The Path the Log Pointed To

The surroundings had gone unnaturally still.

The spear-like legs of the soldier Arachne that had been hurtling toward me, the clouds of dirt kicked up in every direction—all of it flowed with extreme sluggishness, as if frozen midair.

My mind snapped fully awake.

Is this thought acceleration?

It had to be. From the exact moment that mysterious transparent window finally rose over my retinas, my thinking itself had been accelerated to super-high speed.

My skull was running like a supercomputer, processing the flood of information in real time. Physically, less than a second remained before those spider legs punched through my chest—but thanks to this brutal thought acceleration, I had more than enough time to think.

The second I grasped the situation, a surge of emotion welled up from deep in my chest.

Finally. It was finally here.

The status window I had hunted for so desperately ever since awakening to my past life!

Every black mark of my history—waving my fingers through empty air in the village square, rubbing my body against walls, hanging upside down from the well—even the tearful days of loitering near the women’s bathhouse only to get chased by the guards—was finally being rewarded.

Status window, you were alive after all!

My eyes grew hot with overwhelming emotion. But that rapture lasted exactly three seconds.

The moment I properly read the letters etched across my retinas, my joy cooled at terrifying speed.

Hold on. What the hell is this garbage?

I could tell it was the alphabet, but why English of all things?

When you drop into a fantasy otherworld, isn’t the bare minimum of etiquette that the system spit out the continental common tongue—or Korean? For a pure-blooded Korean who used to doze off the second he opened an English textbook and always hunted for “Korean” first in any game options menu, this was pure sadism.

“Hey, Goddess!”

Since my throat wouldn’t move, I forced my eyeballs to roll instead. My gaze landed on the back of my hand, where the faint divine crest was etched. The statue I had seen in that shabby temple before becoming a hero rose in my mind—the one whose chest alone had been abnormally enormous and full of mercy.

Where had all that vast compassion gone when She decided to gift me this honest, merciless English hell? I wanted to grab Her by the collar and demand answers.

Perhaps my desperate scream reached Her.

Zzzt!

The English log records floating before my eyes warped violently. A crackling static noise slammed through my brain, like the screen of electronics about to die.

“Uh? Uhhh?”

As the letters twisted past recognition, fear spiked through me.

“No, wait! I haven’t finished reading yet! I’m sorry for complaining, Goddess! I’ll just look at it in English, so please don’t erase it!”

Zzzt, crackle!

The letters that had been scattering in every direction seized the center again and rapidly realigned. A perfectly Korean-patched log then printed itself before my eyes.

“Wow.”

An involuntary gasp of admiration slipped out. As expected of our goddess. Her capacity for tolerance and consideration was as vast as the Pacific—matching the overwhelming volume of that statue.

When I make a lot of money later, I’ll start by gold-plating Your temple, big sis.

I hastily shook off the sentiment. There was no telling how long this ultra-high-speed thought acceleration would last, so I needed to check the log records right away. The more I read, however, the more my head tilted.

No HP bar, no MP bar, no level. Not even the usual list of traits or skills. Moreover, it wasn’t showing my current status in real time; it was closer to a mechanical log file that had recorded every one of my past actions by time stamp.

This is way too different from any status window I know. It’s not displaying my current state—it’s just a log file of everything that’s happened so far. How is this even supposed to help me…?

No—that wasn’t important right now. I shoved the thought aside. What mattered was finding a way to survive.

I scanned the log records carefully, desperately, hunting for any clue that would let me live through the torrent of information. Then my gaze locked completely on one particular entry.

The moment I confirmed that sentence, a fierce spark flashed through my mind.

The emergency escape magic tool Ainz had given me. If the reason it failed was simple operational error—and if I could completely reverse-engineer the mechanism of this formula—

A single insane plan crystallized in my head.

“If I play this right, I can reverse the whole situation in one stroke.”

The thought acceleration crushing my brain began to ease the instant that idea formed. Time around me slammed back to its original merciless speed.

“Kieeeeeek!”

I instinctively rolled across the ground and sprinted full force away from the soldier Arachne’s leg that had closed right in front of my face. At the same time I yanked out the magic tool of Ainz’s that I had shoved into my clothes.

Using the internal formula structure of the tool I had just grasped from the log, I began forcing magic power through my fingertips to rewrite the formula inside on the fly.

Meanwhile, the party members watching Zick through Ainz’s magic from the hideout were stunned by his sudden action.

“Hold it, hero boy! Why are you pulling out a magic tool you don’t even know how to use again? You’re not seriously planning to throw that thing at the spiders, are you?!”

Drake pressed a hand to his forehead in pure disbelief. Then the screen caught the magic power flowing from Zick’s ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fingertips transforming the light of the tool. The color drained from Ainz’s face in an instant.

“Ah—no! What young Zick is doing is rewriting the formula inside the magic tool in real time!”

“What? Mage-nim, what are you talking about? Whether he rewrites the formula or not, he just has to activate it and come back here, right?”

Ainz’s hands trembled as he shouted.

“This is bad! The part young Zick touched is the spatial coordinates. Even if he uses the tool now, he will not return here!”

“What the hell did that idiot hero just do?!”

Gerard’s brow furrowed without mercy.

As spear-like legs from every direction closed in on my face, I finished rewriting the coordinates at last and activated the magic tool.

“This time I read the manual properly!”

Hwaaaaaah!

Space warped and my body vanished into a vortex of light. With a full-body motion-sickness flip, the place I arrived was the deepest chamber of the Arachne nest—more precisely, empty air directly in front of the giant queen Arachne’s eyes.

I could have simply activated the tool as originally designed without rewriting the coordinates and escaped safely to the hideout. But combining the situation inside the nest I had seen with my own eyes and the log records I had just checked produced one clear fact.

This nest was already saturated past its limit with countless Arachne. If I fled now, the spider swarm that couldn’t find enough food in the forest would soon leave the woods and indiscriminately raid nearby human villages. But if I took down the queen right here, the story changed completely.

According to the information confirmed in the log, every Arachne except the queen herself had poured outside the nest to hunt me for threatening her. In other words, the interior was a perfect empty house with only the queen alone.

Given the racial traits of Arachne, if the central queen entity died, the subordinate Arachne linked by neural network would be completely paralyzed for a short while. Even if they didn’t die instantly, while they stood frozen with their network severed I could escape safely and buy enough time to report the situation to the Management Bureau so they could clean up the remaining Arachne.

That was why I chose subjugating the queen over a safe escape.

In the brief instant of freefall through the air, I drew the sword at my waist.

“Kiiik?!”

The queen Arachne recoiled in shock at the human who had suddenly popped out of empty space. But her instincts must have screamed danger; she swung a massive foreleg with brutal force in counterattack.

As a command-specialized entity she was definitely slower than soldier-class Arachne, yet I was currently in midair with nowhere to dodge. I recalled the magic theory Ainz had drilled into my ears until they rang.

Young Zick. Magic does not need to be flashy. What matters is the control you pour in at the perfect timing.

“Freeze!”

At the same moment as the spell, the moisture in the air condensed in an instant. Several solid ice platforms linked together between my trajectory and the queen’s attack path, forming stepping stones in empty air.

At the same time Drake’s sly voice brushed past my ear.

Feet don’t step on the ground, hero boy—they steal it. No sound, no trace, no weight. That’s a thief’s footwork.

Using the thief’s footwork Drake had taught me, I stepped skillfully across the slick ice platforms. Controlling the slip, lowering my center of gravity, and efficiently distributing my weight, I closed the distance to the queen in a flash.

Only one thing remained.

The queen Arachne’s confirmed weak point from the log records—the gap where her outer shell was thinnest—her heart. And the essence of the swordsmanship Gerard had taught me.

The essence of the thrust is one thing. Discard every excess and drive the fastest, straightest line solely toward the enemy’s life.

I loaded the full weight of my body, my fighting spirit, and my magic power into the tip of the blade. The swordsmanship beaten into me by Gerard. The footwork learned while rolling under Drake. The magic theory heard from Ainz. The authority training shared with Noah. Even the sword Reno had prepared for me.

All of it converged into this single point right now.

There was no flashy aura, yet a thrust more ferocious than any moment before hurtled toward the queen’s massive heart.

Kwajik!

The hard outer shell split and the sword tip dug into the queen’s thorax. My wrist and elbow screamed as if they would tear, but I did not stop the blade.

Deeper. Just a little more. To the heart.

“Pierce through!”

Pook!

The sword finally sank deep into the heart, and the queen’s eyes bulged wide at the same instant.

“Kiiiiiiiiiiiiik!”

A scream that seemed ready to tear the entire nest apart rang out as the giant body crashed to the floor. At the same moment, the sound of hundreds of footsteps that had been approaching from outside the nest cut off as if by a lie.

The neural network had been severed; the subordinate entities had completely frozen.

The moment I landed, the strength left my legs and I collapsed on the spot. Panting harshly, I muttered blankly,

“I’m alive.”

I sat on the cold nest floor and stared blankly up at the ceiling. Strength had drained from my entire body, yet a small smile spread across my lips.

“Ha. It wasn’t a status window, but this thing’s usable.”

A faint log rose before my eyes once more.

I snorted a laugh at that final line and slowly closed my eyes.

“Outside the predicted range, huh. Not bad.”

After all, being a hero meant doing the unexpected every now and then.

At last the party members who had watched Zick bring down the queen all exhaled in relief. The taut string of silence snapped, and Drake was the first to burst into hearty laughter.

“Hahaha! See, what did I tell you! That’s our hero for you! I believed hero boy would spot the angle even in that nightmare spider nest and pull it off!”

Drake threw jabs into the empty air as if it were his own victory, while Ainz, leaning on his staff, wiped the cold sweat beading on his forehead.

“Heheh. Truly a young man who makes one’s heart seize every single time. To think he would remodel ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the formula of my magic tool in real time and take the queen’s head. Remarkable talent indeed.”

A smile of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠both relief and admiration spread across the old man’s face. The atmosphere among the party grew warm as each celebrated Zick’s survival and victory.

Yet only one person—Gerard—replayed Zick’s final sword technique and wore a thoroughly satisfied, utterly cruel smile.

Just before piercing the queen’s heart, the tip of the blade trembled ever so slightly. Loading the full weight of the body was fine, but once stamina hit its limit, the lower-body center and stance collapsed.

The knight roughly toyed with the hilt at his waist and muttered inwardly. His eyes already gleamed with the look of an instructor designing the next training regimen.

Just come back, Zick. I’ll rebuild you from basic stamina. Next time I’ll drill you so mercilessly that even after a hundred thrusts there won’t be a hair’s breadth of wavering.

With the hellish dedicated knight’s chilly soliloquy, the curtain slowly fell on Zick’s life-or-death Arachne subjugation battle.