Ned’s party perspective
As Nyx gave her critiques on their plan, they made changes to it. Since Nyx fought the 10th-floor boss all by herself, not just once but a total of 10 times, she knows a lot more than them.
Going back to their rooms after eating dinner, they prepared and went to bed early to fight the floor boss tomorrow.
Early in the morning, Oliver knocks on Nyx’s door to wake her up, and they go to the tavern next door to eat breakfast.
At the table, they order breakfast and go over their plan again until Nyx arrives.
Nyx, sitting at their table, yawned and had bags under her eyes.
“You look tired; did you stay up late reading?”
Keith talked to Nyx, showing interest in the book Nyx was holding and was reading last night.
“Yep, I bought this book yesterday; I’m halfway done with it.”
“That is pretty amazing that you can read that fast. I’m not even a quarter of the way done with the book you lent me. So, what are you reading?”
“Magical engineering.”
“What's that?”
“It’s about making basic magical tools.”
“Are you a mage or something?”
“No actually.”
Nyx shook her head while not looking up from her book, answering Keith's question.
“I just found it interesting.”
Nyx didn’t give out her actual reason because she didn’t want to get them involved in her business and thought it was better if they didn’t know.
After finishing their breakfast, Nyx saw them off.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come, Ned?”
“No, we want to see how much stronger we have gotten.”
Ned and everyone else in his party wants to do it without Nyx because they haven’t gotten over Zack's death. If they could, they wanted to kill the direwolf that killed Zack by themselves. However, Nyx already killed it, so they chose to fight the Latrodec spider instead because it was similar in strength to the direwolf, so it was the next best thing, and to prove to themselves that they were strong enough to fight the direwolf that killed Zack.
“Good luck then, and remember, if you can’t handle it, you can always run away.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Ned replies to Nyx and walks straight to the Dradevow dungeon.
As they were walking there, they chatted about how they couldn’t believe that they were about to fight the 10th-floor boss because normally it would take at least a month or two to reach the 10th-floor, and they did it in half a month.
“Ya, I wonder if my little sister will think I’m a hero when I come back.”
Carl spoke about his family in the village he left to become an adventurer.
Then Mark, Ned, Keith, and Oliver began wondering how their family would react to how well they were doing.
Mark and Keith are thinking about their farmer parents, Ned with his hunting family, and Oliver with his single mother, who owns a tavern.
However, this led to them being silent for a while because it reminded them of Zack.
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“Ya… I wonder what Zack would think of us now.”
Ned spoke what they had been all thinking, it had only been less than a month since Zack died, and Ned had already written a letter back to their village to inform Zack’s family about his sudden death.
“He probably would be jealous.”
Keith tried to lighten the mood, and it worked a little.
Thinking of how Zack had died, Oliver regretted that he wasn’t there. Granted, Oliver was the right choice for Ned to send help because Oliver was the weakest of their party, and Ned made a promise with Oliver’s mother to keep him safe.
Oliver hoped what Nyx had taught him would be enough because he was still not on the same level as the others but could keep up.
When they were at the entrance to the Dradevow dungeon, they entered inside like usual.
Going through the first nine floors without too much trouble, they went down the stairway and were in front of the 10th-floor boss room.
Anticipation filled their minds as they opened the door. The engraving at the center of the room began glowing, with black ash-like particles appearing out of thin air to form a shapeless glob.
Immediately, everyone prepares to fight. Ned prepared three arrows in his bow hand and drew an arrow to fire at any moment; Mark took out viles in each hand, ready to be thrown; Keith and Oliver took out their swords; and Carl dropped his big shield and sword to wield his war hammer.
Once the black, shapeless glob grew and formed into a giant spider, the black coloring started to peel off, revealing the Latrodec spider.
It screeches, and Ned fires his arrows at its head in rapid succession, following the first step of their plan, which is to make the Latrodec spider momentarily stunned for a bit for Mark to run at the opening Ned gave him to get in range to throw a vile of paint that Nyx suggested making yesterday at the Latrodec spider’s head.
It shatters its face, causing the paint to splash all over its eyes.
Now blinded from having paint cover its eyes, it moves back and tries to wipe off the paint from its eyes, and Carl runs past Mark to take out one of its legs.
The Latrodec spider attempts to swipe its leg in the general direction where Carl just took out one of its legs, but Keith, on the opposite side, swings his sword at the Latrodec spider to get attention away from Carl.
Keith then moved away, barely dodging out of the way of a swipe of its leg, and told Oliver to switch.
Wiping off the paint on some of its eyes, Ned, who climbed up on a pillar, fired a volley of arrows as Oliver went to attack the Latrodec spider to let Oliver safely get its attention.
Oliver started running away as fast as he could as the Latrodec spider began chasing him.
As he was running, Ned shouted at Oliver to tell him what to do.
“Let it crash into one of the pillars.”
From what Nyx had told them when she had fought the Latrodec spider, on her third time fighting it, due to the size of the Latrodec spider being so big, it couldn’t stop on a dime.
Oliver ran to the closest pillar and suddenly made a right turn, causing the Latrodec spider to crash into a pillar.
Then Carl ran to its left side to swing his war hammer to smash another leg, and Keith ran to its right side to cut off a leg.
Carl and Keith told Oliver that he did a good job, then Mark came in and threw another vile of paint to splash its face with, allowing Carl to smash another leg as it was blinded again, leaving the Latrodec spider to have four legs left.
However, the Latrodec spider, instead of trying to move back and wipe away the paint from its eyes, unexpectedly shoves Carl with its massive body.
Carl was sent flying and hit the edge of a pillar about 3 meters away from the spider.
Seeing Carl in trouble, Ned jumps between different pillars to get a shot in with his bow to try to stop the Latrodec spider from rubbing off the paint from its eyes as Oliver runs toward Carl.
Oliver turns Carl's body on the ground to check up on his condition; he is unconscious, and blood starts to pool from his head.
Oliver, seeing the blood bleeding out of his head, had some difficulty finding where his healing potions were. Eventually, he pulls out a low-grade healing potion from one of his pouches and pours it on Carl’s head.
Seeing that Oliver pours his healing potion over Carl, Ned continues to fire arrows at the Latrodec spider while Keith and Mark keep it distracted so it doesn’t come after Oliver and Carl.
“Oliver, pick up his hammer!”
Ned, telling Oliver to pick up the hammer, saw the Latrodec spider was doing something Nyx had warned them about; it was going berserk and charging at Keith and Mark without regard for itself and the arrows raining down at it.
This is not good—not good at all.
Ned thought to himself this because they were down a person.
Jumping down from one of the pillars and running toward Oliver, Ned took the hammer from Oliver and told everyone to keep the Latrodec spider away from attacking Oliver, who was carrying Carl out of the room, and to retreat after that.
As he said it, Keith, who was rolling on the ground, barely jumping out of the way of the Latrodec spider charging at him, had his leg stabbed by one of its legs as it was blindly charging at him.
“Gaahhhhh!”
Screaming in pain, Ned and Oliver rush in. Mark threw another vile of paint and pulled Keith away from the Latrodec spider to try to use a healing potion on him.
However, the vile of paint misses and ignores Ned’s and Oliver's attempts to get its attention, and Mark and Keith take the hit and are sent flying.