It was already evening since Drake and his group had started their adventure.

They fought hordes of monsters and a boss monster in each of the previous four areas.

But the situation seemed different in the fifth one. They had been walking for an hour but other than trees and some scattered plants, they didn't encounter any other life form.

They were walking in monotonous scenery with eerie silence. The only thing changing was the increasing webs on various trees, possibly from spiders or other web-spinning monsters.

The girls’ senses were warning them of the danger they were closing on to. After a certain point, even Drake could feel the change in atmosphere.

Their wait was not long as soon they reached giant webs connecting many trees.

Below the web on the ground, they saw three Purple-Dotted Ivy plants. There was also a small platform beside the plants, but it was not visible what was on it. They could only roughly guess that it was some kind of parchment.

On the web were three massive figures with the third one being twice as big as the other two. Those were spider monsters. The smaller ones were as big as a truck and the large one was twice as big as them.

 

Name: Red-Striped Black Widow

Level 0

 

The twins dismissed the smaller spider monsters as their strength was not much different than the previous boss monsters. But it was the larger one that gave them a dreadful feeling. They knew it was very strong and individually they were not its match. So, they were on high alert.

When they were thinking about how to deal with the three spiders.

“KHEEE”

The largest spider let out an ear-piercing scream. Countless spiders came out from the front behind the web. That was not the worst. They heard, the crawling noises from all their sides. Turning they realized that the spiders had surrounded them from all sides.

“Shit. It’s a trap. Ayame, Aria, and I will form an outer perimeter and kill spiders as quickly as possible that will attack us. Yumi, get in the middle, support us, and take care of any spiders that may attack us from above us.” Drake cursed then ordered in an irrefutable tone. One wrong step and all of them would end up as spider food.

All the girls complied, they knew the gravity of the situation and followed his orders quickly and efficiently.

The spiders were coming closer with each passing second. They were of different sizes, most were as big as a washbasin and were the weakest, with a few bigger in between with higher strength. The weaker ones were too weak that even Drake could defeat a group effortlessly but the sheer group of those critters numbed their scalp.

Drake knew that that was not the time to save points. He purchased twenty grenades, distributed five to each girl, and briefly explained how to use them.

There were hot weapons in the game but they were only available in some territories and were strictly regulated as stronger ones had the strength to kill the Extraordinary. He had not seen anyone use them in the Black Forest Territory and believed that either they were not available in the territory or were used by the strongest few.

That was no problem for Drake, as with enough points he could purchase anything from the shop. The grenades he purchased were twenty EP (Eldritch Point) each. In one go, he used more than 80% of his saved EP.

None of them had Throwing Mastery, but with the sheer number of targets, there was no need to aim. Each of them threw a grenade in a different direction.

BOOM
BOOM

BOOM

BOOM

In a radius of fifty meters wherever the grenades fell, all spiders irrespective of size or strength were decimated. Other than some broken body parts, nothing remained. The girls’ eyes widened watching the scene of utter destruction. 

The twins quickly checked the grenade’s price in the shop. After seeing the price, they shook their heads as its price was not worth it as most monsters did not fight in such big groups. Only when fighting very large groups of monsters close to each other, could the grenade be useful. Otherwise, the price-performance ratio was too low and they would not have much net profit.

Aria wondered from where he took out the grenades but didn’t pry into his secret. She was amazed by the lethality of the grenades and thought about them possessing such weapons, then they did not need to fear anyone. But she quickly removed such thoughts as the weapon was not hers and most importantly she could not afford to lose focus as they were still not out of danger and had great chances of dying.

The spiders stopped after the explosion. Drake’s group could see the fear in their eyes. Everyone was afraid of the unknown, even monsters. Even the boss spiders were startled hearing the explosion.

“KHEEE”

It again screamed. The spiders that halted before resumed their march with hesitation. They were greeted with another round of explosions. The spiders tried to dodge that time, but they were so packed together that they had no place to run.

The spiders stopped again. The boss spider screamed once again. That time even louder and for longer. The spiders once again hesitantly resumed their march once again.

Drake’s group readied their weapons as the spiders were already very close. The spiders finally collided with them.

Drake, Aria, and Ayame cut any spider that reached within a meter of them. Yumi shot any spider that tried to sneak attack them while also shooting any spider that climbed the trees and attacked them from above. She knew the danger they were in, so she didn’t discriminate against Aria and helped her whenever she needed.

Few spiders would pick up their dead comrades and pull them back so that other spiders could fight Drake’s group without problems.

Occasionally they would throw grenades among the horde of spiders, causing tension among them, but the screams of the spider bosses would force them to continue their suicide mission.

Yumi and Ayame were still able to fight relatively easily but Drake and Aria had many close calls with death. Slowly they were getting tired of the constant and stressful fighting, but they still fought bravely. Both of them had increased their Sword Mastery by two levels from the morning and the non-stop high-intensity fighting against the spiders was increasing their mastery at a break-neck speed.

After seeing the efficiency of the grenades, Yumi remembered the special arrows she had seen in the shop. She didn’t purchase them previously as was thinking of buying them later to try.

She purchased incendiary arrows from the shop. When she tried one and shot it, it pierced a spider in the horde, the spider burst open in fire and the nearby few spiders were injured and caught fire and died slowly burning to death.

Watching their performance, she used them occasionally in between her normal arrows. When she used them, she did so carefully as she knew that they were inside a forest, and if those arrows caused a forest fire, all of them would be roasted inside it alive.

The spiders tried to cover them with webs but they were not given any as it would be cut before it entangled them.

After fighting for an hour, the spiders were clearly shown decreasing in number. Drake and Aria were dead tired but still fought valiantly but their tiredness could be seen in their attacks that were not as strong as before. But they were protected by Yumi who shot any spider that decided to take advantage of their weakness.

But the good news was that the spiders were also faltering because of the continuous explosion. Their fear intensified further with every explosion. Drake’s group threw the last of their grenades. The spiders were no longer densely packed but the explosion still took out many spiders.

The spiders could not fight any longer. Their fear of the explosive balls finally overtook their fear of their leader and they started running away. The largest spiders and even its two underlings screamed but none of the spiders stopped.

Drake and the girls maintained their guard, till the spiders were out of their sight. Finally, after they were no longer visible, Drake and Aria slumped down, and even the twins showed some tiredness.

All the girls were grateful to Drake for taking out the grenades. Without them, the would could have lasted for several hours and would have ended with the possible deaths of Drake and Aria and even the twins.

Aria knew that such amazing weapons were by no means cheap and was already thinking about how she would compensate him. The twins who knew about the price, devotedly thanked him in their minds for his merciful heart for purchasing those grenades with his points.

When the biggest spider saw that the spiders ran away ignoring its orders, it screamed in anger. The two mini-bosses, hearing its scream jumped down from the web and moved towards Drake’s group.

The twins were not afraid of them. They might be afraid of the spider monster horde, but not of the spider mini-bosses.

Drake and Aria moved back. They knew their limits and knew that further fights belonged to the twins.

The twins blended in the darkness before the spiders reached them. They decided to finish the fight quickly as they knew the next fight would be with the spider boss. They were thankful for the spider boss’s arrogant attitude for sending its underlings first. As if all of them had come together, the twins would have had no choice but to sacrifice themselves to save Drake.

Yumi climbed a nearby tree and shot an arrow towards one of the spiders. Ayame quietly reached behind the other one and slashed at its abdomen. Both the spiders dodged their respective attacks but were not able to properly dodge them.

The first spider tried to jump to the side to dodge but was unable to dodge properly and the arrow hit its leg instead of the head. Likewise, the second one jumped in front but was still slashed by the sword. The spiders who identified their attackers attacked them but the twins easily dodged.

After a single bout of fighting, the twins judged that the spiders’ strength didn’t lie in their defense like the previous ones but their speed and their restraining abilities using their web.

The twins specialized in speed so their speed advantage had no effect in front of the twins who were faster than them. 

They decided to end the fight. Yumi continuously shot arrows targeting the first spider’s head, the spider dodged a few but was finally hit and died after taking a few arrows in the head.

Ayame again moved to the second spider’s back silently. Instead of slashing its abdomen again, she jumped on its back. The spider screamed and jumped everywhere but Ayame didn’t let go. She impaled her daggers continuously inside its head and did it until it dropped dead.

The leader finally jumped down after it saw the death of the two spider monsters. The twins also turned to it. They became serious, gave each other a nod, and readied themselves for the upcoming deadly fight.