Despite my paranoia, the night was peaceful. The three men who introduced themselves after walking into the icebox just fell asleep right away. Their names were Aaron, Peter, which made me think of my one surviving kid from my class, and the wounded one was called Terrence. The light of our bonfire helped to see that the three were white with scruffy hair and various lengths of beard, with Terrence being the one with the shortest one and Aaron having the longest one.
But the more important aspect of this was that their village was being attacked by giant spiders. I could only assume they were the same type of spiders that I had seen previously. That strange version that also had the System. And while Michael was worried and wanted to help the people who might be being attacked by giant monsters, I could only think of something else. If killing those creatures would be enough, to get me to tier two.
I truly believed it was the case. As a matter of fact, I should be able to reach tier two after we hunted a few of them down. And right now, I couldn't help but think about that all the time. Getting the System was already something that completely transformed me. I went from someone who could barely survive on my own to someone who could kill monsters without help. Reaching tier two would make things even better, as now I could kill an actual Eater on my own. I could only imagine all the skills and abilities I would gain as I leveled up.
Which seemed to be more intricate with each level that went by. Now, I could only dream about the type of powers I would unlock once I reached tier two. Could I make a flamethrower with my hands? Maybe call lightning from the sky? Who knows? Or maybe I could start jumping over entire mountains. I wouldn't be surprised because eventually if I kept increasing my tier, I would even be able to fly through the sky.
Not wanting to let my mind go too wild, I focused on what was currently the situation with the spiders and how we could help the people in the village in addition to killing those creatures to ensure that we got some levels out of it. When morning came, Terrence was feeling somewhat better. Our medicine seemed to be working its magic, but he still couldn't walk on his own, meaning that Aaron was still helping him move around.
Astrid did offer to carry the man, but he politely refused. Which I couldn't blame him. A lot of people would be uncomfortable with a stranger carrying them around. I was one of them. But as we set out, they were able to find the markings that would lead them to the village. Although we had left the road a while back, they showed us that there was, in fact, a road here going in the middle of this forest.
It seemed like between the old world and now, the surrounding vegetation became very aggressive and consumed the entire area, leaving behind very few remnants of the concrete that made the road. According to them, once we headed further south, we would start reaching an area where the road was closer to the river and it was easier to see, but even there vegetation was very prolific in its growth.
It took us a couple of hours, mostly because Terrence couldn't really walk, until Peter pointed at a specific area that seemed to be a bit more open, where the vegetation was not as dense.
"This means we're getting close to the village," the man said.
"You guys made the village in the clearing?" I asked.
"Not really, but as time passed by, we started to cut some of the trees around us to make houses and stuff, and now it's kind of like a whole clearing," Peter explained to me with a shrug.
We continued walking and, like he mentioned, the vegetation was getting even more sparse the closer we got to where the village should be. But there was also something different about this. There was a feeling that I couldn't quite put my finger around that came from all around us. After a few more steps, the reason for that feeling came into view, at least for three of us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You are entering the Witch's Garden dungeon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Astrid, Michael and I froze when we heard that notification looking at each other. That caused the three men to pause and ask what was going on, but we couldn't exactly tell them without revealing the System, so instead I just said, "Sorry I thought I heard something." Michael said.
"My bad," Astrid added.
"Yeah, me too. We kind of got into the groove that if one of us suddenly stops everybody tries to hear if there's anything getting close," I explained with the best reason I could come up with.
Terrence nodded. "Good call. Let me know if you hear anything."
He was a bit more vocal now that his wound was somewhat better. It was far from being able to run a marathon, but at least he could walk around without feeling he was going to die at every step.
Not wanting to have this conversation now, Michael, Astrid, and I stepped closer just to be safe. We couldn't exactly hold hands right now and not seem crazy, so our conversation would have to wait.
But I really wanted to know. Was there really a witch? Would she be someone who had a System? Maybe the witch was a rat like Rex, or even worse, a giant spider.
We continued moving towards the village, now being more on edge even though the men who we were taking felt very relaxed about the entire situation. They couldn't hear or see anything that was out of place and had no reason to be worried.
And, again, we couldn't exactly explain to them that we were in a dungeon without revealing the whole System. But that wasn't something I was willing to do. Thankfully, Michael and Astrid also seemed to be accepting of my paranoia. My best guess was that since Pamela turned out to be such a mess, Michael agreed that we should be more careful with the System in general. Astrid still very much would follow what I said without protesting, which still was something that I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about, but I wasn't going to argue on it right now.
The forest grew thinner and thinner until we reached a wide open clearing with several wooden houses on the horizon, way beyond the next tree line.
"That should be the village." And we could also see various stumps all around us showing that the people here actually took the trees from the forest to build those structures. But most of them were slowly growing back again. Only the outer ring seemed to be recently cut.
We were still a good 100 meters [328.1 ft] or so away when we heard someone screaming and three people running out of a house only to be followed by a larger creature. Seeing that, the three men went pale, with Peter rushing in ahead. I glanced back at Aaron and Terrance, saying, "Stay here!" before running after Peter.
Michael and Astrid followed me right away, and I whispered to the two, "Don't be too flashy. But only if you can."
As much as I didn't want to reveal the existence of the System to a bunch of people I didn't know, our safety was the first priority. It didn't matter if we were protecting a secret if we were dead and not able to use it.
Rushing as fast as I could, which was much faster than Peter, who ran first, we quickly reached the three people who were being chased by what now I could tell was a giant spider. Although, I wasn't really sure if I should call this a spider. It had the body of one, with the face in front of it and its various legs coming out of the sides. But on the top of the abdomen was the body of another spider. The strange little bulb connecting the abdomen to the head.
There was another set of eyes on top of it but instead of a mouth, was yet another head, this one attached to a shorter neck of sorts that was looking in the same direction as the other two heads. The one in front of its body, the one on top of its 'torso', and finally, where it should be the head if this was a person. Which made this almost look like a centaur spider-spider. Or maybe spider-spider-spider.
It seemed to be an amalgamation of three of those creatures and not just two. On the second body, on the one that was standing upwards, there was another set of various spider-like legs, but six instead of eight. And from those six, they had more subdivisions. Instead of just the three that you would expect for a leg, they were longer forming six that seemed to be behaving like regular arms, even though they were far from it.
"What the fuck is that?" I asked just before the System gave me an attempt at an answer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rotbug - Tier 1 - Saturated.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It had a name, but I didn't like the fact that it was also technically on the same level as Astrid and I. Or Michael, for that matter. Without thinking twice, I jumped towards it, swinging my staff with a {Formless Swipe - Nodus} to send the creature flying back away from the people it was chasing, which were an older man, another woman, and a child.
I barely registered the three before turning back to focus on the creature. We could check if they were injured or not once the monster was dead. Doing that before was just asking to be killed. The creature spat out some web from its top mouth, trying to track me, but I was able to dodge to the side, letting the web smack on the ground. At the same time, Astrid quickly cut it, making sure that there wasn't a string connecting the creature and anything while Michael fired the first of his arrows.
A branch aimed at the clump of eyes at the eyes of its top head. His arrow struck true, bursting two of the large red eyes that were glistening against its black skin. But I wasn't entirely sure if that was going to do anything. After all, many eyes. And this creature had three heads. Which might mean that it was capable of looking through all of its eyes. Or maybe just one set was the real one and all the others were just decoys? I wasn't sure and I couldn't be sure of something like that.
Instead, I just lunged forward, swinging my staff aimed at the connection of its bodies. The last spider that I fought had a strange weakness near its neck and hopefully this would be the same case. But even swinging using my full strength at the lower head didn't make it budge. Its carapace was too strong for my weapon to cause it to break.
Astrid went for a follow-up using a skill which I assume was {Frost Chop} and cut a couple of its leg arms, the ones with more subdivisions than they should have. But her attack didn't go unpunished as the creature swiped the legs on the opposite side of its body, trying to pierce Astrid's skin. They were successful to a point, as the tiny claws were able to make some cuts on the Frosted Lumberjack. But thankfully, none of them were too deep.
Taking advantage of the opening, Michael fired two more shots made with three branches that he gathered during our travels. Each of those projectiles was imbued with the different skill that he had gained on the past few levels. {Powershot}, which just simply increased the power of an attack, and the second was called {Arrows Of The Land}. It increased the power of any projectile used as long as it was from a pure natural material. Basically, as long as he just found something and used it to fire, the skill could make it even stronger.
Not wanting to stay behind, I joined the attack, this time aiming at the head at the top of the creature. My staff slammed against it a few moments after the two arrows hit it, causing the beast to almost topple to the side. Astrid swapped the hand she was holding her axe and brought it down on the leaning creature, pushing it downwards. But even her blade was not powerful enough to cut the monster's neck in a single blow.
To help out I swung down my staff at the same spot with another {Formless Swipe}, this one an empowered version of it getting the power of the giant crab. The creature shrieked as the top head was removed from the rest of its body, but it still seemed to be moving. Michael fired another pair of arrows aiming at the mouth, the mouth that was in the lower part of its body. And I could tell that he also used {Splintering Shot} so the projectile would break when inside of the creature. That one single blow finished the job as we made sure that this monster was finally dead.
And with that, we finally had a chance to check around the village. Or so I thought. Just as the creature fell to the ground motionless, we saw some more spiders coming out of houses with people screaming and trying to run from them. The entire village was being attacked by a group of those creatures. It was clear that our job was far from over.