With her spear in hand, Tabitha faced the spider head on while Runa went to hide behind a tree, only peeking her head out around the side to watch while holding one hand over her heart.

“Oi, spider, ya got any preferences for what ya want to get crafted into?” Tabitha asked, pointing the tip of her spear at the spider.

Naturally, she didn’t get a response. All the spider did was keep its front legs raised while slowly moving around to the side as if to try and circle her. But, when Tabitha moved in the same direction, it stopped to instead try going in the other direction only for the process to repeat.

“I’d be a lot more scared of ya if ya actually tried rushin’ me. But playin’ chicken like this ain’t doin’ ya any favors.”

“Be—be careful!” Runa shouted from behind. “They like to fight with their legs! The tips of their legs are extremely sharp, and they can even take down bears by stabbing them!”

“Anythin’ else I should know?” Tabitha kept her eyes locked onto the spider while talking. “Is it gonna try shooting a web at me? Maybe got some venom?”

“Both!”

“Oh. Great. Alright, I’ll admit I’m a bit more scared now, but I’ve got this. All I gotta do is uh… not get webbed, not get bitten, and not get stabbed. Yeah, I can do that. I think. Oi, Runa.”

“Ye-yeah?”

“Anybody in town who can train me how to fight sometime? I ain’t exactly interested in fightin’ and all that, but I’m probably gonna have to learn some basics if I want to survive and hunt monsters for materials.”

“Elias could!”

“Oh, that guy. Well, I’ll pay him a visit once I cross off everythin’ else on my to-do list.”

Fortunately, the cautious spider seemed to be in no rush to actually attack her. It was content waiting for the perfect opening to strike. That gave Tabitha plenty of time to think about how she wanted to approach it.

But the more she thought about it, the more she realized she might be screwed. Getting within range to use her spear would put her in range of its legs, and it could probably move faster than her and attack her from multiple directions at once with all of its legs. She would basically have to try dodging eight spears all trying to impale while two fangs were trying to stab her, and then there was always the webbing it supposedly had, too.

She seriously needed a flamethrower.

Is this spear even gonna be sharp enough? Wait, it’s got that Deadly Edge tag. I’m gonna assume that means it’ll be able to break through its exoskeleton. Once I do that, all I have to do is survive. Spiders are glass cannons, and I’m assumin’ giant ones are the same. Just gotta break their shell and all that hydraulic fluid starts spillin’ out.

The spider took a step forward, but a shake from Tabitha’s spear made it back off again.

I’ve got one other idea. “Oi, Runa! That mushroom the old folk like! Toss it over here!” Tabitha shouted.

It only took Runa a couple of seconds digging through the backpack to find the right mushroom and throw it over to Tabitha. “There!”

“Atta girl!” While pointing the spear at the spider with only one hand, she crouched down while keeping her eyes on her enemy as she picked the mushroom up with her free hand. “Now, wonder how dumb it is. Don’t want to risk this goin’ to waste, either. Reckon I should make it a bit more appetizin’ for ya.”

With that, Tabitha pointed her mushroom-holding arm down and brought the tip of her spear to it so that she could run it across the underside of her arm, being careful to avoid any major veins as she cut a slit for blood to run down. More ended up running out that she expected.

Crap, this thing is dangerous if it did that much just from cutting me a little.

“Ta-Tabitha?! What are you doing?!” Runa shouted.

“Relax, I’ve got this,” Tabitha replied as her blood ran down her arm onto the mushroom she was holding. She waited until there was a good amount of blood across it before looking at the ground right beneath where the spider’s fangs were… and then threw it.

The spider hissed as its eyes locked onto the incoming object, and it backed away to avoid getting hit by it. The mushroom landed right in front of it and then rolled to just underneath the spider’s fangs, prompting it to instinctively thrust its fangs into the mushroom to inject its venom.

More importantly to the spider, the taste and smell organs within its pedipalps picked up on the scent of blood.

The spider had fresh, bleeding prey underneath it as far as it was concerned. That was why it didn’t take long for the spider to lower its head while keepings its eyes locked onto Tabitha to consume the bloody mushroom.

“Now, this might be cowardly, but I’d rather fight smart than hard,” Tabitha said while not bothering to close the distance. She was content to let the spider try and intimidate her from a distance while she waited for the mushroom’s effects to kick in.

And surely enough, they did.

The mushroom that had the traits of Energetic and Psychedelic caused the spider to wobble in place. The more time that passed, the more drunk the spider behaved as it struggled to follow Tabitha’s movements as she moved from side to side. Not only that, but it could tell that something was wrong with it. That was why it even tried backing away from Tabitha, only to bump into a tree and spin around to lash out at it with its legs.

Tabitha wasn’t going to miss her opportunity as the spider turned its back to her to attack the tree.

She lunged at the spider and thrust her spear straight into the back of its abdomen!

System Menu

18 Damage Dealt

The spear penetrated the spider’s exoskeleton with ease which gave Tabitha the confidence to pull her spear back and thrust it right back in at a different spot.

System Menu

15 Damage Dealt

Similar to when she killed a massive huntsman spider with a broom, she knew to just keep on whacking once she attacked. Keep on going, and going, and going until it stops moving. Though, in this case, it was stabbing with a spear instead of whacking with a broom.

System Menu

15 Damage Dealt

System Menu

18 Damage Dealt

System Menu

15 Damage Dealt

The spider was too out of it to turn around and attack her. It tried to, but all it ended up doing was falling onto its underside in a drugged stupor. It didn’t help that every single wound caused by Tabitha’s spear allowed even more of its hydraulic fluid to pour out from its body, damaging its ability to move and breathe.

As for Tabitha, she remembered that a message popped up when she killed that slime before, so she kept on thrusting her spear until the spider was dead.

Over, and over, and over again until its body went limp on the ground and then some.

System Menu

Level 7 Giant Pine Crawler Defeated

+13 Experience

Total Blacksmith Experience: 13/50

Congratulations, you have acquired a new Achievement!

Underdog Challenger

Awarded for defeating a monster more than five levels above your total level on your own.

Reward: Tag Crystal (Challenger)

Information on Giant Pine Crawler has been added to your Bestiary.

“Whew. That wasn’t too bad. Just had to imagine that its abdomen was the face of one of my old customers,” Tabitha said. “That was downright cathartic, even.”

“Is—is it dead?!” Runa shouted from behind the tree still.

“Yeah! I got it!”

Runa stepped out from behind the tree as the new crystal spawned in the air in front of Tabitha. She was about to analyze it before Runa spoke up and asked, “How—how did you do that? You made it look so easy…”

“Well, I decided to gamble on the mushroom. I figured that the Psychedelic tag would mess it up on its own, but I was really gamblin’ on that Energetic tag. Ya see, Energetic makes me think of caffeine. Back in my world, we figured out caffeine is real toxic to spiders. It really messes them up. Basically makes them drunk and outright kills them at higher doses. So, I thought, ‘hey, wonder if that mushroom’s got caffeine in it. Not sure why else it would be energizin’.’ And that was it.”

“But, your arm!”

“Spiders ain’t herbivores. Figured it wouldn’t eat the mushroom on its own unless I could trick it into thinkin’ it was some nice, fresh meat. That’s what the blood was for.”

“You… you’re amazing!” Runa held her hands up in front of her chest as she looked at Tabitha with sparkling eyes of admiration. “Summoned are really incredible! You—you killed something like that like it was as easy as breathing! And all I did was hide and let you do all the work…”

“Nah, ya threw me the mushroom. I wouldn’t have been able to do that if it wasn’t for you. If I tried diggin’ around in the backpack myself, I would have given it a nice chance to attack.”

Runa shook her head. “It’s not enough. Next time… next time, I promise I’ll do my best to help! I don’t want to be useless! And I want to be more useful than being able to throw a mushroom!”

“You’re plenty useful to me, Runa, but I understand. And now, speakin’ of useful,” Tabitha paused to look at the fresh corpse of the spider. “My heart’s racin’ and I’d like to sit down. Give the adrenaline a chance to wear off. Would ya mind carvin’ some monster parts for me?”

Runa nodded and her tail wagged. “Gladly!”