“Interesting. Are you planning to hunt down more of the Funnel spiders?” Ralph asked as we stepped back into the giant trees that had appeared to the west of our home. Well, possibly the west. It was based on the assumption that the sun still set in the west, something I couldn’t be entirely sure of yet. Cardinal directions certainly weren’t a universal truth.

  “I don’t have an exact target in mind. Whatever monsters we find, we hunt,” I said loudly before leaning closer to the newest member of our group, who I still wasn’t that keen about. Dropping my voice much lower, I whispered. “And if anything happens to Ash or Floof that I think is remotely your fault, there is nothing that will save you from my wrath.”

  “I don’t know how many monsters you will find out here beyond the spiders. They’ve already started removing any other contenders, besides yourselves. You probably put some fear of humans into them with that start,” he replied, not reacting at all to my whispered words.

  “Do the spiders belong to an invading faction or are they just a monster colony that got pulled in?” I didn’t really expect him to give me a straight answer.

  “Does it really matter either way?” Ralph replied, shrugging.

  He was right. It didn’t matter. They had already attacked us, and that meant it was past the time to reason with them.

  “Dad, are those webs?” Ash asked, pointing off to the side near her.

  “Looks like it. I think we’ve found their trail.” I quickly moved past Ash as we turned toward her discovery. Despite the web’s presence, I didn’t see or sense anything, and Floof was still pretty calm.

  It could have easily been here since the first night, but even if that were true, the fact that they hadn’t cleaned it up like they had so much of the webbing closer to the houses made me think we were nearing a colony. The problem with that was the unanswered question that had been rattling around in my mind since the first spider. How big were their colonies?

  As though on cue, a System notification popped up.

  __________

  You have entered a faction’s claimed territory.

  You have entered the stronghold of the Rachnia Consortium.

  __________

  That answered several questions at once, none of which I particularly liked the answers to. How in the hell had they already been able to establish a stronghold? It had only been two days.

  I forced myself to take a couple of deep breaths and calm down. They built webs. They had an advantage when it came to establishing a stronghold. That had to be all it was. That was probably their biggest advantage during invasions. After all, they certainly hadn’t been the greatest of fighters.

  “Did that answer your earlier question?” Ralph asked, pulling me from my thoughts.

  “Yes, but it added a lot more of them. Just what kind of defensive structures are we about to walk into?” I knew the question was pointless as it left my lips.

  “That depends on if their queen has taken residence or not yet. Usually, a Rachnia invasion force is split into two wings. The queen and her bodyguards move out hunting the dangerous prey, while the rest of the brood establishes the colony in preparation for her return. And as it’s only been two days, it seems unlikely she has returned yet.”

  I looked at Ralph, surprise evident on my face. “I wasn’t expecting an answer at all.”

  “Why not? All I did was discuss the general ways the Rachnia acts. I didn’t tell you anything specially about this group. For all I know, you already knew this and just didn’t recall at the moment.” The grin on his face told me he thought otherwise.

  I nodded in return, not wanting to give away any of the deception, as slight as it might be. Eventually, we’d have to have a real talk on the limitations of observers if he was going to stick around. But he was already proving useful, so I was willing to test how far that could go, even if it was driven by his own self-interest.

  “Dad!” Ash screamed, a spider had appeared from somewhere and was already on her back, legs wrapped around her. Where the hell had it come from? I had only looked away for seconds.

  I took two steps toward her, ready to rip the spider off, and I felt one drop onto my back. They were in the trees.

  How long had they been watching us? These had to be a different class than the ones we already fought. None of those had been able to hide themselves quite so well.

  Ignoring the one gripping me for the moment, I punched the one on Ash in the head, hard. It had been preparing for a bite, and the last thing she needed was venom coursing through her body.

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  While the force of my hit hadn’t been enough to kill it, it was still stunned enough for Floof. He leaped onto its prone, wriggling form and started to tear it to shreds as I felt the one on my back bite into my neck.

  “Ugh!” I roared more in anger than pain. While the venom had sent a hot, searing pain through my body, I had felt much worse in my time. I was more concerned with the twitching of my right hand than anything else it might cause. I needed to be able to fight effectively, and anything that would interfere with my nervous system like this could hamper that.

  Before anything got worse, I raised both of my arms as best I could, ignoring the trembling down the whole of the right. I brought them down and back with all my force, cracking the exoskeleton of my attacker between the elbows. It shrieked in pain as it fell off my back, and a glance over my shoulder showed my own blood and a dark yellow fluid mixing together on its face.

  All around us, more of the spiders were dropping from the trees. There were dozens of them. We had walked right into an ambush.

  Good.

  As angry as I was at letting them get the drop on us, it still meant we had a big group of them in one spot. That would be much easier than hunting them one by one through this forest. A forest that had grown darker and denser the further we walked into it.

  The concern of just what lay waiting at the heart of it wasn’t lost on me, but it also wasn’t a priority. The new dark depths of the environment that the integration had introduced to this world would be handled once I had the time and resources. And more importantly, once Ash was safe.

  “Hey, spiders, I’m right here!” I yelled, hoping to draw any stragglers. Behind me, Ralph started to chuckle.

  Tearing the sword from my back, I felt the makeshift strap I’d made rip apart from the force. Something more reliable was going to be needed in the future, if I could get it before I unlocked enough of the sword’s abilities that I didn’t have to worry about carrying it at all. But with the autonomous mana orb being in the second level of the blade’s sockets, that would be awhile.

  I swung out at the first few within reach. The magic within the sword worked to steady my hand, and considering how poorly my whole right arm was working by this point, it had a lot to correct for, more than it could fully fix. The runic inscriptions were nowhere near as powerful as the mana orbs themselves. Hopefully, the venom wasn’t strong enough that I’d need even more help as it progressed.

  More spiders dropped from above as I cut through the first. Floof tore apart several more on his own. At one point, he had managed to grab one by the leg and swing it hard into two more of its allies.

  Either the dog was learning faster than he ever had before, or he had somehow figured out enough of his System interface to apply something of his levels. I hoped it was the latter. We just weren’t aiming for any classes that would give us direct control to help him, and any interface equipment or items would be far off. The sooner he was ready to go toe to toe with the monsters alongside us, the better.

  “This is a lot of spiders,” Ralph said, his voice somehow carrying over the sound of the fight. He wasn’t wrong. The ground was littered with their bodies.

  The problem for them was that while sometimes numbers could make up a difference in levels of strength, there weren’t enough of them to make that difference here. I had the feeling these spiders weren’t used to fighting as a mass like this, and once their stealth attack had failed, they’d just hoped to tire me out while the venom worked its course.

  Sadly for them, it had run from my neck down my arm, and then stopped there. Already, my body was working to push back against it. Some of the lost feeling was returning with each swing.

  “Everyone okay?” I called as I continued to thin out the attackers. Some of them were already starting to flee, but Floof was running most of them down before they had the chance to get far.

  He couldn’t catch them all, though. A handful managed to retreat back up the trees. They would warn the rest of their brood, but there was nothing that could be done about that, and I wasn’t sure I would have even if there had been. My only real concern with fighting them all at this point was their queen.

  Even she wasn’t that big of a worry. Their hyper specialization in how they handled their first days in an integration, while great in fighting other factions for positions in the leaderboards, would be terrible in defending against someone like me.

  “We’re fine. None of the spiders seemed to want to get near Ralph, and he stayed right by my side the whole time,” Ash answered. That was another use for the man. It was likely the spiders had no idea what the power he gave off meant, the same as I hadn’t initially.

  “Good. Floof, finish off everything you can quickly and get back here!” I called to the dog, who had gone after another fleeing group.

  A giant spider, bigger than the broodfather I had fought that first night, dropped out of the trees above Floof and the fleeing spiders. Floof darted out of the way, his reflexes faster than they had ever been before. He still just barely managed to avoid the crushing weight of the thing.

  Several more loud thumps echoed the first ones’ crash.

  Dammit.

  The first ambush had just been a setup for another, bigger one.

  __________

  Blue Streaked Frog Spawn

  Freshly metamorphosed from tadpoles, these new tiny frogs swarm all over their environment. They work together to bring down larger prey to feed their ever-growing hunger. Their bodies continue their rapid growth from tiny tadpoles as their mother goes in search of food for herself. In their first few days of life, they are still working to feed their mana channels enough to spark any of their innate abilities. It is not until after a week that they can reliably utilize any internal manafire.

  Further Information Locked.

  Blue Streaked Frog Mother

  Once the Blue Streaked Frog has entered into this phase of its life, it finds a warm, wet place to lay a large clutch of eggs, and then goes in search of food to replenish all the nutrients lost in producing its offspring. The mother will generally not return until the eggs have already progressed into frog spawn. Upon her return, she works to eliminate any predators that have found their way to her children. She will then stay with and protect them while their endless hunger causes them to rapidly grow until they reach the juvenile stage of their life.

  Further Information Locked.

  __________

  System information for the first monsters Adam Miller had fought.