As I head back to the fountain to wait for our departure, I noticed that there were more people now than there were in the first day. People with the same starter outfit that I had a while ago were littering the streets, with groups clumping onto other players who started earlier than they did. Asking from what they should do to where to best level.
'Gotta remember that if people asked me for anything, I should just look confused and act like an npc'
With the allotted time looming closer, everyone gathered one by one near the fountain again.
“Listen up! We’ll now be heading to the forest to the east, so you better have prepared yourselves” said Drake.
We then marched towards the east city gates, while other players, new and old were amazed, staring at our merry group for no reason.
'It's just people walking in a group, what the hell are you guys fantasizing about? This isn't a heroic march. This is a bunch of people going towards their deaths, you fools' I thought
The scouting party went ahead of us to kill of monster that will block our path.
'I should've went with them instead' finding the march to be tedious
After walking for twenty-five minutes, I see the entrance to the nest.
A cave opening that’s been hidden behind a foliage of trees and shrubs near the lake, just big enough for two people to fit in at the same time.
“Okay, let’s stop here for now, while I explain the details to everyone” said Drake, while gesturing for everyone to stop
“There’s five floors full of monsters in the nest. The first type are the Cripplers, one foot tall spiders that when you get bitten by them, they inject a poison that gives paralyzed or hallucination debuff, so be careful and stay at a distance and let those who can deal with them at a range kill them off. Next are the Mammoth spiders, they’re six foot tall spiders that don’t have any effects to their attacks, but they make do with their toughness and giant fangs to rip you to shreds” he stops for a moment and looks at everyones reaction
Most of the faces of our group paled at hearing the first and second spiders descriptions
Almost everyone fears the eight legged creature, but not me. I just want to wipe them off the face of the earth. Remembering the first spider that killed me in the sewers
'What's there to be afraid of? Just kill them, before they kill you. Duh?' being unable to relate to what they were feeling
The vampire man, sighs before he continues
“Then there are the Venom Crawlers, their six-inches in height with green patterns on their back. They mostly stay at walls or ceilings and will only go down when there is prey nearby. Their bite will inflict a poison status that will deal 20 damage a sec. So make sure that if you do get bitten, tell anyone of the supports that have Cure, Detoxification, or any skill that can remove the poison to help you out.
I looked around again, noticing two peoplpe fainting from his explanation
'You can just back out, you know?' eyeing both of the arachnophobes
"Then there’s the Foot soldiers and eggs. The foot soldiers don’t have any poison and are three feet tall, nothing special about them besides their large numbers. The eggs, well, they’re just eggs that will hatch and turn into any one of these spiders. Make sure to destroy them if you see any”
He then turns towards the entrance and gestures for everyone to go in.
“That’s all for the first four floors. We aren’t too sure about what the ‘Queen’ can do since the guild doesn’t have any info on her. Remember to stay together and wait for orders from your party leaders before engaging. Got it?”
Everyone gives a nod of understanding and then we went inside the cave.
Inside of it was damp with drops of water falling from the ceiling every so often, There were also glowing green crystals like the ones from Mutatio’s resting grounds that illuminate the surroundings.
'Dark and damp, just like how I want my burial place to be'
As we head deeper into the cave, cobwebs grew more and more on the walls and ceilings.
“This place feels like it’s from a horror movie I watched back when I was a kid. Mutated spiders and shit” muttered one person who was wielding a big round shield
We descended deeper into this arachnophobe’s worst nightmare. We met three foot soldiers staying at a big web to the right of the cave walls.
“Bedrock, go lure their attention. Lupin, Sol and I will back you up” commanded Drake, as the three party leaders went for the foot soldiers
Bedrock was in front, while Lupin at his back and Sol a few meters behind them. Sol threw a few seeds towards Bedrocks back and it sprouted vines that surrounded his rock like exterior.
'Plant armor?' I observed, as the vines intertwined with each other
When Bedrock and Lupin were a few meters away from the spiders, the foot soldiers moved, trying to intercept them, fangs bared and hissing.
“Come at me you freaks!” Bedrock shouted and a violet wave went out of his body for a few meters, hitting the foot soldiers, but doing no damage
The foot soldiers headed towards his direction and ignored Lupin who was drawing closer to them. Bedrock grabbed one of the spider’s legs and tossed it to the side, slamming it into the cave walls and painting it with blue blood with Drake shooting the thing, making holes in it’s carapace.
While he was tossing the spider aside, the other one jumped onto his back and started biting with its fangs. Chipping away some of the stone like skin that he had.
"Hpmh" noticing his skin torn, he grabbed the spider at his back and tossed it to the ground, stomping at it a few times before turning into a puddle of blue blood and mushed up body parts
The vines that were covering his body then made its way to the parts where the stone skin was torn off, releasing a green sap over it.
'Oh, it isn't just an armor' looking closely at what the vines were doing
A few seconds later, the sap disappears and what appeared was his stone skin, as if it was never injured. Lupin then comes closer, howling while his eyes turned blood red and starts to tear apart at the last one with his claw like hands, littering the floor with mangled body parts of the foot soldier
Amazed at what they can do
“What classes do they have anyway? And how can they change their appearances like that?” I muttered to myself
A person overheard my muttering and came closer.
“Oh, you haven’t seen a person that changed their race yet?”
“Nope. First time seeing one. I didn’t even know that you can change your race here” I said
“I see" as he raised his head, trying to recall something
"From what I heard, it happened the day after the game first opened, when the system announced that you can now change your race when someone completed a dungeon or something”
He then points towards the three who fought the foot soldiers.
“From the looks of those three, Bedrock might have mutated himself into a golem or something. Sol might be a dryad or nymph and Lupin might be one of those therianthropes with a wolf as a base"
Scratching his head when he looked at our groups leader
"Not too sure about Drake over there, since he hasn’t shown anything yet. It really depends on the cores or essences that you’ll use for the ‘Gene Mutation’ at one of the labs inside the academies” as the young adult man with blue hair covered with a yellow bandana explained further
“You can get special traits and skills from the race that you are mutating into. However, not all of them have an upside, like with golems. They might be sturdy and strong, but they sacrifice their agility, with a penalty of half of the stat for it from what I recall reading the forums. It’s not only for stats though, there’s also the weather, time, and other factors that can affect you, either to your advantage or disadvantage” he finished
Nodding my head in understanding, I thank the man.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“Thank you for enlightening this noob, Mr.?” I asked
“Names Shenhazad, or just call me Shen” extending his arm for a handshake
I smile, while I extended my arm and shook his hand
“The name's Red”
After that fight, we moved on. There weren't that many spiders in this floor. We only fought foot soldiers and destroyed some occasional spider eggs. We didn’t even get to see any of the other types here in the first floor.
As we descended to the second floor, spiders began falling from the ceiling in front of the scouting party. Venom crawlers littered the floor numbering up to seven dozen of them, falling one by one.
"AHHH!"
Some started to panic from seeing the sheer number of monsters.
“Stay Calm! Get back here, Lupin! Tanks forward, lure their agro while we support you from the back!” shouted Drake, while holding a revolver in his hands.
The tanks charged forward with Bedrock in front. Drawing agro towards themselves, while the supports spammed their skills to get rid of the poison on them.
I heard music playing while everything was going on. Looking towards where it was coming from, I saw a person playing the guitar, singing in tune without giving a care to what was happening around him.
'Nice, we needed some music while we kill these fuckers'
Drake and the other ranged classes started shooting at the one foot spiders. While the tanks and some of the scouting party tried to kill the ones that got their agro lured by the range party. I tried to kill some of the stray spiders myself, activating Butchers Instinct and using Julienne until they died.
Fifteen minutes of intense fighting later, we finally killed all of them without a single death from our side. The tanks took the blunt of the damage though, as we needed to wait for thirty more minutes to regenerate MP before the healers could heal them up back to full.
"Watch the surroundings for anything else" instructed drake, while reloading his gun
We continued moving along the second floor, fighting wave after wave of foot soldiers and venom crawlers. Taking about two hours before we reached the end that leads to the third floor.
“Okay, Lets rest here for a bit before we move on to the next floor” as he signals me to come closer to him.
“What’s up?”
“I’d like for you to cook a meal for us before we move. We might get hungry while we’re fighting later on and it might get us wiped” he explains
'I wonder what bonuses the frogs legs will give them?'
“Oh, okay then. Give me a few minutes to prepare” heading back to where Shen was, taking out my pot
“Going to cook something?”
He uses his cane like staff to get up and peer inside the pot.
“Yeah. I know everyone brought rations for themselves, but the food that I cook gives bonuses when you eat it”
I explained as I took the ingredients out of my inventory, shoving them all down inside the pot. I was using the giant frog’s legs as meat and poured in flour, eggs, milk, salt, pepper and other spices inside, hoping for it to come out as fried frogs legs that I once saw on T.V.
'Become tasty! Become delicious! Infuse it with lo...what the hell am I even doing?'
A few minutes later a *ding* sound could be heard, indicating that the dish was done. I open the lid and saw that I did make fried frog’s legs.
Hooray for cooking channels on T.V.!
I told Drake that I was done cooking. He then called the attention of everyone, saying that there’s food that’s been prepared. He made them form a single line in front of the pot.
'I just hope they like it'
It may be food that was made by the system, but I put in effort into shoving the ingredients inside the pot
So, technically, I was still the one who made it
I take out one fried frog’s leg and wrap it around a piece of paper that I bought in bulk from the market. After handing each person a fried frog’s leg, we then began eating.
“OOOH! This stuff's good!” said a bulky man, as he starts to bite large chunks of meat from the leg
“This is really good! Unlike these stale bread that I eat” throwing away the bread inside his inventory
“I don’t even know what I’m eating but I’m still gonna enjoy it” a female was gladly chowing down on the amphibian
‘It’s frog’s legs’ I answer her question in my mind
'Would she still eat it if I told her where it came from?'
“Hoh, this is pretty darn fine. Like what I used to eat back at home” said Shen while gnawing on the bone.
“Open your status window and check the bonuses” I said, eating my own frog’s leg.
He then opens up his stat window
“Oh wow, it gave me ten points of agi. Will it give me more bonuses if I eat more of the stuff?” he asked, as he tosses the bone away.
“I never really tried it, but I don’t think it does. Maybe it only stacks bonuses when you eat different kinds of food”shaking my head to the, side while I also threw away the bone
After everyone was done eating, we entered the third floor with the scout party entering first.
"Spiders!"
We then heard a shout from someone in the scouting party that there were enemies up ahead.
I used Knife Sharpening just to make sure that if I did get into a fight, I’d be ready. And ready I was, as twenty meters from the entrance were eggs and foot soldiers numbering by the hundreds.
“Everyone get into formation! Half of the tanks go forward, rotate when your HP goes below 30% then let the supports heal you”
Six of the tanks moved forward, taunting the spiders and drawing agro to themselves.
“Scouts try to kill the enemies being taunted and anything that gets past them, while we’ll handle the ones at their backs”
I was a support, but my job’s already done when I cooked the food earlier. So, I went with the scouting party and tried to kill some foot soldiers.
Spiders were crawling on the walls and ceiling, dropping in the middle of the party. I head back towards the group and charged at the ones that were trying to kill our supports.
"Hello!" I activated Butchers Instinct and spammed Julienne until my MP was at 1/5th of the bar, killing five arachnids.
Some of the scouts going back from the frontlines to protect the supports.
“Aim for those who are at the walls and ceilings!”
Drake shoots a foot soldier crawling on the wall
More and more spiders came at us, almost overwhelming the tanks that are in front. Making it rain fire, lightning and gunpowder as the range unit tries to keep the eight legged freaks at bay.
“Rotate!” shouted Bedrock, as they move back towards the group with six other tanks replacing them
One tank gets ravaged by spiders and fell to the ground, turning into particles and dissipating into thin air.
Cutting away as many as I can, while some of the spiders bite at me. Laughing every time, making my body tingle as it sends a wave of delight throughout it.
‘This feels nice’ slashing at the last foot soldier that landed inside the group
After asking to be healed from one of the supports, I made my way to the front where the tanks were.
A louder hissing sound could be heard from the back of the swam of spiders. Looking closer, six feet tall spiders were crawling, making their way into the front.
“Tanks that are fully healed, go in front and agro those Mammoth spiders!” yelled Drake
The tanks were charging to the front, while I try to intercept one of them mammoths.
"Your mine~"
I slash at one of the red lines at its face, injuring it, but it wasn’t a deep wound, as little droplets of blue blood fell to the floor. It raised its front legs and tried to pierce me with it, making me roll to the side as the earth that it landed on cracked, sending rubble a few meters from it.
It then crawled towards me, readying its twelve inch fangs.
I get up and ready my knife again,
"Nope"
it jumps towards me, as I rolled below it, avoiding the creature completely. I quickly get back up again and jumpe into its abdomen, starting a wave of slashes.
“Hahaha! I had enough of shitty spiders trying to eat me. This time I’m gonna cut you up and make you into food! Let’s see how you’ll taste when I'm done with you~!” as I continued slashing at the red lines.
It then jumps to the side, trying to slam me in the wall.
It succeeds in taking away 1/6th of my HP by doing so.
“Oh, how about I fry you up. Hmm, should I dip you in tempura batter first before frying? Guess I’ll need to buy flour and baking soda later~”
Getting up, I give it a wide grin, trying to think of ways to cook the bastard.
The spider attacks me again using its two front legs, while I weave left and right to avoid them.
When it stopped using its legs to pierce me, it charged with its fangs showing. I used one of the foot soldiers corpse as a foothold and when the mammoth was a few meters in front of me, I jumped on top of it. Landing on its back and I began slashing again while laughing, scattering blue blood all over my face and body.
"Heh~"
It collapsed and died after the fourteenth slash.
I then got off its back and surveyed my surroundings, seeing most of the spiders were almost dead. I moved on to my next target and made it rain blue blood as it gets its legs cut off from both sides of its body. Shoving it's severed limbs inside its mouth.
'Ahhh, that felt good' stabbing my knife into it's head one last time before it died
“That wasn’t as bad as I thought” humming a tune, while I disassemble the spider in front of me
After getting the items from the monsters, I made my way back to the group.
'Hm?'
They were backing away when I got closer, some with a slight look of trepidation.
“What?” I tilt my head to the side at the sudden weird looks that I received.
After fifteen seconds of me starring at them and vice versa, someone broke the ice.
“Okay, that enough. How many people died from this?” Drake asks the party leaders
They opened a window in front of them and looked.
“Two tanks died” said Bedrock
“One person from my party died as well” Lupin said while scratching his hairy chin.
“None from my team” with Sol as the last one
“Good, we’ll rest and heal up here for twenty minutes before we move on” Drake said, sitting down on a rock and openning a window in front of him.
I also sit down, but on one of the spider carcasses.
‘Maybe I should try to cook some of the spiders now’ as I smile, thinking of how it’s going taste
------------------------------------------------------------------
After resting, we moved on. Fighting hordes of spiders, with mammoths and venom crawlers growing in numbers and some cripplers joining in each wave. Some of us died as well, with eight tanks, nine scouts, eleven ranged, and ten of a mix of support, range and scouts from my party left. We headed down towards the fourth floor. This time we were all in formation from the get go, watching the ceilings and walls for any spiders.
Walking in formation for ten minutes and killing some lone spiders here and there, we arrived at the entrance of the fifth floor.
“That was…easy. I wonder why there aren’t that much spiders here” said one of the tanks, looking around skeptically, while the others voiced their consents.
“We’re about to enter the last floor. I know you’re already aware, but just to be sure. Stay in formation and don’t let them near the support and range parties” readying our armaments
I held my knife at ready while using a wet stone for Knife Sharpening
As we enter the last floor, I saw that we were in a huge room with big cobwebs strewn all over the floor, walls and ceiling. With a large amount of eggs on them, but there were no spiders or the boss anywhere in sight.
“Why is there nothing here? Hmm…some of you scouts go check the eggs and webs for anything” Drake commanded, as three scouts hurried over to the eggs and webs.
“Nothing out of the ordinary here” said the scout that’s near the eggs.
“Nothing here eith-“
He couldn’t finish his sentence, as a giant hairy leg with a sharp end pierces his chest out of nowhere and drags him up.
“Help…m-“ he tried to call out for help before disappearing into thin air
'Ah, why'd you have to go. You shouldn't have volunteered yourself to go ahead, you fool' I thought
It's like people don't learn anything from horror movies nowadays. You go ahead of the main group or if you get split up from it, then there's almost a 99% chance that you're going to die next. It's common sense people, learn it.
"WRAAAHHH!"
A loud wail that made my eardrums hurt, rang throughout the room. Making some people fall onto their knees, as a giant spider appeared from the center web out of thin air.
“Everyone get up! Go back to formation, it’s the Queen!” Drake fires at the arachnid royalty
I look up to the giant twenty feet tall arachnid and saw its name
Ranneira: The Weeping Mother