"It's over."
Maggie was stuck fast to the web, suspended mid-air and unable to move. Like a moth caught in silk, the harder she struggled the tighter the adhesive strands drew around her, the webbing releasing fresh stickiness as it bound her.
Her pupils blew wide. All she could do was stare in terror as the monster, light on its feet and almost soundless, padded along the trembling strands and came to a stop right in front of her.
They were so close.
Close enough that she could smell the rancid stench rolling off its body.
It stopped.
On either side of its head were rows of compound eyes—eight black orbs in all.
Those eight eyes stared unblinking at Maggie from different angles.
A disturbingly human delight spread across its face, as if it were savoring the fear radiating from its prey.
Its whole body was shrouded in bristling gray hair. The abdomen was a round, swollen sphere, and it was from the gland in that belly that the webbing jetted forth.
Apparently it had admired her terror long enough.
The distended belly, full like a pregnant woman's, spat a bolt of gray-white silk.
The silk moved as if it were alive, looping precisely around Maggie's throat.
"Gh… gh…"
The strand tightened, twisting at her windpipe, cinching harder and harder. Maggie felt the breath leaving her.
Her vision began to blur.
Suddenly, a streak of cobalt clipped the edge of her sight.
"Boom!"
"Crack!"
The strand coiling in front of her was cut cleanly by that flash of cobalt light.
The web snapped; the noose at her neck slackened.
"Haa—haa—"
Like a drowning woman breaking the surface, she reflexively gulped great mouthfuls of air.
Her mind went blank.
"Made it."
A clear male voice came from somewhere beside her.
She forced her head to turn.
The fog that had smothered everything had somehow, without her noticing, thinned away.
Suspended in the air beside her stood a tall man, floating effortlessly.
He saved me?
Though Maggie had never seen him before in her life, her fear eased almost at once. There was something about him—some quiet gravity—that made even a stranger trust him, the way a sudden patch of blue sky calms you after days of gray.
"Now for you."
He took his gaze off her and fixed it on the monster not far away. His eyes sharpened.
The newcomer was Gauss, who had rushed in on Flight to the scene.
"Sssss!"
Perched on the strand, the ettercap lost its taunting swagger the moment Gauss looked its way. In its place rose a shock that seemed to rake its very soul.
Even being looked at by him filled it with a stark sense of danger; the hair along its limbs stood on end.
It hissed through its spider-like mouthparts, trying to cow this unknown intruder with sound.
Gauss's face didn't flicker.
His eyes swept the surroundings.
With the mist dispersed, the swamp floor and dead trees came clear. Spiders of all sizes were everywhere.
He saw no other ettercaps, but reading the lay of the land, he was sure this marsh held more than the one in front of him.
Elsewhere then—each holding its own patch?
He thought fast.
With no way to draw the others out, he didn't waste time.
Tight schedule, heavy lift.
He wanted a solid lead on the board today.
"Magic Missile."
He parted his lips.
The readied bolts of blue shot from his mouth.
As they hit the air they swelled, dragging lethal blue trails as they screamed toward the ettercap.
It was so abrupt—and Magic Missile so fast—that even though the ettercap hadn't taken its eyes off him, it couldn't react in that first flash of blue.
A heartbeat's lag in a fight is long enough to lose a life.
"Boom!"
Gauss's bolt smashed into the balloon belly that was most of its body.
"Crack!"
The armored shell it prided itself on—its belly carapace—shattered like an eggshell.
"Whump!"
Black-green reek sluiced out, mixed with strings of half-formed silk, splashing in all directions.
In an instant, its lower body was gone. Only by hooking a claw into the strand did it keep from crashing to the mud.
Not dead yet?
Gauss registered the ragged half that remained.
"HSSSS!!!"
It shrieked, the pain from its pulverized lower half clearly immense and unrelenting.
Gauss ignored it.
He looked down at the spiders pouring over the ground.
They weren't quite like normal spiders. Their bodies wore the same near-black violet sheen as the ettercap.
Those underlings were reared by the ettercap like a mother tending her brood.
Their tie to it was far tighter than the usual "chief and minion" relationship in monster clans.
Hearing the ragged sobs above, the spiders boiled.
They swarmed up the web, frantic to "save their mother," heedless of the powerful enemy hovering nearby.
Loyal little things…
Gauss shook his head.
Books had told him enough about ettercaps to know that—romance aside—these weren't kin so much as assets.
Cold herders, they brainwashed their spiders with pheromones—hounds, laborers, moving larders. When food ran short, they'd eat them without a second thought.
Their mindless devotion surprised him, even stirred a prick of odd admiration—but he showed no mercy.
Bolts of fire leapt from his fingertips.
With INT 15, Firebolt for him was breath itself.
Any spider he chose could not escape its lock.
"Etter Thrall Spider Slain ×1"
"Etter Thrall Spider Slain ×1"
…
With each cast, the kill text flickered.
As he suspected, these weren't mere house-spiders. Each was as big as a human head or more, venomous, and in a fog-choked swamp more dangerous to common folk than most low-tier monsters. Crawl through that sludge; get nicked once by one hiding in the reeds; the toxin slowed you down until the swarm took you and you were supper. The ettercap turned every kill into more silk and more thralls.
Hence the rush tag on the contract.
Etter Thrall Spider became his 50th Common Entry.
He'd hit the mark—but the field still crawled.
Floating like a gun platform, he poured fire into the swarms below.
After a bit of rest, Maggie's head cleared. From the web she stared at the storm of flame ripping from the man's hands, dazed by the unreality of it.
The awful spiders that had tormented her for a day were withering to black husks under the blaze; even the swamp floor hissed to dry white under the heat.
So this is… an Adventurer. A Mage…
She whispered, stunned. She had heard the tales—power beyond reason—but until this man appeared and made fire behave like a tame hound and bent the land with a gesture, she hadn't truly believed.
Soon, a step behind Gauss, Albena and the others reached the fight.
"Gauss—I've got you."
"I… I'm here too."
…
It was over quickly.
"Total Monster Kills: 8,433"
In all, Gauss killed 121 thralls and 1 ettercap.
Only then did he cut the woman from the web, handing her to the party's doctor, Serandur.
"Don't worry. This is my companion Serandur—an excellent healer."
Catching the fear in her eyes at the serpentfolk, Gauss explained.
"Thank you, sir," Maggie swallowed. Wary of Serandur's monstrous looks, but trusting the man who'd saved her, she nodded meekly.
A little ways off, Albena—pale—shot a glance of envy at the woman in Gauss's arms.
"You okay, Albena?" Gauss asked, noting her color. He hadn't expected it—she really was afraid of spiders. Luckily, this job hadn't asked much of her.
"Want to sit? Rest a bit?"
"Sir Gauss, I'm fine," she gulped. Seeing that, he let it go—acclimation had to start somewhere.
He looked to his handbook.
With the 50th Common Entry, he could finally draw for a new Racial Trait again.
What'll it be?
Fifty types—no small feat. He was curious what species and what trait he'd pull.
Not goblins again, surely? The last two common draws had been goblin: the first, Quick Digestion—now evolved to Special Stomach; the second, Ironscale. A third wouldn't surprise him—just felt a bit… narrow.
Not that fretting helped. The draw was random.
[Common Monster Types Collected (1/50): Goblin, Slime, Skeleton… Iron-Claw Giant Crab, Spineback Needlefish, Etter Thrall Spider.]
[Triggering Racial Trait Extraction...]
…
The world flickered across his vision.
Around him, as Alia and the others paused their bagging and tallying, several heads lifted. The air itself seemed to shift. Fog thinned; sunlight spilled down into a place that rarely saw it.
"What was that?" Alia blinked, pausing mid-motion. In the wild, a new ripple always meant: prepare for the worst.
Serandur glanced at Gauss, saw a strange aura stirring around him, and signaled the others. Then he bent back to treating Maggie's purpled legs. Alia took the hint and went back to work.
Sun warmed Gauss's skin.
After a moment, the text resolved:
[Extracted: Random Kobold Trait — "Degenerate Draconic". Trait adapted for human physiology.]
[New Trait Acquired: "Elementary Draconic" White (Upgradable)]
Gauss arched his brow.
"Draconic as a racial trait? Not a skill?"
And finally—not goblins. Kobolds this time. No surprise; he'd killed a lot of them recently—especially after flattening that thousand-strong tribe. If kill distribution weighted the pool, that push had likely stacked the deck.
As he mulled it over, his body began to change.
A flood of knowledge rammed into his mind. Articulate shapes and sounds crammed themselves into his skull with shocking force, blanking him like a blown fuse.
Then his throat prickled—itching heat, then cold—as if countless invisible blades were carving minute adjustments along his larynx.
Heat, cool, heat, cool.
Only then did he realize Elementary Draconic was not the simple boon he'd imagined.