"I will call you Shag" - he finally announced. - "From now on, you'd better communicate only with me. If it weren't for Seg-Nim-Het's order to provide a plan to solve the food problem, I would have already killed and eaten you."
"Hahaha. It seems you still have some remnants of common sense" - I laughed in the spider's face. - "So, are you ready to hear my ideas on how to save your pathetic lives?"
"Speak."
"But first, lunch. And I need to relieve myself. I don't think your table is the appropriate place for that."
Understanding the fundamental principles of the local society led me to an obvious conclusion: I needed to dump. Not to kill anyone, but to go somewhere else. In this society, I could only achieve a decent position by killing everyone dumber than me. In other words, everyone. Therefore, it would be simpler to escape somewhere to the equator and create my own utopia there.
For the next couple of weeks, I gorged myself while simultaneously absorbing information from the local equivalent of books, which were special crystals grown with magic. The literature covered three topics: history, physiology, and magic. As I read these books, I began writing my own, detailing the process of growing plants. Considering the local mentality, this book contained not a single abstract thought or explanation of why and for what purpose. It answered only one question: how? In other words, it was an extremely detailed manual.
The essence of the technology was, of course, simple: organize greenhouse spaces, fill them with soil, plant seeds, water them periodically, and, of course, provide sufficient lighting. It was also important to mention key parameters like temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide content in the air. Naturally, most of the necessary actions were to be performed with magic, for which I demanded a bunch of books on the subject.
The history of the local spider civilization also proved extremely useful. And it turned out to be an illustration of the ideas I had already expressed.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
About six thousand years ago, several million spiders arrived into this world through a portal. The entire horde was led by a queen named Azjol-Nerub. This name was also given to the new civilization of intelligent spiders, which immediately displaced the local population, claiming a considerable territory for themselves. Essentially, all these newcomers were deserters who fled their world to build a utopia in the name of their queen here. Since there were a significant number of skeptics among the subjects, a law was introduced establishing the supremacy of the social pyramid of power over common sense. Since then, the spider civilization has been slowly but surely degrading.
The new world turned out to have nearly two dozen intelligent races. It took less than a hundred years for a global war of all against all to begin. This chaos lasted for a thousand years, but eventually, the spiders emerged victorious. After all, the heritage they brought from the portal contained a vast amount of knowledge, primarily in magic. The form of government forced the civilization to work to exhaustion, operating under the principle of 'everything for the front, everything for victory.'
Queen Azjol-Nerub did not survive long after her triumph. In the end, the maximum lifespan of a spider was five hundred years. The queen lasted that long only thanks to the now-lost magic of rejuvenation. For the next thousand years, the spiders conquered the world they had taken exclusive possession of while also... degrading. A thousand years later, the skies opened not to release the torrents of heaven but to unleash portals from other worlds, from which all sorts of beasts emerged: elves, trolls, orcs, humans, goblins, vampires, and so on.
Thus began another era of global wars. The spiders, having relaxed over the thousand years, couldn't show serious resistance and quickly lost their leading positions. They suffered defeat after defeat until the orc army destroyed the capital of their empire along with the degenerate upper echelons of society.
Only a small squad led by a lower-ranking commander managed to escape, carrying with them a significant portion of the imperial library. He was, in fact, its guardian. Subsequently, the spider army, now under sensible leadership, reproduced, learned magic, and defeated the invaders, destroying every last one of them. However, this took another thousand years.
During the course of the wars, the power structure in spider society changed several times, so that in the end, the traditionalists were back at the top. After defeating the external enemy, they quickly purged all internal opponents and resumed their favorite activity—moral decay.
Another thousand years later, the cycle repeated. This time, however, the prolonged degradation of the entire society reached a critical point, and the spiders were unable to fend off the invaders. All they could do was scatter across different continents, hide in secluded burrows, and eke out a miserable existence, hiding from the great powers of the world.