“Can’t say that I hadn’t expected this, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be this much of them,” noted Esperanza as she compared the notes that she, Dali, and Legisvula had gathered while scouting the deepest parts of the forest dungeon.

The picture that the notes painted showed a literal web that dominated the central innermost region of the forest, one that had arachnoids of every shape and size crawling to the gills. The majority of the creatures there were third-tiers, often in the middle or late stages of the tier, with fourth tier creatures no longer an uncommon sight.

It turned out that the arachnoids practiced a rather spartan way of raising their offspring. The young arachnoids, which were second-tiers the moment they hatched out from their eggs, were simply shooed away to the outer regions of the dungeon, where they would either survive or perish on their own merits. Only those that managed to grow strong enough were allowed into the central region once more.

Which meant that the arachnoids Esperanza and the Progenies had been fighting so far had mostly been weaker ones, with their only real experience against the stronger arachnoids being the more recent fights. More troubling however, were the number of the arachnoids in the central region. Where the group had at most encountered groups of no more than ten to twenty arachnoids in their delve so far, there were at least a couple hundred of the monsters in the central region, with some as high leveled as the middle of the fourth tier.

That in turn meant that there was likely some sort of [King] or [Queen] behind the whole pack that was even higher up in level, which was troublesome. While Esperanza and Belug-ur’ani were capable of tackling multiple fourth tier arachnoids on their own, with enough numbers they too would be hard pressed to handle the situation.

There were only twenty of them after all, including Ani’s warriors. While each of them were capable of handling a third-tier arachnoid, there were far too many in the center that there was no hope for them to come out victorious against such numbers. As such, the question became what they could do to lure out the creatures within little by little, if it was even possible.

Given that they likely had some intelligence in the form of the [King] or [Queen] behind them, that sounded unlikely.

As fighting power goes, people of the world generally counted monsters as generally even to half a tier ahead of an average combat class, depending on quality. Of course, nobody in Esperanza’s group had average classes. Even Ani’s warriors all had above-average ones, which allowed them to hold their own still, even if the Progenies were catching up to them fast.

The Progenies themselves were a whole other thing, as the second tier classes they received were – according to Ani – unheard of in the world. The closest thing to them were stories of the sort of classes [Heroes] and [Champions] received, though the Progenies were still a notch below those, if the stories could be believed.

Compared to the locals, however, their classes were downright absurd. Even Ani herself felt envious of the power the Progenies received from their classes, which allowed them to match up to her late third tier warriors as early third tiers. Heck, Val-Kas’j and Tiesya were already capable of overpowering Ani’s warriors one on one, as the two had the strongest classes out of the Progenies.

Ani herself was still out of their reach, as the Progenies had learned from several spars against her, but that was mostly thanks to her already being well into the fourth tier. That advantage allowed her to easily hold her own against the Progenies, even if all of them were to team up against her at the same time, as her third and fourth tier class were amongst the best out of all the warriors in Agur-Bas.

It was the reason why she was the strongest warrior despite there being several senior warriors who were higher in level compared to her, after all. The quality of her class more than made up for their higher levels. Now she was facing the same sight, however, but with herself being the one on the higher level, and the Progenies being the ones who were catching up to her.

Compared to that, it was Esperanza who gave Ani a much closer fight, especially after her class change. The classes she received were easily equal to what the [Heroes] and [Champions] received, as she was originally supposed to be one of them. That she was capable of giving Ani a hard fight despite being nearly one and a half tier below her spoke a lot about her power, and that was while her class was something that wasn’t entirely combat focused either!

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Between them all, they were confident in handling even a swarm that had several fourth tiers, but none of them dared to take on too many of the creatures. As such, they tried various methods to lure the arachnoids out from their web in the center of the forest.

The first thing they tried was to bait the creatures out using animal carcasses, but to their dismay, the arachnoids within mostly ignored them. It was only at a later scouting run into the web that Legisvula discovered what seemed to be ranches inside, where various animals were caged by the arachnoids, made to breed and fatten themselves before they were slaughtered and eaten.

Since the creatures already had a steady source of food, no wonder that they ignored the bait that the group had set.

In the end, after several other failed attempts, the group decided to do something more risky, namely to directly enter the web as intruders and lure out some of the arachnoids that way. They split into two teams for that purpose, with Esperanza, Dali, and Legisvula being the ones to intrude upon the arachnoids, as they were the ones most likely to escape such a situation.

The rest of the group set up an ambush near a river a kilometer away from the central region, with the idea being that the group that set out to bait the arachnoids would lead their pursuers there. They set up the ambush near the river because a couple of Ani’s skills relied on water, so having a nearby source helped her save up on mana.

If too many arachnoids gave chase, the group that set out to bait them would lead them elsewhere while they signaled the others to abort the ambush and to escape instead.

Together, the three of them slowly inched closer towards the central region. They had no definite idea on how far they could go before the arachnoids noticed, since in their prior attempts they were always cloaked under their respective skills. In the end, however, it turned out that the arachnoids mostly ignored them – despite a couple definitely having noticed them from the distance – until they entered the “web” itself.

That was when all hell broke loose.

All of a sudden, every arachnoid in the vicinity dropped whatever they were doing and charged towards the three. Naturally the trio did not even think twice before they turned around and booked it, taking care to keep the distance open while not going too far away from the pursuing arachnoids behind them, in order to keep them chasing.

To their relief, after they were roughly halfway down the road towards the ambush spot, they only counted thirty-five or so arachnoids chasing after them, with no more further behind. It appeared that they had only alerted the arachnoids that inhabited the section of the “web” they entered. Thirty-five arachnoids, even when six of them were early fourth tiers, were well within the group’s capability to handle.

Once the arachnoids had been led to and entered the ambush site, Ani made her move and made use of her [Flowing Curtain] skill. It was the same skill she used in the fight where Esperanza and the progenies reached their third tier, and formed a wall of flowing water that isolated an area. While it looked flimsy, the wall was pretty much impenetrable and impassable for creatures around Ani’s power level.

This time, she used it to prevent the arachnoids from escaping their ambush.

Even as the ambushing group made their presence known with a flurry of attacks, Esperanza and Dali turned towards the pursuing Arachnoids and pounced towards the fourth tiers. Esperanza took on two of them on her own, while Dali took on another. Gordy pounced on yet another of the creatures, while Ani handled the final two herself.

The rest of the creatures were only mid to late third tiers, and they were left for the rest of the group to deal with. While few of the creatures were killed by the initial strike, it left many of them with varying levels of injury, with several of them outright crippled. All the fliers had also been shot down and either killed or left unable to take to the air, since they were the ones most likely to be able to escape Ani’s [Flowing Curtain].

Val-Kas’j and Tiesya led the rest of the progenies to charge the injured and disoriented arachnoids, while Ani’s warriors joined them with equal enthusiasm. While the volunteer warriors had chosen to follow Esperanza and the Progenies out of their belief in the Deities of Yore, none of them would refuse an easy opportunity to grow more powerful either, and the current situation definitely was one such chance.

Esperanza herself turned one of her “arms” into a trio of tentacle-like limbs with blades of bone on its tips and used them to harry one of the arachnoids she was dealing with. The other arachnoid got her full attention, with three more such tenebrous limbs striking it from difficult angles, all while the true threat, an elongated arm holding a crescent dagger, lay in wait for an opportunity like a venomous snake preparing to strike out.

When the chance came, a glint and a golden flash was all that could be seen as Esperanza struck before the arachnoid could reach. The crescent dagger directly severed both arms on the arachnoid’s left side, while Esperanza used her limbs to tie up the right-side arms of the creature. It was then powerless to stop another strike from the crescent dagger from slicing between its head and upper torso, cleanly beheading the creature.

With one of her opponents down for the count, Esperanza then turned her attention towards the second creature she was fighting against. The poor arachnoid never stood a chance when six bladed limbs beset it at the same time and the crescent dagger followed behind them. Within moments it too lay dead before Esperanza’s feet, and all that despite her holding back in the fight.

She had not used [Soul Armament] as she wanted to take the chance to train [The Body as a Weapon] more in a combat situation. The latter skill was arguably her most important one when it comes to actual combat capability without using any finite resources like mana or souls after all, so she felt that she should be capable of at least dealing with easier foes just with it.

After all, the situation was well under control, with more than half of the pursuing arachnoids already dead by the time Esperanza finished her opponents, with the remaining ones given to the Progenies to help them level faster. Out of the fourth tiers, Dali and Gordy already finished off their foes, while Ani kept the two before her immobilized for the Progenies to kill later.

It was a promising start to their venture towards the center of the forest. Should the results prove to be replicable, then it made clearing the dungeon a far more likely possibility, given enough time to first deplete the central area off its defenders. With some luck they would be able to take on their foes piecemeal and eradicate them one group at a time.