Shove

  Click flew back and landed on the ground in a muted thud. They righted themself before bending their head over in supplication to the [Alpha Hunter]. The act of deference sufficiently pleased it and the larger spider walked away, out of the white-pillared home in search of a fight.

  That had been Click’s life for the past week. Ever since that one spider transformed into the rare class, it had essentially taken control of the entire tribe, and used their position to bully Click. Not that the [Spider Commander] could entirely blame it, Click did happen to be the biggest threat to its authority. No wait, Click totally could blame it for being so mean! At least grateful the larger spider decided to keep Click alive.

  But that wasn’t an act of mercy. Click proved their usefulness by commanding the web spiders to net up much of their part of the cave, which had brought a large amount of extra food to the tribe. That, combined with the submissive shows, had the [Alpha Hunter] thinking that Click was better to them alive than dead.

  Click watched as a massive group of about fifty hunter spiders followed their leader out into the cave, a mix of regular Juveniles alongside a few Juvenile Hunters. Several of the spiders had evolved over the past few days, catching up in evolutionary count. Those that did only enjoyed an improvement on what they were already able to do, but didn’t gain anything like Click and the [Alpha Hunter] had. Still, they seemed pretty satisfied with the hands they were dealt, and continued on with their lives.

  With the hunters gone, Click finally had enough free time to head over to the tribe’s communal netting. With a series of massive leaps, the spider bounced across several stalagmites, and made their way to the web. Several of the evolved web spiders greeted their leader with a wave, and the [Spider Commander] returned the gesture. The regular juveniles simply ignored Click and continued their silent vigil for food. Click felt that the biggest benefit of evolution was that it gave their brethren just enough Intelligence to actually use their brains.

  All of the spiders were positioned evenly across a single mega-web that stretched across a large section of the cave wall. To get around the mindless, instinct-driven competition, Click had all of the spiders work together on a single net. If a part of it got dense enough, they wouldn’t all flock there and fight, rather staying where they were since the high density spots were part of their web. And that wasn’t all. Since everyone had contributed to the structure, any captures awarded shared Experience to the entire group!

  Click would’ve been lying if they didn’t think of using this to train their own little army to take down the [Alpha Hunter]. But alas, even with a higher [Command Subordinates] Skill and authority over all of the highly leveled web spiders, the web slingers’ combat abilities still paled in comparison to their hunter counterparts. It wouldn’t be a fight. It’d be a slaughter.

  [Command Subordinates], Click called out as they mentally focused on several of the regular juveniles.

  The smaller spiders quickly came to attention and waved at their commander.

  [Skill level up! Command Subordinates (15)]

  Click had been practicing the Skill over the past few days, and its description even changed once it reached level 10! It was now able to work on specific targets rather than a grab bag of whoever happened to be close by.

  And that wasn’t all; [Venom Gland] also went up significantly, though not as much. Apparently, the bugs caught in the tribe’s webbing made valid targets for the Skill, and eating them had gotten it up to level 7. The [Spider Commander] used ample use of their Skill whenever they got the chance, as long as the [Alpha Hunter] wasn’t nearby.

  And speaking of the devil, a chittering came from the distance and the leader of the tribe came running back with about thirty five hunter spiders in tow. Right on their tails was a trio of large predators, each much larger than the one that attacked last week.

  The group made it back to their white-pillared home and found refuge in the immovable barrier. The creature pawed at it with a low growl, but eventually turned around and left.

  The hunter spiders of the group didn’t celebrate, however. They carried with them several insects, most already half-eaten. They’d gone on what was supposed to be a hunting trip, but the sudden attack ended it early. That was happening a lot recently.

  And that was also the real reason why the [Alpha Hunter] was keeping Click around. They could control the web spiders and make them much more efficient than they would be normally. With the repeatedly bad hunting trips, the rest of the tribe would need the output from the webs to make up for their failures. And with fewer and fewer hunters returning, Click’s efforts were the only thing keeping everyone fed.

  It was a curious question as to why the [Spider Commander] didn’t simply leave for greener pastures, why they didn’t just let all of the fools back home die of starvation while they treated themselves like a king. Click considered the question several times, and the spider could never come up with anything concrete. Maybe it was some kind of emotional attachment to their home, or maybe loyalty towards their brethren?

  Click convinced themselves it was because it gave them the best chance at survival given their skillset. What use was [Command Subordinates] without anyone to, well, command? At least here, Click had some spiders to order around. Even if it was just the mostly stationary web spiders.

  Of course, Click tried to command some of the hunter spiders as well in order to boost the webs’ outputs, but that didn’t go so well. Even the [Alpha Hunter] wasn’t so stupid as to let Click have control over the tribe’s military. The first time Click tried to control some of the hunters, the leader tried tossing Click out into a pack of predators. That thankfully failed when the creatures tried going after the [Alpha Hunter] instead of the [Spider Commander].

  Click didn’t think that their behavior was just a coincidence, though. The predator that the [Alpha Hunter] had killed earlier was much smaller than the ones attacking now, and those predators didn’t seem to be that interested in the spiders for food. They just wanted blood.

  Maybe the smaller predator was a child of the ones attacking, or belonged to their tribe? Click knew that the spiders’ parent gave their life to feed everyone. So perhaps that kind of parental instinct, to care for one’s young, was common beyond just spiders, and different species just had a different way of expressing it? The predators were expressing it by wanting revenge on the spider that killed their child.

  Click grabbed a quick bite and then left the mega-web towards a small alcove away from the others. The [Alpha Hunter] would be heading up there to get a meal after its most recent failure anyway, and it wouldn’t do any good for Click to stick around.

  The spider’s remote hidey hole gave an ample view of the entrance to the mega-web, while still technically being part of it. Small bits of jagged rock jutted out of the alcove that bit into Click’s abdomen, but they ignored it. The safety the spot provided trumped any and all minor discomforts.

  The [Alpha Hunter] entered the massive net, and rather than grab at the nearest morsel, made their way to the center of the structure. Helpless insects lay all around them, mindlessly squirming against the silk without having even realized they were captured. It ignored them.

  With a thought, the leader activated a Skill several times, and two dozen web spiders all around it came to attention. A foreign [Command Subordinates] washed over Click and didn’t do so much as tickle the [Spider Commander]. Apparently neither spider was “under” the other, despite their differing opinions of each other.

  The [Alpha Hunter] jumped down from the web into the ranks of its hunting party, and the other spiders under its spell followed.

  Wait, were they…

  The large spider raised their mandibles into the facsimile of the smile and led the fifty or so subordinates back into the deeper parts of the cave.

  That idiot! Click all but screamed in their head as they quickly emerged from their alcove. The jagged stones bit into their skin, but they didn’t pay it any mind. Something far worse was going on.

  [Damage taken! HP: 22/23]

  Click brushed the notification off while red filled their eyes. They seethed as they processed what had happened.

  The [Alpha Hunter] doesn’t even care about having access to food or the rest of the tribe, it just wants to hunt! Why else would it ignore all of the food up here? What good are a bunch of web spiders going to be in a fight?! They’ve barely even used their fangs, so their venom Skills should still be close to 1!

  Click

  On the other hand, it could be doing this because letting me be in charge of the entire tribe’s food supply would give me more power than it would be comfortable with, but is it really intelligent enough to understand something like that? No, that’s not it. That idiot just can’t stop hunting.

  And its addiction is going to be the end of this tribe if I don’t do something about it. It’s time to take the Alpha out.