Chapter 70: Second Time's the Charm! Or n times?!

In the oppressive darkness, all one could hear was a very faint grating sound worthy of a never-ending nightmare. It was breaking the heavy silence but making it even more ominous. Was the noise from giant atrocious hairy spiders rubbing their legs in expectation of a feast?

It wasn't. As the grating intensified, small fiery sparks appeared only to be extinguished instantly. Eventually, a bright flame illuminated a small patch of darkness. But, it did not make the atmosphere any less tense for a face akin to a hellish grinning demon became visible.

Yes, Josh was smirking. His was smile was going from one ear to another just from imagining what was about to happen. That is when he threw his makeshift torch, watching it draw an arc in the air as it finally landed directly on a pile of twigs, small branches, and other flammable materials.

How does one deal with spider webs? How about an inferno????! Soon, the entire forest would be set ablaze and all these pesky cobwebs would disappear. Of course, this act would probably change the nature of this rescue endeavor.

"Let there be fire!" Josh declared grandly as he watched the flames devour everything, making their way toward a humongous old tree. At this point, he was ecstatic. Except that no matter how long Josh waited, there was no sign of it burning. Even the dry-looking bark on it remained perfectly fine and soon the fire died down.

<Information recorded. Archaic trees are flame resistant...and so are the webs according to the database. It possibly requires magical fire.>

"…."

On that anti-climatic note, Josh gave up on cheating the mission (for now) and went for the next best option. He sent his exorbitantly expensive Navi to scout the way forward (clearly not venting for the earlier comment). Many times, the little floating object got itself stuck in a web but Josh would promptly murder the resident monster.

One man and one barely identifiable flying object made their way across the place. Josh eventually kept picking and throwing small rocks using them to scout the danger ahead while keeping Navi directly in front of him as a last resort warning.

The farther he went and the more and more webs were strewn all over. At some point, Josh started noticing big white cocoons stuck to the trees. Chances were that in there would be his objective.

As he came closer, Josh could feel the dark ground under his feet start pulsating. Oh god! Throwing himself on the ground nearby, he could see spiders coming out of the ground where he had just been. But he wasn't safe just yet. Far from it! He first quickly threw all the pebbles he had been collecting so far, as far away as possible, all around him.

Then, a giant spider appeared right in front of him and tried to bite his head off. Josh simply kept rolling out of death's reach. Then he went on the assault! He went toward a spider quickly swinging at it! But he felt danger. Were he to finish his motion, his shoulder would get bitten into.

Rolling backward, Josh observed the spider that had just attacked him. Whether it was venomous he wouldn't test it out with his body for sure. Navi could be seen flying around. It wasn't getting attack so Josh stopped caring about it.

Josh kept dodging. There were so many of them and the darkness made them hard to even notice. The spiders kept jumping at him, trying to sink their pointy sharp legs into his body or devour him whole. It as was a true onslaught!

Many times he needed to abort an attack at the last second, rolling over a spider. Every time he could feel the hair on the creatures rub against his arms and neck.

This was a war of attrition, Josh attacking, aborting attacks, rolling away, all until finally, a chance presented itself! For a fraction of a second, the creatures messed up. Then Josh started a killing spree. A slow one at first, but he kept getting faster and faster.

With every spider killed, it increased his possible range of motion. After a while, the creatures even started running from Josh in fright. As if that would save them from him!

But that is when Josh suddenly stopped. The creatures hadn't been running away from him at all, no they had been baiting him into their webs. He knew from the little pebbles he had thrown that were now floating in the air quite magically.

Josh carefully approached his targets, but he soon had to give up. They were all so goddamn careful! Every time he tried killing one they would retreat on the webs. There were some floating in the air and the very ground was covered by it too! He did try to navigate it using the vine necklace but it got stuck and he had to cut the vines to escape.

Josh could see that the creatures seemed to be somehow completely immune to the effect of their own webs. Right now he was so damn jealous of that ability. Josh didn't have any choice but to retreat in defeat…for now.

Navi had somehow survived the fight without any issue. Now, how was he supposed to get through that? He needed some kind of footing for sure. If only he could somehow make a way through the cobwebs. That's when a simple idea came to him, one that would have very much terrified most rankers.

Smiling slightly, Josh went for round two. All the spiders had respawned. Why was the rate so fast this time around? Was this part of the Tower's difficulty adjustment? It was something to ponder about for sure!

A scene very similar to before happened: lots of dodging, lots of bashing, lots of spiders running away shaking their asses to bait him. Except that this time, Josh did. The creatures seemingly rejoiced, but they soon realized that something was wrong.

There was now an addition to the webs. In them were plenty of dead spiders sprawled at various key locations. Apparently, dying made their immunity go away for they were solidly stuck.

Josh could be seen leaping from one improvised foothold to another. That is when the spiders started panicking, moving their legs all over the place in shock. It was time to get in there and finish it once and for all!

…Or so Josh thought initially. That is when his senses started sending him warnings. Instead of dashing forward, he simply made a motion faking it while remaining unmoving. That is when a bunch of spiders fired strings toward the location he would have landed at.

Once more, Josh ran away. He couldn't help but thank all the training he had done on Earth. It had allowed him to somehow unconsciously feel the aggressiveness of the spiders. Well, he was now conscious of it but his body had reacted on its own back there.

The only way to get through this would be to have an incalculable amount of footholds or straight up the ability to fly. Otherwise, his path would be way too predictable. Ah, actually flying wasn't out of the question.

Once more Josh faced the spiders. A few dead ones turning into footholds later, Josh could be seen leaping aggressively toward the creatures. Very soon, he was confronted with a strong barrage with nowhere to dodge!

That's when the quick and graceful Navi came to the rescue! Josh stepped on it launching himself in the air…Except that some of the string managed to touch the Fairy. That is when Josh realized that this idea of his had been ludicrous and he quickly ordered a fallback.

Now, it was true that this assistant could survive relatively well by itself, but that was only when it wasn't getting focused. It couldn't handle direct fire at it for sure. Josh barely even managed to remove the silk stuck to it. It took him longer to do this simple task than to try fighting the spiders.

Josh couldn't help but tug on the string noticing how sturdy it was. Actually, that would do. That would do very well in fact. Josh couldn't help but feel at peace for he had finally found a way to clear this once and for all.

Josh went to fight the spiders again. He came, he saw, he crushed, the creatures fell back in the core of their territory. He followed them once more, but this time there was something very different about Josh.

Under his feet, there were spiders. The spiders were very much alive. They were very similar to any other spiders out there, well besides the fact that they had no eyes, no legs, were half dead and solidly attached to Josh using some of the strings he had gotten earlier.

While they were immune to the sticky effect they could still be solidly wrapped as if using a normal rope. Josh soon started to glide through all the obstacles. Finally, he reached the scheming but now defenseless spiders and smilingly bashed them until they turned from solid to liquid.

That gave Josh access to the cocoons. Now, what would be contained inside? Would it be the usual spider food, aka the captives to rescue? Would it all be a sham and be full of spider ancestors instead? After all, these cocoons looked way too big to be hosting humanoids….