The Spider's Web (1)
I linked my senses to the nest and spread them throughout the entire ship.
The vessel's structure and the movements of the humans inside flowed into me without omission, and my auxiliary organ, ever obedient to its master's will, swiftly analyzed their every step.
If a ship drifting through space were imagined as a living creature, then I was something like a parasite dwelling in the brain of a being made of mineral and steel. I knew everything happening aboard this ship as intimately as the ship's owner did.
The auxiliary organ reported that the captain and team leaders were gathering at the bridge.
They intend to direct operations from the bridge, no doubt.
Just like them, I too was plotting from my nest above the cooling room.
How should I respond?
First, let's consider where the enemy will launch from.
There were only a handful of ventilation ducts large enough for an adult man to pass through. The agricultural zone duct, the hangar duct, and the armory duct were the three biggest; the rest measured barely a meter across or less.
That said, the odds of them departing from a single point were low. Doing so would slow their search.
Conversely, launching from all three at once would strain their operating personnel too thin.
Which meant they would most likely split into two groups.
Six men. Not a large force, but not a small one either.
Ventilation shafts were inherently poor terrain for a large assault team anyway. A small elite squad compensating for its numbers with superior equipment was a perfectly viable strategy.
They'll probably come wearing medium-grade powered suits.
The model was unknown, but likely the same class Arnold wore, or below it.
If we fought head-on, I wouldn't escape unscathed either.
There's a stretch just past the junction where the duct narrows.
Depending on the facility, some sections demanded strong airflow while others needed none at all. Places like the cooling room had excellent air circulation systems and correspondingly wide ventilation passages, but most of the ship didn't.
Narrow corridors are ill-suited for humans.
Low enough that a grown man would have to hunch over. Better than crawling, perhaps, but their combat effectiveness would plummet. The difficulty of wielding weapons in that posture was problem enough, and their cramped stances would keep the powered suits from performing at full efficiency as well.
That's where I'll ambush them.
The broad strokes of the plan were set. I would fine-tune the details once I saw how the enemy was armed and how they moved.
As it happened, they seemed to be ready. I could feel them moving.
They set out from exactly the two points I had predicted: the hangar duct and the armory duct.
Then let's go greet our guests.
Severing the link to my nest, I rose from my place.
Tonight, everyone who covets my nest dies.
「This is A1. Team A commencing operation.」
"B1, report."
「Zzzk, this is B1. Team B commencing operation. Zzz」
"B1, your transmission quality is poor. Run a check."
「Zzzzt, B1. Understood.」
The bridge situation room.
On the holographic display at the center of the room, footage of the soldiers in motion played across six split screens — live feeds transmitted in real time from the tactical cameras mounted on their powered suits.
Arnold, the Crisis Management Team Leader, watched the soldiers breach the ventilation ducts alongside the rest of the command staff.
The thing that killed Lady Kisaragi. It has to be the same creature.
By rights, this should have been his task. The plan itself hadn't changed, but he couldn't predict what kind of variable the creature might become.
It was a dangerous organism that had slaughtered eight people, Kisaragi Yujin included.
The others all seemed to believe the Material Management Team Leader was the culprit, but Arnold could say with certainty:
The Material Management Team Leader had been killed by the monster long ago.
A monster. Variables are to be eliminated wherever possible.
This ship must not suffer the slightest setback before it reached the Space Dogs — no, before it reached his master, Sihyeon Yujin.
His master was preparing a grand design. If the plan succeeded, the history of Mega Corp itself would be rewritten.
Handing Yuseong's ship over to the pirates of C-08 — that was the first stitch in his master's great scheme.
You will be dead before this night is over.
He was glaring at the holographic feed with cold eyes when a report came in from the field.
「A1. There's a junction ahead. Moving right.」
「B1. A junction on our side too. Moving right. Zzz」
「B3. Zzzz. Transmission quality is bad. I'll repair it and catch up. Zzk」
"This is the situation room. B3, rejoin the team as soon as your repair is complete."
These passages were like the blood vessels of the ship, and the duct network was nothing short of a maze. As it happened, both Teams A and B had hit junctions at the same moment.
"The route is complicated. Everyone proceed with caution."
"This is the situation room. Slow is fine — search thoroughly."
「A1. Understood.」
「B1. Understood.」
Five of the six white markers floating on the map received the order and began moving at a careful crawl.
"Hmm?"
Arnold, who had been watching the screens, sensed something wrong. B3's camera — the one supposedly under repair — wasn't moving.
"Check B3's camera."
"Understood. This is the situation room. B3, confirm your camera status."
「......」
"B3, this is the situation room. I say again. Confirm your camera status."
「It's fine.」
With those words, the screen began to move again. At first it swayed with a slight dizziness, but soon it steadied, just like the other soldiers' feeds.
"B3, how is your reception?"
「It's fine.」
Just as B3 had reported, the static was gone. His marker began moving toward where the rest of Team B was located.
"B2, link up with B3 behind you and proceed together."
「B2. Understood.」
B3's marker on the screen drew closer and closer to B2's. The instant the two were about to overlap, a scream burst from the radio.
"B2! What's happening?!"
「Aaagh! It's here! It's—」
"B3, we've lost contact with B2. Report your status."
「It dragged B2 away.」
"The screen shows nothing. Explain in detail."
「It attacked too suddenly. I can't confirm anything.」
B2's camera showed nothing but darkness. Whether the radio was damaged or not, no sound came through at all.
Anxiety spread through the situation room like an epidemic. The captain and team leaders murmured among themselves, demanding to know what the hell was going on, while the comms officer tried again and again to raise B2.
While everyone else panicked, Arnold stared at the black screen and ground his teeth.
It ended that quickly?
Soldiers in medium-grade powered suits — fully equipped soldiers — had been taken down without so much as a response. Even a seasoned assassin would have found it far from easy to finish men off that fast. He had written the creature off as roughly the level of a slightly dangerous wild animal. He had been completely, catastrophically wrong.
The enemy was a far nimbler butcher than he had imagined. Having recalibrated his assessment of the monster's capabilities, Arnold gave the order to the comms officer.
"Relay to everyone: if anything so much as twitches, open fire immediately."
"Yes, sir."
The comms officer passed along Arnold's command, and tense replies crackled back through the radios.
Team A was continuing its search for the monster, while B1 and B3 of Team B were pursuing the vanished B2. On screen he could see them moving with urgent purpose, yet not a single trace of B2 turned up.
At this rate, they'll be picked off one by one.
Arnold finally resolved to abandon B2. The comms officer relayed his decision to Team B.
"This is the situation room. B3, suspend the search for B2 and link up with B1."
「Understood.」
"B1, once you've linked up with B3, resume the search for B2."
「B1. Understood.」
B3's marker angled toward B1. On screen, the distance between the two shrank steadily. When only a few steps of corridor remained between them, a transmission came in from B1.
「B1. I'm hearing something.」
"This is the situation room. What exactly do you hear?"
「B1. I can't tell for certain, but someone's approaching. It's a junction, so I can't get a clear fix.」
"B3, link up with B1 as fast as you can. I say again: get to B1 as fast as you can."
「Understood.」
The tension was suffocating. What broke the silence of the situation room was B1's voice.
「B1. The sound is B3. I can hear his voice now.」
"Whew."
Someone let out a long breath of relief. Even Arnold, who had been staring wide-eyed so as not to lose sight of the enemy for a single second, relaxed.
"Phew. This is the situation room. B1, report once you've linked up with B3."
「......」
"B1?"
「B3 has been dragged off by the enemy.」
"What the—?!"
B1's grim news transformed the atmosphere of the situation room in an instant.
Even Arnold, always the picture of composure, found his calm crumbling as the situation refused to stop overturning his expectations. He shoved the comms officer aside and grabbed the headset.
"This is the team leader. Explain the situation to me. In detail."
「It happened in a blink, sir. I couldn't see anything.」
"Goddammit! He was right in front of you and you couldn't see him? Does that make any sense?"
「I'm sorry, sir.」
Two men gone already. And still B1 and B3 kept repeating that they'd seen nothing. The irritation boiled up inside Arnold.
He flung down the headset and sank into thought, leaving the fidgeting comms officer to his own devices.
Standing right there and he doesn't know? And both B1 and B3's cameras caught nothing. Unless the creature deliberately evaded their field of view, that should be impossible... No. Wait.
A dreadful hypothesis suddenly crystallized in Arnold's mind. His face rigid with dread, he put the headset back on.
"This is the team leader. B1 — state your rank and name."
「Sir?」
"I say again. B1, state your rank and name. Now."
「......」
No answer came back from B1. The command staff, realizing what Arnold was trying to verify, froze solid.
「Kzzt... busted, huh? —」
B1's channel went dead. A black hand appeared in front of the camera, and then the feed cut out entirely.
「This is A1. What in God's name is going on down there?」
"……"
「This is A1. Situation room, respond.」
The team leader of Team A's bewildered voice filled the situation room, but Arnold could say nothing at all.
Team B is finished, for now.
I crushed the beacon on B1's powered suit beneath my foot. Beside me lay three headless corpses.
The original plan had been to strike in the narrow passage beyond the junction. But while I was racing ahead of them to prepare the ambush, an idea occurred to me.
My psionic organ.
The hint came from my conversations with the Bubble Amoeba.
I could speak to that creature through the special wavelengths my psionic organ generated. Which raised the question — couldn't those same wavelengths jam radio equipment that communicated by frequency? Turns out they worked quite well.
The wavelengths I emitted seeded static into the equipment of B3, the man at the rear. Forced to fall out of formation and tinker with his gear, he was thereby reduced to easy prey.
After that, it was simple.
Even at the moment my combat arm tore his head clean from his shoulders, B3 couldn't so much as twitch a finger. That was the effect of my newly acquired fused trait, the Neurotoxin Gland.
With the Neurotoxin Gland in my body, everything about me became lethally venomous — claws, fangs, even my bodily fluids. A victim of this toxin suffered shock or total muscular paralysis, rendered utterly unable to act.
On paper it looked like a powerful debuff trait, but in the game it had always been a niche pick. With so many creatures boasting transcendently robust physiques, it had never gotten its time in the sun.
But that isn't the case here.
Short of a specially engineered human, blocking a neurotoxin was impossible. Anyone caught alone by it might as well already be dead.
From there, everything went smoothly. Using my Voice Mimicry trait, I approached the other team members while posing as B3.
They kept up a diligent watch, of course — but who would ever imagine that the ally calling out to them was Amorph? Thanks to their poverty of imagination, I was able to fill my belly in high spirits.
Next up: Team A.
I tossed B1's head into my mouth and set off. As the cerebral cortex burst across my tongue like the tart juice of fresh fruit, strength surged through my body.
For the first time in a while, all four of my combat arms joined my legs to crawl through the narrow duct. Even as I moved, the auxiliary organ beneath my jaw relentlessly tracked Team A's progress.
Whether they'd received orders from above or not, they were moving with glacial care, as if determined to examine every speck of dust on the alloy walls.
Fully on guard, I see.
Team B had been caught completely blind, but these people knew better. They knew I could mimic a human voice, so their caution was only natural.
Then how about I turn their knowledge against them this time?
People love to say that knowledge is power. But is it, really? Knowing just enough can be a far deadlier poison.
I concealed myself a short distance from the junction. Soon they would pass right by this spot.
Light spilled into the dark steel corridor. The beam from the lead soldier's helmet lamp swept the junction, illuminating it end to end.
"A1. Junction ahead. Moving right."
They had no idea I was hiding nearby. If they don't know, then someone ought to tell them. I shouted in B1's voice.
"Over here! Help me!"
"Enemy! Open fire!"
Just as expected, A1 gave the order without hesitation. Three of his squadmates leveled their laser guns and began pouring beams in my direction.
While they blanketed my position with suppressive fire, I slipped into a different passage. Followed to its end, this route looped around behind them. Putting all six of my limbs to work, I rapidly swung out to the enemy's rear.
"Cease fire!"
「This is the situation room. Confirm the enemy's status.」
"A1. Understood."
Unaware that I had already slipped away, A1 stepped forward. The other soldiers kept their eyes fixed on his back, wary that he might be next.
I pounced on A3, whose rear guard had slackened.
"Aaaaagh!"
"Behind us! Enemy behind us!"
"C-cease fire! We have a friendly in its grip!"
「Damn it! Shoot! Shoot it NOW!」
A3's agonized screams, the terrified shouts of his squadmates, and Arnold's bellows from the situation room packed the ventilation duct to bursting. I had no intention of lingering in such a noisy place, so once A3 was paralyzed, I withdrew.
「A1! Fire immediately! That is an order!」
"W-we are opening fire! Firing!"
Belatedly, the soldiers unleashed their laser guns. A web of pure energy filled the corridor. Nimble as I was, I couldn't dodge all of it, and a few shots found their mark.
The pain went well beyond the word "hurt," but I clenched my teeth and tore free of the spot.
"A2! Reporting to the situation room! We have wounded!"
「Withdrawal is denied! The creature must be captured!」
"Oh, for f—! Squad leader, what do we do?"
"...Damn it. Administer emergency treatment to A3, then pursue."
Huddled in the darkness, I listened to their voices. I didn't know what grade of medical kit they'd brought, but neutralizing my neurotoxin would not be easy.
While the enemy took a moment to regroup, I ran a check on my own condition.
The chitinous carapace saved me from anything serious. But God, does it hurt.
Trained soldiers that they were, the shots I'd taken had struck my thorax and head — the powered suits' targeting assist had corrected their aim to those spots.
And thanks to that suit assist, it turned into a blessing in disguise.
An ordinary animal would have died from that barrage. But I am Amorph. Of all the body parts of an Amorph in its juvenile stage, the hardest are the frontal forehead region and the outer skeleton sheathing the thorax.
Moreover, both were currently reinforced by my chitinous carapace. Those two areas were as tough as the titanium alloy this ship was built from — no laser weapon could punch through them.
Because the enemy had fired with trained discipline even amid the chaos, the worst I suffered was pain. Had they hit my tail, or one of my limbs, things could have gotten ugly.
One down.
Two morsels remaining. They wouldn't be ambushed the same way twice, so I would need a different approach.
Come to think of it, there was a place well suited for butchering them. A spot I'd had in mind from the moment I first drew up the plan — the narrow passage.
Lure them there.
I extended a claw and opened a small wound on my arm. With every drop of black blood that pattered down, smoke hissed up from the corridor floor.
This was a spider's web. The snare a spider spreads to snare its prey.
The morsels who had followed blindly, without a thought in their heads, were finally about to understand — that they had flown straight into the net of their own destruction.