Whether due to longing for lost masculinity, or the shock and intense pain of being pierced from front and back.
“Kieeeeek!”
The vengeful spirit spider’s scream was utterly miserable.
“Kigeeeeek-!”
It thrashed about wildly with its eight legs, its fangs spread wide open, like a child throwing a tantrum not wanting to go home.
Crash! Crunch! Boom!
Its scythe-like claws tore and shattered the ground. Dirt-mixed fragments sprayed up like a fountain. It was truly destructive mayhem.
“Kuk…!”
Laute, hit in the chest by a rock fragment, grimaced and retreated, letting go of her sword.
Perhaps because she had thrust her sword into the spinneret that produces spider webs? It seemed she didn’t have the strength to pull out the embedded sword.
“Kieeeeek-!”
I couldn’t escape the effects of the rampage either.
It was good that I had climbed on top of the vengeful spirit spider and stabbed its eye socket with my sword, but because it went berserk, my foot slipped before I could land any additional hits.
“Ugh!”
I let out a short cry and fell sideways, rolling on the torn-up ground.
“How dare you, how dare you―!”
Two claws coming down like guillotine blades.
I hurriedly rolled on the ground to avoid one claw, then quickly got up and grabbed the middle of my blade with my left hand, thrusting it forward like a shield.
Clang-!
“Kuh…!”
An impact like my shoulder blade was dislocating. A deep notch was carved into the blade blocking the claw. The pressure transmitted through the sword made me feel like my waist would bend like a bow.
“This… much…!”
I rotated my body as if dancing a waltz, twisting the sword blade to deflect the impact sideways. An instinctive movement. It was a defensive technique engraved in Brunhilde’s body.
“Haaap!”
Then, kicking off the ground, I charged at it again.
Since I knew the bald part could be stabbed at least, I planned to focus on targeting that area.
“So attacks do work…? In that case…!”
Laute, who had discarded her broken shield, also threw herself towards the vengeful spirit spider’s rear, gripping her mace with both hands.
“I won’t forgive you!”
The vengeful spirit spider, dripping fresh blood from its left eye socket, roared with a voice as fierce as a father who had caught his son running away with the house deed.
* * *
The battle continued like that for several minutes.
“Haaap!”
“Kaaah!”
In a tension that felt like our nerves were being scraped raw, Laute and I continued our fierce battle, jumping here and there until we were out of breath.
It was a fierce fight that felt like we were giving flesh and taking bone.
From the accumulated impacts, our limbs creaked almost like Geppetto’s pet puppet, and maintaining extreme concentration made it feel like my brain was nearly boiling inside my helmet.
And that wasn’t all.
“Ugh…!”
Fresh blood deeply staining my clothes. The wounds carved by its claws complained with a stinging pain.
…It hurts.
I tried to respond as best I could… but still, I couldn’t perfectly dodge or block every attack.
The pauldron with a hole punched through it, dangling.
The breastplate half-torn, fully exposing the quilted armor underneath.
Facing the vengeful spirit spider head-on and engaging in fierce combat, both my body and armor were in tatters in just a few minutes.
How long had it been since I had taken such heavy damage since falling into this world?
It seemed like the first time since the early days of possession when everything was clumsy.
But still…
Crunch!
“Kiiiit!”
In return, I was able to leave sword marks on its face equal to the scratches carved on my armor and limbs.
Crack!
I even managed to cut off one of its forelegs and fangs, barely.
Thanks to that, its already hideously ugly face now looked almost like a rotten corpse just dug up from a grave.
“Haaap!”
While I was showing such a desperate struggle, Laute wasn’t just standing still either.
“Please just break-!”
Crunch!
“Kieeeeeek! My leg! My leg again!”
A spider leg crumpled and rolled away like the future of an unarmed combat warrior. The vengeful spirit spider convulsed, letting out a shriek like a soprano singer.
Laute had persistently struck one of its hind legs and finally managed to crush and sever it.
It was a miraculous achievement.
“Haa… Haa…”
Perhaps completely exhausted just from that, she was breathing heavily with her hands on her tattered leather breastplate.
“How about that, isn’t this at least somewhat…”
Just as Laute caught her breath briefly and straightened her bent waist to regain her posture.
“K̵ĪA҈҈҈҈҈҈҈҈҈҉̷A҈A҈A҈A҈A҈AK̵!̵”
The rampaging vengeful spirit spider raised its head to glare at the ceiling and let out a terrifying scream.
A shriek like dozens of women burning alive and wailing.
It was literally a ghostly wail.
“Kuk?!”
“My body…!”
Laute and I staggered, swallowing our groans.
The moment the spider’s ghostly wail pierced our ears, all the muscles in our bodies stiffened like frogs encountering a snake.
The roar of a vengeful spirit that suppresses and paralyzes the minds of those who hear it. We had taken it head-on.
Of course, the spider’s roar only stopped us for a very brief moment, at most about 1 second, but…
“Kigigigik!”
In a situation like this, that 1 second was far too long.
Before Laute and I could somehow move our bodies again, the vengeful spirit spider spun like a top and swept all around with its six remaining legs.
Adding centrifugal force to the pressure of shooting spider webs, it shot Laute’s sword that had been stuck in its spinneret like a bullet.
“Ukh.”
I let out a deflated groan as I watched the scythe-like claw flying straight towards me.
There was no way to avoid it.
Neither for me, nor for Laute.
Splat!
“Guh…!”
Laute, struck in the abdomen by the spider’s leg, folded in half at the waist and flew backwards. Like a baseball hit by a bat.
It was no different for me.
Clang!
“Aak!”
The spider leg mercilessly striking my breastplate. I felt a dizzying impact shaking my entire upper body as I flew and crashed into the mine shaft wall.
Crash!
“Keh!”
My compressed lungs expelled a groan mixed with a sigh.
Crushed stone powder sprayed up like blood.
* * *
“Kuh… Ugh…”
I twisted my body embedded in the wall, letting out a groan between clenched teeth.
“This… is…”
Paralyzing enemies with the vengeful spirit’s roar, then rotating its body to fire spider webs in all directions to subdue all surrounding enemies in a combo attack.
It was a method I hadn’t anticipated.
“What kind of… dirty trick…!”
The vengeful spirit spider in the novel had never used such a technique. Not even once.
That’s why I was completely unprepared and took it head-on.
A sensation like something foul and nauseating was about to surge up my esophagus.
I couldn’t see anything in front of me, and my back that had hit the wall hurt terribly.
It was extreme damage that would more than negate all the progress we had made through the fierce battle.
‘Damn it…! If it had such a technique, they should have explained that…!’
What the hell is this after fighting so well?
Just as I, gritting my teeth in frustration, was about to hurl raw curses at the novel writer I had never even seen-
‘…Ah. No.’
A small realization flashed through my dizzy mind.
‘Ha, shit. I guess it could be like that.’
Come to think of it, there might not have been an explanation.
If it was the original game that only appeared as a setting in the novel, that would be one thing.
But it’s not like it’s a strategy guide; how could every monster pattern be recorded in detail in a possession novel based on a game?
Moreover, Kim Seung-woo, who had taken over Friet’s body, was never in a situation to struggle against the likes of a vengeful spirit spider in the first place.
The battle descriptions in the novel were limited to things like ‘Friet easily avoided the spine wave and swung Nibelung, slicing the monster in half’.
So he probably never saw this kind of pattern. A technique the protagonist never saw wouldn’t have been described in the novel.
It was a shitty situation.
“Kikikik…! Finally! I’ve finally caught you!”
Instead of unseeing eyeballs, my ringing eardrums alerted me. The vengeful spirit spider’s laughter full of joy was getting closer and closer.
“Who are you catching…!”
I slightly touched my helmet with my trembling left hand that I had pulled out from the wall.
A sticky, clinging sensation. It was the spider’s web.
So this was the reason I couldn’t see anything…
It seemed impossible to remove. Even if I tried to force it off, my left hand would just stick to the helmet.
Therefore,
Click.
I moved my hand to the back of my head and undid the helmet’s lock.
Lemon-colored hair, soiled with blood and dust, flowed down the back of my neck in abundance.
The helmet fell to the ground. My blocked vision suddenly brightened.
I raised my blurry eyes to look, and before me―
“I’m sooo hungryyyyy!”
A face like a rag unwashed for a hundred years was grinning, with its one remaining foreleg raised.
Ah, damn it.
A crisis situation coming right up as soon as I opened my eyes. A curse involuntarily slipped out.
“Kaurgh… I have to, get up…! Kuahurgh…”
Laute was sprawled on the mine shaft floor, struggling to get up while writhing.
Seeing her cough up blood after raising her upper body halfway, it was clear to anyone that she was in no condition to fight anymore.
“Hilde! Dodge, do!”
Kikel, having apparently dealt with all dozen or so giant spiders by now, was running urgently towards us.
But no matter how fast he was, how could he be faster than the speed of the spider bringing down its claw right in front of me?
He wasn’t that fast to begin with. Being a lizardman.
In other words, at this very moment, there was no one anywhere who could help me.
“Kiaaaak!”
The vengeful spirit spider swung its foreleg towards me.
A scythe-like claw coming down vertically. It had enough force to split a human body like firewood and then some.
“Kuk…!”
I let out an urgent groan and raised my longsword to block the spider’s claw.
…No, I tried to block it.
Thud.
But my right arm didn’t budge at all.
The longsword that should have been swung with all my might only made a sound of tearing threads while stuck to the wall.
“What…?!”
I turned my head with a face full of shock.
Towards my right arm covered in a white net-like substance, stuck to the mine shaft wall.
Spider web.
It wasn’t just my helmet that had been hit.
“Ah.”
A groan that couldn’t become words escaped.
‘No. Like this, I can’t block…!’
A fear close to despair washed over me like a tidal wave.
My immobile right arm.
An attack I couldn’t resist.
Images of corpses that had become spider nests flashed through my mind like a revolving lantern.
‘Am I going to die…?! Me…?’
Every nerve in my body screamed as if shrieking.
That my life was in imminent danger.
That death was right before my eyes.
…I don’t want this.
“Uaaaaaaah!”
I squeezed my eyes shut and let out a scream that was almost like a death throe.
Twisting my entire body with all my might, with the mindset that it didn’t matter if every bone in my body shattered.
And then.
Whoosh!
My heart pulsed like lightning struck by the sense of crisis.
From within it, something invisible burst out.
Something as cold as a frozen lake in midwinter… no, something incomparably colder than that.
An arctic-like coldness flowed through my blood vessels, spreading throughout my entire body. It felt like my hands and feet had turned into blocks of ice.
What could this be?
Could this be what they call the fear of death?
No, it was something different from that…
…Unfortunately, there was no time to think further.
Crunch!
A sound like solid bone being crushed rang in my ears.
I was certain. That the spider’s claw had finally reached my skull, splitting my head in half.
It was over.
* * *
…And so, I met my death.
Surprisingly, there was no excruciating pain.
Did I die instantly without even having time to feel pain? That’s fortunate.
No, it’s not something that can be called fortunate, but…
Still, it was a better end than slowly dying while screaming in agony.
…Right?
…
Silence.
But… I never imagined I’d die so anticlimactically, so ridiculously, just dropping dead like this.
Lamentation.
If I had known I’d die like this, maybe I should have just become a tavern wench or something.
Regret.
No, no matter what, that’s not right. Could that even be called living?
Stubbornness.
…Damn it. What should I have done differently?!
Resentment.
No, why was I in a place like this to begin with…!
Indignation.
…I didn’t want to die.
Lingering attachment.
All sorts of emotions filling my brain, which should have already been crushed, spun dizzily, flashing and fading repeatedly.
…
And again, silence.
…
……
And then.
“Kigrrrr…”
A bizarre groan I had never heard before erased all the swirling thoughts.
“Grrreeeek…”
It was a truly strange groan.
Enough to clear my dizzy mind in an instant.
‘What is this sound…?’
I carefully opened my eyelids that had been tightly shut.
I could open them. Even though I should have been dead.
“…Huh?”
And I saw.
“Gek, grueek… gaaah…”
An old man’s head, split horizontally from below the eyes to near the torso, spilling its contents.
It looked like it had been hit by a blade wielded by a troll.
* * *
“Gaaah…”
Inside the vengeful spirit spider’s eye sockets, the blue ghost fire that had been burning brightly faded with its death throes.
The spider’s legs lost strength and bent, its massive body collapsing sideways with a thud.
Boom!
Dust billowed up. Brain matter floated like dumpling filling on top of blood and bodily fluids flowing like a stream.
“No… this is…”
I stared blankly at the giant corpse with my mouth wide open in shock.
What awaited me when I opened my eyes was an unexpected sight.
The vengeful spirit spider, dead in one blow.
My longsword, cracked and crumbling as if it would shatter at a touch.
My right arm that had torn off the spider’s web by force.
“Haak…!”
And an overwhelming sense of exhaustion enveloping my entire body.
“Heurgh…!”
With a feeling of exhaustion like a thousand-pound mountain pressing down on my entire body, I fell to my knees with a groan that was almost a scream.
A body that felt like it would collapse immediately if I relaxed even a little. There was no strength left in my entire body.
“Haak…! Heurgh…! This, is…!”
I could understand. What had happened to my body. Why that old man suddenly died and collapsed.
It was a phenomenon I knew about.
Traces of destruction as if superhuman strength had been at work. A sense of exhaustion as if all my stamina had been completely drained. It was exactly as described in the novel.
<Iron Arm>
An innate trait that exerts strength several times greater than normal at the cost of massive stamina consumption.
Brunhilde’s blessing, imbued in her blood, manifested.
Drip.
“Ah.”
…At the cost of slightly wet pants.
“Ugh…”
The lower part was a bit damp.
It wasn’t because of blood. It wasn’t because of sweat either.
…Well, I was on the brink of death, so it could happen, right?
Right? That must be it…?
…Shit.
I lay face down for a while, my exposed face turning red, without saying a word.
“Hilde! Are you alive?! You’re victorious!”
Until Kikel, who had been dazed by the sight of the ghost spider’s instant death, came to his senses and rushed towards me.