The Homeseeker: Elemental Adventurer LitRPG [Isekai] (Series Complete!)

The Mind of Madness filled the immediate area with a foreboding sensation of death, dread, and despair. The monster's form was uncanny enough on its own to send shivers down Zalan's spine. Floating, gray, a head without a mouth, eyes sunken and wide in its skull. Zalan felt at a total disadvantage against the creature who made its home in the Depths of Despair, his mind already feeling like mush in the aftermath of the explosion. The creature's very existence might have been the reason that the mines were so dilapidated and dreary.

The giant, mouthless face pivoted in the air, turning in a slow circle, but not yet reaching the trio. Rep looked at Zalan in panic. Finnegan was frozen in place, his eyes wide.

Zalan raised his hand to attack with his new Elemental Power, hoping light would have a huge advantage over darkness. But he hesitated. He wasn't sure that the monster had seen them yet. It occurred to him that the Mind of Madness was attracted by the massive explosion that killed the Giant Arachula. They might have still been hidden away from it.

Zalan pulled on Rep and Finnegan, rushing them back to the mine cart. He brought his Elemental Light down to a dim glow, trying not to attract attention their way. The Mind of Madness had reached the spot they stood at the moment before. It gave no indication of having seen them. Remaining eerily in place in the air, it didn't move an inch.

Rep, Zalan, and Finnegan ducked down low next to the overturned cart. It looked worse for wear, a misshapen mess of metal on the side that took the brunt of the explosion. Zalan was glad to see it was still in one piece, despite the deformity.

"Do not let it look at me," Finnegan whispered urgently.

"We know." Zalan nodded.

"It made me feel such horrible things.The worst things I could imagine! My parents…" Finnegan continued in an anxious frenzy.

"We have experienced it, too." Rep placed an arm on his shoulder compassionately.

"I do not want to experience it again," Finnegan said with finality.

Zalan put a light finger over his own lips, signaling him to be quiet. Finnegan continued to shiver, but nodded quickly. He shuddered as he breathed, placing his hands over his mouth to stifle himself. Zalan leaned against the mine cart and slowly poked his head to the top. He could just make out the shape of the Mind of Madness in the darkness. It was moving; floating slowly in their direction.

Zalan quickly slid himself back down behind the mine cart and looked at Rep and Finnegan with wide eyes.

"It is coming toward us?" Rep read Zalan's expression.

Zalan nodded silently.

"Under the cart!" Rep said.

"It is too heavy!" Finnegan panicked. "It took me several…"

Together, Rep and Zalan lifted the minecart in the time Finnegan tried to tell them it would be impossible. Without another word, Finnegan rolled under, followed by Rep and Zalan scrambling in immediately. They held their hands over their mouths as they breathed faintly in the total darkness of the mine cart. Zalan didn't want to risk emitting any Elemental Light and they had plunged into the total abyss of darkness.

They could feel the monster's presence. Cold. Ominous. One touch and they could be left out of their mind to die in the Depths of Despair.

Rep, Zalan, and Finnegan all cringed when they suddenly heard an Arachula cry out in agony. Its body slammed into the ground on the other end of the cart. By the sound of it, the monster had been struck by the dark beam of the Mind of Madness. It made an unbearable screeching sound as it twisted on the ground. Zalan remained as quiet as he could, constantly flinching at the noises the Arachula made. He had mildly hoped that the Mind of Madness wouldn't be able to attack in complete darkness, but the tortured Arachula had just proven otherwise.

"What do we do now?" Finnegan asked almost imperceptibly quietly.

Rep and Zalan said nothing. Zalan looked over to Rep, but it was pitch black and couldn't see the slightest bit of his friend.

"Zalan?" Rep whispered hopefully.

"I don't have any ideas. Can it even be hurt?" Zalan asked quietly.

"Perhaps we can try the same strategy as we handled the Giant Arachula with. We gather enough webs on the floor to stick to the Mind of Madness, and I cause it to erupt. Surely something that powerful will cause it some damage," Rep suggested.

"Maybe," Zalan said uncertainly. "But how do we get out from under here without it noticing? We don't even know where it is."

The underside of the cart became stressfully quiet. No ideas sprouted between the three of them. The sound of their own breathing was becoming shorter, air thinning. Zalan closed his eyes in concentration, trying to think of something clever to outmaneuver the Mind of Madness.

"I feel as though we are losing air," Finnegan whispered suddenly.

"We are," Zalan informed him. "This cart is cutting off our air supply and we wasted a lot when we were freaking out under here."

"The air we breathe is finite?" Finneagn asked.

Zalan remained quiet, feeling like he had already answered the question. This caused Finnegan to breathe anxiously deeper, loudly gasping for what little air remained. Zalan fumbled to cover his mouth before he made too much noise, but Finnegan pushed him away.

"I can barely breathe!" Finnegan hissed desperately.

"Fine, I'm going to get out from under here," Zalan said. "If I knock lightly on the metal, then it's safe to come out."

"And if you do not?" Finnegan asked, scared.

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Zalan had no response. Finnegan whimpered quietly.

Zalan pulled up on the minecart and rolled out as quietly as he could. He was still in the absence of any light, surrounded by abyss on all sides. He desperately wanted to illuminate the entire area, but was worried that the Mind of Madness would be signaled of his location. He listened intently. The only thing he could hear was the twitches and pain of the nearby Arachula.

Zalan raised his hand ever-so-slightly and emitted the tiniest amount of light. Immediately, he shut it off. In the center of the room, the Mind of Madness floated stationary. It was watching the room. Worse yet, it wasn't drifting anywhere. Was it intelligent enough to know that the Giant Arachula was killed by human hands? It might have been searching for life in the room. Zalan had no way of knowing, and it drove him insane to have to sit in opaque darkness.

He let out another dim light to get another momentary glimpse of the giant head. It remained stationary. More confirmation that it wasn't going to drift away. Zalan had no idea if he could simply stay in place and wait for it to lose interest and leave. He was sure that he would run out of energy before it did. He knocked lightly on the mine cart, hoping that it wasn't enough noise to draw the Mind of Madness their way.

Zalan heard the mine cart shift as Rep pulled himself out from under it. Zalan felt around until he could pull Rep to his feet. They leaned in close to one another's ears, speaking at volumes low enough that they couldn't hear their own voice.

"Finnegan has decided to remain under the protection of the cart. Is the monster still with us?" Rep asked.

"It's still here. It's just waiting in the middle of the room," Zalan said.

"Is there any way out?"

"I don't know, I didn't make enough light to check."

"What about webs? Do any remain on the floor?"

Zalan thought back to when he lit up the room. The mental image came like a photograph, considering it was the last thing he had seen. He nodded firmly. When Rep didn't say anything, he realized that Rep couldn't see his gestures in the darkness.

"Yeah, there's plenty of web on the other side of the room. Closer to the way we came in through. We blew up everything on this side, but we could probably gather enough for another attack," Zalan said.

"The other side…" Rep said, sounding queasy.

"Do you really think a web explosion will work?"

"The explosion is the best idea I have," Rep admitted. "I also considered that you could have an advantage against it with Elemental Light."

"I had the same thought. But do you really think I'd be able to overcome it with my Elemental Power alone?"

"No." Rep answered so quickly and matter-of-factly that Zalan felt like his power would be useless to even try.

"Yeah, I didn't think it would be that great either. But yours will work, right?"

"It is not that I am certain it will succeed, only that I find it somewhat more likely to injure it," Rep said.

"I knew that, I was just hoping that you would make me feel more confident," Zalan grumbled.

Rep said nothing, silently telling him once again that he didn't have a lot of faith in the intended explosion. Skittering Arachulas filled in the beats between their words. Zalan sighed through his nose.

"Do you think it'll drift away if we leave it alone?" Zalan said.

"No," Rep said. "There is a chance it may drift onward, but I do not trust that it will leave without blasting at least one of us. I do not want to rely on doing nothing. Right now, before it has decided to hunt us, is the best chance we have."

"Yeah," Zalan agreed. "No regrets so long as we try."

Rep and Zalan steeled themselves in the darkness for a few seconds. Rep patted Zalan on the shoulder in a signal that he was ready to begin.

"You light the way, and I will gather the webs," Rep said.

"Don't pretend to be stupid," Zalan said immediately. "You distract it and I get the webs. I can get the webs off with my Elemental Power. Your only option would be to blow yourself up."

"I know, but I can redirect the explosion," Rep said confidently.

"No, you barely were able to do that with a smaller explosion. You just need to be a distraction in case it sees me. Otherwise, just strike when I throw the webs at it, like last time."

Rep bit his lip, but he patted his hand on Zalan's shoulder once more, agreeing to the plan. Zalan leaned away from Rep and took a few steps. He didn't want to be next to Rep when he lit up with his Elemental Power.

He burst into a run and turned on a faint Elemental Light glow from just ahead of his hands. Like lighting his way with the screen of his phone. He raced around the edge of the room, uncertain if the Mind of Madness was even looking at him. He didn't feel like he had the time to check.

He knelt as he ran and scooped up massive amounts of webs stuck to the floor. He rolled his arms as though he was gathering cotton candy and collected as much webbing as he could while in motion. He constantly had to emit Elemental Light in tiny bursts to detach himself from the ground whenever the webs caught onto something in the darkness. At one point, an Arachula spat a wad of web at his neck, but he was able to extract it and add it to the gathering thread on his arm. Zalan huffed in annoyance, bothered by the fact that the few living Arachulas were still trying to attack him. The Mind of Madness was the one hunting them down, not him.

He felt weighed down, both by the silky webs and the smaller rocks that were stuck to the webs as he picked them up. He was growing increasingly sluggish. Whatever energy had been regained by the increase of his Level felt fleeting.

Zalan let out a few flashes of Elemental Light to get a good vision of the room. The Mind of Madness remained drifting in the center, showing no sign of giving Zalan any attention. Zalan hoped that perhaps it had decided to go to sleep, and they just had no way of knowing it was unconscious. Something akin to a shark. Arachulas skittered around the room filling his senses with the noises he wished would be reserved for hearing movement from the Mind of Madness. Not that he had ever heard anything from it. The monster always drifted eerily silently through the world it wrought horrors upon.

Zalan raised his arm high and flashed a faint spotlight toward the considerable webs he had gathered in his arms, showing Rep that he was ready. Zalan waited in silence, having no way of knowing that Rep even saw him. Rep let out a tiny spark of flame, acknowledging Zalan.

Zalan knew that was the best he was going to get in replacement of a nod or thumbs up. He made the sack of webs with a single strand attached and began spinning it around in place, building momentum and hoping he knew exactly where the Mind of Madness was floating. Again, he was too paranoid to check with bright Elemental Light. After seconds of spinning, he burned the connecting webs off his arms sent the explosive webs flying toward the center of the room.

Then, Zalan couldn't help himself. He created a tiny spotlight to make sure it was headed the right way. Like with the Giant Arachula, his trajectory was off, but the resulting explosion would still engulf the monster.

Rep let out a fireball directly on course for the webs in the air. Zalan braced himself for the explosion as he prayed silently for the Mind of Madness to die in the single blast. He tracked the webs with his light, his entire body tense with urgency and fear.

The Mind of Madness turned sharply in the air when the Elemental Light became close enough. It jolted from its place, moving toward Zalan. The angle threw the entire plan off, as the giant head was now between the airborne webs from the incoming flame. Zalan heard Rep gasp in fear and redirected the fire.

The gasp immediately caught the monster's attention and it spun rapidly, like a turret ready to take down aircraft. The Mind of Madness began to drift in Rep's direction and he panicked. The floating creature had moved too far. It escaped the nearness to the intended blast radius that Zalan was hoping for. Even though the webs were far from their target, Rep redirected his flame with vigor, making sure they came into contact.

The resulting fiery explosion blinded and deafened Rep and Zalan, tossing them ruthlessly backward.

While the Mind of Madness only took a scratch from the inferno.