Chapter 55
Chapter 55
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 55
Chapter Title: The Spider Queen Arachne
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Spider Queen Arachne.
She was one of the bosses that absolutely had to be taken down to progress the main story in the Silver Dawn Knights route. Back in the early game, Claudia had set out under the lord's orders to subjugate this very creature.
The person in question hadn't been given any real intel—just a rough location—so she probably never imagined it'd be a monster of this type.
As her epithet suggested, Arachne was a boss with the appearance of an enormous spider.
More precisely, just the lower body.
Her lower half was pure spider, complete with eight legs and repulsive patterns etched into its exoskeleton. But where a spider's head should be, the upper body of a human woman was fused instead—an utterly bizarre form.
And she was quite beautiful, at that. Even accounting for the gray armor-like covering from her neck down that seemed added out of censorship concerns for exposing a nude female body.
Because of it, she enjoyed cult-like popularity among the monster-girl enthusiasts. Even those who didn't particularly like monster girls found her one of the few attractive females in Brutal 4, so she had a solid fanbase.
Especially since one of the Death Gods fell into that category.
Her attack patterns were straightforward, befitting an early-game boss. Even accounting for Narakla mode, she only had about ten. Just a single phase, too.
Considering that late-game bosses averaged over twenty patterns, she was definitely on the easier side.
With one exception: the pattern where she summoned hordes of baby spiders.
Once when her health dropped to 60%, and again at 30%. That was twice total, and it was the greatest hurdle in Narakla mode Arachne.
In vanilla, she'd summon maybe fifty spiders, which players could handle by rolling, dodging, and smashing them one by one. If it was too annoying, just AoE them away with a spell.
But Narakla mode was different.
The numbers exploded: 250 at 60%, and a whopping 750 at 30%. That added up to a thousand.
Computers barely meeting the minimum specs would overload during the second wave, emitting a death rattle from the case or straight-up crashing.
The baby spiders themselves had paper-thin health—dying to any glancing hit. In a first clear, it was just 1 HP; even at max level, only 11.
The problem was the sheer, bullshit quantity and how they swarmed from every direction.
They even stacked poison like their mama. Get hit once, and you'd either get staggered to death or poisoned to death—pick your poison.
"That's why I said we need a spell that can continuously sweep wide areas. And that fits you perfectly, Erika, right?"
Or use the spell from killing the Burning Golem.
To reliably handle the baby spiders, you needed something that could "continuously" deal "wide-area" "rapid" damage projection. The reward spell from the Burning Golem perfectly matched.
Flame Rotation Ring.
A spell that generated a ring of fire around the caster for 30 seconds.
Quick cast time, decent duration, low mana cost—but cripplingly low damage as the tradeoff. Even that pathetic damage one-shot the babies, making it ideal for countering the summon pattern.
The entire strategy boiled down to casting it the moment the pattern started, then running like hell to burn them until the boss room was clear. That was it.
"......"
"......"
"......"
Lize, Erika, and Claudia's faces gradually soured as they listened to my explanation.
Iris had bowed out, saying spiders didn't mesh with her style and she couldn't risk holding us back. Besides, someone had to stay and guard the castle anyway.
"Now I get why Delta kept emphasizing wide-area attacks. Baby spiders, huh..."
"And their fangs and claws have poison? Gotta kill 'em before they close in."
"When you first said a thousand spiders, I was like, what? But that makes sense. There are swarm-type monsters out there, so I figured it was something similar."
The knight captains chimed in one by one. They sounded grumpy about the grossness, but none showed any fear of Arachne.
"Here. We've arrived."
I halted. The knight captains stopped with me. We stood at the entrance to a densely forested valley.
Even in broad daylight, the interior was pitch-black from the thick canopy. Only faint rays of sunlight filtered through the leaves.
"Doesn't look like a place crawling with bugs at all..."
Erika shuddered. I agreed. In game graphics, it hadn't seemed so bad, but up close, it was a full-on jungle.
"Alright. Final checks."
Shing. We drew our weapons. We'd stashed the horses with that gem from the rock centipede hunt last time.
"Poison's on what?"
"The spider lower body. Human upper body's fine. Two hits and you're poisoned, so keep distance except when attacking."
"Web attacks?"
"Dodge if possible, but if it combos with others, prioritize the rest and tank the webs. A couple hits are fine—you can shake 'em off quick."
"More than that and you're stuck, so judge wisely."
"You know all her tells from my rundown... Oh, just in case: the fight zone might be pretty nasty. Don't freak out. Got it?"
"...How nasty?"
"Hard to describe. You'll see soon enough—brace yourself."
Think of it as a lite version of that bug dungeon we'd hit later.
Or conversely, the bug dungeon was an amped-up Arachne boss room—a hellhole beyond imagination.
Checks done, we headed into the Spider Queen's boss room. I took point since I knew the way, with the other three flanking and covering me from the sides and rear.
The path was brutal. Tree roots everywhere nearly tripped us multiple times, weeds choked the ground, and the plant stems were too tough to cut properly.
If Lize hadn't frozen the obstructing foliage solid and shattered it to clear the way, we'd have burned way more time.
"...This has to be it, right? Even the vibe screams it."
Our stop was deeper in the valley, at the mouth of the true path.
Overgrown not with weeds or trees, but spiderwebs.
Lize stomped the ground and lifted her foot. Sticky webs clung to the underside of her silver sabatons. A few shakes wouldn't dislodge them.
"We gonna be able to move properly in this?"
"Avoid the heavily gray spots if you can. Tough to maneuver there."
In-game, web-covered areas locked you to the slowest roll, no sprinting or fast walking—just plodding.
"Everything's gray."
Yeah, but finding non-webbed spots was harder.
"Hence 'if you can.' Suck it up."
"Can't we burn it?"
"Uh... not sure. Wanna try?"
Erika ignited her sword without hesitation and swung horizontally. Flames swept the webs.
No burn.
"No dice."
Erika gave up cleanly and fell back.
I'd considered asking Lize to freeze the floor earlier, but fighting on ice sounded worse than webs.
"The inner part should be decent enough. Let's go."
From here, it was a straight shot, so Claudia led into the valley proper. Then Lize, me third, Erika last.
A dozen thigh-high spiders ambushed in a line midway, but Claudia soloed them with sweeping greatsword swings.
Those were the baby spiders from her summon pattern.
Deeper in, the webs encrusting the valley walls thickened, while ambusher numbers thinned. A rotten stench filled the air.
"...Ugh."
Soon, we reached Arachne's boss room. Erika immediately gagged. The other two hid it better, but they weren't thrilled.
The entire place bubbled with green eggs.
Round eggs plastered the walls, webbed ceiling, and floor near the walls. Faint baby spider silhouettes showed through the membranes.
No-egg spots were webbed; no-web spots had eggs. Scattered desiccated human corpses were the icing.
"Oh my, guests?"
A sultry voice echoed from between the eggs, and the Spider Queen stepped forward. No footsteps—too much web on the floor.
As she neared, we finally got a clear look.
A massive spider lower body, green with grotesque patterns, topped by a beautiful woman's upper half where the head should be. Undeniable Spider Queen.
Dark green hair cascaded to her waist. No top meant her nearly gray-pale skin was fully exposed. Eyes and lips were green.
Spotting us, she spread her arms wide like welcoming guests. Her bare chest jiggled with the motion.
I moved to ready for battle like the other captains, then froze, wondering if I'd seen wrong, and stared at Arachne again.
'...Huh?'
Why's she naked?