Just as soon as she’d felt herself fall over dead, she opened her eyes again to the same clearing again.

Her fire was still burning where she’d left it, not even bothering to apologize for killing her. How exceptionally rude of it.

She hadn’t appeared to drop anything on death, and her gear seemingly had no kind of durability she needed to account for, luckily.

The only change in the area was.. some kind of chittering noise from nearby.

Searching around for it didn’t take too long, her eyes eventually landing back on the spider she’d been ordered to execute.

It…

It was laughing at her.

It had watched her burn herself to death, and was now was doing the arachnoid equivalent of cackling to itself at how stupid she’d looked. She couldn’t believe this.

“Oh, so this whole thing is funny to you now, huh?”

“Chk chk! Chkchk chk!!”

It was like it was trying to talk to her. Maybe she really was losing it.

“You think it’s funny seeing someone burn to death, hmm?”

“Chk chkchk!”

“Well you’re not exactly all too impressive yourself either!”

“Chk?! Chkchk!!”

The spider huffed at her, clearly understanding what she was saying, and not about to sit there and accept being ridiculed by someone as pathetic as her.

It scuttled over, quickly biting down right on her ankle.

She yelped, seeing a few of her HP drain out from the weak attack.

“You little…!” Her foot reared back instinctively, punting the little shit like a football.

It tumbled back a foot or two, landing on its back and struggling to right itself again, rolling back and forth helplessly.

“Yeah, well, serves you right! Hmph”

It of course had taken no damage from the attack still, but even the satisfaction of stranding it like this was a salve on her brain, letting her start to laugh off how miserable her luck has been so far.

She laughed like someone possessed , falling on her back across from the spider as it kept angrily chittering at her, stuck like that as she laughed herself silly, till her lungs were sore and she gasped for air.

She… really was stuck here, huh?

She’d really failed the first hurdle out of the door, like she’d stepped outside and tripped on her own welcome mat.

But…

Actually, she’d discovered something new from her untimely first death. Two things, even.

The first was that fire damage alone could inflict lethal damage on its own.

The second, that even if she couldn’t damage an enemy herself, she could move it.

She sat upright like a zombie given new life, her face contorted into an expression that would have made children cry, a sickening little smile from ear to ear as the gears churned in her mind.

Rushing over to it, she crouched low next to the spiderling that had so eagerly mocked her earlier fumbles, now stuck in place as it turned it’s eyes to look at her.

“...C-Chk?”

“Oho, don’t you worry your little head about aaaaaanything~”

Giggling to herself, she poked the end of her staff against the stuck beast.

“Shock!”

Once more the blue electricity coursed from her, zapping the spiderling, it’s struggling stopping as it vibrated in place, successfully stunned. It seemed like something this low level really didn’t have any kind of status resistances to speak of. Good.

She cast Shock a few more times, finding that the stun timer did in fact seem to stack as long as the spell succeeded. Not much help against anything that could resist it, as status ailment resistances should normally start multiplying in response to being repeatedly afflicted in short succession, but if the base resist was already zero, no multiplying effects would do anything to help it.

Repeating her Shock over and over and over, alternating Saps as well when her MP emptied just to squeeze as much time as she could out without letting the timer drop, finally reaching an impressive 5 minutes of stun all together.

Satisfied, she hoisted the extremely disoriented arachnid in her arms, ready for the next part of her genius plan.

Revenge.

She practically skipped across the clearing, reaching her roaring campfire again with the mocking spider in her arms.

She smiled like an angel, making sure it could see her deific expression.

Her arms parted, and she dropped the spider directly into the fire she’d made. Letting it THUNK against the wood and leaves as the flames wasted no time in licking at it.

It took no time at all for the Lv. 1 enemy to be afflicted with the burning status like she’d been, too dazed to even notice as the stun timer slowly ticked away second by second.

She’d received several free MP potions for her earlier login bonus, and popping one open, she sat herself across from the fire, making good and sure her robes weren’t in range to catch fire again.

Sip, Shock, Sap, Repeat.

Over, and over, and over.

Watching the once unkillable spiderling roast like a Thanksgiving turkey in what could only be absolute agony for it. It had taken her an hour to burn to death, but the spider was still at about 30% life by that point.

She… was weaker than the first tutorial enemy.

…

She threw a few more sticks on the fire to raise the heat higher.

Her endless Shocks never ended, stunning the monster over, and over, and over, an endless monotony that had her completely miss the notification of another skill earned.

Even her sadistic glee from earlier had melted into a haze, never taking her eyes off her prey as it cooked over an open flame.

Another half hour passed, and the last HP finally dribbled away, the spider bursting into the same particle effects she had before. Several items dinged as they dropped from where it had been, but more importantly…!

Her eyes shot up and to the right, fully awake instantly.

[Slay a forest spiderling: 1/1] COMPLETE

She’d… done it!

It had counted this, somehow, as her kill!

She arose triumphantly, all too excited for having done the bare minimum to prove she could play the game without dying on entry.

Several more DINGs caught her attention finally, and she clicked over to the notifications once again, excitedly hoping for anything more valuable that stick collection and fire resistance.

[New Skill: Sadist]

- Unlock: Afflict a single enemy with an ailment 100 times without attacking.

- Lowers damage dealt by -75%. Raises ailment success rate by 120%.

- Enemies afflicted by user build ailment resistance at 1/3rd the normal rate.

Sadist and Bind Endurance… now people were definitely going to get the wrong ideas looking at her.

That aside though, this was interesting. Her damage was even less salvageable now that she had this massive of a debuff slapped onto it. But in exchange, she was now a debuff class with almost guaranteed status success chances. This was the kind of build-around skill she’d been missing.

[New Skill: Environmental Mastery]

- Unlock: Kill an enemy with only environmental damage.

- Enemies aggroed by the user take 2x damage from environmental sources.

Useful! If she ever planned to make a habit of throwing monsters into campfires, at least. Which she hoped to not make a habit of.

Her victory and skills secured, she noticed the dropped items again, quickly doing her best to snuff out her trusty fire so she could take them without letting it have a 3^rd kill today.

The spoils of her hard fought battle were several spindly limbs, similar to the spider’s but… more generic looking. Likely just a standard drop from any enemies of this type. The same for some neat rolls of silky webbing , all of it miraculously unburned.

And on top of it all sat a single, polished ring, adorned with a spiderweb pattern and a single green gem atop it.

It immediately drew her attention, and she slipped it on her finger without a second thought as she popped open a detail screen for it.

[Beastmaster’s Sigil (Arachnid)] RARE

- Allows for summoning of an allied monster of the attached type.

- Monster levels alongside the user, and will respawn the next day if slain.

Oh, this seemed like a find…

Solo play in an MMO would undoubtedly be a nightmare, but with this she functionally had her own party at all times.

She tapped the gem on the ring, and out popped the monster she’d be joined by…

A cute, eight-legged, black-fuzzed creature that came up to about her calves.

The exact same spiderling she’d just brutally murdered mere moments ago.

Oops.

“Ehe… n-no hard feelings…?”

The creature looked around itself, eyes landing on the smothered fire. Then tracing up to her. If a spider could squint angrily, it would have.

“...chk.”

“...Is that an ok?”

The spiderling stepped closer, and immediately began resuming it’s earlier assault on her ankles.

A fair reaction, honestly.

But seeing as party members couldn’t deal friendly damage to one another, it quickly gave up the attempts after a bit.

She crouched low, placing a hand on it’s head and petting gently.

“If I promise not to slowly boil you alive again, can we be friends?”

It thought for a long moment.

“Chkchk.” Affirmative.

“Glad to hear it! From here on out, we go it together… um, do you have a name?’

It did it’s best to shake it’s head at her.

“I guess you wouldn’t, no. Then how about… Silk?”

An agreeable chittering, as it nuzzled into her palm in acceptance.

“Silk it is then! Welcome aboard to the team.”

And so began the tale of the most hopeless of all mages, setting out to begin her adventures into the unknown, untested ground of this sprawling digital world.