Chapter 32: Spider Queen Riviera!
Author’s note: Thank you to the novel’s second supporter, ‘Jasher16’. It is thanks to wonderful people like you that amateur authors like me can find the confidence to strive for even better work in the future. Thank you once again. Enjoy the read.
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The battle was blazing at its fiercest. Then suddenly — the spiders stopped.
Just a moment ago they had been like rabid dogs hurling themselves at the team without fear. Now, every last one of them had frozen in place, as though someone had pressed a pause button inside their bodies.
Their stillness lasted only a single second. Then they began a collective withdrawal. They scaled the tree trunks at high speed and flowed across the ground like a retreating black tide — their halt and withdrawal perfectly synchronized, without a sound or signal, as though some invisible mind controlling them had recalled them all.
"What in the world is suddenly happening with these wretched spiders?" Laura murmured, watching the sudden retreat. She and the team members were at maximum alert, bracing for another ambush.
But their bewilderment lasted only a few seconds. The look of surprise in Laura's eyes transformed instantly into sharp resolve and anger.
"Pursue them!" she ordered in a crisp voice.
And without hesitation, she began running after the withdrawing spiders. The team followed. This was natural for Laura — her personality was far bolder and more impulsive compared to Golan's cautious nature.
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Not far from the spiders Laura was chasing — or rather, in the place the spiders were heading toward — a protective dome stood concealing and shielding the location from prying eyes.
Inside, the buildings were strangely shaped. Calling them "buildings" would be something of an exaggeration — the so-called structures were earthen mounds with large openings, resembling giant ant colonies, scattered haphazardly throughout the territory. And at the center stood a mound far larger than any other, made of black stone and resembling a small mountain. This was Riviera the Spider Queen's nest — and the Lord of this territory. In other words, her Lord's Hall.
Riviera, like Ashbel, belonged to one of the alien races in this vast universe. She and many of her kind had been inexplicably pulled into this world.
But her appearance was entirely different from the spiders that had attacked Kaiden's forces. The lower half of her body was a massive spider, with eight long, jointed legs. The upper half, from the waist upward, resembled the frame of a human woman's body — though it bore nothing of human aesthetics. The color of her upper body was deep blue, and instead of two eyes she had eight bloodshot red ones. Her mouth was wide and filled with saw-like teeth. When she smiled, she looked utterly sinister.
At this moment, Riviera was inside her stone nest, watching the kill notifications with mounting fury and anxiety. Notifications of her spider swarm's casualties kept appearing, one after another, without pause.
Being an alien race with an affinity for monsters, her development settings were somewhat different from the human race. She possessed a massive cocoon at the heart of her territory through which she could — by supplying it with the bodies of various monsters and creatures — create spiders of different levels. This was why Laura and her team had encountered no monsters during their scouting. The entire surrounding land was a hunting ground for these spiders.
After upgrading her Lord's Crown, Riviera had become capable of creating spiders far more powerful than those that had faced Laura's team. But she hadn't done so. The cost was far too high. Her current swarm, with its overwhelming numbers, was doing better and cheaper work by comparison.
But this time… her swarm appeared to have collided with a wall of steel.
At first, Riviera paid the spider deaths little mind. Losses during a hunt were normal. A few casualties here and there meant nothing. But when she saw the death toll continuing to rise and dozens of notifications piling up, with no sign of the enemy collapsing, unease began to creep into her heart.
Riviera was capable of issuing simple commands to the spider swarm from a distance. So when she saw her swarm on the verge of being wiped out, she issued an order she had not given since arriving in this world.
Immediate withdrawal.
To preserve what remained of them. What remained of her army.
"Just you wait, you wretched human Lord…" Riviera whispered in the darkness of her nest, her voice like the rustle of dead leaves. All eight of her eyes blazed with thick hatred. "I will turn you and your forces into fertilizer for my cocoon."
It seemed the strategy of relying on numbers needed to change. She required a new approach.
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After a pursuit lasting roughly an hour, Laura and her team members finally located the place to which the spiders had retreated. It was on the outskirts of the forest, on the side directly opposite to the one they had entered from.
They concealed themselves behind large trees and observed. They watched the last of the spiders disappear inside a protective barrier — a faint pale blue, transparent, exactly like the barrier surrounding their own territory.
When Laura saw the scene, her suspicion was confirmed. What they had faced was no random collection of monsters. They were enemies belonging to another Lord — a Lord of a different race.
Laura committed the coordinates to memory with precision. She pinpointed the location of the barrier, its orientation, and the surrounding landmarks. Then she and her team withdrew.
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Unlike the fiery events that had confronted Laura's team, things had gone considerably better for Golan's team.
He had located another territory without being detected. It too belonged to a strange race — short, ugly green goblins. They didn't look particularly powerful, and their weapons were laughable, more like children's toys. Their clothing was primitive, barely covering their modesty. But Golan noted that their numbers were considerable — there were dozens of them.
Compared to Laura, Golan was far more cautious. Even when facing a monster they couldn't simply bypass, his standing instruction was to eliminate it quietly and quickly, without drawing attention. And throughout their journey, they were fortunate — they found two treasure chests: one Black Iron-tier and one Bronze-tier.
The Lord will definitely be pleased with this haul, Golan thought, and began imagining the words of praise the Lord would give him. A foolish smile spread across his face — but it lasted only a single second before that cold, expressionless face returned. He turned to the team members.
"Everyone… it's time to head back."
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From inside the territory, Kaiden had been following the battle against the spiders through the notifications until its conclusion. The winner was clear. The notifications gradually decreased and then stopped, meaning the battle had ended.
In the meantime, he had been occupied with something else. A short while ago, Luther the Alchemist's assistant had come to inform him that his master had obtained a result from the research conducted on the Twin-Headed race's enemy bodies. Kaiden had nothing urgent to attend to, so he went to see the result himself.
When he arrived at the Alchemist's Workshop, Luther greeted him with visible enthusiasm on his face.
"My lord! The book you gave me… it's extraordinary! It has clarified so many things I couldn't understand before and opened entirely new doors for me!" Luther began speaking rapidly, as though unable to contain his excitement. "My research has advanced enormously thanks to it. And just now I succeeded in extracting a recipe for a new potion, using the blood of that race as the primary ingredient!"
Kaiden looked at him and was surprised to find that the alchemist had already reached Level Six — it should be noted that when he had handed him the book that morning, Luther had still been in the latter stages of Level Two.
After finishing his words, Luther carefully extended his hand and passed Kaiden a small glass vial. It contained a thick liquid.
Kaiden took hold of the vial and raised it before his eyes. The dark blue liquid gleamed under the light of the magical lamp. He wondered to himself: what kind of new potion is this? And what does it do?
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— End of Chapter Thirty-Two —