We left the angry Catfolk behind. I couldn’t tell the color of his hair or tail since he was thoroughly covered in gore and guts. 

Upon turning to go down further, we walked through the empty mineshafts and found nothing interesting until we found a hidden path behind a stuck mine cart at a dead end. Sekh and I entered through the narrow opening to reach a small room.  

[Lesser Araneae (*) – Lv. 3] 

A speedy invertebrate slithered across the ceiling to an immobilized humanoid-shaped figure wrapped in webs. Green venom dripped from its sharp fangs to the ground below. Tilde said the star symbol after its name signified it was an alpha member of its species. It was harder to kill, but it gave more experience. Some could even have unique skills.

A spider?! Jackpot! Since it’s an alpha, it might be enough to level me up. 

Sekh ran forward and attempted to get its attention, roaring as if she was a challenger vying for the right to rule. The spider slithered down off the walls and reared when it was close to Sekh. It was about 80% of her size and as black as night with skinny, sharp legs. The only color was the nuclear waste-colored venom dripping from its fangs. 

Its leg thrusts were fast and true, breaking the shield Sekh held with a single powerful attack. I responded by coming in from the back, using my newfound combat knowledge to stab at its abdomen with my spear. Anguished hissing emerged from the front, and it hastily turned towards me with its two legs reared up. I raised my tatterdemalion shield to block the attack, but it wasn’t up to the task. The spider’s eight eyes stared me down as the fangs leaked gross venom, but I held my ground and raised my spear. I knew that it was a strong possibility I was going to get hurt, so I was ready to bear the pain and flood the wound with biomass. 

The enemy was pissed off enough to forget about Sekh, who engulfed her spear with [Black Fire]. She used all her strength to press it through the spider’s wounded opisthosoma, which was enough to get it to turn around again to face the bigger threat. Painful hissing, almost like a mournful cry, echoed out from its mouth. I thought its fight or flight instinct was about to kick in, but I was totally wrong because this spider was an alpha. 

It was more than capable of deductive reasoning, which made it very dangerous. 

Moments later, the web balls it launched from its spinneret glued me to the wall behind me. Tilde had enough sense to crawl out of my backpack before we entered. 

The back of my skull bounced off the dirty, grimy wall, and I was desperately trying to fix the damage as my sight went blurry. Tilde’s pained groans reached me. Then she cursed my name and told me to fight better.  

Our pain is shared… And that took off 20%?! Shit... 

“MASTER!!” Sekh cried. She growled and formed a tight fist that glowed with pure black flames, connecting with the spider’s head after dipping low to avoid a thrust aimed at her neck. Suddenly, the oversized bug skittered backwards and crawled over me, its sickening, burning fangs inches from my cheeks as the flaming abdomen threatened to scorch me alive. Blood dripped down, covering my clothes as green venom follow behind.  

Was it using me as a hostage?! Sekh’s fury increased because she had to be touching [Black Fire] to cancel it. She ran forward with a scream, but the monster called her bluff. Its sharp fangs pierced through my cheeks, injecting vile poison into the bloodstream while also melting my skin with the flames that transferred to me. It hurt so goddamn much gritted my teeth and implemented a plan only a chimera could pull off even while my body was threatening to turn to ash. 

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Four blisteringly loud pops canceled the screaming, and Sekh froze and looked around for the shooter. She finally stared at me. “What did you do?! Master?!” Sekh ran forward when the spider fell, dead. Bullet holes riddled its cephalothorax. She touched a hand to the spider and me to cancel her flames while apologizes endlessly flowed from her mouth.  

New Title: [Araneae Slayer (I)] 

You’ve reached Lv. 2. You’ve gained 0 SP. You’ve gained 3 SP from Sekh. 

“Aaaaahhhh--- Uuuuooahhhhh------” Even if the flames were extinguished, the damage was still there. The venom still circulated through my bloodstream, making it hard to breathe. It was impossible to even formulate a one-syllable word, so speaking was out of the question. 

Tilde’s wounds mirrored mine, and she was doing all she could to bear the pain. It was hard to focus since she was far away, but it looked like her skull was partly leaking down what little skin remained on her face. 

It’s the same for me...? Fuck... It hurts so goddamn much... My HP... It’s so low... Twice in one day... 

 Sekh acted fast and ripped the spider in half, taking its meat by the handful and stuffing it in her mouth. She chewed it up finely and kissed me, forcing the meat down my throat because I couldn’t even move my lips anymore. 

“I’m sorry for this,” Sekh whispered. She moved her head back and stuck her fingers down my mouth, pushing the meat down even more, and she repeated that a few more times until it was easier to move. 

You’ve assimilated Lesser Araneae! 

New Skill: [Poison Fang] 

New Skill: [String Shot] 

New Skill: [Web Bomb] 

New Skill: [Poison Resistance] 

Immediately, I navigated to my Skill Menu. For three SP, I could get [Poison Resistance] to Lv. 2, so I did that. Literally, the moment I pressed confirm, it felt like death’s grip on my body vanished, and breathing was easier. My activity log also confirmed that I wasn’t affected by the poison anymore. In the next instant, I pumped biomass through my body and felt my skin and skull regenerate along with the HP bar filling up. The agonizing burns, the aching head wounds, the lacerations to my cheek from where the spider had bitten me... 

Biomass fixed everything up. I had gotten lucky with the flames because they didn’t spread to my clothes, which was a blessing. They damaged my hair, but that grew back. 

“To answer your question, I transfigured a goblin hand from the back of my neck and summoned Reina’s gun to it. I don’t have to replace things on my body. I can add to it,” I said, bringing out Yaekira’s dagger to cut through the webs sticking me to the walls.  

“MASTER!!!!” Sekh rubbed her hands over my already healed injuries and apologized a thousand times. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!!!! Master, I didn’t mean to hurt you—” 

“I’m fine. See? It doesn’t even hurt anymore. It’s good you used your flames because it allowed me to attack it from behind.” 

“But I swore to never hurt you! And I went against—” 

“No, you didn’t. If you hadn’t done that, the spider probably would have used its hind legs to pierce me through the heart or stomach. You scared it enough to use me as a hostage, and that’s how I surprised it. Sekh, I’m going to get hurt sometimes. I don’t know the limit, but remember that I can heal myself,” Sekh had adverted her gaze, but upon my words, she finally glanced up.  

The trembling Lionfolk met my gaze, and I hugged her. Her heart was beating extraordinarily fast. We remained like this for a minute or so—enough time for Tilde to come over and chastise me for being an idiot and not using the gun from the beginning. But she didn’t grind my faults and errors into the ground because she was pretty reasonable. She knew my past, so she understood I was the furthest thing from perfection. I was from a world where none of this existed, so it was all very brand-new to me because I hadn’t even been Lyudmila for more than 12 hours. 

She’s oddly pleasant for having a foul mouth. 

“From now on, you’re strictly fighting from range. No more close-range bullshit for you. Pain hurts, alright? That’s the second time in a thousand fucking years that I came close to fucking death,” Tilde said, putting a small hand to my wound. Her words were harsh, but her actions meant well. 

“Master, I won’t fail you again. I promise you.” The tears falling from Sekh’s eyes dried up, and she broke off from the hug after apologizing for destroying the spear. I told her that was fine because the spear was a useless hunk of shit. She was far stronger with her fists, so she said she would remain unarmed and only use shields until she found a mace. 

If I can find one at that shop, might as well steal it. Wait, or I can make one. Hmm... I have an idea. 

After hours of fighting, we were finally Lv. 2. I announced I used my 3 SP gained from Sekh to level up [Poison Resistance]. Speaking of that subject, Tilde said that, in the best-case scenario, it took about 55 SP to level a skill to 10. But that was if you devoted your entire life to constantly train and improve that single skill. For most people, that wasn’t happening. So, it was usually about 200 to 300 SP to get it to Lv. 10, which took many, many levels. Sekh used her SP to learn [Taunt], [One-Handed Mace], and [Shield]. It took 1 SP to learn and 1 SP to make it Lv. 2. The cost to level it up increased exponentially. Her 'experience’ as the Dark Lord of Tyranny remained. If I had it right, she would require less SP than others to max out her skills, but the stronger a skill was, the more SP it needed. 

Once I made sure no one was coming this way, I decided it was time to test my new skills. [Web Bomb] was just a collection of webs packed together into a projectile, and I could shoot it from anywhere on my body. To have the spider’s mana flowing through me, I just added a spider leg to my forehead to act like a temporary horn. When fired from Reina’s gun, the weapon became covered with spider motifs. It seemed decent. It wasn’t meant for heavy damage unless you slammed someone into a hard surface. [String Shot], though… 

“Master? What…” Sekh watched as I aimed my gun up and shot into the ceiling. I came up with it. When I released the trigger, the skill canceled while leaving the web behind, but if I aimed and shot another one… 

I could swing across the ceiling like a certain superhero Greggie once raved about.  

“Sekh, I’ll leave the landing to you!” My protector gracefully caught me. 

After thanking her, she put me down. I ate the rest of the spider to regain my spent mana and biomass, sparing the legs because I had plans for them. With no more enemies around us, I couldn’t test out [Poison Fang], but that was fine. We walked over to the web cocoon stuck to the ceiling, and I pulled it down with my new web abilities. It cracked on impact, sending up plums of gray dust.  

The webbing broke to reveal a person whose blood and organs had been sucked dry by that spider. The corpse had no hair, and the skin was stretched to its limit, but from the pelvis area, the corpse looked female. 

“Mira…” I said while my boar swallowed what was left of her. Sekh looked confused, but Mira was this girl’s name. That was all I knew as the taste of chalk invaded my mouths. When the deed was done, I felt different in a good way! 

You’ve assimilated Mira and acquired 10 SP. 

My hand soon became Mira’s. Her nails were long and pretty, sparkling with some type of nail polish with small crystals. Her fingertips and palms didn’t have a single callous, but they were the same color as my tits. Tilde explained that when I assimilated a person, I acquired all of their SP—even the SP that had been used. Unfortunately, I did not receive their skills, but that was fine because I obtained the actual skills from monsters. The activity log actually made mention of this refund by displaying what skills Mira did have at her command. She was a mage, with [Fire Magic], [Water Magic], [Sewing], [Calligraphy], and [Mana Perception], which allowed her to see the mana within the world. Maybe it was a mage thing, but I didn’t care about that.  What I did care about was that I felt more powerful assimilating her than I did all those monsters. It seemed that eating humanoids were the fastest way for me to grow stronger.  

But now that I had SP to spend, not counting when I hastily upgraded [Poison Resistance], I opened my Skill Menu and saw about 14 skills available for me to learn, including the ones Mira had known. Tilde said there were far more than 14, but the rest wouldn’t appear because one or more requirements had to be met. One: I needed to have at least half of the SP needed to buy before it would show up. Two: for some skills, I needed a related title. Three: you had to have attempted to manually learn the skill. Four: you had to be a certain level. Five: as a chimera, if I assimilated someone, all of their skills would be available for purchase without satisfying any requirements. That was how I had magic available to me, which usually needed months and years of training to learn how to chant in the language of mana. As a chimera, I could ignore that requirement. 

When someone learned a skill, it was engraved into their soul by the system that governed this world, and the body was responsible for using the skill. For someone who was able to reincarnate their physical body while keeping their soul, Sekh’s Skill Menu was a direct 1-to-1 copy of the skills she had available at the end of her previous life. For obvious reasons, this was very good. But it wasn’t like Sekh could buy something like [Ice Immunity] without buying [Ice Resistance] first. Most of the extremely powerful skills had other skills that needed to be learned first. And that was fine. The important thing was that Sekh could clearly see them within her Skill Menu without going through the incredibly tedious effort of making the skill show up to even buy them. 

That also meant a large portion of the work was done should she want to manually learn them. Her ascension to her former status of power would not take as long as it did the first time.  

I decided to save my SP for a rainy day, which Tilde said was a good idea. I moved my attention to the eight spider legs and got to work on my next weapon. Yaekira’s daggers were used to cut two literal chunks of stone from the wall. The first was longer than the second, and after a few minutes, I carved it into a suitable handle to support the mace head I was making with the second. I couldn’t quite cut it into a perfect sphere, but it was good enough.  

All that was left was to make a small, hollowed hole for the handle to go into, and I was done. Well, I was after I used a ton of my webs both in the hole and on the handle to make a secure connection. Next came the spiky bits, and the spider legs came in handy there. It was just a matter of cutting off the tips, making a few more holes, and using my webs to stick everything together. Once it was done, a window appeared, and I named my weapon. 

Stoney Spider Mace (0/0).  

Not that I can, but I can’t put any enchantments on any of my weapons... 

Sekh hugged her new mace to her chest while I snacked on the remaining spider legs I didn’t use. “I don’t know how long my webs will act like glue, but hopefully that works well enough until I can something better.” 

"That’s two weapons I’ve destroyed that you’ve made for me. Master, there won’t be a third.” 

“If you need to break it, that’s fine. I can whip another one up, alright?” Sekh wordlessly nodded.  

We made our way back to the lobby by following my map. We had ventured further than I thought we would have, so it was something of a walk. Once there, people did not look happy to see me. That green-haired Dogfolk was talking to the same Catfolk that brutalized that goblin corpse. When they weren’t bad-mouthing me, I’d learned the girl’s name was Ginnie, the goblin stabber was Chax, and those two and three others formed a party of five. Their average level was 6. 

Well, I don’t care.  

Tilde flew to my head and flipped them off right when we emerged outside. The fresh slap of clean air felt heavenly, and Sekh alerted me that it was night. I had a clock in my vision, but I rarely looked at it.  

Some aged adventurer cooking meat over a campfire nearby gave me a stern warning about using guns, but I ignored him.  

---

“HA! Didn’t you hear me?! I’m Noelia goddamn Carpenter! The 1-Star Soul Warrior summoned by Holy Lord Gloria!” 

The guild was in a tizzy because some drunk bitch had to make a scene. I told Sekh we should have stayed a little bit longer in the dungeon so we could have avoided this. Noelia spun in place in the middle of the guild, merrily laughing her head off. Her skin was the color of olives. The sleeveless shirt she wore didn’t seem suitable to fight in. I had thought it was a simple casual outfit, but she had elbow and kneepads with armored boots covering her feet. Her black hair was super wavy.  

But Noelia wasn’t alone. As she retrieved a hammer from her belt loop and waved it around, I saw a hooded figure in the corner. They gripped their wooden staff as if it was their last ally. Every time Noelia came closer to them, their long sleeves flinched. As Sekh and I were waiting to turn in the quest and monster cores, the hood eventually came down.  

“She’s part cyclops and Lizardfolk," Sekh said, staring at the girl’s red eye. “A half-breed.” Her skin was similar in hue to a lightened baby blue. In fact, it almost reminded me of powdered ice. Deep purple scales covered a part of her neck. I couldn’t see her arms or legs, but she probably had a few there. And there was a purple lizard-like tail peeking out from her backside, but it was very still and motionless. It seemed her hair was a mix of white and black, yet large portions looked like they were yanked out. Almost like she had been tortured. If the robe came off, would she have the wounds, scabs, and scars that I once had? But who did it? Her parents? The bitchy Soul Warrior? Was she the one who clasped that collar around her neck? Or was it Gloria? 

Eh, it doesn’t concern me.  

It was none of my business. We eventually made it to the front of the line, completed the requests we had taken, and sold the rest of the cores. I didn’t want to expose [Storage], so I used my backpack as a proxy. We managed to gain some coin, but Tilde said it wasn’t a lot because the monsters around here are weak with worthless cores.  She explained we could buy a week in a cheap inn fancied by prostitutes or a single day in a marginally better place. 

And that began our next mission. We had to find a place to stay. Someplace with enough privacy, for obvious reasons, of course, but also a place that didn’t break the bank. 

Well, I do have those clothes. Those are bound to be worth a pretty coin, so let’s see if we can find a place that’ll buy them. Ah, but I need that gun first. Okay, so do that, and it’s time to find shelter.