Astrid watched as one of the big spiders sank its sharp fangs into a body on the ground, tearing a large piece of flesh off. The sight was horrifying, and it wasn’t made better when she saw what her ability had to say about this monster. It was called a gigantic arachnid, and it was at level two.

Over the terrified screams of the people trapped in webs, she yelled, "We have to do something."

“This isn’t in our job description,” Filip shouted back.

“It is now,” Astrid answered, getting ready to cast a spell. Filip made no move to do the same, and Astrid realized he wasn’t up for this fight.

“Call for backup and then help the people stuck in the webs. I’ll deal with the monsters.

“But you’ll get hurt.”

“I’ll be fine.” Wasting no more time, she ran towards the nearest spider before she could change her mind. There was no way she could fight them all, but she still had to try. If she could just distract them until help arrived, then no more people would die.

She cast a basic blast at the spider as soon as she was within range. No reason to get closer than absolutely necessary. The monster reared backwards, screeching more in annoyance than pain. These monsters were tough, but that was to be expected from a level two monster. This would be harder than she liked.

That backup better arrive soon, she thought, hoping Filip had called. She didn’t dare take her eyes off the spider to check.

She threw herself sideways, narrowly dodging a spray of acid. Before she could regain her composure, the spider had closed the distance between them. On instinct, she hit the monster with the staff. Too late, she remembered that she wasn’t holding her divine staff of Deception that had a special attack when used as a club, but a normal one borrowed from Walter. This staff didn’t have that ability, and instead of doing damage to the monster, it snapped in half. This was bad. She was alone against a large monster, and now she had no weapon. Well, technically, she had her dagger and her other staff in her inventory, but she couldn’t be seen using those as they belonged to her 'sister’.

She dodged another attack and saw that more spiders were headed towards her. She tried to cast another basic blast with her broken staff, but it only sputtered a few sparks out of the end, wasting all the mana she had put into the attack. In frustration, she tossed the useless staff at the spider, but it did nothing to deter it from attacking. Her stamina was draining quickly as she dodged the attacks of all three spiders while trying to come up with a plan.

She decided to risk using her dagger. Saving the people in this city from the monsters was more important than keeping her double life and connection to the god of Deception secret. For the next few minutes, she dodged and stabbed at the monsters, dealing five damage every time she hit them. However, she took too many hits herself when she wasn’t able to dodge fast enough or dodged right into the path of another monster’s attack. She would die if this went on for much longer and the spiders didn’t seem to weaken despite her efforts.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she saw the backup arriving. Walter ran towards her, followed by five other people. She recognized Ina, Jerrik, and Kelan, but the remaining two she hadn’t seen before. The spiders must have been smart enough to realize they were outnumbered as they scattered in every direction. Astrid fell to her knees exhausted.

“Are you all right, Sigrid?” Walter asked.

“I’m fine,”

“Good, where is the rest of your team?”

“Filip helped free the people while I distracted the monsters,” she said, looking around, but there was no sign of him anywhere nor of any other people except for a few mutilated corpses. “He must have helped them get to safety as well.”

“And Gorm?”

“We got separated at the marketplace,” she said, sticking to the story she had promised to tell.

“You didn’t think to call for help then?” Walter snapped. This was the first time Astrid had seen Walter get angry, and she was taken aback.

“You said to only do that in an emergency.” Her cheeks flushed red from the embarrassment of being told off.

“Losing a team member qualifies as an emergency.”

Screams from nearby abruptly ended the scolding, but the relief she was feeling at that was short-lived. The monsters were still out there, and people's lives were in danger.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Get out of here, Sigrid. Find somewhere safe to recover.” Walter said. “The rest of you follow me.”

“But there are more monsters in other parts of the city.” Astrid said. As if to illustrate her point, screams from the opposite direction pierced through the air.

“I know. But I don’t have enough men to split up. We have to fight them one at a time.” He left with his men, and Astrid knew that there would be a lot of casualties if the monsters weren’t dealt with fast. She had to do something to help. While she was alone in the park, she retrieved her cloak and staff before changing into her adult persona. Then she downed a health potion, a stamina potion, and a mana potion. She had to be at her best to pull off a fight against one of the spiders.

More screams reverberated through the city, and Astrid knew she had to hurry before too many people got caught up in the spider’s web. She ran towards the sound, quickly finding herself pushing against a torrent of people fleeing for their lives.

As she had expected, the monster the people were running from was a spider. She didn’t dare try to use magic when there were still so many people close by. More likely than not, she would hit them and not the monster. Instead, she rushed towards the gigantic arachnid, quickly closing the distance. She clubbed it in the face with her staff. This time the special attack took effect, and the monster reared back in pain, shaking its head. Astrid didn’t give it time to recover before she smacked at it again, getting a similar reaction. She was about to go for a third time, but the monster, having learned its lesson, swiped at her with one of its long, hairy legs, knocking her to the side. She slammed into a haystack placed there as a decoration, which saved her from taking the damage an impact with a wall would have delt. It still hurt, but she ignored the pain and got back to her feet.

The monster’s attention was now solely on her, which she saw as a good thing. Now all the people had had time to escape, and she had room to use magic. The spider jumped at her, and she cast the basic blast spell, hitting it in midair and sending it flying backwards through a house wall on the other side of the street. For a second, she thought she had managed to kill it, but it crawled out of the debris after a minute.

How powerful was this thing? Unlike people, monsters never had underdeveloped stats for their level, which meant a level two monster had at least two hundred health points. Furthermore, this spider’s exoskeleton likely worked as armor, protecting the spider from most of the damage she had dealt.

She darted away from the monster as it charged at her. It had to have a weakness somewhere. She knew eyes were vulnerable, but she doubted the monster would let her hit it in the face again. Instead, she sent another basic blast after the monster, cursing the fact that she didn’t have any better spells to cast. Fire would have been nice to have right now, as it caused extra damage if the target caught ablaze.

The monster easily dodged the blast countering with a spray of acid. She avoided getting hit by most of it, but a few drops landed on her face. Astrid tried not to scream in pain as her skin began to dissolve, and she wiped her cheek with her cloak.

It was tempting to throw more spells at the monster, but she had to steel herself. Her mana was still limited, so she couldn’t waste it on spells that didn’t do damage. The spider turned its back to her, and she realized that it wanted to encapsulate her in its sticky web. She got out of the way, and while the spider was still spewing web, she slammed her staff down on its body as hard as she could. Cracks appeared in the spider’s exoskeleton, and a bluish fluid seeped out.

Glee filled her at the sight of the damage. She was making progress, but there was a long way to go. The spider was still strong and went on the offense, slicing at her with its legs so fast she couldn’t dodge all the strikes. She countered with attacks of her own, swinging her staff from side to side, trying to break its legs, but as her own health fell below half and the spider still showed no signs of slowing down, she decided it was time to create some distance again and come up with a new plan. Preferably one that would actually work.

The spider didn’t give her much time to think before it went after her again with more acid spray. She ducked behind some debris from the wall that had been destroyed earlier to avoid getting splashed. She had expected the spider to charge at her again, but it seemed reluctant to do so. Maybe her hits with the staff had done more damage than she had assumed. Blue liquid was still seeping from the cracks, dripping down its body and on to the street.

The stone she was hiding behind was slowly dissolving from being doused in acid. It wasn’t going to offer her protection for much longer.

She wished the other guards would come to her aid soon, but as they were caught up in their own fight, she doubted they would. Not before it was too late anyway. Walter had been right not to split the fighters up, as even she, with all her experience as a monster slayer, was way over her head.

Astrid tried to calm her panicking mind so she could think clearly. At this distance, all she had was the basic blast spell, but it was too easy to avoid and hadn’t done much damage the last time she had hit the monster with it. Colliding with the wall had properly done more damage to the spider than anything she had thrown at it.

That gave her an idea. She got ready to cast another attack spell, but instead of aiming at the spider, she aimed at the top of the building behind it. Hoping no one was inside, she fired basic blast, which blew a large hole in the wall, sending large pieces of stone hurdling towards the ground.

The spider didn’t realize what was happening before it was crushed under tons of debris. She waited a minute and then another to be sure the spider wouldn’t dig its way out of the wreckage before feeling certain it was dead. Just to be extra sure, she got out her looting tool and taped it to a leg that stuck from the rubble. It only worked on dead monsters, so she was relieved when she got a new item.

New item received

You have received a bundle of spider silk thread from gigantic arachnid

Astrid didn’t dwell on her new item as there were still more spiders roaming the city. After drinking another set of potions, she began her search for the next monster.