Basically, a Man-Eating Spider extermination request was not especially difficult.
You only needed the numbers. Even novice mercenaries given cheap weapons could defeat Man-Eating Spiders.
As long as you had mercenaries who would not be overwhelmed by the violence of those numbers, you could complete the request even if they were somewhat underdeveloped.
The pay was also quite decent for the difficulty. There was the problem that the nature of the request made escape difficult, but even so, it was a very good request.
The only reason I was struggling with it now was that I had too few allies. If I had even five more armed mercenaries, I would have accepted this request with a smile.
But the being before my eyes—the Spider Queen—was a little different.
‘Hmm……’
Players of this game did not simply call her the Spider Queen. They attached countless profanities to her name, venting their disgust and rage.
That was because the Spider Queen was an enemy that shattered player strategies designed for Man-Eating Spiders.
That gigantic spider was relatively weak ‘for a boss.’
It did not have such a hard exoskeleton that blades could not pierce it, nor did it evade weapons with absurd agility.
Apart from the Man-Eating Spiders already in the colony, it did not summon additional minions, nor did it inflict loathsome debuffs.
‘Of course……’
With that dreadful size and speed that was quite fast for its bulk, it was not a monster a few mediocre people could band together to face.
‘Still, a boss is a boss. You need people good enough to work in tandem against a boss.’
A small number of elite mercenaries with decent armor, decent accuracy, and decent strength. With only that much, you could face her well enough.
‘That’s what makes it so vicious.’
A Man-Eating Spider request was bound to be disgusting and filthy whether you failed or succeeded. The webs were sticky, and the by-products did not bring much profit.
That was why high-tier mercenary companies possessing both ‘a few powerful mercenaries’ and ‘a well-organized large force’ had no reason to accept this request. It was a request newly formed, low-rank mercenary companies had no choice but to take.
And low-rank mercenary companies with limited means inevitably had to choose one of two options.
They could move as a small elite group despite being somewhat short on strength, or hire a large number of mediocre mercenaries while feeling the pressure of upkeep and food costs.
Mercenary companies with ‘a few powerful mercenaries’ would not try to take this request in the first place. They had no reason to. On the other hand, ‘a large number of weak mercenaries’ made the ideal composition for accepting a Man-Eating Spider request.
But the problem was the Spider Queen, a boss that appeared at a low rate. Of course, not every colony had a Spider Queen.
And a mercenary company that had prepared ‘a large number of weak mercenaries’ without ‘a few powerful mercenaries’ could never respond when it encountered the Spider Queen.
That was why players could not deal easily with the Spider Queen. A mercenary company that could safely defeat Man-Eating Spiders was inevitably ill-suited to fighting the Spider Queen.
‘But not me.’
I did not have a mercenary company suited to Man-Eating Spider requests in the first place. It was the opposite.
My greatest fighting strength was myself: a swordsman in the finest armor, with powerful combat ability despite being somewhat lacking in swordsmanship.
That was a force far too inefficient for killing Man-Eating Spiders. But it was perfectly suited to killing the Spider Queen.
“Get a hold of yourselves, everyone. This is better. There’s hope now!”
“What? How are we supposed to face something that large……?”
“See? The little ones aren’t moving. When the Spider Queen appears, her underlings stop moving.”
It was their habit. More precisely, the smaller ones stopped moving when someone they recognized as prey resisted.
Because the Queen could kill them. It was enough to wait until the Queen devoured the enemies’ corpses.
“If we kill the Queen, the rest will run.”
Of course, it was difficult. The chance of success still did not exceed sixty percent.
Even so, the Spider Queen was our only hope.
A crisis had come that I could overcome if I dodged well and struck well enough, pulling us out of a hopeless situation in which death was certain.
“But how do we kill that?”
“Dana. Save your voice. Cast the Song of Vitality on me right away.”
“……Yes!”
Dana hesitated briefly, but soon began to sing.
‘I had her try it just in case, but she really is good at it?’
Dana was already a fully fledged bard. But I had no time to admire that fact.
‘Hmm……’
With her countless eyes, the Spider Queen was observing us. She was inspecting enemies that might pose a threat.
“Start first aid in the rear. Stand by so you can hand me the torch at any time. Get ready to clear away webs. Never think of fighting directly.”
“Why?”
“If she decides you are not a threat, she won’t bother attacking you first.”
I raised my sword and looked at the Spider Queen.
“All right, shall we try this……?”
My body trembled. Muscles pushed to their limit screamed in agony.
I forced that body to move and charged the Spider Queen.
The battle began again.
***
“Tch!”
The gigantic body of the Spider Queen moved toward me. Her countless legs writhed without pause.
‘This is that pattern!’
Her grotesque mouth gaped wide at me. I slid beneath her body and drove my blade deep into the Spider Queen’s left rear.
“……!!!!”
The Spider Queen writhed in pain. It gave me a little breathing room.
“Whew.”
My body was screaming. First, I had to restore my stamina.
I took out my waterskin and drained the last remaining mouthful into my mouth. The Spider Queen had already turned her head and charged me.
‘I can’t do that again……!’
Her frame was enormous, and her weight was no trifling matter either.
If I carelessly tried to take position under the Spider Queen’s body, I would be crushed to death by her doing nothing more than lowering her body.
I ran desperately, getting out of the path of her charge.
The Spider Queen did not stop charging, and several spiders gathered nearby were trampled to death beneath her rush.
‘For now, hold out.’
The Song of Vitality restored stamina. It was a waste to sing it for just one person, but I had no choice for now.
Unless I recovered enough stamina to fight and defeat her, this battle could not even be fought.
‘So……’
I would not go on the offensive. Until the Song of Vitality ended, I had to hold out as long as possible and endure the Spider Queen’s attacks with minimal movement.
“……”
Perhaps realizing that a mindless charge could not knock me down, she kept her distance and began drawing out webbing.
‘A web net!’
Ordinary Man-Eating Spiders threw those often enough. It was a truly dreadful attack that restricted and bound a mercenary’s movements.
No matter how strong a mercenary was, without someone behind them to peel away the webs, they would eventually collapse under the webbing piling up on their body.
And that web net was not like the ordinary Man-Eating Spider’s net, which merely ‘restricted movement a little.’
The size was different. The density was different.
It was being made with a density and stickiness that would freeze my entire body the instant a web of that unavoidable size touched me.
‘If this were the game, I would have sent out a decoy……’
The strategy was to have the most useless ally take the web net in place of the others while the mercenaries, their fighting strength intact, dealt with the Spider Queen.
Useful, but I could not use it now. That strategy required a mercenary willing to risk their life.
The Spider Queen threw the web net she had just spun at me.
“Whew…… Here we go!”
I threw one of the Man-Eating Spider corpses strewn all around toward the web net.
My strength was great. If I threw a spider corpse at full force, I could push back the incoming web net at least a little.
The spider corpse I threw was instantly enveloped by webbing. The web net did not reach me.
Perhaps realizing that attack had also become meaningless, the Spider Queen observed me with her countless eyes and assessed me.
“……!”
The Spider Queen approached me. Neither too slowly nor too quickly, with killing intent directed at me.
When there was little enough distance between us, she raised her upper body high to impale me with her legs.
I held several stones from the ground in my left hand and waited for her to come closer.
“Hup!”
She had countless eyes, but from this distance she could not see below herself.
From the moment she lifted her upper body slightly to impale me with her forelegs, she had to determine my position through vibration and instinct rather than sight.
‘Whew……!’
In an instant, I scattered several stones as decoys, so she would detect their sound before the sound of my footsteps.
Then I dodged. There was no need to move too frantically, too much, or too quickly. What mattered was minimizing the moments when my feet touched the ground, so that she learned the ‘real information’ as late as possible.
‘Dodged it!’
Her forelegs stabbed repeatedly into the ground. They missed.
“Winged Hunter, from now! Quickly!”
“Yes!”
Dana began to sing. The Spider Queen’s countless eyes wavered and shook again.
Her movements became visibly sluggish, and her pupils trembled.
“Haaah!”
Now it was my turn. No, it had to be my turn.
Until this moment, the Spider Queen had not recognized any human besides me. She had not considered them threats.
I was the one who had raised a sword against her when she appeared, while the others had not even shown hostility.
Man-Eating Spiders did not have the intelligence to distinguish between a crippled human, an unconscious human, and a living human. To them, a human not immediately pointing a sharp stick at them was merely food.
That was why I alone had been able to draw that monster’s attention and take her attacks until now.
But from now on, it was different. The moment Dana sang the Song of the Winged Hunter in front of the Spider Queen, she became an enemy.
To keep the Spider Queen from unleashing her attacks on a new enemy, I had to move more.
“Here I go!”
My stamina had recovered to some extent. I swung my sword and cut one of her eyes.
“Not so fast!”
I dodged the leg that came down at me like a stake, then cut it off the very next moment.
“Hngh!”
I leaped. While she crouched and moved her legs, I climbed onto the Spider Queen’s head.
Then I drove my blade down, hard enough to make the monster writhe in pain.
“……!!!”
I could see the Spider Queen in pain.
‘It’s definitely working!’
The Spider Queen was huge, but in the end, she was only a Man-Eating Spider.
Wounds caused pain. Every time blood flowed, her movements slowed.
And I was an elite mercenary with great strength, sturdy armor, and a good sword.
It was not impossible to kill a Spider Queen weakened by the Song of the Winged Hunter.
With my strength, I could pierce her hide. With my sword, I could sever her legs. With my armor, even if one of her attacks grazed me, I could endure while minimizing the damage.
“Hup!”
I slashed, stabbed, and pressed down.
Her body was immensely large, her legs far more numerous than an ordinary spider’s, and her torso far too thick.
But her movements did not feel threatening now. I had regained stamina through Dana’s song, and the Spider Queen had no choice but to move sluggishly.
I kept dodging the Spider Queen’s attacks, blocking them at times, and stabbing without missing an instant when she exposed a weakness.
‘……!’
At some point, my instincts sensed it. Her response had changed.
Instead of trying to bite to death the one tormenting her, she was taking another stance—
‘Now!’
“Torch!”
I ran to Dana’s sister, roughly snatched the torch from her hand, and set it ablaze.
“Hup!”
I threw the blazing torch at the Spider Queen. The enormous monster recoiled in shock.
I readjusted my grip on my sword and charged the Spider Queen again. Ignoring even the formation, I kept pressing her as she backed away.
From this moment on, I could never rest.
The instant I stopped my assault even once, disaster would unfold.