Chapter 37: Chapter 36: Efficiency

I couldn't move, but I still had access to item box. As the jaws closed around my head, I summoned the horn of a horned beetle, not into my hand but horizontally in front of me, using the tip of my nose as the anchor point. It immediately started falling, but not fast enough for the wolf head to miss it.

The jaws snapped shut, the horn slowing the bite enough that my helmet could withstand the rest. My head felt like it had been hit on both sides by hammers, and my ears were ringing, but it was good enough. The horn had pierced through the roof of its mouth, causing a spray of blood, and enough distraction that the mental assault holding me in place failed. I followed up by drawing my sword of paralysis and stabbing it in the still-open jaw.

The monster screeched, the tentacle holding the wolf head writhing around in agony. The sword's paralysis effect hadn't done much with a single strike, but I'd still dealt it a decent amount of damage.

The condition of the head's tentacle didn't stop two more from raking at me with their claws, one of which I blocked with my shield, and the other with a gauntlet. Despite what they could do to the smaller centipedes, these things couldn't pierce the shell of the giant one. I swung again with my sword, cutting into one of the new limbs.

The fight continued with the monster attempting to claw at me, and me blocking and countering. Its shape and my hiding place prevented it from attacking with more than two tentacles at once, so I thankfully didn't end up out-limbed. I didn't manage to inflict any further deep wounds, but as the small cuts built up, its movements dulled. Was it losing too much blood, or was the paralysis kicking in? Hopefully both.

The way the fight was going, my biggest concern was that it would flee. Despite the damage I'd done to its limbs, I hadn't been able to get close to the main body. All it needed to do would be to fly away, and the mana crystal would be out of my reach. This creature appeared to have no intelligence, and operated only on instinct, but as instincts went, survival was normally a powerful one.

In an attempt to avoid that, I reluctantly stepped forward, leaving the shelter of my overhang and exposing myself to a more difficult to handle attack. Sure enough, all four clawed limbs came at me, but with its dulled speed, I was able to dodge, inflicting one more cut as I did so.

That seemed to be enough for the monster, which suddenly reared up, standing upright on two limbs and exposing its underbelly. It promptly split open from top to bottom, exposing a maw almost two metres long, filled with jagged, randomly arranged teeth. Apparently I'd grown too used to monsters being scaled up versions of Earth things... "What sort of eldritch abomination are you?" I screamed at it, backing away from the approaching orifice.

Stillness, it replied, causing my movement to lock up again. Despite its lack of skill at wielding its newfound powers, it certainly had a good sense of timing.

The maw was big enough to take me in whole, and I doubted summoning another spear would be enough to protect me this time. Doubly so when it didn't immediately try to enclose me, but instead stuck out a long, wide tongue which carefully wrapped itself around my torso.

Desperately trying to come up with an idea, any idea, there was only one thing that came to mind. I summoned one of my slave collars around my own neck. Move, I ordered myself.

Mind magic resistance advanced to level 13

My arm twitched. Cut it, I yelled in the privacy of my own head, as the tongue started dragging me in. My arm was freed from the monster's control, and I swung down with all my strength, severing the tongue.

The monster screeched again, but this time it was far louder, and accompanied by a blast of warm, fetid air from its giant maw, sending me reeling with nausea. As I backed away, the direction of the wind changed, now being inhaled, and the monster rapidly inflated. It had finally decided to run. I pulled my fox-kin spear from my item box and threw it at the expanding body. It pierced through, resulting in a hiss, and the rate of expansion slowed.

I charged in, but with the monster concentrating on escaping, it didn't make any defensive moves, leaving me to stab it over and over. It deflated and collapsed to the ground, dead.

Evolution conditions met: Novice dodger ranks up to proficient dodger
If someone swings a blade, the smart option is to make sure you're not standing in the way. An option that you exercised repeatedly when you successfully defeated a natatio sideralis without taking a single wound, earning you this upgrade. This skill will sharpen your instincts and reflexes, and aid in predicting an opponent's movements.

Evolution conditions met: Sword dabbler ranks up to sword proficiency
Swords may come in many different styles, but the general idea of getting a long bit of metal and sharpening one or both sides is about as ubiquitous as weapons can get. There's a reason why they're so popular; they work. In fact, they work so well that you were able to take down a natatio sideralis without taking a single scratch. This skill increases your competence and damage when attacking with a sword.

I lay panting for a while, doing my best to ignore the centipedes that started crawling back over me the moment the fight was done. As usual, the skill descriptions were a little hyperbolic; my ears were still ringing, and I was pretty sure my hearing had been damaged given that the centipede clicking seemed quieter than normal, so I hardly won without a scratch. But, accuracy aside, it was two combat skill evolutions. That fight was worth it even if I couldn't retrieve the mana crystal.

I could. Quite easily, in fact. I couldn't attempt to eat it though; the thing was as big as my head and I doubted it would still work if I cut it up beforehand. Nor could I make it do anything merely by holding it and concentrating very hard. If I was going to experiment with eating mana crystals, I'd need a smaller one. Or maybe a bit of surgery to embed it in me somewhere?

For now, I stored it in my item box, along with a few claws and fangs of the monster, before heading back to the shrine. There was an eldritch starfish corpse in the tunnel, but no sign of the mage from earlier. Either he'd won and retreated to tend to his wounds, or he'd been eaten and given the starfish such intense stomach ache that it had died. Given my opinions of the fox-kin, I'd like to think it was the second.

The fact that a trail of blood led from the fight site to the shrine, which was now empty of all fox-kin, suggested it was more likely to be the first. That was still convenient for me; I could walk to the wolves' cavern without playing another game of tag. Keeping sense presence active and on the lookout for Sru'taklin, I headed to the spider thread and once again made the long journey down to the second floor. With my errands on the top floor complete, it was time to visit the spider queen.

I could sense her, but couldn't see either her or any of her webs, despite the glowing trees. Not seeing her was understandable, given her size, but the lack of webs was strange. I suppose she was strong enough to not need to bother with them.

Nope, wrong answer. She was simply able to spin webs so fine that they weren't visible. A fact which I found out by the way I had walked straight into one.

"Oh my, the little fly finally returns," came a joyful voice, after I'd struggled fruitlessly for a few minutes. "I thought you had finally managed to find something you could not get over."

Ah, there she was, sitting on a branch, radiating amusement at my predicament. "No, I suffered a couple of bouts of undead blight, had a game of hide and seek with a fox-kin mage, then picked a fight with an oversized floating starfish."

She actually back-pedalled a bit at my mention of the blight, before sense mana picked up some sort of emission from her. It didn't seem to have any effect, so I guessed she was checking for any infection. It must be scary stuff, even to her...

"If you survived a blight infection, then you truly must be immortal," she said. "But what are fox-kin and starfish?"

Oh, right; no-one else knows my made up names. "Vulpes sagax and... umm... natatio sideralis I think it was?"

"Oh, those dull creatures," she scoffed. "I will think rather less of you if you had trouble with them."

"Won without a scratch," I answered. The skill description had said it, so it must be true.

"Good. Then, might I assume you are here for resistance training? The meat supply here is a vast improvement than up above, but I still find myself desiring another kidney."

"Yes, the catacombs below here are freezing, so cold resistance training would be useful."

"Then follow me. Carefully, lest you get stuck again."

She waved a leg and did her magical detaching trick, and I followed her on a zig-zag path through the trees, towards the centre of the copse.

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"I see you are wearing some of my old webs," she commented as we walked. "Why not ask me to produce an outfit?"

"Because our deal was already fair, at least to my eyes, and I didn't want to piss off a powerful monster by making unreasonable requests."

The amusement clicked up a few notches. "It is no matter, but you should know those webs were rather low quality. I made them big, fluffy and obvious in order to scare away the local wildlife, since I had no interest in eating it. Not that it stopped them getting stuck, but there was only so much aid I was willing to give them."

That explained the invisible webs here then; she actually wanted to catch stuff. No, correction; she had caught stuff. As we entered what was presumably the centre of her nest, I saw three fox-kin sized cocoons suspended from branches. All three were flexing, suggesting their occupants were alive and struggling.

Sru'taklin could have come here and fought her, I told myself. Instead, he's up there wasting time on me. They're deliberately leaving this monster alone. No need to feel guilty. It wasn't my problem.

"Well then, little fly. What is it that you wish of me? To simply kill you with ice magic."

I pondered for a bit. Speaking of Sru'taklin, his presence near my respawn chamber had thrown my plans into a bit of disarray. Getting back down here from a respawn was now risky.

"Actually, there's..."

As soon as I started speaking, one of the cocoons started writhing far more violently, and I heard muffled attempts at shouting from within. They were utterly incomprehensible, but enough for novice empath to tell me that the occupant was very angry at me.

"It seems that one of my other guests has something to say," commented the spider, leaving him gagged but freeing up some of the face. "Anyone you know?"

The face was indeed familiar. "Yeah, one of the people who attacked their own temple to kidnap and torture me. Just ignore him."

The spider queen gave him a bite, and he fell still and silent. "Very well. You were saying?"

"There's too many fox-kin upstairs looking for me, and getting down here is currently difficult. Rather than a quick death, it would be better to draw it out, so that I can get as much as possible from one attempt. Ice, decay, venoms, pain, whatever you can hit me with."

Novice empath was actually still reacting to the guard. Not enough to tell me what he was thinking, but enough to let me know he was only paralysed and not unconscious. The spider queen seemed to be letting him watch. The other two fox-kin had ceased struggling too, presumably listening in. Wonder if they were anyone I'd met before, too...

"Aww, but I was ever so looking forward to a kidney treat."

"You can take one before starting if you like. I have a spare," I said, causing the spider to once again radiate incredulity and fall into contemplation for a bit.

"I appreciate the offer, but no thanks," she said eventually. "Extracting it would cause too much damage, and greatly reduce the amount of time I could keep you alive."

A slightly disturbing comment, but at least she was taking the trade seriously.

"So, in summary, the trade you wish for is this: You want me to torture you with the full range of my abilities, drawn out for as long as I can manage, and when you finally die, I get to eat you? And you're actually okay with that? That is really what you want?"

"Well, you could have phrased it a little differently, but that's pretty much it, yes," I answered, using item box to change out of my armour and into my nightie. Given the circumstances, naked would have felt more correct, but the partially freed fox-kin was still watching and dignity was important.

The spider did a remarkably good shrug for something with no shoulders. "As you wish. Try not to regret this."

The queen leapt to my shoulder and bit down quicker than I could react, much as in her previous insurance policy, except that this time I immediately fell to the floor as I lost control over almost every muscle in my body. I could still breathe, and my heart was still going, but beyond that I couldn't even blink. Must be the same as what she'd just stuck the fox-kin with.

Poison nullification advanced to level 22

Despite the level up, poison nullification reacted with a big fat nope. It was telling me in no uncertain terms that the stuff I'd just been injected with was so far beyond its ability to cope that I might as well have no resistance at all, and that clearing it out of my system would take days.

"The first time we met," she started chatting as she hoisted my limp body into the air using her threads and tied me securely to one of the webs, "I claimed that I had something to get out of this arrangement. For some reason, you seem to have assumed it was food, despite me repeatedly mentioning that aside from your kidneys, your taste is inferior to that of the vulpes sagax."

Huh? What else does she get out of it? Is she just a natural sadist, like those other spiders? The fact that she'd paralysed me before starting the conversation was not exactly reassuring. And I wish she hadn't paralysed me with my eyes open, because not being able to blink was a pain, and they were already drying out.

"I pride myself on my intelligence and restraint, my ability to remain rational and not let emotion cloud my judgement. Nevertheless, when the first one to visit me after my previous escape plan had failed was not only the one responsible for that failure, but also for the deaths of ten of my young, I have to admit to feeling some amount of... vexation."

Ah... Crap... That explained the emotions I felt from her when we first met, then. And I think I just found out what was holding the centipede swarm at bay. No, that didn't work either; if she could cross to the centipedes' cavern, could she not also have crossed to the wolves'?

"I am, however, a creature of my word, and I will not break the terms of a deal. Letting you go would have been a small price to pay for my escape, and indeed, you performed admirably. And yet, here you are again. I had dreamed about getting the opportunity to make you suffer, and yet you come and request it of me."

She... wasn't wrong. I had. And if she was enthusiastic about it, all the better for my resistance levels. It would be hard to raise them more efficiently than this.

"My kiss can inflict many effects. You have experienced death and paralysis. This one is the kiss of pain."

She bit into my neck and—trapped in my paralysed body and desperately fighting the urge to hit trigger respawn—I silently screamed.

Pain nullification advanced to level 21

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