off his backpack and grabbed it into his hands. It wouldn't be comfortable with what he had in mind. After that, he closed his eyes to focus and began gathering MP near his shoulder blades. With a quick burst of blood, 'Blood Wings' grew out of his back. He flapped his wings a few times to warm them up and in a burst of speed, and with a deep breath, he took off. Corridor was supposed to be big enough for him to fly through it. He had to punch a few icicles to keep them from puncturing his wings, but other then that, it was quite simple. Of course, he couldn't hold his breath in for the infinite amount of time. A few seconds after crossing the "line", redhead landed on the ground and took a small breath. Trying no to mind the poison in his lungs, Zeshin looked at the moss on the wall. It was disgusting and deadly. He didn't like these combinations. They were only 10 meters apart and in a circular cave room with a hot spring nearby, but that wasn't very important. Young mage knew that he shouldn't waste time so he used 3 'Blood Shots' on the moss, wanting to somehow "kill it" quickly. Bullets hit their target and Zesh could hear a wall cracking a little because of the pressure they generated. Thanks to it, moss was already peeling off the wall in some places. Seeing that it need some more personal help in getting off the wall, young mage closed the distance between them and with a quick dash, roundhouse kicked it off the wall. Part of it went flying to the floor, so redhead quickly dashed towards that part. He threw off his backpack when he was near it, took an empty jar out of it and put moss into the jar. Thank god for gloves. He knew that jar will come in handy. Exploring often meant taking samples of things, that's why he took that it with himself. Shaking his head, Zesh lightly threw moss jar into the backpack and quickly took off towards an exit.

Only after crossing the "line" again, he landed on the ground and took a deep breath. Poisons and Zesh weren't exactly friends. It was the reason why this situation made him uncomfortable, and why he took care of it so quickly and maybe inefficiently. Still, he had a moss in the jar. It was better than nothing. The scientists could research some anti-moss-poison kind of thing and with this, clear this cave. It wasn't really his job anymore and it should be quite easy. With a sigh of relief, Zeshin canceled his wings, threw the backpack on his back and slowly started walking towards the exit from the cave. A few crabs attacked him on the way again, by he quickly cut them down. Or stomped them to death. Young mage questioned himself a little about joining Crystal Swan. Blood mage with brutal tendencies against his opponents in a light guild... something was clearly wrong there. Still, better to be brutal against monsters than humans. That way he could at least keep control of his body. Maybe being in the guild will even cure him of his tendencies? Who knew. One head-shake later, Zeshin started avoiding icicles from "thousands of icicles" part of the cave. And after that, he had to squeeze through the smaller part of the cave. He kinda had an idea to blow entrance up, but well... he wasn't that stupid. Yet. No one wanted a cave-in.

After exiting from a relatively safer frozen cave, Zeshin stretched and tried to remember in which direction was the town that requested his help with the cave. His memory was good in these kinds of things. He quickly washed his clothes a little in the very, very cold water and started walking toward the city. After all, no one would want to see a bloodied person on the street. After about 1 hour of walking straight, he found it and headed straight to the person responsible for this job, Jared. He found him in some kind of pub. Zesh told his story - though he limited bloody details - and gived him moss in a jar. Older man quickly paid him and ran somewhere with moss sample. Even when he was telling his story, he was too tired to pay much attention to it, so he just went to sleep. On a stool.