George wandered through the winding corridors, going in and out of the empty or mushroom-filled caverns.

The two lizardmen behind him followed closely, muttering things between each other that George was too distracted to concentrate on.

Finally, after several corridors, he spotted something. A lone Dog Spider wandered about, seemingly aimlessly, around a corridor.

George stopped several meters short of the spider, eyeing it closely. The spider picked up on there being someone in the corridor and turned to face the three of them.

George pointed the spear at the spider and rushed at it. It took him only a few seconds to reach the spider and fewer for the spear to lodge itself cleanly into the spider’s head.

He was unsure of how or why he was so precise, but he didn’t care. He pulled the spear out, the spider’s sticky blood coming out with it as well, and just moved on.

He glanced at the lizardmen behind him, who just shrugged, grabbed harder onto their spears, and followed him further into the corridor.

The next time he saw a Dog Spider there were three of them grouped up. The closest one noticed them and stood on its hind legs to show his large fangs.

George yelled something incomprehensible to even himself, possibly reminiscent of a warcry, then ran into the spider with the spear.

George thought that this shouldn’t take too long, then looked towards the other two spiders, who immediately leapt at him.

He somehow managed to avoid the first one by dodging to his left, but the second one caught his leg with one of the fangs.

George yelped, half in pain and the other half in frustration, then speared the spider that bit him, so to speak.

He glanced to where the third spider was but saw it already dead with a spear piercing through its abdomen and a smiling lizardman behind him.

Considering he already learned the incantation for the Heal spell, he powered it up with one hand and used the other to pull the fang out of his lower leg.

Blood gushed out of the wound and George pressed the glowing hand to it, trying to stop the flow and the pain from searing through his leg uncontrollably. He focused on the wound and it slowly started closing, leaving only a small round speck on the skin.

He glanced at the lizardmen, who watched him with their eyes and jaws open in awe, even though they had seen him perform Heals the entire ‘morning’. But this was the first time there was an actual wound involved.

With a smirk on his face, George got on his feet and carried onwards. He may not have been the best of fighters, but at least he’d use what he was given.

He wasn’t really sure why he was smiling. He was angry at the world. It made no sense whatsoever to him.

He was literally branded by something he clearly didn’t understand well and seemingly had no way of communicating with, he was given a book that didn’t answer anything and pose too many questions at once, and he was living with literal overgrown lizards. He wasn’t racist, and he repeated that sentiment in his head a few more times, but it was unnerving to have them.

And humans seemed to actively want to kill him.

So it was a real surprise as to why he was smiling ear to ear as he walked through the dimly lit corridor with two lizardmen at his heel.

But he enjoyed it nevertheless. He somehow felt free.

He remembered how his life was before. He wasn’t poor, nor was he particularly rich. He had some interests and hobbies, some form of a social life and whatnot, and his hobbies in games clearly were either helping him or guiding him the wrong way in all this mess.

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George didn’t really mind, though, at this moment. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t mind being angry at the world he still knew almost nothing about, but could guess was complicated in its own right.

He stopped thinking about the world and how little or much sense it had when he finally saw the corridor widen.

The three of them stepped into the next cavern, and George finally lost the smile on his face. It was teeming with Dog Spiders of various sizes. They skittered about, each apparently with a purpose of its own.

He couldn’t see much, largely because there wasn’t almost any light present, the few ‘natural’ sources of it on the ceiling covered in thick webbing.

Still facing the pile of spiders in front of him, George asked his companions behind him bluntly: “Just to make sure, they are not venomous?”

“They are not, Grrrg,” one of them answered, “they usually use their numbers and sheer force.”

The spiders have apparently noticed them by now and had started moving towards the three.

George was still angry at the world, but in that anger was just a tiny bit of fear. That, unfortunately, kept growing as time went by.

He gripped the spear tight in one hand and pointed towards the ceiling with the other.

The incantation for Holy Light was much more complicated and required a few precise hand movements, and George was pleasantly surprised that he could replicate them perfectly only after a single night in this world.

He wondered if that was the book’s, or this world’s, doing but shelved the thought for later.

There were spiders to kill around him.

A bright yellowish light irradiated the cavern, and George could see far more clearly around him. The large oblong cavern stretched for some dozens of meters, the other side covered in webs and threads and strands of silk. There even appeared to be some egg sacks put next to walls or hung from the ceiling.

But that didn’t really matter to him at the moment. What did matter was that the group of spiders did a collective hiss and pointed their fangs at them.

There were at least twenty spiders in the cavern, if not more. George audibly gulped.

Maybe this wasn’t such a bright idea.

He glanced at the two lizardmen, who gripped their spears tightly and nodded slowly at him.

The spiders ran at the three of them, and the three of them ran back.

George was instantly and visibly overwhelmed. He would jab at the spider in front of him, only to have another one swipe at his legs.

He sucked at dodging so much that by the time he killed two spiders, he already had a fang in each of his legs.

He stumbled down, unable to stand with so much pain radiating from his limbs. A spider leapt directly at his face but George managed to move the spear directly in front of him, the leaping spider skewering itself on the large metal tip.

But George couldn’t get the spider off the spear quickly enough and was promptly jabbed in an arm.

Yelping in pain, he shook violently, managing to get the spider off by some miracle, and immediately started Healing the wound. He didn’t even concentrate hard, just enough to alleviate some of the pain.

After tugging on the spear again, he managed to get the skewered spider off and jabbed at the next spider.

Then the two spiders that caught his legs started to pull, knocking him forwards. He tried to shake either one off but was unsuccessful, the spiders slowly pulling him through the dirt floor.

He glanced to his sides and saw the two lizardmen quickly dispatching the spiders they were against, each one much more suited at this job than George was, but still receiving wounds of their own.

He screamed for help, at which point one of the lizardmen noticed him and limped towards George, immediately spearing one spider when he got in range.

Now that the pulling slowed down, George managed to punch the spider, but that didn’t stop it.

George started turning and more pain came when the fang inside his leg started pressing on the sides of the wound. With a pop, the fang came out and more blood gushed out.

He immediately started the Heal, disregarding that there was a dead spider with a fang inside his other leg.

The Heal took him a while to do properly, as this was the most ambitious one he’d done on himself. Finally managing to relieve the pain, George could look at the battlefield once again.

The spiders were either dead or about to be, and the two lizardmen had a wound or two to themselves.

George pulled the fang out of his other leg, used his Heal again, not even closing the wound completely that time since he was already feeling weak, then went towards them.

Each application of the spell took him more and more time and left him feeling increasingly tired, and by the time he was done the lizardmen only had minor scarring where the piercing holes have been.

Exhausted, he fell onto the floor, surrounded by dead spiders and very much alive, and laughing, lizardmen.

Hearing their guttural laughs made George laugh as well. He lived. Not without some serious help, but he survived, even if it was only against spiders.