The fire’s intensity surged with each passing moment, and multiple factors fueled this inferno.
First and foremost, the fire didn’t just stay still and wait to be extinguished; its fiery tongues were licking hungrily at the surrounding trees and vegetation. It was as if they had a life of their own, guided by the wind, spreading wildly in a frenzied dance.
Adding to the escalating blaze were the trees themselves. These were no ordinary, run-of-the-mill trees; they were ironthorn trees, the very source of the highly flammable liquid the players had used. Even the viscous traps, which had initially hindered the spiders, now played an unwitting role. These traps, crafted from the same material as the ironthorn trees, had inadvertently coated any who touched them with a flammable substance, transforming them into living torches.
The scene had become a disaster, painting the forest red with destruction. Amidst this, the players couldn’t help but feel triumphant. Their carefully laid plans were working perfectly. Laughter and cheers filled the air.
“Haha, look at those crispy spiders! I didn’t expect this event to be such a breeze.”
“Right? As long as we were prepared, not even dragons could stand a chance!”
“Merit points, here I come!”
However, Alfred saw that Storm’s face grew serious as he gazed at the blazing spectacle. “Don’t jinx it,” he warned. “Do you really believe it will end this easily? This is just the beginning.”
“Mm, Storm’s right. Considering how this game’s been unfolding so far, it’s unlikely the developers will wrap it up this easily. I fear we haven’t seen the last of these creatures, especially their queen.” Alfred made an absentminded gesture to adjust his glasses, momentarily forgetting he didn’t actually wear them in this game world.
“Wait, they have a queen?” a curious, light-green-haired player known as “MsMelody” chimed in. She was a player from the third batch and was the only female player here. Despite that, her presence in the group was significant, as she was the only healer among them, specializing in the rare Bio element.
“Well, it’s only a theory,” Alfred began. “Spiders are usually solitary creatures, and it’s highly unusual for them to gather in such large numbers, especially into a group of hundreds. But given their behavior so far, I suspect there might be a queen orchestrating all of this. If my assumption is correct, they will soon find a way out of this fiery trap and head straight for us.”
The headmaster had kept them in the dark regarding the magical beasts they were facing, providing only basic characteristics and weaknesses. Even the official wiki didn’t explicitly mention their queen and had little information. So, Alfred’s assumptions were largely pieced together from the hypothesis on the forum, coupled with his own deductions.
Soon enough, his fear turned into stark reality. Nearly reduced to ashes, the surviving Lesser Hiveborne Arachnids broke through the fiery barrier, using their fallen brethren as a gruesome shield. From what had initially seemed an unending swarm, less than a hundred remained, albeit gravely injured and in poor shape.
“They’re here! Send the signal!” Alfred commanded with urgency.
One of the players raised his torch and swung it around like a beacon — a deliberate signal for those stationed farther away. Responding swiftly, Mike led the remaining eighty or so players to the top of the wall. About two to three dozen of them wielded bows and crossbows, while the rest clutched sharp and durable spears and axes crafted from the remains of magical beasts.
As the players took their positions, the less than one hundred spider monsters drew nearer, their distance shrinking to a mere fifty meters. They then slowed down in their tracks, while still within the forest’s cover, as each of their eight eyes gazed at the players cautiously.
It was a tense standoff that lasted only a brief moment before the inevitable clash.
Prominence, not wanting to miss this opportunity, bellowed with fervor, “Everyone! Stand firm! Behind us lies the academy we must defend!”
“Oooh!”
The players responded with excited cheers while Alfred rolled his eyes at the theatrics, but he wasted no time. He issued orders to players wielding ranged weapons to let loose and urged those who could cast magic to start chanting. Unfortunately, despite being a player from the first batch, Alfred found himself teetering at the edge of advancement, stuck at 86 percent progress; therefore, he couldn’t join in on the fun.
Bolts, arrows, and a barrage of magic spells poured into the midst of the arachnid horde. An electric spark burst to life, followed by a series of icy projectiles, a swirling water cannonball, razor-sharp blades of compressed air, and even a creeping vine that appeared out of nowhere. The combined onslaught wreaked havoc among the spider-like creatures, sowing chaos within their ranks.
Naturally, the arachnids were anything but passive. They swiftly closed the distance to the wall — displaying a keen awareness that enabled them to avoid most of the ground-based traps. It became evident that these hive-minded creatures had learned from their earlier mistake.
Finally, the ranged confrontation was on the cusp of transforming into a close-range melee, and the players were more than ready to fight these creatures tooth and nail.
“Simba!!”
“For the king!”
“May the force be with you!”
“Boom boom bakudan!”
“Ahh-ee-ahh-ee-ahh!”
A cacophony of battle cries erupted as players brandished spears, swords, and an assortment of weapons — some were even using farming tools and sharp random objects lying around. The atmosphere was charged with adrenaline, and it seemed incomplete without these enthusiastic shouts. Even Alfred, the strategist himself, couldn’t resist delivering a classic battle cry. “For honor and glory!”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
***
For the queen spider, the unfolding events had been both harrowing and infuriating. As her loyal kin were ensnared and consumed by the relentless fire trap, she felt their collective pain through their mental connection. It was a tormenting experience…
Reluctantly, she had to make a difficult decision. To save some of her kin, she allowed others to be sacrificed as they rushed through the fire barrier. It was a heartbreaking sacrifice, but the alternative would be the total annihilation of her kin to perilous flames. She almost couldn’t bear it any longer and considered exposing herself. However, she sensed danger from within the earthen wall — something that could threaten her existence. A Magus… or at least an individual close to achieving that status.
Despite being a magical beast driven by primal instincts, the queen spider wasn’t entirely mindless. She had survived by living in the shadow, avoiding powerful beings and preying on weaker ones, and she was not going to change her approach.
With her multifaceted eyes on her lower spider body, she cautiously observed the strange humans standing on the earthen wall, calculating their strength. Their weapons glinted menacingly in the fire’s harsh light, and their fierce determination was unmistakable. Through the eyes of her kin, she got a close-up view of them. As they prepared to clash, those humans unleashed sharp projectiles and a volley of magic attacks against her kin.
Against such a multitude of attacks raining down on them, they couldn’t avoid them all. Behind them lay the wall of fire that had consumed their brethren, and in front of them stood the humans with their strange weapons and cunning traps. Caught between a rock and a hard place, the queen spider had no choice but to issue an order to charge ahead, hoping to kill the pesky humans and keep as many of her kin alive as possible.
“SKREEE!!”
Seeing the last of her kin wounded and killed was unbearable. Those were her children, her precious offspring!
Unable to contain herself any longer, the queen spider rushed from her hiding place. The confrontation had turned into an all-out brawl, and her arachnid horde surged forward to clash with the detestable humans as they scaled the webs they shot over the wall.
It was time for her to unleash a massacre among these humans.
***
As beads of sweat trickled down his forehead, William swiftly stabbed a man-sized spider that had sunk its fangs into his wrist with a spear.
“Darn! That’s three…” His heart was racing with adrenaline he had never felt before. Is this what the protagonist from that zombie apocalypse movie feels like when being chased by zombies?
Having cast a spell to trigger the trap and another just before the confrontation began, he could feel the infused mana within his body draining up. In fear of breaking his precious magic staff and incurring the hefty penalty of ten thousand merit points, he had stashed it in a secure location. Instead, he had opted for a melee weapon, one salvaged from the lifeless body of a fellow player.
Prominence
HP: 83%
MP: 1/15
Power Rank: First-stage Initiate Attunement
Elemental Affinity: Pyro (89%) | Electro (63%)
Mana Aptitude: Inferior bright grade
Meditation Technique: Myriad Elements Method (first level, 27%)
Status: Injured (left wrist)
Strength: (13)
Agility: (12)
Vitality: (12)
Magical Power: (5)
Infused Mana (total): (15)
Checking his status screen, he observed that, despite the fierce assault by the magical beast that managed to bite him, he was still in relatively good shape. The pain remained rather subtle, thanks to the reduced pain setting in the game, but it lingered there, nonetheless.
William surveyed the battlefield that had descended into utter chaos. The wall and landscape below were marred by a grotesque tableau of human and spider corpses that resembled a grotesque garbage pile.
Initially, the players had maintained some semblance of coordinated defense, covering each other’s backs. However, as the battle raged on, it deteriorated into pure pandemonium. The spider monsters were especially menacing, able to spew venomous acid from a distance of ten meters, potent enough to dissolve even iron. Players who were caught off guard were killed in a single spray — their remains reduced to bones and a sickly green residue despite the defensive capability of the acolyte robes. If they survived that, they would still be poisoned to death while foaming at the mouth.
Even worse was the situation for the arachnid horde. Already injured by the myriad of traps they had gone through, even newbie players were able to take on these vicious creatures with just a geographical advantage and a weapon in hand. Even so, landing a successful strike against the arachnids often came at the gruesome price of losing a limb or worse.
It was, in essence, a grisly exchange of lives.
In the real world, such a harrowing scene would have caused William to puke. Fortunately, the game’s mechanics appeared to suppress those visceral reactions, sparing him from the full extent of the disturbing reality happening before him.
All of a sudden, as if struck by a shared realization, the remaining twenty or so Lesser Hiveborne Arachnids abruptly abandoned their confrontations with the players. Instead, they scuttled, in a frenzied and erratic manner, retreating back into the burning forest.
“The spiders are retreating! Quick, Let’s chase them down!” one player cried out.
“Uwaaa!!”
“Charge!”
“Long live the academy!”
“Awoooo! Awoo… wooo!”
With a resounding battle cry, the remaining fifty-some players who were still able to fight leapt down from the earthen wall, eager to chase the fleeing arachnids. After all, to these people, magical beasts were nothing more than sources of valuable merit points that could bite. To any observers, however, they might appear as the real monsters in this eerie forest.
Unwilling to waste the opportunity to gain more merit points, William was about to join the chase, but he was halted by Zero’s restraining hand. Huh… this feels like déjà vu.
“Not so fast,” Zero cautioned. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
“What do you mean?” William asked impatiently. However, he discovered that Zero’s expression was dead serious. Something fishy was going on. Unfortunately, it was becoming apparent too late to halt the impulsive charge of the other players.
Sure enough, the remaining arachnids stopped abruptly and turned to face the players. Just as the players were growing excited to see their targets become sitting ducks, an eerie shriek cut through the air. A deluge of green, venomous acid suddenly rained down from above. Then, emerging from the billowing wall of fire was a creature of nightmarish grace.
Its upper body resembled a female humanoid figure covered in glistening black scales, while its lower half was a grotesque arachnid. It was unmistakably the queen of these spider magical beasts. What struck terror into William and the others, however, was the creature’s horrifying visage that lacked any shred of humanity, as if it were a vessel of pure vengeance.
“Shit! A boss monster has appeared!”
“It’s their queen— Ack! The acid! It burns! I’m meltiiinngg—!”
“You guys distract it! I will go around— Argh!”
“Retreat, everyone! Retreat!”
In this dire confrontation, the disparity of strength between the two parties was so large that sheer numbers meant nothing. The queen spider radiated an uncanny suppression force that repelled any who approached, incapacitating those who ventured too close and forcibly logged them out from the game.
Facing this monstrous entity, William felt a profound sense of helplessness. His hands were trembling like there was no tomorrow. Though this was just a game, every sensation felt heart-wrenchingly real. Instinct screamed at him to flee, to put as much distance as possible between himself and this nightmarish adversary. Even his infused mana quivered uncontrollably as if it had encountered its nemesis.