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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“We’re a bit unprepared since we didn’t expect giant spiders…”
“But we’re not at a level where they can defeat us. They don’t seem to use mana either.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
Swords enveloped in aura would easily cut through spider webs, and undead were immune to poison.
Kayla, Athena, and Baldur were all experts, so they had strong resistance to poison.
As long as they weren’t directly bitten, there shouldn’t be much problem…
‘As for me, the undead will guard me.’
As soon as we decided to enter, I brought out all of the undead.
I assigned two of the four Living Armors to guard me and put the other two in the lead.
Skeleton No. 1 and No. 2 followed behind them, and I placed the Specter at the very front for reconnaissance.
Kayla and Baldur guarded the left and right, while Athena took a position at the rear where she could intervene at any time.
After forming a formation centered around me, we entered the giant spider’s territory following the troll’s traces.
“…Ugh.”
We hadn’t gone far inside, but Athena was already terrified.
We saw the corpses of half-melted beasts and monsters, all looking half-burst.
“This is the troll’s doing.”
Among them were the corpses of giant spiders with sagging or decomposed bodies.
Along with the blatant appearance of captured prey around them, it certainly wasn’t a pleasant sight.
However, the reason for Athena’s terror seemed to be something else.
“What’s this smell? Why is it so fishy?”
“It’s always like this.”
It seemed this was her first time entering giant spider territory.
Their smell was more pungent than one might expect, and those unfamiliar with it might even vomit.
‘Well, if I had entered a place like this when I was weak… I would have died long ago.’
Once you entered, it was hard to come out alive.
It was a place you shouldn’t enter even by mistake.
“…I didn’t expect this…”
However, she only grumbled lightly and never lost her guard.
“…Enemy.”
The Specter sent a signal that it had discovered something, and soon Kayla confirmed its identity.
“It’s a giant spider. It seems a survivor is building a new home.”
In other words, the home wasn’t complete yet.
I quickly advanced the battle line.
The giant spider that discovered us was momentarily flustered.
It seemed to be hesitating whether to abandon the home it was building and flee, or to confront us as it was.
There was a reason for this.
The spider web was indeed about half complete.
However, it was meaningless.
Swish.
The first attack came from the Specter.
A huge hand-like thing shot out from the black space under the cloth and scratched the giant spider’s body.
The giant spider, seeming to feel pain, quickly shot silk towards the Specter, but it couldn’t harm the Specter, which only materialized at the moment of attack.
Then the four undead that charged in destroyed its home, and the giant spider, which couldn’t escape elsewhere because it was attacking the Specter, fell straight to the ground.
The fate of a giant spider abandoned on flat ground without a home was obvious.
The undead were immune to poison, and without a home, it couldn’t restrict their movements.
The rest of the group didn’t even need to step in.
“…It’s certainly weak.”
“Don’t underestimate them. The situation was just favorable, these are creatures that treat even orcs as food.”
Especially giant spiders that lived in clusters like this were particularly scary.
‘Originally, only one or two live across a wide area.’
Perhaps because there were many monsters around, the giant spiders in the Monster Forest lived in clusters like this.
As soon as the battle ended, I burned off the spider webs stuck to the undead.
Whoosh.
A spell close to the basics that I could use spread out.
It was a spell belonging to black magic and not generallt used for attack, so it could only be used for purposes like this, but it was quite convenient.
However…
‘It’s inefficient as expected.’
Although I could use most black magic, I was currently focusing on necromancy as my main and curses as secondary, so I had inevitably drifted away from other branches.
While in my previous life I had broadly learned various things to suit the Demon Lord’s avatar body without needing to specialize in anything particular, now I had a clear goal of becoming stronger and was specializing in certain branches for that purpose…
‘It’s more difficult since I haven’t contracted with a fire-using demon.’
The ‘fire’ of black magic was a bit special.
Even I from my previous life didn’t properly use the fire branch.
Unlike the blessing of magic, ‘fire’ in black magic had a somewhat special meaning.
It was relatively okay at lower levels, but as the level increased, it became harder to use.
Even though I had received the blessing of magic, this was a slightly different story.
“Wow, if that’s possible, can’t you do it for me too?”
Athena pointed at the spider webs stuck here and there on her body.
I shook my head and answered.
“No. It’s fine for these undead since they’re mine, but not for you. It’s dangerous.”
At my firm refusal, Athena backed down without argument.
After the first battle, we encountered giant spiders little by little, and each time we found them, we lightly dealt with them and moved forward.
We discarded the spider silk, one of the byproducts.
It was unavoidable as we weren’t prepared for collection.
While collecting the giant spiders’ poison fangs, Athena muttered as if she couldn’t understand.
“We’ve come in this far, but to go even further inside… Why on earth?”
That was something I was curious about too.
Trolls weren’t fools.
It seemed too much to think it was just for the pleasure of hunting, as it had already attacked a human village once.
‘We’ll know when we get there.’
And that question was soon to be answered.
Athena looked at the troll with an expression that said she was at a loss for words.
It was using giant spiders as tools.
“…Those are humans, right?”
I briefly answered Athena’s question.
It was using giant spiders to ‘store’ humans in spider webs, and was eating one of them.
Thanks to this, we could easily guess why it had come this far in.
‘It needed obedient ones.’
Of course, the further in we went, the more likely we were to encounter long-lived ones with higher intelligence.
It seemed it had killed and eaten the previous ones because they couldn’t understand commands.
The creature that was eating the stored humans noticed us and stood up.
“Grook.”
Its mouth was covered in red blood, and a dirty wooden log was leaning against its side.
An unpleasant smile formed on its face, it seemed to think of us as new prey.
Its gaze was especially focused on me.
“…Arrogant.”
Kayla, who noticed that gaze, muttered softly.
“Can I handle that one?”
Kayla could indeed handle it alone.
I nodded and answered.
“Don’t kill it.”
I was planning to try charming it.
“Of course. I’ll avoid the legs as well.”
Then there was no problem.
“I’ll block any interference from the surroundings.”
Kayla immediately stepped forward, and I used the other undead to block the giant spiders that were heavily guarding the surroundings.
“Athena, Baldur.”
“There will be living people among them. Rescue as many as you can. Even if they’re dead, if their condition is okay, bring them.”
“Understood.”
The two seemed to like my order.
Of course, I wasn’t giving this order out of mere compassion.
‘It’s image improvement.’
This was our first request.
Not only capturing the troll on this request but also rescuing the captured people?
‘Moreover, there wasn’t a single word about the captured people.’
They naturally thought they were dead.
It wasn’t humans who kidnapped them, but monsters.
If the mercenary who came wasn’t a warlock like me, there might have been people who would ask for rescue with separate compensation, but perhaps because I was a warlock or because we moved so quickly, there were no such requests at all.
‘Yet if we bring back people, even if I’m a warlock, they’ll have to be grateful at first.’
They might still be wary, but it would be better than before.
Especially since we would be coming to Normary Village often for a while, forming a good image would be useful in the long run.
The troll threw aside the human it was eating and lifted its weapon, the wooden log.
Kayla was slowly approaching it with her shield in front.
The troll moved first.
It could move boldly because it underestimated Kayla, or more precisely, humans.
The huge wooden log, much larger than Kayla, fell towards her head.
Kayla blocked it with her shield as if it was nothing.
“Grook?”
The troll’s expression twisted in confusion at the strong repulsive force it felt in its hand.
It was visible that the troll was applying strong force as if to press down, but.
Creak.
An unpleasant sound came from the wooden log, but Kayla showed not even a hint of wavering.
Rather, after observing the troll’s surprised face as if it was trivial, she lifted her shield.
Bang!
‘…How much mana did she pour into that?’
Although the efficiency was incomparable due to her mana heart… I couldn’t have imagined that the troll’s hand, which was pressing down, would be lifted skyward.
“Kuaaaak!”
Naturally, if it suffered such a thing head-on, its arm couldn’t be intact.
Its joints were all twisted, and its posture was sloppy.
However, true to being a troll, its arm visibly regenerated at once.
Kayla paid no attention.
Moving to right in front of the troll’s eyes with high-speed movement, Kayla jumped slightly and rammed her shield into its side.
“Kuk!”
As if its breath was cut off, the troll staggered.
From that moment on, one-sided violence was unleashed.
Kayla put away her sword entirely from the middle and started pounding the creature with her shield.
‘…It’s no match.’
I thought she would win, but I didn’t expect her to toy with it so one-sidedly.
‘Still, it was a medium to large sized monster after all.’
Its movements weren’t that slow, and it was constantly regenerating.
However, Kayla was overwhelming it with pure physical ability without even using aura.
Midway through, the troll attacked Kayla again with its recovered arm, but Kayla smashed the wooden log with her shield head-on, and when the troll tried to aim for Kayla’s life with the sharp part of the broken wooden log, Kayla lightly avoided it and responded by breaking all of its fingers.
Meanwhile, Athena and Baldur dealt with the giant spiders and rescued the people trapped in cocoons.
The Specter was quite helpful in this process, ignoring the giant spiders’ attacks as if they were nothing and one-sidedly attacking to draw their attention.
Thanks to this, Athena and Baldur were able to easily deal with them and rescue the humans.
Of course, there were some that targeted me during this time, but
Clank, clank.
They were lightly punished by the Living Armors armed with maces and shields.
The initial armament was swords, but even with some of my experience injected, I changed them to maces after seeing they were more efficient than swords.
It seemed to be because their movements were more sluggish compared to the skeletons.
Even after the surroundings were cleared, Kayla’s beating continued endlessly.
“Kuak, kuaak! Kuaaaak!”
The troll had given up on defense entirely and was enduring the beating while curled up.
“…Teacher seems really angry.”
Athena muttered as if she had goosebumps watching Kayla like that.
I glanced at Baldur, and he too was looking at Kayla with a somewhat fearful gaze.
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