46 The Hunt Begins!

Finally making his way over closer to the spider cave, Leo realized that the spiders were patrolling around and seemed intelligent. These spiders were exactly like the one he killed the day before, but they would remain in small groups of three while they hunted down new prey within the area.

This was not too ideal for Leo, since he did not want to tire himself out by attacking so many spiders at once. In this case, he wanted to draw out spiders one by one and kill them quickly. If he could do this, he would be able to make quite a bit of headway by slowly cutting down the Spider Queen's minions and children!

Unable to find an opening to try to take one down at a time without alerting more, Leo decided to take a small stroll hidden behind the scenery in order to head directly into the cave nearby. Ideally, he wanted to kill off some of these patrols slowly, so he could rack up many kills while depleting the number of spiders that could be hidden within the cave.

At this time, Leo did not have any lasting means of lighting something like a torch to travel within the cave, so he needed to improvise. If he was able to limit the number of spiders within the cave to begin with, he wouldn't need to worry when using much more craftier means to create light.

An hour later, Leo saw in the distance many spiders splitting up individually before heading out to scout new surrounding areas. This was absolutely done by the Spider Queen in order to expand her control over this area. However, this also gave someone like Leo who wanted to hunt down these spiders an easier time.

If he could hunt down spiders individually, there may be endless spiders, but that would only give him much larger rewards back at the guild once he returned. He was also in no rush, because his main goal was to test out the Spider Queen's strength and if possible, to slay her.

Following a nearby spider, Leo waited until the spider tried to capture a massive looking caterpillar monster before making his move. Allowing the spider and its opponent to battle, it allowed Leo to also witness how these spiders fought with the added benefit of this battle tiring out his prey.

After several minutes of fighting, the spider was finally able to take down the monster by injecting it with enough poison to finally paralyze it to exhaustion. As the spider started to wrap its webbing around the monster it just defeated, Leo finally made his move.

Leo dashed out towards the spider before activating an ability to hide his movements for a moment which he gained from the Mist household's inheritance. Due to being tired from the previous battle it had with the monster, the spider was far too careless at this time to realize that Leo was about to slay it.

Splatter!

He did not know whether his attack was that strong, or if the spider just had no real energy left, but his strike completely chopped off the spider's head without any real resistance except for the strong skin the spider had.

Moving quickly, Leo managed to hide nearby yet again while he deposited the spider's head he just looted within his inventory. From testing out his inventory screen over this past year, Leo realized that even food would not deteriorate if it was within his inventory. So, he could slay as many spiders as he wanted without worrying that their heads would decay over this time period.

Knowing that it was only a matter of time before, yet another spider would come this way, Leo patiently waited as he tested out the small pile of cards, he still had left all this time. He was too focused on training and becoming stronger the traditional way, that he chose to wait some time to look at these cards in his possession.

"Wait does that say what I think it says?" now in the middle of the stack, Leo came across an extremely unique card that he thought was perfect for him. Before he could do the exchange, a spider slowly walked over from another area and was approaching the body of its brethren that laid there lifeless next to a monster that was still paralyzed and bleeding out.

This was the perfect situation for Leo, to have a monster unable to move bleeding out so much, would release a scent to notify other creatures from close by to come check it out. By seeing the dead spider's corpse, any creature with low intelligence would think that there was an earlier battle, but not that someone like Leo would be waiting to strike at the right moment!

Repeating what he had done earlier to the other spider, Leo quickly made his move once the new prey was in a good position. This time, Leo was discovered, but he was still fast enough to slay the spider before depositing its head into his inventory along with the other one. He had to use his bronze skin to his advantage in order to block the spider's venomous bite before stabbing its head.

Now with too many corpses being in this area, Leo decided to head back towards the waterfall. The last thing he wanted was for one of the Spider Queen's children to be alarmed because he was not at full power at this time nor has, he truly gained enough experience against these lower tier spiders to feel comfortable fighting a higher tier one.

Now back at the waterfall, Leo shuffled through his cards until he came across the one that peaked his interest earlier. Putting it into the screen, his eyes lit up with excitement.

He was excited, because this was the first card, he came across that offered a summoning method. With this new development, maybe he could raise a new pet or maybe even a human ally? He was not too sure but wanted to find out.