39 The Soft-hearted Queen 1
Walking through the forest dungeon, Jay and his party were sneak-attacked three more times, though the spiders were quickly dealt with.
The ethereal spiders were having a bad day. Each of them failed to deal any damage to the undead since their main attack was poison, having no effect on the undead.
The spider’s fangs were made of chitin, a material similar to finger nails – it was no match for the silt wolf bones they were trying to pierce down on; It was like using straw to stab someone.
Since Jay was level seven in a level one dungeon, it was effortless to him – like a walk in the park. Though this park was gloomy, eerily quiet and had no leaves. He was feeling increasingly relaxed as he casually walked through the dungeon, giving him time to think.
“It won’t always be this easy…” Jay’s smile was slowly replaced with a stern expression.
“If someone finds out about my class, I’ll be hunted down to the ends of the earth…”
“That’s right, this isn’t meant to be enjoyable. I’m trying to survive… I’m going to survive.” he clenched his jaw as he nodded to himself.
“I’ve been given a powerful monster class. If the world discovered my secret, the commoners would fear for their lives, while the nobles would fear for their power.”
“Hmm, actually… not ‘would, but ‘when’ – when they discover my class.”
He held up his sword, rubbing his finger along the blade as he looked at the cobalt-blue sheen.
“…I suppose the nobles should fear me. Treat me as a hostile, and I will happily oblige.” his eyes were resolute as he half-smiled.
“I better finish this dungeon and return before the others find out.”
Jay had his skeletons pick up the pace to a jogging speed. He only had about ten minutes left before he had to leave. He knew he had to rush the last part of the dungeon if he was going to make it back in time – after all, he was meant to be silently meditating next to the others to recover his energy.
Because of their reckless abandon – jogging through the dungeon, two more ethereal spiders took advantage of Jay’s seemingly foolish strategy and pounced – however, with a snap of Jay’s fingers, the skeletons went into action and the ether spiders were dispatched in an instant; their abdomens severed in two, green goo plopping out while their thorax was pierced through to the other side.
“The skeletons seemed to be developing an efficient technique.”
The mass of silk inside Red’s rib cage was getting thicker as they continued, Jay wondered what he would do with it. He tried to put it in his inventory, but apparently it didn’t count as a monster drop.
He could only guess at this point. “Perhaps the ether silk and ghost silk are different.”
“One was produced from the spiders’ ether silk skill, while the other is a monster drop which counts as a reward for killing it.”
He scratched his chin “I guess being able to ‘store’ skills in my inventory wouldn’t make any sense”
“Oh well,” he shrugged, wiping more ether silk off his body and adding it to the ball. “I’ll just leave it there for now.”
As Jay jogged onwards, the path came to a massive white wall. Blue was the first to try push through, but was stopped by the sheer amount of silk.
“Must be real thick.” Jay paused for a moment, scratching his head.
“Probably the boss area.”
He had Blue slash its sword at the wall while Jay put his hand out, pushing his skeleton forward from behind.
The sword easily sliced through the silk, but Jay was puzzled by something.
“Why isn’t the silk invisible…?”
This question stayed on his mind as he entered a large clearing covered in silk and cocoons – some of which had hatched leaving only a yellowish shell behind; they were the size of pumpkins.
Jay looked at the structure of the room. There was a column of silk in the middle, probably covering a stone pillar or large rock, which supported the massive dome of silk over the clearing. Not much light got through the silk dome, turning this nest into what seemed more like a dark, cavernous cave.
The roof was higher than the trees outside could hope to reach, while the pillar turned out to be one of four other pillars, creating an incredibly large, dark area.
Based on the curvature of the outside wall, Jay had a decent estimate of the size of the massive silk dome.
“The whole of the adventurer association could probably fit in here five times over.”
Walking into the darkness, their steps were hindered by the silk once more.
Deathwalker’s Sentry was warning Jay constantly now. He held it up in defence as he gazed into the nest.
Red eyes greeted them from the darkness – hundreds of them, perhaps even thousands – Jay wasn’t sure but he sure wasn’t going to stick around counting them all.
“This… This can’t be a level one dungeon…” Jay’s jaw dropped.
He launched an unstable teeth spell in the middle of the sea of red eyes so he could try to grasp the number of spiders here. The spell exploded with a flash, and that’s when Jay saw something that made his whole body tense up.
He exhaled from the shock of what he saw.
A massive white spider the size of the Snakeraven inn was lying there, yet it was lifeless on the ground. Smaller ether spiders – smaller compared to the queen anyway, were covering it.
Many of them were covered in green slime since the massive spider’s abdomen was ripped open, it’s innards spilled across the dungeon. Lines of green were everywhere – the trails caused by spiders grabbing chunks of flesh and hauling them off for themselves.
They were eating it.
Jay was motionless for a moment, then the darkness returned.
“Fuck… no.. no. Nooo thanks.” Jay whispered to himself as he stepped backwards, Deathwalker’s Sentry was still going crazy as it was squeezing his wrist without end.
Since he just launched an unstable tooth spell at the whole nest, many red eyes were charging over now. These spiders in particular would always respond with unyielding aggression if they were attacked.
“Fuuuuck!”
Jay couldn’t deal with hundreds of spiders, so turning back to the slit he made in the wall, he knew his only choice was to leave – not just this dome, but the whole dungeon.
First he had to get out of the aggression range of all the spiders. It wouldn’t be that hard as long as he wasn’t covered in web. If an emergency demanded it, he could always sacrifice his skeletons – this dungeon had proved them to be effective against the spiders, seemingly impervious to them – however, if enough spiders were present, they could be held down indefinitely and pulled apart with enough cooperation on the spiders behalf.
Turning back towards the entrance, two spiders were already working to seal up the hole he created. The light was quickly getting dim as more and more wraps of silk coated the gap in the wall.
“Shit” he back ran over – as fast as he could run with his legs covered in web. Blue covered the rear of the party while Jay had Red and Lamp rush at them.
Jay wasn’t sure if the spiders were doing this to trap him in, or because of some other natural instinct, but he knew he needed to get out while he still could; time was of the essence as the mass of red eyes was getting closer – the spiders were not hindered at all by the webs.