As my eyes fluttered open, I realised I was no longer strapped onto a table. Because of that, I was glad. However, I wasn’t sure that my current predicament would be any better.

A familiar spider casually lowered itself down by a strand of web from the ceiling.

Back in my prison.

Luckily, the lights were on this time, and I could finally get a good look at my cell.

It wasn’t like anything I had seen before.

The walls were made of smooth grey marble, embedded with strange patterns and carvings.

“Hey! What’s going on!”

No reply.

To be honest, I wasn’t surprised. If Gana was when he saw me, it must mean that they had no idea what happened inside this room.

I began to stand, then stumbled as I put weight onto my right foot. Cursing softly, I rolled up the leg of my shorts, only to reveal an ugly brand burned onto my thigh. I winced as I relived the memory of how I got that mark. It looked sort of like an equals sign, stretching about a hand’s length across my thigh.

Suddenly, the lights went off and I was plunged into darkness.

Seriously? Now the lights go off?

Scuttling noises filled the room and I began to panic. Crap, was the giant spider attacking?

At times like this, I really wished I had a night vision perk-

Night vision? I resisted the urge to laugh at my stupidity. Why would I need a night vision perk?

“Aligned Perception!”

Outlines came into sight. Wait, outlines? Wasn’t there only one spider…

Boy, was I wrong.

I don’t know how, but I failed to notice a large object strapped to the web on the roof. It glowed intensely with a green aura. Some sort of trail originated from it, leading down the walls to… me?

A trail of… tiny spiders.

Not just that, but the giant spider was coming dangerously close to me. Why had it decided to attack me now?

Weapons… weapons…

Frantically searching around, I realised that my blow darts, pipe, sword and bag had been confiscated.

“Double Light Ray!”

Steadying myself, I shot the beams of light up at the sack-thingy, hoping to knock it down or destroy it before more spiders could come crawling out.

By now, I estimated at least thousands of spiders had managed to escape from the cocoon. Sure, they were tiny, but there were a ton. Probably more than when I had fought the ant queen… Hang on. Didn’t I get a title from the ant queen?

Since I was still blasting away mindlessly with my Double Light Rays - thanks to my increased stamina and keeping the spiders at bay, I had time to pull up the title again.

Name The Exterminator Buffs/Debuffs +50% damage against bug-type creatures. +50% damage when in combat with more than 5 opponents at once (+10% more for every opponent after 5). Information A title granted to one who manages to exterminate an entire colony of bugs by themselves.

So I got a fifty percent damage increase against bug types, and an increase of damage when fighting multiple opponents. Multiple opponents. But if there were thousands of ants against me… ten multiplied by one thousand was… Where was a calculator when I needed one?

Regardless, it meant that my damage had increased. A lot. Damn, I wished that Gana had been here. I could have smashed his thick skin in real good with this incredible buff.

The giant spider, now almost touching the floor, began hissed at me before landing on the floor.

Suddenly, a pang of pain went through my body, and I began to feel woozy. What was going on…?

You have acquired the nauseous effect, due to a reaction in your body.

A reaction in my body… I didn’t get enough time to think about it, because the giant spider had started to move towards me. Barely managing to see properly, I aimed my double light rays at where the spider was. Hang on, there were two of them?

I shook my head, trying to clear my vision.

At this point, I was shooting my beams randomly, hoping at least part of it would scathe the creatures.

“L-Lightning Zap!”

Where was it… Where was it…

There! The giant spider was just at the corner of my vision, hissing at me. The bolt of electricity hit the spider full on, and it turned into a smoking husk.

One down, thousands more to go?

My vision cleared slightly, and I watched as a wave of tiny spiders crawled down the walls and dropped from the ceiling. This felt just like that time with the ants… Stamina dropping and nowhere to run, I was ready to accept my fate. Other than Light Ray, I had no other long range attack nor multi-target one. Right now, I really wished I had an area of effect skill that could just blow all these spiders up.

“S-stay away!”

I screamed out frantically, brushing those spiders that came onto my shoes. Brushing them away didn’t help.

Those that flew off my legs were quickly replaced by more, and they began to climb up my torso, my chest, my arms, my head…

Then they covered my head and all turned black.

* * *

Was I dead?

No.

I was in a familiar room, with strange marble walls and patterns that decorated them. A single giant spider hung from a thread coming from the ceiling, casually sliding downwards.

What… was this? Hadn’t I just killed it?

The cocoon was back there too, snug in the corner of the roof. No spiders had crawled out of it yet.

Did I time travel? Was I in the matrix or something?

All of a sudden, the lights went out, leaving me in darkness.

Loud scuttling noises filled the room, but this time, I knew what they were.

“Aligned Perception! Light Ray!”

As the tiny spiders began to swarm out of the cocoon, I shot my beams. It appeared that both my health and my stamina had reset to their max, and I was good as new. My leg was still sore from that brand, though.

Spider after spider died, and I wondered if I would get that nauseous effect again.

Sure enough, it came in a moment.

You have acquired the nauseous effect, due to a reaction in your body.

The blur settling into my vision, I came to the conclusion that I must have gone back in time. Was this a death loop? Would I return back to the same point if I died again? I wasn’t willing to find out.

First of all, it hurt like hell when the spiders bit me and second of all, I wasn’t ready to take the risk and die for something stupid test.

Grunting, I used Lightning Zap on the giant spider again, killing it in one blow. Since this time round I hadn’t wasted time to check my titles, or wonder about alternatives, I had a little more stamina left to wipe the rest of these damn spiders. I hoped.

“Come on, come on, just die already!”

Frustrated, confused and feeling sick, I blasted away at the little creatures with everything I had. By this time, my stamina had dipped to fifty. I was running out of time.

So close, so close…

Level 20: 19441 EXP to next level

HP: 195/195

Stamina: 0/230

Stamina: 0/230

Zero stamina…?

The spiders swarmed over me, digging their horribly painful teeth into my body, and yet again, the darkness came.

* * *

I was in a familiar room-

You know what? This was getting old.

I was back in that room with the spiders yet again, ready to face them off once more. So it had been a death loop, linked to this moment. Twice, I had failed to defeat the horde of spiders with the skills I depended on. Perhaps it was time to try something different?

Activating hold, I searched through the menu, hoping to find something that could help me.

Hold

Bag of coins (4560) Empty Armour Upgrade Stone Frayed Whip Weapon Upgrade Stone x2 Knuckle Dusters Giant Devil Ant Egg Werewolf's Heart Empty Bone Pearl

Something… Something…

Maybe I could use the werewolf’s heart? If I could summon the werewolf, the spiders might attack it instead of me, giving me more time to deal with them… Assuming this was a time loop, it meant that everything would reset once I died, right? However, there was a big downside, because I wouldn’t get any levels from killing all these monsters unless I survived. Or something like that.

With Double Light Beam and Light Ray, I hadn’t even come close to destroying all the spiders, so that path obviously wouldn’t work.

I also really hoped that there wasn’t a penalty for dying, if not I might be in for a nasty surprise. When I got out, at least.

Taking out the werewolf’s heart, I watched as the giant spider touched the ground and went to my direction.

“Lightning Zap!”

Ignoring the rest of the spiders scuttling down the walls, I finished the big one first, hoping to use it’s body as some sort of platform. If I was going to charge up the heart, it had to be now. At any moment I would get the nauseous effect.

Now that I looked at it, I realised the heart itself was very pretty. Even though I didn’t have enough time to properly study it, I could see that it was shaped like a human heart, though copper in colour with swirling patterns intricately carved into it. It was heavy, probably because it was made out of steel.

“Come on, how does this work? Why didn’t it come with a manual?”

Think Ikite, think.

It needed aura to work, but how could I give it aura? There was no way to, unless… I glanced at the body of the giant spider. Theoretically, when I extracted the aura of the creature, it would become a stream from the creature that would go into my hand, right? What if I placed the heart in that stream when extracting it…

By now, I was getting nervous as the spiders had just touched the floor. They were fast, and they were coming for me.

“Hurry, hurry.”

Speaking to myself, I used my left hand to position the werewolf’s heart between my other hand and the body of the spider.

“Here goes nothing. Extract?”

The flow of aura went from the spider, then directly into the werewolf’s heart. Yes! As more went in, the swirling patterns carved into it began to glow with a soft blue, which grew brighter as it absorbed more aura. Just in time, because I received the nauseous effect straight after.

Suddenly, a dazzling light flashed from the heart and I dropped it in surprise. The next moment, a naked man with an orange beard and round stomach appeared on the floor, replacing the heart.

“Huh?”

I was genuinely astonished by what had just happened. Wasn’t this supposed to summon a werewolf? The system and Mei couldn’t have lied to me, right?

“Seriously, in the dark this time? Folks these days are so rude when summoning-”

He seemed to notice me, even with the lack of light.

“Oh, you must have been the one to summon me. What do you want? To fight?”

Unfortunately for him, a spider chose that exact moment to land on his head.

“The heck is this? A spider? Where am I anyways?”

Then another one did. And another one. And the spiders from the floor crawled up naked legs and bit him.

“Ahhhh!”

He frantically tried to brush them off, but they had started to feast, and they looked hungry. So busy crawling on the man, they didn’t notice I was standing on top of their mother’s body, and completely ignored me.

Dang, he made a really good distraction.

In no time, the spiders had managed to completely coat him in a few layers, probably suffocating him. Did I feel bad for him? A little. But wasn’t he supposed to be killed anyways? At least, if Mei’s information was correct.

By this time, it seemed as if all the spiders were on him, and I couldn’t see a single glowing aura anywhere in this room apart from the ones coating the man.

Now, I would kill them all.

“Double Light Ray!”

The beams of light flashed from my palms and hit the mass of spiders, incinerating them along with the man below them. Like an artist, I carved away the parts of his bodies and the spiders slowly, yet efficiently, making sure not to miss a single one.

By the time I had finished, only the heart remained. I guess my light rays couldn’t penetrate it, not that it really mattered anyways.

Well, I had done it.

I had managed to clear all the monsters on my third prize.

Did I win anything?

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

Three loud noises that sounded like footsteps came from my left. What was it now?

A portion of the wall slid open, revealing a passage that a familiar person blocked.

The man named Borno.

The one who had given me this mark and tortured me.

"Yoohoo! Took you long enough!"