I Accidentally Turned This Place Into a Spider Nest
I ended up inside a zombie apocalypse novel. Not long after, I heard a clicking sound coming from the ceiling. As if on cue, two spiders dropped onto the floor. It sounded like one landed in front and one behind me. I only saw the one in front, but the sound had come twice.
"Ugh."
It was seriously grotesque. Calling them spiders felt like an insult to actual spiders. No, I’d feel bad for real spiders if I compared them to this. They walked around with their bellies facing up like poisoners, but their legs were made of rib bones. A wave of pure physiological disgust hit me, so I swung Beopbong without hesitation. One hit and the spider died. Its head exploded, legs twitching violently before it went limp.
"Where do you think you're going!"
"Kiiiiaaaa!"
I threw a quick punch at the one behind me to buy time, then immediately brought Beopbong down on it. The shelves packed tightly together made this a terrible place to fight. Since running away wasn’t really an option either, the only choice was to charge through with full force. I gripped Beopbong tighter and sprinted forward.
Something kept plopping down from the ceiling, but luckily I was running faster. Then a bunch of massive cocoons appeared up ahead. Wait a second. I’ve seen these before.
Spiders usually wrap the heads of their food separately when storing them. That’s how they check freshness. But all the cocoons in front of me were missing heads. Which meant someone had smashed the heads in. In other words, someone hadn’t properly disposed of the corpses.
".......Is it me?"
Last time when I sent Lee Yeji home, I’d killed a ton of zombies. ........Come to think of it, I don’t think I burned those zombies. So the spiders must have dragged the corpses I killed all the way here… and were eating them?
No wonder I’d only seen a few mutants on the street. They’d claimed this entire area as their territory.
"Fuck!"
Something made a clicking noise and sprayed at me, so I dodged in a panic. The floor sizzled and melted away. I swung Beopbong hastily and the spider charging at me collapsed, bleeding. Thank god. There were no soldier spiders, guard spiders, or spitters yet.
Soldier spiders specialized in close combat, guard spiders in protection, and spitters fired venom from range. As long as those three weren’t here, I could manage. That meant the spiders present were all early-stage mutants. They couldn’t even use their fangs properly in melee, and their venom didn’t shoot very far. They preferred striking over biting, and it was more like spitting venom than shooting it. Degraded variants.
I kept running that happy circuit in my head while pushing my already burning body even harder.
"You son of a—!"
I leaped sideways to dodge the venom and blocked the spider trying to stab me with its fangs. I immediately kicked it over, then smashed Beopbong into the one coming from behind. By the time I noticed, I was surrounded. I’d been stupid enough to run deep inside.
........At this point I might as well admit I enjoyed pain. More accurately, I enjoyed the endorphins released by pain. The fact that my body kept suffering because of my dumb decisions proved it.
"Fuck!"
The spiders sprayed venom from all directions. Luckily it didn’t melt my flesh, but my skin turned bright red. It stung a little and smelled sour. Still, I was grateful I hadn’t been bitten by their fangs. I smashed Beopbong down on the closest one. With a loud crunch, blood sprayed everywhere. I kicked the corpse aside to clear a path and charged forward, swinging Beopbong wildly.
I needed to reach a corner first. Force them to attack me in smaller numbers. But thinking about it, these bastards could stick to the ceiling. Would hiding in a corner even matter? No, I could still deal with that, so a corner would work. Or I could run into the staff room.
"Whoa!"
One spider tackled me without caring about its own body. My legs got tangled and I fell spectacularly, then scrambled back up in a hurry. There was still some distance left. Even if I couldn’t reach the staff room, I needed to run for at least another few dozen seconds. But I couldn’t keep running without watching my back anymore.
I took a deep breath, planted my feet firmly, and swung Beopbong with everything I had.
"Home run, you bastards!"
The spiders all leaped at me at once. The ones that didn’t jump sprayed venom instead. I dodged what I could, took a few hits, and swung Beopbong like a madman. Once I’d thinned their numbers enough, I ran straight for the staff room. Fortunately the door wasn’t blocked. It looked like the meat preparation room. No wonder the meat was covered in webs.
I shoved myself inside, adjusted my grip on Beopbong, and got into position.
"Kiiiiaaaaa!"
"Kiiiiaaaa!"
"Yeah, come on!"
A small number of spiders were no match for me. Unless they all attacked from every direction at once, they’d all get their skulls crushed by Beopbong. Sure enough, even though the spiders went wild, it didn’t take long before every last one of them had their heads smashed in.
I cleared away the corpses of the dead spiders on the floor. Then I headed back outside toward the sampling corner. There was no staff member cooking, but the food that had been cooking was covered in spiderwebs. I slowly lifted the webs and found glistening pork belly that looked freshly grilled. I picked it up and took a bite. It was cold, but I could still feel the unique texture of the meat.
"Goddamn it, this is clearly the author’s convenience setting."
It was obvious they’d added this cheat just because writing detailed food-gathering scenes was annoying. Come to think of it, this also had the function of keeping prey fresh. Huh. This ridiculous setting probably got a ton of hate comments. People complained about the trolling and the moving clone technique too. But from the perspective of someone who’d actually fallen into the novel, it was incredibly satisfying. I could just warm up food that had been perfectly preserved under spiderwebs.
"Ah, this is bliss."
The thought of eating proper food for the first time in ages made me smile. But first I needed to check if there were any more spiders around. Luckily, no others appeared. I’d probably killed every spider that had been here, though I couldn’t be sure about ones that were still incubating or had left the nest.
But when I shone my flashlight around, something strange caught my eye. On the shelf with detergents and household items. A massive white cocoon. Something felt off. Normal spider cocoons didn’t exceed 120 centimeters. Soldier or guard spiders could reach 150, but those were exceptions. And there weren’t any soldier or guard spiders here. So why was this one over three meters tall?
The strangeness made me keep the flashlight on it for a while. Then I saw a dark shape inside.
..........Oh. Fuck.
Why the hell was that thing here right now?
It looked like an arachne. Spider lower body with a human upper body. And I knew exactly what category this mutant belonged to. It was a mid-boss level variant as dangerous as a general. Strong enough that even the protagonist had nearly died once.
"I don’t know if it’s a king or a queen."
I needed to get out of here. Yeah, time to leave the PC bang too. Only three weeks had passed and a spider king or queen had already appeared? This place really wasn’t fit for human survival, fuck…….
The puzzle pieces clicked together in my head. This disaster was entirely my own doing. At first, a few spiders that had mutated probably sprayed webs everywhere and turned this place into their home. They gradually increased their numbers, and the explosive growth likely happened when I sent Lee Yeji home. Those zombies. I hadn’t burned them, right? But since no plants had grown there, someone must have taken all the corpses. And that someone was these spiders.
On top of that, when I helped Lee Yeji and her group escape, I gave them even more corpses. The general I was supposed to fight for dominance? I’d taken care of that myself. So from their perspective, enemies just kept disappearing. Of course they’d mutate into a high-ranking entity. This was all karma.
"..............................................."
And the cocoon was moving. I had to move, but my feet wouldn’t budge. I could guess why. It was the instinctive fear toward a mutant that had surpassed humanity. The primal terror of possibly dying for real this time also played a part.
"Fuck…. fuck…. move…. move, damn it…!"
Thankfully my feet finally came free. I started running in a panic, but then I heard the roar.
"Giii― gaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAA―!"
"HwaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAANG….!"
I knew I was screwed. And I heard it again. Because fear had frozen my feet in place. Plus I couldn’t even turn off the flashlight. There was a rustling sound mixed with clicking. Soon after, a gigantic spider appeared before my eyes.
"One piece of good news and one piece of bad news…."
Good news: The spider in front of me was a king.
Bad news: I probably wouldn’t die, but I’d wish I had.
Oh, and one more bad news. This damn body of mine was heating up again.