Chapter 7: Chapter 6: Planning & Spider Ecosystem

"Can't find any use for them right away..."

I mumbled over the sad results from two days ago as I chewed on my cereals. 

The Random Packages I bought yesterday for 1.000 sols each gave me an "Iron Dagger", which costs 800 sols normally, and some strange crown called "Thorns of Nightmare". For a Rare (Ra)-rarity item with quality C+ (with C being the average quality according to the chatters), for it to only have 10 in durability is too strange! Maybe it's was a miss...

As they got no urgent value for me now, I've stored them in the item chest until I get the chance to use/understand them. The same goes for those papers, that fountain pen, and the coin I've got left.

As for that business card, there seem to be other people who have stumbled across these "wandering merchants", but none are talking about the "Blackmarket Union". I tried to give subtle hints on the demon thread, but no one's taken the bait yet. 

"Guess that guy's a rare event. Maybe I'll meet him again in one of the big cities? Playing as a villain character isn't such a bad idea."

After finishing my breakfast, I logged into NFO again.

---

*Yaaawn*, spiders are starting to get boring. I've gotten way smoother in dodging them.

*SPLATT*

And there goes the fifth one for today. 

Another level-up! I got a whole two levels with the "kitchen Quest", where I had to "clean" a kitchen in the place of the grey-colored Lazy Spider, who didn't wanna do it himself, was defeating a swarm of "Hungry Spiders"? There are not many monsters in this place, for better or worse, so getting more EXP always helps.

What are my stats now?

Perception Skills: Hunting Titles:

Quite..., not a lot. STR refuses to budge, so I gave it up to the point of switching out my equipped title. [First Quest Cleared] doesn't have any other effects except increasing your LUC when equipped anyway.

Well, even with my low STR, I can still beat monsters as long as I chose my target wisely. Like the Greedy Spider that I just beat. It looked like it was gonna use some magic-ish things, but its concentration was broken by getting hit by my rocks in the face. 

Looking over this again..., I'm less of a "monster" and more of a "gambler". When looking only at my stats, that is. And Scout's just increased with one level, since the only skill related to the class is [Detect Treasure]. The last two additions don't give "class proficiency" even if I use them. 

Should I get a new skill? The kitchen Quest did give 0.3 AP, so I have enough now..., but I shouldn't act too hasty. Right now, there are five, no, six options I should consider regarding my AP.

First, is a skill related to my combat abilities. I can't expect that throwing rocks will help me when facing monsters of higher racial ranks, and my STR is just as you saw. Maybe I should pick up something magical..., no, if it's Scout, then maybe traps? But how should I prepare those? I can't dig a hole in this rock floor, nor do I have any rope...

Second, I would need a skill that can help my class. Scout will only gain proficiency when I use skills related to it, and while [Throwing] and [Evasion] are underneath Scout's umbrella, the proficiency I get from it is cheap low because those two aren't limited to Scout. Warriors and Crafters can also buy those skills, even if Mages can't. It's only thanks to [Detect Treasure] that I have reached Lv.2 in my class, most likely.

Well, if I'm lucky, I may be able to solve #1 and #2 at the same time with some smart skills. Not that I know which ones.

The third is that I want something to increase my mobility. If I log out from the game in the field, my avatar will automatically return to the Player Room after 1 hour in the real world. Meaning I have to walk back to where I logged out from the start every day if I wanna progress with the Dungeon capture. It's a paaaain...

My fourth reason is those papers I discovered. They may contain some clue about this Dungeon, so skills like [Linguistics] may be necessary. I can obtain it since I am of the Scout class, but Mages and Crafters can get it as well, so it may not give too much class EXP.

And the fourth reason is; evolution. 

Some of the G-ranks who started in the capitals have, with the assistance of their higher-ranked friends, have already evolved. Well, with good enough teamwork, you could even beat a boss on the first day like the rumored "Starguards", the group of six who were the first to get the "Vanguard"-title on the first day, and as of this date, the only ones to have done so.

My point is that those early birds have confirmed that evolution consumes AP. Stronger evolutions need more AP. Not to mention you may need some extra requirements for the rarer races. "Red Rage" from the demon thread was one of those. She evolved into a "Lesser Flare Fiend" because she owned the [Lesser Fire Talent] skill.

And that makes me arrive at the final reason; "Talent"-skills. Should I get one? According to the more advanced players outside like the Starguards, having access to Element-type skills is when the game starts for real. And like with "Red Rage", it may lead to some special evolution when that time comes. I'm not forced to evolve either when I reach the level cap, so I guess I can take my time to think things over, but...

Yeah, I got no idea!

It's better to think about that when I have any AP to use. The only skills I can get with 1 AP are those related to both your class AND your race. If I was of some animal-type race or a Beastkin, it wouldn't be a problem, but what skills can a demon take that's related to Scout? "Detect Grudge"? Not something I expect will help me in a Dungeon, at least. They sound more anti-human-ish. 

Ah! I found a yellow spider~! KILL!

*SPLATT, SPLATT, SPLATT!*

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Spiders must die.

The Greedy Spider had died before it could even start chanting (casting?) its magic. I got a better affinity for these guys than the warrior-ish Angry Spiders or the durable, blue Hungry Spiders.

Hmm, are the developers using the same theme for these spiders as with the one for the Color Demons? That Lazy Spider was gray, and the green spider I encountered on the path to the Chest Mimic may have been a "Jealousy Spider" or something. What's next? Purple "Haughty Spiders" or pink "Horny Spiders"? ...the last one sounds scary, so I don't wanna meet them. 

Oh? The path's changed. 

After defeating the Greedy Spider, I reached a crossroad. The problem is that the other paths aren't as dusty as the corridors I've been traveling through. It may be nothing special, but what if this means that I'm entering a more populated area of the Dungeon?

That would be bad. I'm able to stand on equal grounds with the spiders, but that's because it's one-on-one fights. The kitchen incident made me learn that, as I first tried to fight several Hungry Spiders at the same time. I was sent straight to the Player Room and had to walk the long way back. 

It's scary not knowing what's lurking in these new corridors, but..., even if I die, I'll just return to the Player Room. Something that would happen if I logged out anyway.

Okay, let's explore~! 

---

Who was the carefree idiot who wanted to explore this place?! I know, it was me!

This place has no shortage of monsters, but they're all traveling in groups of six! At least one of the spiders in these groups is a size bigger than the others, but not as big as the Red Rage Spider who gave me a Quest. I've dubbed these guys the "F-rank spiders" in my mind. That's most likely their real rank as well.

And I made sure to check, but none of them have blue markers above their heads. Just red ones. Just hostile ones. 

Luckily for me, they're not so smart when it comes to keeping an eye out for intruders. Even when they have so many eyes. All I need to do is to hide behind any of the rubble around, or underneath some of the furniture that so rarely appears. 

One detail that I failed to recognize is that these parties of spiders are all of the same colors. Red spiders walk with red guys, blue with blue, yellow-and-yellow, and green with green. Haven't seen any gray ones yet, nor the hypothetical pink or purple spiders. 

As for why I bring this up is..., the spiders are doing infighting.

After I had braved through yet another patrol, I heard some weird sounds from where the spiders had been going. And what do you know, the red group had started to fight with a group of yellow spiders. 

Is there some rivalry between the different spider-races? And couldn't I make use of this? Like, if both groups took too many casualties, maybe I could swipe in and rock the survivors to death for easy EXP...?

Forget it! The yellow spiders are annihilated already! Show some more backbone, Greedy Spiders! 

And the red spiders walked away, with the black dust of the disintegrating yellow spiders blowing behind them. Are they trying to act cool?

But this may be a problem. Some guys on the chats once tried to farm more EXP by power-leveling monsters with weak abilities and then killing those beefed-up monsters, but the result didn't differ from if you had killed them right after they spawned. To answer everyone's questions, the management themselves had jumped into the chat and explained that the EXP obtained from the monsters is calculated according to the monster's original stats, from when they were spawned, and not their stats at the time of death.

Meaning, if this infighting continues, I may have to face elite spiders that are way above my weight limit instead of a bunch of weaklings I could pick off one by one. And for no extra gains...

I gotta farm EXP faster! Like, since yesterday! 

Big brawls will just get me killed, so should I look for a way to lure individual monsters into a safer place for me to fight them? I think this strategy was called "kiting", but how should I execute it?

Better try to find a nice place to lay my trap. Maybe a small corridor that only one-and-one spider can enter? Time to search.

Just as I was prepared to look for such a goddamn convenient place, my [Detect Treasure] skill picked up something on the wall. But the signal's sorta weak. Is it a treasure that's not so important, or is it covered by something?

No new spiders seemed to be coming, even after that noisy mess the two spider groups had made with their fight, so I started to investigate the wall. After a while, I found a poorly hidden switch in between the bricks making up the walls which revealed a secret passage. 

I snuck inside, following the reaction from [Detect Treasure] as I proceeded deeper into the tunnel, and finally exited into a hidden chamber. It looked sorta like the "office storage" the Red Rage Spider guarded, but with a big difference. And I'm so glad that my race is already pale-grey colored, or else I would look like a ghost right now.

Because the chamber was filled with tons of mummified corpses from what appears to be human scientists. All of them, covered in some ghostly-looking webs.

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