The day of battle had arrived. Or rather, the second day. 

After reporting my findings to Virt and the Sahuagin Elder, we hatched a certain plan to defeat the spider. If those guys didn't have to be so against my ideas, then we could have finished the planning way faster... we still needed to wait for a "battle day", so I guess it's fine.

The hydra-tortoise and the T-Rex left the tower with the newly-created spider troops. There are also some raptors and tortoises mixed in the army, but the spiders are the norm by now. They're the only soldiers that can be mass-produced after all. Do they add the raptors and tortoise to the army in an attempt to hide that fact?

After confirming that the big bad guys had left, I climbed around the tower back to the window I had used six days before when I was scouting. I peered down into the tower and saw the spider queen in her lonesome... sans for some spiders that remained as guards. 

I've done a great job of staying outside the Glavras monster's information network, so they don't know that I'm part of the Sahuagin side. Even if they somehow knew of my existence, as long as they don't know I have the Sahuagin's back, then things are a-okay.

Even so, I've not just twiddled my thumbs while waiting for this day. 

There you go~. Still no Light Technique User despite my Light-skill training...

I climbed to the top of the tower, which was just a few meters from the roof of the Dungeon itself where Gust was hiding from the Glavras forces while waiting for the Go-sign.

"Hey, are we seriously doing this?" - Gust

"...Chicken?" - Garami

"No, I'm a raven! I just don't like this idea at all! Have you no mercy?" - Gust

"None at all." - Garami

"Only stuff like that comes easily from that nasty mouth of yours..." - Gust

How rude. But I agree with my whole heart~.

"...Get ready for the show." - Garami

"You mean the plan, right? You don't see this only as a game, right!?" - Gust

I can't hear~, I can't hear~. 

"Showtime!" - Garami

"You aren't taking this serious enough!!" - Gust

---

*KA-BOOOOOM!!!*

Wo-HOOO!! That's one heck of a blast!

The bomb I had dropped down the tower gave an ear-deafening roar that must have been heard across the whole Floor, if not the Dungeon. The bottom of the tower was blasted to smitheries, while the top flew into the air before falling loudly down to the ground again.

I and Gust had hidden behind some of the boulders on the mountain road, several meters below the blast area, but we still felt the force of the blast that flew up from the edge.

"That alone should have killed it!" - Gust

...He had to say a line like that, didn't he? 

I ran to the edge to confirm, and just as I expected, the spider queen emerged from the rubbles that used to be the tower that guarded it. It got a massive burn on its back, but except for that, it looked peachy. I can't use [Identification] from this distance, but I would say that a good 500 or more HP went with that blast.

And now the wounds are recovering so fast I can see the effect with my bare eyes. Oi, oi, bosses shouldn't have regen you know? Not that I didn't know about it beforehand.

I jumped down from the edge and down to the ground floor... with a safety thread. 

The queen locked on to me, so I threw some threads into the Storage to take out some gifts for her majesty. The two boulders were thrown out of the Storage with the combined effort of [Shooting] and [Thread Control].

It's an upgrade of the trick I used on the Wild Hunt Lord, but alas, the Queen had more tricks up her sleeve than the skill-less Lord or the no-brains roach queen. 

The Queen inhaled quickly and used a [Water Blast] several times bigger than what the lower-ranked Aquarects could perform. I gave up my attack and prioritized dodge the blast by running across the wall thanks to [Lightwalk] and the safety thread. While doing so, I took out a certain something and shot it towards the Queen with [Shooting].

*CRASH!*

I took a glance at where I had been, something I now wish that I didn't. It looked like a meteorite had collided with the wall. A real crater with its center where I had been now decorated the wall. How can you call that a "water blast"? It would be better to name it a pressure cannon!

The Queen tried to move her body with her wounded legs, but they suddenly gave up on her. Kukuku, it's working, it's working~. It's important, therefore I said it twice.

Did it read my thoughts or something? And it kept on spending points to increase its two new Resistance Skills while I was spacing out. I fired all the bullets made with [Glow Bullet] through my Thaumaturge Revolver at the spider to stop it.

The thing I threw at the Queen blasted away with her newly obtained and boosted [Pressure Cannon] was a special toxic tonic that the Sahuagin created. It used parts of every poison I won from the Floor 3 Quest except for the Hydra poison. He just got the Pharmacist class and can already make something this dangerous? Talented geezers are scary...

It wasn't an easy assignment though. There were tons of failures. One of them resulted in a poison that didn't do any damage, but the smell was so horrible you would want for it to be an insta-kill variant. I speak of experience.

But yeah, this ain't gonna work. The decrease is slowing down with each added level to the Resistance Skills. If I could throw one more bottle at the Queen and get a Rage, Sleep, or Confusion ailment... but the first one only worked so well because I hit it in the face, or rather, its eyes. If I move to its front, I could get blasted with its [Pressure Cannon] again.

Suddenly, tons of magic circles appeared around the Queen. From them, appeared, no, spawned several Glavras Aquarects. No Generals? Phew.

That's the only blessing in disguise though. Now it's gonna be way harder to get to the Queen. I threw the dagger at the Queen in hope that I could coat the other daggers I had in poison, but nope. Even the abdomen that lacked an exoskeleton is too tough for even a [Shooting]-boosted dagger to penetrate. 

The Aquarects started their water-blasting bombardment at me. The floor's no good, it's a flood of spiders down there. So I had no other choice than to run along the wall at high speed to dodge the blasts.

I dodged most of the attacks, but sometimes I was forced to used Arrow Guard to block the few successful hits, but all of this is draining my SP! I used the Evil Eye to weaken some of the spiders, but there are too many of them! And if I start to kill the spiders, the Queen will just get more EXP. That's something I can't allow. The poison may be negated due to the level up!

The good news is that the Queen is too busy by the pain that comes from the poison and the stiffness from the Paralyze to think of the idea of having the spiders kill themselves to give her EXP. Or maybe it already knows of that move, but does not want to give the orders? Nah, it's probably too stupid.

*Snap*

They did it! A spider with more wits than the rest aimed at the safety thread rather than me! A single blast from a newborn spider is nowhere enough to cut the [Spider Lord's Thread], but once all the other spiders thought of the same idea...

I jumped off the wall and aimed to land on one of the spiders. If it's come to this, then it's time for a brawl! 

The spiders charged towards me, but I kicked the closest ones while being boosted by [Energy Warfare]. That single kick took more of my MP and SP than creating and manipulating threads does, but the result was worth it. The kicked spider was sent flying like a bullet and crashed into several other spiders. That's what happens when you gang up like that...

Yeah, these numbers are bad. There are, what, a hundred weakling spiders here now? More than enough for a level to the Queen.

Let's change gears. Running and stalling!

The spiders now getting that a fistfight with me would be a bad move, shifted back to their long-range tactics with [Water Blasts]. Did you think that amateurs spiders such as yourself can hit me while I'm on solid ground? When Legion of One gives my SPD a boost of 1% for each of you guys? 

Just before the water blasts were about the hit, I dodged them with a speed that shocked the spiders out of their minds. If I got too close to a spider, I slashed it with the new dagger I had taken out from the Storage, Yes, this is the close-range weapon for me.

But lowering the number of spiders will lower my speed while giving EXP to the Queen, so let's try a different strategy. I jumped up to the wall and kicked it to get high enough to land on top of the Queen.

Urgh, this is disgusting to even stand on. I retrieved a large number of threads from the Storage and used [Thread Control] to cover the whole area.

The spiders, which were still confused about where I had run off to with my boosted speed, were covered by the carpet thread, stuck in place. Even the Queen's covered! 

Even so, this won't last, will it? The Queen can still move somewhat, and it keeps on recovering from the poison...

Eh, it should be fine now. The Queen's used up all of its Skill Points with the distractions, so let's spring the real killer trap on it.

---

Four days ago...

"Huh? Can the spider queen breathe underwater?" - Boss snake

While the battle between the Glavras faction and the Sahuagins raged on, I had returned to Floor 6 to meet with the boss snake. An easy feat, since he didn't even bother to hide while lazing around in the former abyss-level.

"To think you found out about that fat lady." - Boss snake

"Answer." - Garami

"Yes, yes, fine. I owe you so much for letting me escape those doofuses. As for your question, no. None of us Glavras kinds can breathe underwater without some special means." - Boss snake

Wow, he told me just like that. And I was ready to threaten him by ratting him out to the Glavras faction. Not that I could...

"But if you are going after the Queen Aquarect, don't get any stupid ideas. That thing is too big to move around normally, and its lair ain't below ground level even if you had the means of transporting that much water. And that thing wouldn't move close to big bodies of water since it's heavy enough to sink to the bottom in less than ten seconds." - Boss snake

"...Why so cooperative?" - Garami

"'Cause I would rather see the Dungeon fall than having those bastards alive! But I won't do anything myself. I'm officially retired." - Boss snake

Can Floor Bosses retire?

---

Back to the present

Do it!

After picking up the dagger that had been repelled by the Queen's defense, I gave that order to the Skeleton Raptor underground before jumping off the Queen with [Sky Jump].

A few seconds after the order was given, a large explosion was heard from under the ground. The ground gave up underneath the Queen and her spawns, kinda like a sinkhole.

The trick is simple: I had the moles dig underneath the tower to hole out the ground with just enough tunnels. When the moles thought it was unstable enough, we sent a Skeleton Frog down with one of the bombs I had stolen from the robots and had it on stand-by the whole time. 

While testing out the Spectermancer class, I found out that the undeads can still receive orders even when they cannot hear me, kinda like a form for telepathy. 

Therefore, the brawl from before was just a farce. I wanted to see if I could beat the Queen without wasting another bomb. I needed to get the tower away, as it would bother the next step in my anti-Queen plan.

I looked down from the mountain path and saw that all the smaller spiders had been crushed by the sinkhole, save for some lucky fellows. The Queen's still alive, as expected. But not for long! Open all Storage flood gates!

The artificial sinkhole was soon filled with tons of water that I had stored from the different water sources on this Floor.

"Uwaaa... death by drowning..." - Gust

Gust who had been on guard duty in case the other Glavras bosses came back earlier than expected. And he's not wrong. The sinkhole is completely submerged now, thanks to the moles sealing off the tunnels after leaving the undead inside.

The spider queen was covered by gallons of water, hiding its massive form. The weaker spiders floated to the top, but they had all died due to the water pressure. The artificial lake looked kinda magical with the lights emitting from the spider corpses as they disappeared. 

"Then we will not be needing this anymore," said Gust while throwing...HEY!!

"Why are you throwing the poison!?" - Garami

I gave Gust a bottle of the same poison that I used on the Queen so he had the means to defend himself, but it's too much of a waste to throw it away like that!

"The bottle was starting to fall apart, so what else could I do?" - Gust

It was about to-what!? I took a look at the remaining 8 bottles that were in the Storage, and yes, the bottles' durabilities have lowered since I last time I checked them. They still got more than half their durability left, but even so, oi.

"...The poison works even on the bottles?" - Garami

"That is why the Elder made the poisons right before we left." - Gust

I thought he needed enough time so that there were no accidents.

"...'Air express' them to the T-Rex and the tortoise?" - Garami

"Do not look at me for that. If something happened to the bottles mid-flight, then I am a goner." - Gust

True that. 

"...What? Oi." - Garami

I turned to look at the guilt-bird, who is sweating cold sweat like there was no tomorrow.

"......Ah! I see! The poison must have been classified as the last damage, so all the EXP went to the one who added the poison to the water!" - Gust

"Don't try to wiggle away from this. Throw up those EXPs right now. Just 4% is not enough for me!" - Garami

I grabbed the greedy bird and shake him upside down in the hope of getting him to hurl up the EXP. Since that did nothing (didn't expect that either, just wanted some stress relief), I went down to the sinkhole and stored the used water.

Let's see, [Identification]...yup. It's poisoned. Just a little bit though. Even that's enough for the last-attack thing? Or is it due to the cause of death is drowning? 

"Hey, what about the Queen?" - Gust

The Queen, huh. It's resisted the poison completely by the end, so it should be fine even to eat, not that I'm all that for the idea. Guess I'll convert-

"This thing's going to be worth several Gold Sols, so please do not convert it," said Gust who had flown down.

"...Sols?" - Garami

"Sols, I tell you, Sols! I am talking about money! Do you not even know that?" - Gust

I gave him a good glare and thought about it.

True, the Glavras monsters are all unique to this Dungeon alone, and this is a Floor Boss. Just the originality could get us some cash from researchers or whatever, and even if I converted it, there wouldn't result in any "Glavras undeads" blueprints either. Selling it does sound like the better option, especially since I'm penniless. Into the Storage with you, your majesty.

"The only bad part is that Dungeon monsters do not produce magic stones." - Gust

Those stones that C-Rank monsters and above may have in their bodies? Eh, I'm not that sad over some uncertain profits-

*Rumble, rumble, RUMBLE!*

What was that?! An earthquake? In the Dungeon? Or is Sent going bananas? Anyway, this doesn't seem to be safe.

After the quake stopped popped up a System Message...no, a Quest notification?

"Eh?" - Garami & Gust

"...EEEEHHH?!" - Garami & Gust

And as if that was not enough, we heard a roar from the south of the Floor, from where the entrance to the next floors should be. I recognize that sound!

The King Cobra.