Volume 1, Chapter 4

Volume 1, Chapter 4

Translator: Adam Seacord

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「Eesh…」

Haruna muttered inadvertently as she faced the very unpleasant situation in front of her.

「Azuma-kun…? This is a little too…」

「It’s all right. Despite their looks, they ain’t that aggressive. They won’t make a move unless we trip their web.」

「Okay, that’s not the problem though…」

With a futile interjection, Haruna looked up once more with disgust.

「Eek…」

「Oh, Toudou-san. You keep goin’ that way, you’ll trip the web.」

「What? For real? Where?」

「Right there.」

「That was too close…」

Startled by the web a step away, Haruna scurried away. She reevaluated her situation, and ended up speechless.

「Err…」

「What’s wrong?」

Picking up on the difference in her tone from her disgusted groans earlier, Hiroshi asked.

「I made eye contact…」

「No problem. These types don’t pick their targets from visual cues.」

「It doesn’t matter if it’s going to attack me or not. It’s already ridiculously disgusting…」

「You say that…」

「I didn’t know spiders could be so repulsive when they’re big…」

Masterfully ignoring Haruna’s comment, Hiroshi gripped his weapon-slash-excavation-tool hand axe. His expression made it clear that his current state of mind consisted entirely of how to efficiently collect materials, and how to efficiently remove what’s standing in the way for him to do that. Frankly put, he couldn’t give a rat’s rear end about how Haruna felt.

At the very moment, they were witnessing a giant hornet caught in the spider’s web being encapsulated into a feeding cocoon. They had wandered into a cluster of Giant Spiders, each as large as a grown man. It was a half-day’s journey, with the traversing speed of adventurers, through the woodlands from where they encountered the Berserker Bear on the first day.

「…How did we get here…?」

In the absurdly jarring situation of confusion, Haruna couldn’t help but avert her eyes from reality and into a flashback.

***

It all happened two nights ago, when Haruna said:

「I kind of want another outfit…」

「An outfit, huh…」

「Mm-hm. One of them’s stained with curry and oil… And it won’t come out.」

「All right. You wanna get one for workin’ at the shop?」

「I could, but looking at our sales, it seems a little frivolous.」

A month had passed since the Venomous Wolf fiasco. Hiroshi and Haruna had established a rather reliable livelihood. The biggest change in their lives was that they had rented a room, at the lowest pit of the market in Wulls (so small that they didn’t understand how it could be legally described as a two bedroom flat).

Staying at the inn for an extended period of time would have just been too expensive. Besides, developing seasonings in an inn seemed rather futile. It wasn’t too encouraging when they had no opportunity to use the seasonings they had created. Even if they wanted the inn to use them, they couldn’t make enough for the entire kitchen. So, with a rather side-tracked motivation to contribute, they decided to rent a small room as soon as they could.

In other news, for additional income, they opened a food stand to run in down times in between taking on requests. Their best sellers were curry bread and corn dogs. This doubled as recycling the curry powder they made too much of, and sharing their new seasonings.

Occasionally, they had been selling some bison (or other wild animal) meat they had hunted during one of their quests, fried on a skewer. The steak sauce and ketchup they had brewed were coming in handy. They sold the curry bread at 35 Tirol a piece, which seemed close to a rip-off, but it had recently been selling hot as their signature dish. Sometimes, they nearly forgot if their real occupations were adventurers not food stand owners.

「Right. The best day we had on the stand was 100 Chrones when we worked the entire day.」

「Taking out the cost of the ingredients and the registration fee for the stand, our profit was 50 Chrones, tops.」

Still, as a side hustle, these adventurers were doing quite well with their food stand. Normally, even after a full day, a food stand in the city would only sell about 70 Chrones. They were coming to terms with how lucky they were to make 20,000 Chrones in their first two days in the city.

One of the reasons why their food stand was booming was their implementation of a never-before-seen cooking method of coating food and frying them in oil. While the concept of frying food wasn’t unheard of, consumable oil that remained in liquid form for a sustainable time was a rare commodity, and it was only in the past few years, that enough liquid cooking oil to dip entire pieces of food in had become readily accessible in the market. This was true for the entirety of this world, even outside of Farland, and in any country, “cooking with oil” meant cooking with animal fat or butter. While there was a form of lard-like fat, not much of it was produced until recently, which didn’t encourage the development of fried food, either.

Of course, there were many cooks and food stand owners who tried to copy-cat them, but fried food had rarely been seen before, even on a noble’s dinner table. Therefore, there were barely any cookware that had been developed for frying food (like the wok, for example). While it seemed that it would be popularized one day as word of mouth spread, it looked like fried food wouldn’t hit the table of an average family for a long time. That being said, the desire for delicious food transcends time periods and dimensions. Fried food may become a staple of anyone’s diet in, say, a half a year.

On another note, the concept of steaming food itself was not a thing in Farlane. At this time, the Iron Nation of Forrey had barely been introduced to it, and they had just started steaming bread buns with nothing inside them. Even in Forrey, no one had a steamer that could be used at a food stand. Once Hiroshi and Haruna discovered this, they had began discussing selling steamed meat buns at the food stand once it was a little colder.

「So, Azuma-kun. You can make clothes, can’t you?」

「Well, sure. That’s easy.」

「Can you make them more resistant to stains?」

「No problem. I just gotta enchant the clothes with a stain-resistin’ spell.」

「It’s that easy, huh…」

Haruna was sincerely impressed by Hiroshi laying out such a convenient option with ease.

「I mean, it’s a little awkward castin’ it on a finished product… Besides, it wasn’t a popular enchantment in the game, either.」

「Well, it does eat up one of the precious Enchantment slots. I can’t blame them.」

「It’s like, three slots tops when you get a NPC to do it, ain’t it?」

「Just about. It didn’t seem to take up a slot if it was already enchanted, so those equipment were very popular. Is it any different when a player enchants something?」

「It’s just a matter of success rate, but if I wanted to, I could slap on ‘bout five of the convoluted ones. I don’t think there’s a max to how many I could put on at once.」

「Cool.」

「I mean, it spikes up the difficulty and the chance of damagin’ the equipment for no reason, so I’d only put up to 3 Advance Enchantments… Novice Enchantments are a different story, and I could put 5 or 6 with a realistic success rate if I really wanted to.」

Haruna listened, interested in asked what caught her mind:

「Can you make anything pre-enchanted, like a drop item?」

「Can I? Your rapier’s exactly that, Toudou-san.」

「Huh?」

「It’s actually real easy. I just had to enchant the materials and while I was processin’ ‘em. When I made that, as a high-level refinement, I used magic to improve its quality as I enchanted the materials with automatic-restoration. Then, when I took it out of the furnace, I added a Durability buff. And while I shaped it, I threw on Elemental Attack (ALL) and +75% Parry.」

「Elemental Attack (ALL) and +75% Parry!? Those Enchantments are ridiculously expensive!」

「I thought you’d want ‘em anyway, since it’s a rapier, after all. ‘Cause of the quality of the materials, I couldn’t really throw in more enchantments in the craftin’ process, so there ain’t no base Attack or other stat bonuses.」

That’s more than enough! Haruna nearly shouted. The base specs of the swords had already surpassed that of Starlight, a rare equipment. Anyone would have interjected that four pre-set enchantments on top of those specs would make this piece of weapon broken.

「Okay, I’d been meaning to ask you…」

「Yeah?」

「Why don’t the enchantments you put on during crafting not affect the enchantment process later?」

「Accrodin’ to the NPC who taught me the Advanced stuff, now I don’t get all the mumbo jumbo, but when you process an enchanted material, the bonus becomes a characteristic of the material, instead of an enchantment. So, technically speakin’, your sword only has unique abilities. Not enchantments.」

In other words, since characteristic can’t normally be erased, melting these weapons for purposes of reusing them were difficult, although not impossible. That being said, Hiroshi had almost never performed it.

「Any who, goin’ back to the stain-resistin’ enchantment…」

「Uh-huh.」

「It would be easier to put on the fabric or rather ‘an the outfit. Same goes for Auto-Repair and Improved Durability.」

「Which means?」

「It’ll be a ton cheaper if we just gather the ingredients for string to begin with.」

Not again… Haruna nearly thought, before admitting to herself that this was a very attractive offer. While it wasn’t impossible that this would end up as her only outfit for a while, she couldn’t carry around many different pairs of outfits, anyway. So, she had decided that the best course of action would be to carry as much durable, long-lasting, and relatively stain-resistant clothes as possible. One of the reasons why they couldn’t take on too many quests at the moment was because they were unable to gather ingredients for an armor due to their damaged clothes.

And, no offense to Hiroshi, but an artisan of any trade is useless without ingredients. In Hiroshi’s case, his completed products were too powerful, so Haruna couldn’t have him making them willy-nilly, even when he had the ingredients. To boot, while Hiroshi had ridiculously high stats in the adventure department, his skills were completely useless in the field, making him a wall at best. In-game, in fact, his stats as an adventurer was below average. Even at the food stand, while his cooking skills were on par with a three-Michelin-star chef, they were noticeably worse than Haruna’s. His debilitating fear of women prevents him from doing even an acceptable job at the cashier. Come to think of it, he seemed more and more useless.

Although, all the equipment in the food stand and its kitchen were created by him, and considering that they were easier to use than the cookware in their real world, let alone the average of this world, Haruna had to recognize the strength of his Extra Skill in Tool Building. It helped a lot that he used all sorts of scrap materials they scrambled around for, keeping the cost at a minimum. If Haruna were to start a food stand without Hiroshi, she would have spent more money for cookware that were harder to use.

A man who comes in handy backstage, but useless in action. That’s who Hiroshi Azuma was at the moment. Of course, Haruna would never have such a cruel impression of him, but that was the objective truth.

「Speaking of, what kinds of enchantments can you put on it?」

「Lessee… Temperature Control, Auto-Repair, Stain Resistance, Rash Control, Heatproof, Acidproof, and Improve Armor, I think. Also, clothes get a bit of Defense modifier for each enchantment, so if I put a bunch of enchantments on good materials, it could end up with a higher Defense stat then most pieces of armor, even without any Improve Defense enchantments.」

Something in the list of enchantments ignited a spark within Haruna. She didn’t seem to hear the rest of his sentence.

「Rash Control? Can you put that on underwear?」

「I can… But there’s a huge problem with craftin’ underwear.」

「…What is it?」

「For some reason, I can’t put on Auto-Size-Adjust to underwear.」

「Oh…」

That was a huge problem. If Hiroshi were to make it, anyway.

「Not today, I guess…」

「Thanks a bunch. I’ll put it on the clothes, just in case.」

「Please do. But Auto-Size-Adjust…」

「Yeah?」

「In the game, it was super-duper rare if it came on a drop Armor.」

Hiroshi didn’t quite understand.

「You could throw on Auto-Size-Adjust to any ol’ armor.」

「Sure, but it uses up an enchantment slot.」

「Then just have ‘em adjust the size to ya.」

「A lot of the times, NPCs can’t handle drop armors.」

「Really?」

「Mm-hm.」

The unreasonably detailed Fairytale Chronicles had it so no one could use a weapon unless they recalibrated the balance, and no one could use an armor unless they had it tailored. While the weapon could still be equipped even if its balance was off from the user was used to, and many used them anyway, it was a different story for armor.

Even with robes and other clothes, which had the loosest size restrictions, followed the set restriction for body size. Wearing an attire much bigger than one’s body would make them look… off-putting, to say the least, and the wearer would suffer major penalties. If the piece of attire was smaller than one’s body, the player couldn’t put it on at all.

When it comes to leather and metal armor, the player had to have them accurately tailored in order to equip it at all. And once the size is adjusted, it has to be retailored before anyone else can wear. In addition, some methods of size adjustment prevent any further adjustments. Tailoring an armor through an NPC came with considerable risks.

In addition, only certain NPCs could handle drop equipment, and there were heavy restrictions even when they could (most equipment found in upper-level dungeons could only be slightly refined or improved, for example) making it surprisingly difficult to get armor of one’s body size.

While players with Advanced equipment crafting skills can easily adjust even the strongest equipment available in-game (that can be obtained in the highest-level dungeon dubbed The Inferno), but those players were hermits, secluded from the presence of most players. As a result, rare drop armor pieces ubiquitously required Auto-Size-Adjustment and Auto-Repair.

Some Guilds of dedicated addicts to the game had noticed the importance of Crafting from the earlier stages in the game, but it was apparently a slow process since they had none of the critical information, starting with the existence of Making Mastery. Another problem was potion poisoning.

The fact that they couldn’t drink one Stamina Potion after another to keep gathering materials and processing them was a major setback when it came to power-leveling new artisans. Mana and Stamina potions were especially keen to causing poisoning, and all potions heal a set amount. Frequently drinking potions to heal at the rate at which new players lose Mana and Stamina, soon caused a poisoning. Otherwise, one of these guild members would have mastered the Advanced classes all ready.

「That being said. Our problem is getting’ our ingredients.」

「Any thoughts?」

「Plants are out. I don’t think there’s a hemp field ‘round here, and I don’t know if cotton’s bloomin’ this time of year. Can’t do sheep or rabbit, either.」

「Why not?」

「There ain’t any wild sheep ‘round, and we’d have to hunt down every single rabbit in the area if we wanted to get enough thread for an outfit.」

Haruna groaned in agreement. She was realizing that making a single piece of attire was quite the ordeal back in the middle ages.

「Then what are we going to do?」

「Lessee. Not that I can recommend this to any normie, but we can use spider webs.」

「Spider?」

「Right. Spider Silk.」

That made sense. Silk did come from an insect. Ordinarily the material would come from silkworms, but Haruna had read somewhere that spider webs could be substituted.

「Wouldn’t it be a lot of work to get spider webs, though?」

「I got a lead there, don’t worry. The only thing is, you’d need an adventurer strong enough to handle it. Really, it ain’t for a normie.」

「Okay. I’m getting a really bad feeling about this. How strong are we talking here?」

「Considerin’ the worst case scenario, someone who can take down a Berserker Bear mano-y-mano in two seconds flat.」

While that wasn’t nearly as bad as Haruna had imagined, but it wasn’t easy, either. Haruna would have no problem, but Randy or Kurt may not be. As for Hiroshi, his issue lied with damage output. He wouldn’t die, but two seconds flat was a hard ask. Unless he prepared a real weapon, he couldn’t get it done with a scythe or axe that he primarily used to gather materials.

「…I have a general idea, but what do you mean worst case scenario?」

「There’s a field boss, Piaranork the Grand Arachnid. This one’s easily twice as strong as a Berserker Bear, and it don’t got any venom, it’s got an annoyin’ ability. So it’s tough unless ya can take down a Bear like that. That bein’ said, it don’t heal more than the Natural Heal amount. It’s easy to take care of if ya take ya time.」

「…I know the answer already, but I’m asking you anyway. Where are we going?」

「In the deep end of the forest where the Berserker Bear was, there’s a nest of Giant Spiders. A bunch of insectile mobs, too. We should gather some potion ingredients and rare spices.」

「Insectile… It’s getting worse and worse.」

Young girls, maybe, but not too many seventeen year olds have an affinity for insects, regardless if they are full-blooded Japanese or three-eighths British like Haruna. While she wasn‘t quite so disgusted by them to not be able to look at spiders or centipedes, but in no way did she want to voluntarily go near some giant bugs.

「Yeah, it ain’t somethin’ you’d be excited ta see. If you don’t wanna do that, I’ll buy some thread from the market, and weave ‘em.」

「…But these are silk, right?」

「Yeah. Lot more durable than normal ones, too.」

「…We should do some adventuring once in a while, shouldn’t we?」

In the end, Haruna had decided to traverse to the nest of spiders, blinded by desire. While she had gathered all camping supplies since Hiroshi told her that they would need to spend the night along the way, she was still optimistic. Until she witnessed the circle of life at their destination.

***

「So. How do we collect the webs?」

「That…」

To answer Haruna’s question, Hiroshi scurried to an area away from the webs, and started throwing a rock at a giant grasshopper to chase it away. Before Haruna could voice her concern, he chased it into a web. The grasshopper was caught square into the web, and soon wrapped into a ball of web by the Giant Spider.

「And we make a bunch of these silk balls.」

Leaving alone the spider that started reconstructing its web, Hiroshi trapped a mantis onto another web. He trapped one bug after another into webs, turning them into balls of silk, until there was 20+ plus of them. Then, he changed course.

「Once there’s plenty of ‘em, we take care of the spiders and gather the thread.」

「Oof…」

Haruna did know that she should be impressed at how ruthless it was. The true, human way of things.

「While I’m at it, I can take apart the little guys suffocated inside and make some extra money. Two birds with one stone.」

「That’s dirty. You are an artisan, after all. That’s real dirty.」

「Can’t make a livin’ without gettin’ your hands dirty.」

Jesting as he were, he ruthlessly took care of the spiders. Even his harvesting axe, now that it was gilded with layers upon layers of enchantments, easily broke through the spiders’ exoskeletons like he was cracking eggs. Haruna was almost worried that he would extinct the spiders at this rate, but it was their habitat after all, and there were enough around her to not make her want to count them.

「All right. Let’s take these spiders apart.」

「Spiders first?」

「It won’t be fun if any of the buggers inside the silk balls were still alive. They’re all dying from suffocation or bein’ crushed, anyhow.」

Bugs are pretty resilient, ya know. Hiroshi said, to which Haruna nodded and started taking the spiders apart. From time to time, Hiroshi held up some part of the insect and processed it in a strange way. All Haruna could tell was that they were going to serve as material for something. After taking apart most of them, they just separated the harvested materials out of the way and into their bag. While the catalysts were a little more heavier than expected, they had enchanted the bag with Increase Capacity, Decrease Weight, and Prevent Rot. Even after shoving a decent amount of goods in there, it could fit plenty more.

「Alright, let’s get to the entrée.」

「There’s not much I can help from here, is there?」

「Don’t think so. Weavin’ the thread with our portable equipment may be too much for your skillsets.」

「I don’t have Weaving to begin with. I’ll try my best to learn it by next time.」

「Sure. I’ll teach ya soon. You can practice with Rabbit fur.」

「Thanks.」

No matter what the skill, having it was better than not. As Haruna was helping out Hiroshi here and there, her harvesting skills and Potion Making were improving somewhat, but just barely to the point where she could start accepting some quests that require those skills. On her own, she could manage to create some practice-level potions, and at best, 30% of those actually had the effect of a potion.

Hiroshi had been down that road, so he didn’t mind even when Haruna would end up not being able to put in work when he was. They handled different tasks to begin with, so he was in no place to complain, anyway. Hiroshi could barely work the front end of the food stand, after all.

「I’ll just gather up some potion materials.」

「Watch out for Piaranork, it might be out there.」

「Will do. I just need to watch out for the webs, right?」

「No, Piaranork is the same as any other active monster. It uses its web to look for prey, too, but it’ll catch you by eye sight and heat signature, too. Other than the fact that it wraps its prey into a ball, it acts the same as any carnivorous active monster.」

Haruna couldn’t control her exasperated expression hearing the tiresome detail.

「It sounds like you know a lot about it. Have you fought it before?」

「Three times, maybe. To be honest, it ain’t that strong, but takin’ it down can be more work than a dungeon boss. It’s aI’s the same as ‘em, but it moves just like a spider.」

「…Like a spider? …Does it fly?」

「With its web. Considerin’ where we’re at, it’s moves around three dimensionally, pretty much. It’s a 3 feet tall, 15 feet long spider on a flying harness. What a joke.」

It was sounding more and more tiresome, and Haruna’s face showed her dread for it. Unlike where the Berserker Bear was, they were now in an area where most players never had a reason to come to, let alone new players. So, it was never known as a newbie-killer field boss. Haruna didn’t understand why all these tiresome monsters were gathered relatively close to Wulls.

「So, yeah. Watch out for it. I don’t think you’d have a problem takin’ it down, though.」

「Roger that.」

If possible, even Haruna didn’t want to take on such a creature.

「Won’t you know, just because we talked about it, I’m going to run right into it, aren’t I?」

Hiroshi responded with a chuckle to Haruna’s muttering. This won’t be much of a story if it never showed up after these two spent so long talking about it. That would almost be as bad as a gun that had appeared in the first act of a play never going off. Clichés are clichés for a reason.

「…I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned it…」

The cliché struck again. She had gathered some leaves and grass for potion making when she came across a giant next with a whole load of massive silk balls. In the center of it, scuttled an enormous spider, almost as tall as Haruna even as it kept low to the ground. Bam. Their eyes met.

Azuma-kun. Azuma-kun.

Did ya find it?

Yep. We made eye contact.

I’ll be right there.

After their conversation through the feature of their Adventurer Cards, Haruna drew the Piaranork towards Hiroshi’s direction. She had to choose her route carefully, as to not provoke the other spiders. She carefully began walking back.

The Piaranork was formidable.

「Goin’ your way, Toudou-san!」

「Aye-aye!」

The massive spider flew through the air. Without being distracted by the bizarre sight of it, Haruna cast a spell to set a trap where it would land. As soon as it landed, a pillar of flame erupted, torching the spider boss.

With what sounded like grinding, the spider, an epitome of rage, charged towards her. Haruna dodged it by a thread, and blew it away with a Smash attack, as if to steal Hiroshi’s thunder. Even as it lost balance, Piaranork spun its web in order to catch itself. Jumping into range, Hiroshi charged with another Smash attack, rendering it completely immobile.

「Pile on it, now!」

「Aye-aye!」

Returning the role of the distraction to Hiroshi, Haruna shot out a flying Magical Sword (Light), Aurora Bird. It was a Novice Magical Sword, that prioritized a quick draw over damage output, but combined with Haruna’s own skills and the caliber of the rapier, along with its “Elemental Attack (All)” bonus, it easily penetrated Piaranork’s exoskeleton.

「You’re goin’ down!」

Clenching his shaking arms, Hiroshi slammed his axe with his all his might into Piaranork’s face. While he didn’t have combat skills, his physical strength had been buffed by all the modifiers from skills like Harvesting, Excavating, Forging, and Building, bulking up Hiroshi’s base Attack stat to nearly double of Haruna’s. While his damage output per second was much less impressive, mainly because his attack speed were slow and he hadn’t learned any attack moves. Still, it was powerful enough to wound a boss monster. Overall, his damage was still above the average of adventurers in this world.

However, despite the high base Attack stat, he lacked the explosiveness of attacking skills; he wouldn’t match up to an adventurer who’s skill sets were developed for combat. In the end, he wasn’t up to par in comparison to an adventurer. Even this attack, while it penetrated the spider’s exoskeleton, it just wasn’t as effective at Haruna’s attack. The fact that he disabled the spider’s fangs were more meaningful than the damage he put out.

「Another one!」

As Piaranork reared up, enraged, Hiroshi flipped it over with a Smash attack.

「Toudou-san!」

「Flash of Blood!」

In response to Hiroshi’s call, Haruna shouted, and developed an Intermediate combo attack with her rapier to tear open the spider’s gut. In succession, she precisely retraced the cut again with her Intermediate magical sword, Dance of Flames, to torch its insides. Piaranork writhed in agony and slammed its front leg into Haruna, which was elegantly brushed aside by her precise swordsmanship, preventing it from dealing any damage to her.

「I can get in one more!」

Lunging towards the Piaranork, which had lost its balance from the parry, Haruna held high her Magical Sword (Light), Saint’s Blade. However, Haruna had forgotten something.

Her enemy was a spider, which could move without using its feet.

「Toudou-san, don’t!」

Hiroshi had called out a moment too late. Haruna ended up cutting off the leg she had just blocked, and taking a massive hit by the giant spider while she was vulnerable in the follow through of her swing.

「Aaah!」

With a girlish scream, Haruna was blown away. She had instinctively guarded with her rapier to avoid a direct hit, but she was completely thrown to the ground.

Immediately, Piaranork tried to pin Haruna down with what were now its seven legs. Once she was caught, she would be wrapped into a silk ball in no time. Struggle, and the spider may shatter every bone in her body. Then, she was done for.

「Not so fast!」

Striking in between the spider’s gut and chest, where Haruna had sliced and burned, as it was about to jump onto Haruna, Hiroshi accurately blew away the spider.

With the self-awareness that he didn’t have much cards in hand, Hiroshi was determined to stick to defense and buying time. Until Haruna could gather herself up so she could protect herself, Hiroshi had to guard the line. If the spider were to make it past him, that would be the end.

「C’mon!」

Desperately trying to keep his knees from buckling, Hiroshi shouted as loud as he could to draw the spider’s attention. Truth be told, Hiroshi was terrified of facing off this one, unlike the Giant Spiders from earlier. It’s size was intimidating, too, but it just had so many moves in its arsenal, and each of them were painful. It didn’t matter that he wouldn’t even bruise from the attacks, they still hurt.

「Azuma-kun!」

「Toudou-san, ya all right?」

「Yes!」

After blocking a few attacks and countering a blow from one of its legs, Haruna called back as she seemed to have gotten back on her feet.

「Azuma-kun. Any rare materials in this spider?」

She asked, as Hiroshi was flipping the spider over with Smash attacks to set up an attack from her.

「In its gut, but don’t worry ‘bout it.」

「So if I cut off all its legs and head, you can go in for it?」

「Well, yeah.」

Nodding, Haruna chugged a Mana potion and a Stamina potion, and started pouring magic into her rapier, holding it up.

「I’m going to go big. Buy me a little more time, would you?」

「…Sure thin’.」

Feeling the pressure in Haruna’s tone, Hiroshi nodded and did an uppercut to the Piaranork, charging towards him. With a swing of the axe, he swing down with all his might to chop off the leg he damaged earlier. Now, all this giant spider could do to attack was to spin a web or charge, nothing else.

Still, the Piaranork recklessly charged to crush Hiroshi and Haruna. While internally taken aback by its determination, Hiroshi had to fight for his life. Judging that it was about to spin a web and jump up, he slashed through the string with his knife. The spider’s body, already halfway up, stumbled to the ground on its back.

「Azuma-kun, ready!」

「Alright. Don’t push it!」

「Don’t worry!」

With a chipper response, Haruna activated the spells she had been simultaneously processing. Multiple Harunas appeared, and the ground erupted under Piaranork’s feet.

「Let’s go! Elemental Dance!」

All the Harunas called in harmony, then lunged at Piaranork in succession. The first cut off a leg with a magical sword of fire, then a second one froze the wound with a magical sword of ice. The third swung the Blade of Wind, and the fourth broke off a leg with Earth’s Fang. And so, they continued to tear up the spider, and when all legs were cut off, all the Haruna’s merged back into one.

「Finale!」

A blade that accomplished the ridiculous task of layering every element cleanly sliced the spider’s gut in half. Even the king of the Giant Spiders couldn’t survive this. It twitched for about a minute, and the base of where legs used to be were still moving, but the spider soon became immobile.

「Agh, I’m exhausted…」

「Ya all right?」

「…Yeah sure no problem…」

Even as she said so, Haruna crumpled down where she was, and leaned back against a nearby tree, as if to say that she couldn’t lift a finger. Elemental Dance was an Advanced Magical Sword. It always hit any enemy that had an element with the element they were weak against.

Combined with the fact that the damage went through regardless of any resistance to a particular element, this was rumored to be the skill to have the best damage output (save for Extra Skill attacks). But, it came with various downsides that prevented many players from using it.

The first of which was that the conditions to learn the skill were difficult and convoluted. A minimum Speed of 150, along with mastering two Novice Magical Swords and one Intermediate Magical Sword, and to have a skill level of 50 or more for each element, on top of knowing two Intermediate element-less combo attack skills and one Double spell or skill, each at skill level 75 or above. The skill itself doesn’t require a rapier, but many weapons can’t fulfil these conditions without learning skills dedicated to rapier. Realistically, anyone who could use this skill mainly used a rapier.

The second drawback was that the player had to create their doubles before activating the skills, which wasn’t included in the motion of the skill itself. There was always a beat or two before the attack, which it made it difficult to slam in this attack immediately when the enemy presents an opportunity while fighting it with a party.

The last (and worst) drawback was that it consumed a ridiculous amount of MP and Stamina. Perhaps because the player had to pay the cost for all the Magical Swords the doubles used, their MP and Stamina (already depleted from preparing for the spell) were drained almost to its last drop.

Not unlike a harvesting task in the beginning of the game, a player with average Stamina would have to rest for at least five minutes after firing this move off. It was terribly high-risk. Even an addict towards the top of the pyramid wouldn’t be able to use it a third time during a single combat. This was truly a trump card.

「That just eats up my Stamina…」

「Yeah, it sure looked like it…」

「But, maybe it’s because I’ve been helping you out lately. My MP and Stamina weren’t full, but it feels better than the last time I used it.」

「You may have a point there.」

To wait for her to recover, Hiroshi stood as close as he could to Haruna maintaining some distance to avoid his phobia acting up, as she slumped with an exhausted look. While no insects were as bad as a Piaranork, there still could be some aggressive bugs around.

「…Well, we did it. Let’s take it apart, shall we?」

「Ya good to go already?」

「Still a bit out of it, but I could take on a Giant Mantis or something. No problem.」

「All right.」

Nodding to Haruna’s proposition, Hiroshi asked for her to take apart the legs, where there wasn’t anything too important. There were a bunch of materials that could be harvested for potions and catalysts around the torso, most of which required a certain degree of knowledge to collect.

「There. I’m done with the torso, so I’ll go turn this guy’s silk balls into thread.」

「Okay. I’ll join you once I’m done with the legs.」

「Thanks. I don’t got good feelings about those balls, anyhow.」

Nodding in response, Haruna went to take apart the third leg. Since she had torn them apart with the big move, just digging around for them was a chore in itself. In addition to its exoskeleton (which felt like something more than a chitin) rigor mortis had set in on the flesh in the legs. If it weren’t for the especially sharp knife Hiroshi had crafted, she wouldn’t have been able to get anything out of the corpse.

When Haruna had finished taking apart the last leg, she hear Hiroshi call. With everything worth selling packed into the bag, Haruna ran to Piaranork’s web, where Hiroshi was supposed to be.

「What’s wrong?」

「Trouble. As expected.」

With that, he gestured to a girl with platinum blonde hair, who was apparently found from one of the silk balls. She looked to be around eleven or twelve years old. On course with the rest of the people of Farlane, whose stature were relatively larger, she was only a little bit shorter than Haruna.

She was wearing an elegant and detailed (obviously expensive) dress, undoubtedly signifying that her family held considerable wealth and status. As she was barely breathing, her chest (adorned with a pair of breast that had just begun to grow) was barely moving, either.

「…Okay. Is she alive?」

「She is, yeah. In a coma, though.」

Nodding, Haruna observed what she could. While it was faint, her life force itself was present. Some sort of magic (she couldn’t tell what) was cocooning her, and most likely keeping her alive.

If they dispelled this magic, the girl would probably come out of the coma, but unfortunately with Haruna’s Dispelling spells, she couldn’t dispel a special spell of this level that was this complex, at least without a catalyst. It would be a piece of cake for a player that specialized in support, but…

「Without a catalyst here, I can’t bring her back here.」

「Same with me. I can craft an item that negates all this, but ingredients aside, the equipment we got ain’t up to snuff.」

「We have the ingredients?」

「I can make it work with the stuff from the bugs ‘round here.」

Haruna nodded.

「Can we get the equipment in order once we get back to Wulls?」

「Not with what we got, but the one they sell at the Association will do.」

「Okay. Do you want to call it for now?」

「Hold on. There could be more survivors in the other ones. The problem is, we’re in an awkward spot if there’s a bunch more survivors when we take ‘em out here. So, I’m thinkin’ of taken all the ball, the ones over there too, back to the camp and makin’ ‘em into thread over the night.」

「All right. So I can take her to camp, right?」

「Please do. I’ll gather as many balls as I can.」

Nodding in response, Haruna hung the bag on her arm, and carried the girl on her back and out of the nesting areas. It was a relatively open lake they had passed on the way. While there was some wildlife, the area only consisted of less aggressive species. As long as they set up Hiroshi’s barrier items and kept the fire going, there was no chance of being attacked. Truly the ideal campsite.

「This is starting to smell fishy…」

Noticing the outfit of the girl on her back, Haruna couldn’t help but mutter that to herself. Bad vibes were crawling under her skin. Truth be told, like Hiroshi was saying, she only ever felt weary of the silk balls all along.

「What do I know about the nobles around here…?」

As she carried on towards the campsite, she recalled all sorts of rumors she had heard while she worked the food stand or singing in the streets. Like the rivalry between Duke Alsus and Marquis Powell. Like the battle for the throne between the Crown Prince, his younger sister, along with their illegitimate older brother taking place under the surface.

And perhaps because of that, there were no rumors whatsoever about the Crown Prince’s bedroom. Like the fact the current court has three children of the king and queen, and five illegitimate children of the king. There were some suspicions regarding the queen’s current pregnancy as well. However, everything except the number of royal children and their gender were all just rumors without proof.

A rumor that might have any bearing on Hiroshi and Haruna’s lives was one that the second princess, the older sister of the Crown Prince, was sick and weakening by the day as they couldn’t find a potion to cure the ailment. Still, Haruna couldn’t imagine that this had anything to do with the situation they were facing. The fifth princess (a legitimate heir) was close in age to this little girl, but even if the ingredients needed to cure the second princess was around these parts, there was no reason for a princess in line for the throne (albeit she was near the back of the line) to risk her life coming down here.

「I guess I have to wake her up and ask her for the real story…」

She knew so little she couldn’t even form an educated guess. While she didn’t want to consider this young child surviving such an attack as a burden on her, Haruna wished she could celebrate the fact without any reservations about her own situation.

I swear, if this girl got into this mess because of some scheme… Whoever’s behind it is going to see hell.

Haruna decided that, if they were going to get mixed into it anyway, she would rather focus on imagining how to beat up whoever was behind it. With how things were going, they were definitely getting roped into some political struggle, nine out of ten times. So, she was determined to make whoever was behind this regret roping her into this. With that image in mind, she hastened her step.

「Three total, huh…」

「For bein’ caught by Piaranork, three out of eight is pretty lucky.」

In response to Haruna’s disappointment, Hiroshi could only respond with a sigh. Three warrior-looking men, a scholarly man, and a woman who looked to be a servant were found dead. While they weren’t expecting any survivors to begin with, seeing the corpses was a bit of a downer.

「Where they only just eight of them?」

「Not sure, but this ‘counts for all the balls.」

Out of the people found within the silk balls that Piaranork was holding, only three of the eight humans were found alive in a coma, including the first girl they found. The other survivors were a twenty-something woman, and an older man. Each of them was adorned with a thick set of metal armor.

「Something’s off, isn’t it?」

「Ya think so too?」

There was no sense in brooding over what they couldn’t do anything about. It was true that they couldn’t save the rest of them, but it was almost a miracle within itself that any one of them came out alive; it didn’t seem right to feel guilty about that. Partially as a distraction, they decided to analyze what caught their mind.

「The other two that survived are obviously knights, right?」

「Judgin’ from the quality of their equipment and their build, they’re didn’t buy their rank, for sure.」

「Do you think they would get caught by Piaranork without a fight?」

Hiroshi clenched his brows. While they couldn’t tell the true prowess of these knights without fighting them, Hiroshi and Haruna had just taken down Piaranork with barely any equipment. If they had earned their ranks as knights, it certainly seemed possible.

「A trap wouldn’t be a stretch…」

「For example?」

「Lot of times, the folks out front can be less resistant to status condition spells. If they been caught with Paralysis or Bindin’, they could have been taken out one-sidedly.」

「Uh-huh. That would make sense why they were caught without any signs of a struggle.」

「They coulda been here under someone else’s volition to begin with, too.」

Hiroshi glanced at the servant girl and the scholarly man. Neither of them would have wound up here under any normal circumstances.

「Well, there’s no use worrying about that.」

「Yeah.」

「So, how are we getting home?」

「That’s the problem. Even if we give up on carryin’ the bodies back and only take back keepsakes and identifications after cleansin’ and buryin’ ‘em here…」

「The problem is, how do we carry the three survivors.」

Hiroshi nodded.

「I mean, I got somethin’ in mind.」

「What is it?」

「There were some bags in Piaranork’s web, must have been left behind by the adventurers it ate. They’re almost out of magic, but there were two Transportation Stones left.」

「Can we use them?」

「If we put some magic in ‘em, I bet we can get everyone, even the bodies, back to Wulls at least.」

With that Hiroshi, started converting the rest of the silk balls (that entrapped the insects) into thread. It was a form of escapism to avoid overthinking what was lurking behind all of this, but his nearly inhumane mental endurance also aided in his escape as well.

「I can take apart the bugs?」

「Just leave the hornets. Those make some potion ingredients.」

Once the plan was set, Hiroshi switched right back into his usual gear. As she chuckled at this, Haruna began taking apart the bugs from inside the silk balls, to help get her mind off the possible complications that lay ahead of them.