AUTHOR’S CORNER: HELLO HELLO! AND HERE WE GO! THE LAST OF THE CHAPTERS!

ANYWAY, I felt really compelled about adding some kind of ‘I’m dropping IO’ Joke here, but that would be downright mean. With this, I brought an end to the IO marathon, and shall go back to work on my other works. For now, the plan is to finish something I have half done, then I’ll see what I’ll do.

ALSO(2), my vacations are just around the corner (two-three weeks), and then I’ll have whopping two weeks of nothing to do as I’ll be on my beach house! And since I dislike beach because the water is too watery, the sand is too grainy and the sun is too bright, I’ll probably spend most of my time holed up in my bedroom (and by bedroom I mean living room. Yeah, I sleep in the living room there. DEAL WITH IT! (personal choice tbh… Couch > Bed)), having nothing to do due to shitty net! Hooray!

ALSO(3), I’ve closed up applications for the Q&A, and I’ll try to work on it in my spare time so it doesn’t block my other works. But I’ll try to have it before next IO chapter next weekend.

Edit: Oh yeah... 100 CHAPTERS BABY! OOOOH YEAH!

Have a good read!

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“Yo!” I said while coming out from the small corridor.

“KYAAA!” Lily shouted scared while jumping away in shock. “T-Teacher? H-How…”

“Chosen!” I said while pointing to myself proudly. The undine blinked surprised for a moment before making a ‘That’s right!’ face. I smiled a bit wryly at her reaction, as it seemed she wasn’t used to seeing someone come back from the dead so casually.

While I dusted some dust off from my shoulders, I didn’t miss Ozzur’s disapproving glance as he started writing down something on his notebook. Although usually I wouldn’t mind such a thing, I did feel a bit annoyed at that.

But before I could do any comeback, I decided to call Lieutenant and Aura closer. Crouching down besides them, I gave the two some orders and it didn’t take long for the two to nod. Immediately after, Lieutenant darted away from the small cavern and into the maze outside.

Aura stayed behind, sitting down towards the back entrance while still using her ice armor. Nodding satisified, I turned back to Ozzur and said briefly.

“Around the size of a large car. Hind legs should be extremely powerful or it is capable of lowering itself using only its threads. Also, it might have been just my own imagination, but the treads it makes aren’t sticky at all. Lastly, it seems to coat its own claws into magma, so it either uses magic or some other kind of mechanism for that.”

“…What?” Ozzur asked me confused.

“The spider boss. Those are his… Hers, it’s a matriarch, features I got from fighting it.” I said while pointing back to the entrance.

“Huh? Fight?” Lily asked confused. “Didn’t you die instantly back then?”

“And how did you find all that just by that brief moment?” Ozzur asked confused.

“Simple.” I pointed up. “The ceiling. I didn’t see it when I first came in, but I did get a good look at the height of the ceiling. Also, believe me when I say that the image of the magma claws were burned into my mind very vividly.” As I said that magnificent pun, the two put on wry expressions. “Taking in consideration the angle the claws came from and the little spiders proportion as a basis, I’d say that it was probably either letting its whole body in a vertical, or somehow using the thread to hang down. It would also fit nicely with the height of the ceiling, so I’d guess that I at least got the size about right.”

The duo looked at me in shock and awe, while Rio simply tilted her head in confusion. I swear I heard Aura let out a snicker, but I couldn’t be so sure right there.

“Then… What about the claws? How can you be so sure?” Ozzur asked.

“Because it’s a beast. Not an elemental or anything like that.” I said briefly. “Although I could believe in it somehow using the magma pools to coat the claws by blaming magic or something, I don’t think that it would have an actual claw made of magma while being an animal.” I stopped to think for a moment. “This means that either the magma can flow out, or solidify into stone. Hmm… Might take a look into that later.”

“…And you found all that in that brief moment?” Lily asked me in shock.

“Nope. I found it while walking back to get my body. At the time I was pretty much cursing my own luck.” I said while scratching my cheek awkwardly.

Also, if any of you are wondering, the claws themselves didn’t exactly kill me. Although they dealt a fair amount of damage, what truly killed me was that after the attack, I stumbled back and fell into the magma pool. Thankfully, it was a quick and surprisingly not painful death.

Even fire resistance gear can’t exactly defeat sheer molten rocks, it seems.

…

Okay, let’s add a magma-proof gear to my bucket list.

And this one might actually be needed, seeing how one of the four gods actually live in the volcanoes.

“…This is amazing…” The mummy said in shock while sitting down to write.

“What?” I asked confused.

“In just that moment you managed to find more info about this monster than what I gathered while preparing to take on the quest. Its size and skills were still mostly a mystery seeing how it is rarely seen outside its own habitat.” Ozzur said while noting down something on his notebook. “To be honest, I didn’t expect you to actually gather anything from it at all.”

“Well, thanks for the encouragement.” I replied dryly before sighing. “And it’s not like I don’t have experience taking on bosses, alright? I did beat a blazing tail and then a freezing tail one after the other, you know? Completely alone to boot! No pet nor help gotten.”

“Blazing tail?” Ozzur asked confused before widening his eyes. “You defeated that fox boss alone?”

“Yup. In fact, this whole gear is made with their material!” I said proudly before motioning towards Aura. “Heck, I even defeated Aura who was stronger than them.” I stopped to think before smiling wryly “Even though it was a very close one…”

“Wait, she’s even stronger than a blazing tail?” Lily asked shocked. I blinked surprised before nodding. Didn’t she learn about Aura before?

“Aura is a very rare variant of the blazing tail that uses ice instead of fire in combat.” Crys explained with a proud tone. “Since they are also harassed since birth, she became a lot more used to combat than the usual red tails, making her a lot stronger than the usual blazing tail!”

At the small elemental’s words, both the undine and mummy stared at me in shock, but I simply shrugged. I’m pretty sure people would have done something like that sooner or later.

“And he was also level eleven at the time.” Crys added with a bright smile.

“WHAAAAT?”

“Crys. I was level fourteen when I fought Aura.” I corrected her, and the others sighed in relief. “Eleven was when I killed my first blazing tail, remember?”

“You are kidding, right?” Ozzur asked confused, but I simply shook my head.

“Nope. Even got a title and skill for that.” I said while bringing up my Recklessness skill and my ‘The Mad’ title, showing it to them.

Once again, they stared at me in shock.

But once I told them about the title and what I had to do to get it, their looks became a perfect example of dead-fish eyes. Shrugging it off, I gave one last look to where Lieutenant left before making my resolve to go back in the battle against the spider. Though I said that, I didn’t really have any expectation of defeating it. In fact, this time I’m going more for observation than anything else if I were to be honest.

Taking a grip of my weapon, I slowly made my way through the small tunnel towards the nest. A quick glance around, and I knew that the spider wasn’t here. Just like before, it seemed like it was going out frequently. Though, just to be sure, I looked around many times, checking all kinds of movements before even taking a step out of the cave. Even then, the first thing I did was to look straight up and see if it wasn’t waiting for me in an ambush.

Nodding satisfied, I quickly walked in, doing a full 360 degrees scan of the area. Nothing had really changed, except for a new spot with web stuck on the ceiling. Frowning slightly at that, since it didn’t seem to be tied at anything. Deciding that I would have to take a look at it later since the thread isn’t supposed to be sticky, I awaited for a few seconds on the room before deciding to look around at the eggs.

Going back to the egg area of the nest, I once again examined each and every one of them, but just like the ones I found earlier, these were mostly cut and empty.

To avoid a situation similar to the previous one, I kept looking up to the ceiling so that I wouldn’t be taken by surprise. However, it seemed that the spider wasn’t too keen on keeping an eye out for this nest, because it hadn’t appeared at all.

Cursing loudly, I awaited while seeing Lily watching me in worry from the small corridor. Behind her, I could see Aura as she laid on the ground lazily watching the rear. I don’t know whether she simply didn’t care or had a lot of faith in me, so I sincerely didn’t have any idea on how to react to it.

…And why is Crys hiding behind Lily? Kind of looks like she is hiding something while peeking out like that.

Sighing loudly. I decided that it wasn’t worthy worrying too much about it.

“It’s coming!” I heard Lily shout suddenly. Blinking surprised, I turned back following her gaze and watched one of the others entrances.

From it, came the crawling beast. A whopping three meters tall and almost eight long. Six long legs made of a sickly white coloration, but protected by a dark brown coloration carapace made of sheer solidified stone.

The front claws that brought me pain earlier, were a bit more peculiar. They started much like the legs, but there was a clear widening on the area just before the claws, almost as if it was the hilt of a sword, then it transformed into a pair of long blades. With the same dull looking coloration of the armor, it had the look of a jagged blade, that despite looking made of stone, it seemed like it could cut through flesh with a scary ease.

The six eyes on its head were spread in a pair of triangles, and from them a red shine came, giving it an appearance that simply screamed bloody violence.

Different from the smaller spiders, this walking machine of death dealing had a charred look to its carapaces, with the torso being a burned brown all over the shells. The back looked like it was actually made of true solidified magma, and as the spider moved my way, I could see the small cracks that made way so that the abdomen could move around. Luckily, it didn’t seem to have stingers on its bottom, so I shouldn’t have to worry about getting poisoned.

The scariest part of this, was that while it approached me, I didn’t hear a single sound. Different from the smaller spiders that at least made the skittering sound, this one moved in a complete silence. Even a person standing still would be louder than it.

Heck, I’M being louder than it just by thinking.

Gripping tightly the weapon in my hands. I took a step back, in worry, seeing as how the spider smoothly made a transition from walking into the ground towards walking into the walls then the ceiling. It seemed to approach me calmly as I followed it with my gaze.

Then, once it stood right above me, it dropped down.

Flinching in surprise at the sudden move, I saw as the spider held itself only with the two back-most legs, falling almost to a perfect vertical line from the ceiling and standing right on top of me, the six glassy eyes looked at me while it lowered the two stone scythes it had for weapons towards my back.

Damn it!

Freeing myself from the shock, I quickly dodged away from the scythes by rolling to the side in a desperate move, and saw as the spider barely missed my hair. Quickly straightening myself, the spider seemed surprised, as it stared at me in confusion.

However, it didn’t last too long, as it quickly swung itself from the ceiling, using its whole body to fall on top of me.

I stared at it in shock for a moment before jumping back and activating roll once again. Seeing how the ground cracked under the impact, I felt glad that it didn’t land on me.

However, before I even had the chance to watch the magnificent scene of the knight of death staring at me, it raised itself with the six legs and pounced forward, the claws open wide as it tried to cleave me in half with a single movement.

Once again I tried dodging it, but barely managed to do so, as the claws both landed one centimeter away from my feet. Getting up, I decided that it was about time for me to take the initiative, so I brought my sword up and activated my single target skill. Fang strike, first form.

Fang strike is a two part attack that is solely used for attacking a single enemy. It starts with the motion of putting my left foot in front and holding the sword close to my right shoulder, then I take a step forward and use my shoulder as a lever to increase the sword’s speed in a downwards slash. Once that strike is done, I then take a step forward again in a stabbing motion with the blade. Although it deals less damage, the stab actually ignores the armor, so both strikes together adds up nicely to the damage.

However, that is if both land on the monster, of course.

The moment my sword came down, the spider quickly raised its rock-shelled claw and parried my first downwards strike. However, my sword’s properties of cutting rocks made it go right through the rocky shelling and strike at the claw itself under the protection.

-32 (5268/5300)

While I stared in shock at the little to no damage dealt, the spider didn’t seem to be all pleased with the damage, because it swung its claws outwards, stopping my attack sequence and throwing me off balance.

I grimaced in annoyance when I saw that I was left wide open and wasn’t even capable of landing a clear hit. Even under the stone, the claw was still a claw. Being sharp and strong I guess it made sense that it wouldn’t take much damage from it.

Luckily, instead of coming in and taking advantage of my opening, the spider instead jumped backwards in a single long leap. Although I was confused by its action, I couldn’t help but feel thankful, taking advantage of the fact to retake my stance and analyze the spider, taking some time to stop and analyze the spider.

The matriarch stared at the claw, seeing a deep gash into the stone that covered it, thanks to my sword. Surprisingly enough, I could notice that it became wary of me, looking in my direction for some time.

I also took my chance to take a look on it’s status table.

Sulfuric Impaler Matriarch [lvl 38](BOSS)

Equivalent level: 45

(aggressive)HP: 5268/5300

-Magma Claw

-Impale

-Web weaving

-?????Sulfuric Impalers are a species of Impaling spider known for living under extreme heat like inside volcanoes. This matriarch, while still young, is already seeking for a new territory to take for itself so it can spread its brood. Being much bigger and stronger than the usual spiders, its is known to be able to use the magma around it to empower its attacks. Due to the little contact with other beings, little more is known about them.

Strange, why are there some skills that are marked and the question marks one? While I watched it doubtfully, the spider quickly made its move. Using its front legs to lift its body even higher than usual and leaving it in a strange tilted position. Then, it twisted its abdomen so that it would point forward and lowered the claws near the ground.

Looking at it strangely while expecting some kind of odd attack, what I saw left me… Confused.

I do know that spiders shoot webs from their backs, so seeing it shoot it wasn’t all that surprising. But what left me confused was that it actually shot them at its own claws, linking the two with a single red tread that somehow stuck to the stone in its claws.

Raising the claws up, it slowly started to make its way towards me. Different from the other times, it didn’t come to me at me in a jump or charge, but slowly creeping forward. Taking a stance with my sword, I prepared myself to use one of my skills when I thought that was the correct time.

When we were separated by around ten meters, I took a step forward and charged in. It reacted quickly by swinging the right claw in a slanted slash. I dodged by crouching slightly and letting it go overhead, before activating slash from an downwards motion, letting the humongous sword cut the ground apart and come from below.

The sword slipped beneath the spider’s head and cut it from downwards up, once it was at its height, I twisted my body around and quickly brought it down back on the spider. Since I was in a bad position, I decided that using any of my skills would take too long, as I had to first set it up. Feeling as the hit connected and the spider made a strange sound, I smiled satisfied as the big numbers appeared in front of me.

-73 -53 (5142/5300)

Seeing the numbers going up, my hunter instincts kicked up telling me that it was about time to go away. Turning back and activating roll, I got away.

Or at least I wanted to do that. Instead I noticed that I couldn’t exactly move away from where I was. Heck, even when I used roll, instead of going forward, it felt like I rolled around a iron bar or something, and ended up in the same place.

Staring confused, I looked downwards, and just barely managed to see it.

A small and thin red tread held me by my stomach, rolling a couple of times around me before going to each side and linking to the claws. Staring at them in confusion for some time, when I saw the claws raising up high, it sunk into me what was happening, so I, of course, did what anyone would do.

“Oooooh… Carp.” I said.

Before I could even squirm myself out from the grasps of the web, the spider raised the two claws with speed, lifting me up from the ground and leaving me with my feet dangling on the air.

Then, it quickly swung the claws in an arc to each side, taking me with it, finalizing with a ridiculously fast spin, that dragged me on the ground before launching me far away until I hit the farthest wall from the cave.

-80 -85 -153 -186

-504 (506/1010)

Grimacing in pain as I slid down the wall, all I saw were the numbers going up in my field of vision and three or so messages telling me that I got some kind of debuff due to realistic mode. Ignoring all the warnings, the first thing I did when I managed to stand up was to look out for the spider.

Feeling a tinge of pain as one of the debuffs warned me that I took damage due to moving, I saw as the spider charged towards me with a scary speed, before suddenly twisting itself mid-dash. I grimaced while following its movement as an idea of what it was going to do popped up in my head, so I quickly rolled to the side and saw as my life reduced even more.

-4 (498/1010)

But the damage was negligible compared to what would have happened to me if I stood in place.

On the place I was just a few seconds ago now stood the back of the spider, where dozens of thirty centimeter long spikes popped up from its abdomen, smashing a seven meters wide crater on the wall.

I have the feeling that if that attack had hit me head on, I would have become the very first sand golem in existence. With such a grim thought, it took me a moment to react as the spider removed the back from the wall and started slamming it around on the ground like a huge meat tenderizer.

As the impact caused small tremors on the ground, I couldn’t run fast enough, but I still managed to avoid being pulverized by it. After it finally calmed down, the spider retracted the spikes on its back before laying on the ground for a moment. Was it recovering its stamina after such attack?

While thinking so, I quickly took the chance to cut the string that was still holding me, however, the sheer size of my sword left it difficult for me to get a good position for doing that. As I lost time, the spider quickly recovered itself from its tantrum attack and turned back to me with a wide motion, swinging the claw in a wide motion.

I jumped back and almost dropped The Howler, my sword, on the process. But the spider quickly advanced towards me with wide and continuous claw swipes, the stone blades passing a mere centimeters away from my face as I hurriedly jumped back. Although the string wasn’t exactly tying my arms, the long excess tread tangled with my legs, making it a bit difficult to keep my balance.

After five seconds of being flurried with the strikes, the spider managed to land one hit on me cleanly, shaving off a good chunk of my health and dropping me backwards.

-78 (420/1010)

Falling on my back, I quickly started rolling on the ground, barely dodging the claw coming downwards and taking even more damage from the injuries debuffs I had. Quickly trying to get myself on foot and almost failing to do so, I noticed that the slash had cut the thread such that it fell on both of my sides.

-12 (408/1010)

Seeing that, I quickly took my sword in hand and took a step back, kneeling on the ground while holding the sword above my head such that the blade was slanted to the ground. The moment I did that, the massive stone scythe came down upon me and skidded off the blade and into the ground, shaving a good part of the damage and the rock away.

-23 (385/1010)

-23(5119/5300)

Seeing a chance after my parry as the claw got stuck on the ground, from the position I was in I quickly activated my skill with the charge effect, Talon strike, first form.

Grabbing the hilt with both hands, as I stood up I swung the sword in a circular motion that made it swing really close to the ground before slashing upwards, during the whole motion I went forward so that I could get close to the spider, that swung its body sideways. The attack still landed on the right legs of the creature from outside.

Smiling victoriously, I quickly followed with the second form from the claw strike. Quickly spinning the sword so that the blade pointed forward, I twisted my body to the side before stepping forward and activating Talon strike, second form.

The second circular slash landed on the same spot, dealing increased damage and applying a movement speed debuff on the spider for having its legs damaged so heavily. Finally, I finalized my combo with a simple swing before jumping backwards just in time to avoid the second claw, that still had the stone around it.

-43 -100(Critical) - 41

Combo! X1.1

-202 (4971/5300)

Seeing the spider do its weird hissing/crackling sound again in anger, I smiled taunting to it while raising my fist towards it.

“NO SO GOOD TO BE ON THE RECEIVING END OF THE ATTACKS! IS IT?” I taunted it while applying a useless taunt debuff on it.

Well, not exactly my smartest decision.

The spider quickly aligned its bottom before shooting a bunch of web my direction. Being caught by surprise, I didn’t manage to dodge it, but…

“…Missed! HAHA!” I laughed triumphantly while seeing the string coiling around the blade in my hands.

From the looks of it, the two extremes of the string were made of something else from the usual as it had a strange shine to it and was a lot more fuzzy looking than the rest. While examining the string in my hands, the spider quickly spun around.

I quickly prepared the blade to cut off the string, but much to my surprise, there was no need for it, as the spider left a lot of excess string around while it shot another bunch of web to the opposing side, forming a long string that linked my sword to one of the walls.

While looking confused at what it was doing, It kept on shooting more and more strings to all sides.

Crap? Was it making a net?

With the thought crossing my mind, I quickly started cutting the string that held my blade, but it proved to be a bit more annoying than I thought, as any move I made would also move the string.

I finally managed to deal with it by stepping on the string and cutting the tensed up part. Finally freeing my weapon, I turned back to the spider, only to find it walking on the walls far away, going to the direction of one of the magma pools.

Watching it confused, not understanding why it would leave after making such a trap room with so many webs around me, I saw as it turned upside down on the wall and approached the pool.

Then, it started drinking the magma.

…

Shouldn’t that be bad for health or something?

While watching it clearly drink the molten rock like it was water, it took the two claws and started breaking the rocks from it with each other.

After a few seconds, I finally noticed it. Its body started to change slightly the more it drank. From the top of the claws slowly started to flow the same molten rock, sticking to the surface of the scythe-shaped weapon and taking the form of a molten blade of fiery death.

The rest of its body wasn’t all that different. The chest carapaces slowly started to get a reddish coloration while the back part started inflating, the lines between the carapace shining on the same coloration as the liquid stone, looking as if it were stones floating on magma.

Once it was done, it took a step back up before jumping from the wall towards me, not even giving me time to react as the molten blade crossed the string it spread around.

Then, my horror started.

The threads it spread around started combusting the moment the liquid fire crossed it. And by that, I mean explosive combustion. The explosions being small, but numerous as it spread through the string with fiercy speed and spreading to any other nearby string that it crossed by.

While watching the hellish fireworks spreading through the cave, I almost missed as the spider approached me, slashing away at even more strings on the way.

Cursing at my own stupidity for missing the massive beast approaching me, I rolled away just in time. However, much to my surprise, I felt as something hit me in my back and dealt a little damage.

-12 (373/1010)

While grimacing and thinking what had hit me there, a grim thought crossed my mind. From the looks of it, I would have to use my super secret skill for large monsters hunting.

Giving the spider one last look, I decided that I didn’t have any other choice besides now.

I quickly took out one of the balls I had in my belt and hoped that it would do its job just fine.

A sharp sound echoed through the whole room, leaving my ears ringing for a minute as the ball exploded.

However, the sound of something dragging on the ground quickly left it clear to me that it had worked, as the spider was caught by surprise by the noise, and its enhanced hearing made it receive an even bigger impact from the item.

Taking advantage of this, I laughed loudly while using my secret skill.

RETREAT!

Feeling as the skill activated and gave me a 26% movement speed bonus thanks to it being at level three, I quickly crossed the room towards the small cave I came from. Jumping over and dodging under the few remaining threads.

Hearing as the spider got up once again and started running towards me, I immediately knew that I would barely reach the passage. Seeing Lily standing there with a worried look, I quickly shouted.

“GO IN! I’M TAKING THE ENTRANCE!” I shouted to her.

Just as I heard the spider jumping up to catch me, I made a dive for it.

Feeling the wind pressure as the spider fell on the floor right behind me, I fell on the tunnel’s ground and laid on the ground for a few seconds, watching as my health decreased even more due to the injuries until I had a bit more than two hundred fifty health points.

Well, at least I got away. While thinking so and smiling proudly to myself, I quickly turned around and looked at the spider while shouting.

“HAHAHAH! TAKE THAT YOU BUFFON! I MANAGED TO SURviv…” My voice died down once I saw what was stuck on the wall right besides me. A long red string stuck to the wall. “… I know, I deserved that.” I said to no one as I saw the explosion spreading through the string approaching me.

But seriously, why the hell did it have to use explosions? Shouldn’t that be a high level boss skill? MONSTER HUNTER! YOU LIED TO ME!

-152 -42 (61/1010)

Feeling as my back hit the wall of the small cave we were using as a base, I felt my body fall limp on the floor.

Hearing a couple of footsteps approaching me, I looked upwards, seeing as Ozzur and Lily both helped me up and healed me with shamanistic magic. Aura also approached me and gently rubbed her cold nose against my hand.

“I knew you weren’t going to defeat it. Its too much for a crafter.” Ozzur said with a slightly depressed tone.

“…Did I say I was going in to defeat it?” I asked confused.

“You weren’t?” The mummy asked me confused

“Hell no! I was just checking its attacks and such.” I said while standing up and looking around, finding a certain cat standing in front of me saluting. “I never expected to beat it on our first serious fight. That’s just downright dumb. Heck, the fight I survived is more than enough for now.” I said to the mummy once again before l said turning to the cat. “So, What did you notice?”

“Nyaa-na-nyaa. Na nya ny ny ny nyaaa naanynanyna. Nanya nyyyyy HISSSS nana.” Lieutenant replied in a serious tone, making me nod while stopping to think on his words.

“I see…”

“Huh? Teacher? What’s happening?” Lily asked confused.

“What? Didn’t you hear Lieutenant?” I asked confused before shaking my head. “Anyway, he just confirmed a doubt I had.”

“Doubt?” Ozzur asked confused. “Is it about the boss?”

“Nope. The small ones.” I corrected him while stretching myself and feeling a tinge of pain and seeing my health decrease a little. “Damn it. These debuffs are annoying. Anyway, as I thought, there’s something strange going on in here.” I said, making the two look at each other in confusion. “Don’t you find it strange that the spider would leave its nest right after I invaded it earlier?”

“…Now that you said it…” They said together.

“Also, if you compare the number of eggs back there with the spiders we found around here, aren’t there too many eggs?” I said while pointing to the eggs at the main room. There were easily a few twenties of them, yet we barely met any smaller spiders on our way here. “I had Lieutenant go and explore more of the cave, and he barely met any other spiders either.”

“Then, doesn’t that mean that the eggs just didn’t hatch yet?” Lily asked, but I shook my head.

“No. When I went there the first time, I gave a look on all the eggs there, and they all had a strange horizontal cut around the base.” I explained while drawing on the air to show them what I found out. “At first I thought that they had all hatched…”

“But that can’t be the case since there’s barely any spiders, huh?” Crys said while making a pensive pose. “Someone actually destroyed them?” She asked me surprised. I nodded. “Since all the eggs were destroyed, then it had no reason to stay in here and protect the nest at all.” The elemental said in an understanding tone. “So it went after the culprit!”

“Bingo!” I said cheerfully before turning to the entrance once again. “Anyway, we can worry about the unsung hero after I beat the crap out of that overgrown arachnid. For now, I need to recover quickly and go fight it again.”

“And this time you’ll defeat it?” Ozzur asked me dubiously.

“Probably not. The process of hunting isn’t something that can be hurried off like that.” I told him with a sigh. “I need to learn its skills, its patterns and habits. Only then I can go for the kill.” I said solemnly before smiling.

“…So the great crafter isn’t as hot-headed as he appears… Scoop scooOUCH! Are you seriously going to keep hitting me like that?”

“It’s teachers orders.” Lily said with a dead-pan look.

“Good Lily. When we get back, you’ll see some actual Wargon crafting of brand new quality gear!” I said proudly. “Before that, I’m going to farm the hell out of it and get some really good mats!” While laughing evily… Maniacally… No, happily, about that, I went into dreamland while trying to imagine all the sets I could craft with this monster’s material.

“Master. I don’t believe you’ll be able to farm this boss.” Huh? Why would you say so? Looking confused at the floating crystals, Crys went on. “This boss isn’t going to respawn like the blazing tails, you know?”

W-Wha… But then… My dreams… My desires… My plans…

“… NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

As I shouted in despair, the others simply watched me with wry smiles. Meanwhile the spider that couldn’t go through the cave gave up and went back to doing whatever it was doing.

"Erm... Teacher. You have some magma on your back..." Lily added as i fell on the ground lamenting.

Oh! So that what hit me while i was running away!

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Author’s corner: Yes, the ‘Oh carp’ was on purpose, if that wasn’t clear enough…