What came through into his mind's eye was a shell. It looked like a tick's head that 'creakied' up on high, atop thin branches some twenty feet off the ground. Switching over to [Envision] to get a better look at the creature, he could see slender, camouflaged legs that dangled down to the field below. They twisted and entwined with the vines from the gourd-like Pineapples, which snaked their way upwards into the canopy.

Tiny hairs hung in the air between its eight distinctive legs and formed a dense, fibrous weave, barely noticeable to those inattentive.

Dear lord, if you can hear me, please don't let it be a spider.

[Canopy Spider] Lv.??

— Trap Predator

— Stealthy

— Sedentary

HP: ??? MP: ??? SP: ???

These spiders possess a zone of control.

Using its fibrous hairs to entrap pray as they wander inside its domain by turning rigid

and disallowing egress. Once trapped, these predators tend to drop from a great height,

down onto their victim, crushing them with its hardened chitin underbelly.

Of course, it's a spider. Why wouldn't it be a spider.

Because the range of [Envision] was limited, he noted three such spiders within the thicket and spread out amongst his potential meal. Since they were revealed and with the knowledge that they were sedentary, he decided to test one with a rock-toss experiment. He soon found a few decently sized stones and underhanded one at the nearest spider from nearly 15 meters away.

As the rock passed through its fibrous hairs, there was a noticeable shift. The hairs turned rigid, creating a dense, gap-less meshing that elicited a slight tilt from the chitinous body above. Seeing that, Quintin speedily let another rock go with an overhand throw. The rock impacted the hardened weave and bounced away, smashing into a nearby [Pinekin] — as he had taken to calling them, too concerned with the spiders to deviate his attention away for an [Identification].

Those fibrous hairs are very resilient. It makes sense if the variety of prey animals around here are rather strong.

He had noticed that, although the shell did move and that the hairs became rigid, nothing else seemed to happen. As if the spider could sense or see that it wasn't prey that had made it tense up.

Those hairs seem to tense up very quickly after something passes through them. There's no time to run through and make it out the other side. Well, maybe I could if I use the movement technique I learned back on Earth. Regardless, they seem to remain stationary, and I have yet to see one of them move in my [Sinisphere] aside from when I threw that rock. As long as I keep my eye open, I should be able to pick a few of those fruits without trouble. Probably. Hopefully.

He was deciding on his next set of actions when, as if on cue, six more shapes registered from behind via [Sinisphere]. Six bloodied, and panting [Intruder Wolves] were quickly approaching. They sniffed the air for more blood, even though they looked to have just fought on a grand battlefield already.

Some were missing claws or had chunks of flesh and fur missing from their thighs. One even had an eyeball that bounced along loosely through the air as it loped alongside the others. They were all missing something but had one thing in common — madness shone through within their menacing expressions and snarls as they huffed huge, tiring whiffs of air in sequence.

Just fucking great! Am I cursed? I'm cursed, aren't I. Let me guess, these wolves came down the mountain only to find their brothers and sisters in heaps where they laid and are coming for revenge... Sadly that seems just ludicrous enough to be true with everything else piled on.

Quintin jogged closer to a [Canopy Spider] while the wolves made haste towards him in varying degrees of exhaustion, present within painful-looking wounds. If he was going to be outnumbered, then the least he could do would be to use the environment to his advantage — only hoping there would be a few fruits left to eat after the battle was over.

A wolf's head poked out from vegetation that blanketed the perimeter of the [Pinekin] copse. Soon after the first, more wolves parted the shrubbery. Their staggering bodies soon broke out entirely as they limped their way into the arena of fruits and spiders.

Quintin was relieved but also felt a little bad to find that even the most healthy of them didn't even have a hundred [HP] at its back. That was until he noticed two more wolves sprinting in his direction from behind the six in front of him.

[Beta Intruder Wolves x2] Lv.11

- Sub-Leader

- Mountain Climber

- Territorial

HP: 300/300 MP: 0/0 SP: 1100/1100

Wolves that retain a certain measure of respect within

the pack for their strength and dependability under an

Alpha's leadership.

Knowing that his time was short, Quintin fired off a projectile at the posturing wolves who slowly drew apart to encircle him. The bolt bored a hole into a wolf's cranium and lodged itself right between its eyes, which provoked the rest into sudden action. He fired off two more wolf claws in quick succession that reaped two more lives before the remaining three entered melee range. The two [Beta Wolves] leapt over the underbrush, entering the outer area of the skirmish.

Quintin shot his hand out to grasp the nearest wolf, which earned him a swipe to the metallic hand, but it did nothing to stop his icy grip that dug in and ripped a chunk out of its neck. He was always moving. His footwork sent him pivoting in odd ways that made one of the last in direct engagement miss its attempt to bite down on his leg.

The wolf was overextended, and the last wolf had blown out a muscle in one of its front legs, causing it to lag behind the others. Quintin wrapped the crux of his elbow around the blood-thirsty neck and squeezed tightly up with the other hand like a lever that he cranked.

Its head separated from its neck with a squelching crinkle-crack. Blood polished the [Pinekins]. The trees seemed to droop lower for more.

He quickly dug his toes into the skidding, headless corpse and pivoted off just shy of the fibrous hairs of the [Canopy Spider]. The two [Betas] competed neck and neck to rip him to shreds.

At the last moment, right before they were on top of him, he leaned back through the fibrous mesh and felt their hot breath on the nape of his neck. He dug both feet into the ground and sprang backward even further into the trap. The wolves followed closely and entered inside with merely a single bound of separation between them. The mesh turned rigid as the spider closed the door behind them.

A crack of splintered wood resounded from above as the bulbous, chitin under-body of the spider came crashing down right in the path of one of the [Betas]. Its focus narrowed in on Quintin as it was, meant it didn't even have time to react before a clap of wet, violent splashing heralded blood and guts and fur which spiraled out from underneath the spider's body. Twin fangs began to drink greedily from the quivering fountain beneath it, while the fibrous trap became suspended from the vines and other debris higher up, now that the body had lowered.

However, he had no time to worry about it with the other [Beta] putting pressure on him. He found a small opportunity to rapid-fire off another two projectiles that ripped into the [Beta's] chest and left a graze on its back leg.

[Breath of Sudden Calamity x2] used. -20[PP] PP: 100/250

{Critical Damage}!

{Grazing Damage}!

-150[HP] damage.

{Bleeding}

The [Beta] faltered to the left in a moment of weakness but clawed out all the same with a rending sweep that caught Quintin on the upper thigh. It threw him in a skid towards where the [Canopy Spider] was happily feeding.

[Eviscerating Sweep] calculated.

{Critical Damage}

-125[HP] damage.

HP:185/310]

The wolf just kept coming, again and again, with jaws wide open while pouncing and aimed for Quintin's throat. He had mere moments to act before it was upon him.

I must step to the side.

He willed his footwork to take him farther than he had ever gone before. The blue screen that popped up at that moment went unseen, ignored within his intense focus as he shot to the side of the wolf who had now landed on the space he previously occupied.

Quintin reflexively stepped backward as the twin fangs of the [Canopy Spider] flashed out, barely missing him. The spider now turned its attention towards them, and because of that, his movement brought him within range of the [Beta's] jaws as it lunged at him. His hands came up defensively and gripped its snout, and lower jaw as the wolf pinned him to the ground. Its piercing claws dug into his shoulder to hold him down, and meaty breath assaulted him while he struggled.

[-35[HP] damage.

HP: 150/310]

Quintin yanked upwards and downwards with a guttural holler while he kicked away with his feet, rolled free while still gripping its jaws. He brought the head of the wolf to the ground and twisted its neck to the side with a cruel snapping motion.

[Neck Snap] used.

{Critical Damage}!

{Death Blow}!

-1000[HP] damage!]