I was sick of this. I couldn’t believe they just dragged me along with them. They spend few days preparing for the extermination party.

Why the hell would they make an entire raid amount of people? It is just a rat…

No matter to them. They either don’t believe me despite the truth gem or they know something they keep secret. Anyways forty people is complete overkill for one rat.

¨Keep your formation tight, we don’t want accidents¨ Alphonse Ray was leading the raid. I still don’t know who he is but judging by his influence he has to be some royalty. Probably a prince. What he is doin there personally dealing with minor incident in the dungeon so far away from the capital that I don’t know.

Currently we were somewhat smoothly proceeding through the first floor. Without the bait zones it actually proved to be a little bit of a challenge due to often encounters with monsters.

Not that the fight itself would be problematic, I don’t think I saw single one of us having any trouble with these minor monsters. It just slowed down our progress.

To my surprise we even went past the lair where I was kept for so long and there was another spider. Well no matter he died before I could even act. I think some fireball killed him. Was too quick for me to notice who did it. We had many mages with us.

¨Do I really have to be part of this? I wanted to take a break. Almost dying recently in the first floor is not a memory I want to be reliving so early¨

I knew the answer because I was already protesting before but I seriously don’t want any part in this. I am not that traumatized but I really wanted to take a break from dungeon. It is weird. My entire life I was looking forward to success in dungeon and one delve changed my priorities. I will still delve. Sure. But I don’t want to take any unnecessary risk.

¨No, you are important. There might be a reason why that monster didn’t kill you. I am sorry for this. We don’t usually drag people to dungeon with us, especially not those who protest but it is important that we find out why you lived. You are with us to find out. If everything goes smoothly we will reward you. You just have to deal with it. Also don’t think too negatively of this. Just use this opportunity to do what you told me you always wanted¨

He was smiling brightly when he was speaking to me. Was really nice, he is really charming. It feels really off somehow. I don’t usually fall for people this fast. No matter how much of a pretty face they are. Probably some skill of his. Bastard. A charm user hah? Well no matter.

What would I expect from royalty. Of course they will play dirty to have some advantageous skills for politics...

Well we were passing through the big expanse. Without the bait zones I actually expected almost free pass.

To my surprise there was a huge bear with a pack of some smaller ones. They probably dominate the floor since they occupy the expanse so carefree like this. I also noticed a slime. Whoa. They are super rare on this floor.

¨Everyone with ranged attacks destroy the hornet nest and then proceed on killing remaining hornets. Tanks go engage the bears and make sure to not let any of them past you on our backline. The rest of us will provide backup when necessary and deal with any scavengers and opportunistic monsters. Also everyone make sure to not hurt the slime¨

After he said that everyone started bombarding the hornet nest. The mages pretty much obliterated the nest and only about three hornets survived the blasts. I swiftly dealt with them. With one blade wave I killed them perfectly when they were charging consumed by rage on the mages. While I was busy dealing with the hornets the tanks were already in the heat of battle.

The smaller bears died relatively quickly. Few ranged attacks from our archers and blast there and there from few mages and within few seconds only the last bear was standing.

Judging by the appearance he was a boss. He was absorbing some of the attacks from the mages but had trouble to deal with various taunt effects of the tanks. I could clearly see the struggle of his to break off from them and try to attack the backline but he was kept in check.

Well I was watching but soon I had to deal with pack of rats almost murdering our mages from behind only to back away when they failed to do so because of a barrier that one of them hastily put up. Good thing for them I guess. Soon a boar charged at us as well from one of the tunnels but one of the tanks was smartly keeping up close and charged over to taunt it for a sec for us to deal with It without any trouble.

I wanted to kill the boar but Alphonse to my surprise killed it with a throwing dagger in one hit.

Lovely at least he isn’t just all talk. Damn like this I might just fall in love with that guy.

Meanwhile the bear did some sort of roar sound attack. I have never seen a mage react so fast in my life before, but we were all protected by a barrier countering the effect. I think it was one of the female mages but wasn’t sure. They were all pretty much casting something or in middle of casting so was hard to notice in that chaos. Anyways the boss bear was bombarded by dozens of spells of all kinds of elements and it was only a matter of seconds before he dies.

He didn’t. He went berserk and his wounds were regenerating rapidly but despite all his efforts he still couldn’t break off from the tanks and one of the mages finished casting a long channel spell. He was utterly obliterated. It was a solar flare spell. I felt the heat even from this distance and was sure that if the mages didn’t do any barrier spells on the tanks they would take some heavy damage as well.

Fortunately they did. They were really nicely coordinated. I never knew you can even achieve teamwork on this level before. We are talking forty people that operate this nicely. Without given instructions. Definitely veteran raiders. Potentially they already knew each other and raider together.

¨Well done everyone, we managed to slay boss bear without any injuries. Now we take a small break while mages deal with the slime¨

I was sure they would catch the slime alive and that’s what they did. They used special bag for living creatures. Well mostly we call them slime bags because that’s what they are used for. I never knew why slimes are so sought for but money is money.

Afterwards we kept going past the expanse into the tunnels leading to floor two. We met only with a single ant that died so quickly he probably didn’t knew what happened.

Leading the raid trough the small tunnel connecting the floor one and two we were already on the edge of floor two.

¨Listen well. This is important. I am sure many of us had an encounter or two with terror spider before¨ I could clearly see the hatred on the faces of my fellow raiders. They even muttered something like ill kill her or so there and there. Ray quickly interrupted them all.

¨As I said. You guys probably had some encounter with terror spider before. It is a scary boss that has a lot of monsters helping her and is super slippery despite her gigantic size. We are however prepared for it this time. We can clearly know if it is present because it makes her kin invisible. We made special runes to interact with her spatial skill so that it would make it impossible for her to retreat¨

I could hear a lot of joyful reactions from the people around me.

¨Great that bitch isn’t going anywhere this time¨

¨Finally it was about time¨

¨Yes did the mages finally figured how to stop it?¨

¨Yes…YES!!!¨

Alphonse clearly distressed by the relative nice mood of the raid party.

¨Ladies and gentlemen… please take this seriously. This is terror spider we are talking about. It lived for thousands of years in a world where strong consume weak and we ourselves tried to hunt it down many times before and took actual casualties. We cannot underestimate it at all. When we confirm the presence of the boss, mages will activate the disrupt runes. We then proceed to clear as much of the spiders as we can before they inevitably escape to the safety of the terror spider¨

His speech was getting long and I for once was getting scared a little bit. Are they talking about THE TERROR SPIDER? No way. This close to surface? I don’t want to die. No way.

¨You all know what to do when we fight her. I just want to remind you all that some of us might die. Do not forget that. We have to kill her now. It might be our last chance before she evolves¨

I could clearly see the shift of mood again. The more determinate faces and proper focus and battle hardened will clearly showing up.

¨So it was true. That thing is really close to evolution after all¨

¨If we fail it might be catastrophic¨

¨No way I will let her evolve¨

¨We will kill her for sure this time¨

Alphonse was content with the mood that he set and came close to me.

¨Listen I know you are young and didn’t sign up for this willingly. You can stay here in a safe space when we fight for humanity, I wouldn’t force you to fight it. However without you we might not win. Your class is very good to deal huge amount of damage on big targets. If you trust our tanks and stay close to them I promise you… you wouldn’t die before them, you have my word¨

That’s all nice and dandy but just because I die after the tanks die it doesn’t make it any better!!!

What is he expecting a mere level one hundred eighty sword dancer to accomplish?? At most ten percent of her hp if I unleash all of my attacks properly.

It was true that there were no other sword dancer in the group or any advanced class to it but that doesn’t make it any better to force this on me.

That is not fair.

¨I am scared. I don’t want to die¨

Weird of me to be this honest. Most likely because of his charm skill.

¨I know. I am also afraid but I know that we can win. Our tanks are good men. If you trust them and us, there is a high chance you will be the one dealing the last hit to the boss¨

I know that. I know. If by any chance. If only by any chance I manage to land the last hit on that boss. I am set for life. That would skip hard work for many decades of my life. Right into super high level. Probably unlocking at least one rare class too.

But I am scared. I think I know it is going to be there. It feels like fate all over again. I just know it is going to be there. I know it is going to happen. I know.

I don’t want to die because I am afraid to work my ass off to properly progress.

I am scared.

¨I will help you a little bit. You will make decision with clear head then. Just think about it properly¨

After that he hugged me tightly, I started crying and weirdly comforted by these things I got sudden outburst of determination. I can do this. We can do this. I had no doubts there is something going on because of Ray but who cares. If by any chance I manage to slay the terror spider. Everyone will know about me and I will be super strong. I will have to try. It is once in a life opportunity.

¨I will do it¨

¨Good. Keep close to our tanks and do not go away from them even for a second in the fight. Try to keep pacing yourself properly and watch out for any ambushes from the smaller spiders¨

I understood him very well. If I move even a little bit away from the tanks protection I might die in matter of second. He then went and talked individually to every single one of us. He talked the longest to tanks and mages. Pointed at me various times when he talked to some of them. Also I was sure he was talking with one of the mages for far too long. It was the mage woman that casted the barrier to protect us from the sound roar from the bear boss. Well it was terror spider it was well know for doin massive vibration wave attacks to attack both mind and body.

¨Alright ladies and gentlemen it is time. For humanity we shall fell this beast¨

Roars of determination filled the tunnels. We are going.

Very shortly after entering the floor two directly we already were standing on top of the webbed floor. We noticed that some of the spiders are indeed invisible. That was the cue we needed to activate the runes and mages promptly did so. A huge screech of sound filled the space immediately after the runes were activated. It was there and it knew. The spiders quickly ran we managed to kill only two spiders.

We also had to deal with completely blocked of tunnel leading towards the expanse where the spider was.

I am scared again.

Meanwhile the mages were somehow melting the webs without suffocating us in the process. It took them about ten seconds to pass the twenty meters of thick web blocking the tunnel.

We were past that tunnel.

I don’t want to die.

I really don’t want to die.

I can clearly see thousands of spiders filling the entire expanse.

Some of them occupying the gigantic web alongside the gigantic spider.

Most of them on the floor already prepared to fight and some on the ceiling and walls.

It was almost as if the entire expanse was coated in spiders. Only few spaces without them.

I could’ve sworn the spider was looking at us with pure hatred. I felt nauseous by the sheer will of the monster to kill us all.

¨Today we murder this beast, do not single one of these alive. We will be victorious¨

Bent Alphonse Ray… you are a brave man. Seemingly unfazed with the horrifying spectacle we all see.

The tanks were the first to act. Charging at the spiders before us. I didn’t even realize it but I already started charging with them.

We were currently fighting about fifty spiders while the mages were protecting us from the bombardment of the webs the spiders on ceiling were doin.

I was a bit scared at first and didn’t know how to utilize my strongest skill so I decided to not to do so out of fear to cut my allies and just slash one of them at the time. After a while I got an opening I so utterly wanted. Focused properly and aimed with my perfect aim skill I have slashed over sixty spiders before us with single blade wave.

It was very confusing and scary to get used to this all out war at first but as time goes on I just let go. After all that’s my style. I need to let go of my fear and focus on my instincts to properly move around and be able to fight properly.

Many blasts of various effects were around me. I was surely protected by barriers of all kinds as well as I managed to be unhurt in all of this chaos. I think I murdered about three hundred spiders before I noticed I am too far away from the tanks. It was scary but I just quickly charged towards them with my quick step skill. Navigating this hell came naturally to me and I felt invigorated.

The pace of the battle was overwhelmingly in our favor. None of the spider attacks worked on us and we slashed most of them with ease. While I thought what I did was impressive the archers and mages already dealt with every single one of the spiders on the ceilings and walls leaving us only with about a thousand left before us.

The terror spider used his vibration attack. Spiders seeming unfazed by this were completely falling back behind the big spider. We had trouble breathing or even moving while we were already protected by the barrier the woman before was doin. Probably a good mage when it comes to barriers and we still felt as if we might implode from within. So strong vibrations. Even the ground was cracking and it was only getting stronger but only for a while after it ended. I could’ve sworn even the spiders behind were started to be affected. Might be reason why it stopped.

After what I foolishly expected to be a brief time of respite her gigantic leg moved with such speed it could’ve sworn I saw blurry and impacted the ground.

The impact was so huge and the shockwave was closing in insanely fast. I think only half second passed from the impact and we were already about to get hit. I have never seen anything like this. Even when I was training with some mages and saw the strongest spells they never accomplished anything even nearly close to such force.

The tanks were not surprised. They were ready. One of them made a barrier from his shield that was properly all around him and protected even space behind him quite well. The other what I would assume was berserker just prepared for the impact and the last third tank has already activated the runes across his entire armor and equipment. I think that was a rune knight.

The mages also weren’t surprised, nowhere near fast as the woman that was already making a barrier across entire raid members except me and the tanks but already ready to pitch in. They added some much needed help to the tanks boosting them with some spells. Quite a few already channeling what I would assume powerful spells to retaliate as soon as possible.

The impact hit the tanks. The most impressive sight was the berserker literally absorbing such impact with his body head on. He also had armor but surely that wouldn’t do that much I just knew.

I was hiding behind the shield guy as that seemed as the most safe space to be but honestly it wouldn’t make any difference. The tanks properly absorbed the entire force of the huge shockwave. It was impressive. There was even earthquake afterwards.

What was even more impressing was that they immediately charged at the boss the second they could. I was right behind them and was feeling the mana of some mage already hard at work. It was the solar flare again. Clearly did quite a bit of damage to the spider but nowhere near enough. But soon a huge lance of ice pierced one of his legs. Meanwhile archers focused quite a bit of firepower to finish of the rest of the spiders. It took them about five seconds with powered arrows and explosive arrows and such. I was never really interested in the class but I knew they are fairly effective to deal with low hp monsters.

Terror spider was enraged by the sight of his kin dying. It clearly tried to protect them. Shielding them as much as it could from the heavy hitting spells and also absorbing quite a bit of arrows but it ultimately failed due to its size. It couldn’t react fast enough and was helplessly watching us to deal with the remaining spiders. Well not me I was busy sending blade waves across its body. It seemed like small cuts there and there but I knew it was working. Slowly but surely.

We had murdered all of them. Only the gigantic spider was left. Mages hard at work. Keeping it in check with freezing spells. I saw even huge spells like lightning storm being used because it was so effective due to its sheer size it was almost guarantee all of the lightning hitting it. And the occasional solar flare to blast into now opened wounds from my blade waves.

I still had about half mana left and could clearly feel that the mages are starting to run dry. Some of them still had quite a bit of mana but not that much.

We have to end this soon or we all die.

The berserker now finally fully able to focus on the spider boss solely was crazy enough to jump on the boss. It was an impressive leap and with its heavy axe he started cutting it on top of it.

To our shock he got impaled by the spider hair. He still viciously cut the spider over and over while he already knew he is as good as dead. I think in that moment everyone knew. We have to kill that monster. For him. For us. For humanity.

Invigorated by the brave fight of the already dead berserker still cutting the monster over and over despite having entire body impaled.

We all did our best moves. I was madly doin blade waves over and over. Over and over. I even saw the solar flare mage completely collapse from doin two more solar flares in a row. That was impressive he casted two solar flares at the same time. The berserker slowing down but I could’ve sworn he is still trying so hard to hold onto his axe and life. Even the solar flare heat didn’t affect his resolve in the least. Not that it would hit him due to sheer size of the spider but it clearly melted his armor and burned his skin off.

I was expecting him die very shortly but Alphonse leaping on the spider quickly securing him and swiftly leapt going back down towards the single healer that wasn’t able to cast any healing magic that far away. Maybe he has a small chance.

I was still going mad with my blade waves. I think I had only about ten of the skill mana worth left. I also knew I am probably going to make only about eight because my sword is busted. It will break any time soon.

Even Alphonse seemingly doin nothing this entire time started throwing knifes at the spider boss. It seemed like a rain of knives. Infinitely more than I was able to count swiftly falling onto the boss.
We were nearly done. The boss was about to drop dead. It still had burning rage and will to fight in its eyes but it couldn’t properly hold onto its web with its gigantic size and was falling down from the web. The shockwave from the impact was absorbed by the last tank left with some juice the shield guy. He did the shield barrier now a bit more big because he had to protect entire raid. I could’ve clearly see his struggle to withstand it all by himself. He got a bit of help from the woman specializing in the barrier but she collapsed from using her last drops of mana. Fortunately it was enough. The spider was on the ground. Immobile.

Mages completely dry… Archers without arrows…. Tanks done, tired, collapsed on the ground.

Only me and Alphonse was left to deal with the spider. And oh well also the healer but he was busy trying to save the life of the berserker.

We are nearly defeated. But we will win. I can feel it.

¨We have a job to do Rose. Lets do this¨

¨Yes¨

We made our wave to the spider. I was doin my blade waves on top of its neck. Trying to cut its head off. Alphonse was trying to make sure she stays down. Using way more throwing daggers than physically possible to keep he bombarded any attempt of the beast to pick itself up. Always focusing the legs it was attempting to use.

I also had to deal with the spider hair shooting at me but I danced around those completely avoiding any of the hair and cutting over and over into the same spot. I was at the seven blade wave when I felt a crack in the sword. Please hold on. I still have three left. Don’t fail me and withstand it. Eight blade wave. The sword had some of its steel falling off. Nine wave. Ten wave the sword shattered as I completed the last cut and completely severed the spiders head.

We WON! And shortly after I fell down. I think I barely felt someone catching me but I don’t know.

WE won. Yes…..