I couldn’t help but let out an exhausted sigh as Bark pulled out two sleeping bags from his pack. The adrenaline rush that had kept me going was now long gone. Sleeping sounds really nice right now. I crawled over and into a sleeping bag. I could practically feel my body sinking into it.

  Killa’s voice was a distant echo as she spoke. “Get some rest, Rina. I’ll keep watch.”

  I mumbled a barely coherent response; the words melting into a yawn. “Sounds good... watch... go anywhere...” My eyes fluttered closed as I sank into a sea of dreamless sleep.

  When I woke up, my surroundings were drastically different. The air felt cleaner, the room brighter. My body felt rejuvenated, as if yesterday’s events had never happened at all. If it was yesterday. Not seeing the sun is messing with my concept of time.

  We can provide the host with a clock for reference.

  No. I don’t think that’s a good thing right now. Dealing with things as they are is enough. It’s not like knowing the time changes anything.

  I sat up, rubbing my eyes as I took in the room. The spider webs that had previously coated every surface were gone. My mouth fell open at the sight of the clean walls and floor. There were even a couple of small chandelier-like bulbs hanging from the ceiling, each with a glowing white tentacle wrapped around them.

  There were various shelves with pieces of manikins that looked a lot like Glimmer. “What room is this?” I asked absentmindedly.

  “By what I can guess, it looks like a room they painted golems with.” Killa’s voice sounded behind me at the doorway. “Good morning, Rina. Sleep well?” She grinned as she skipped towards me.

  “I’m glad the two of you have enough energy to talk so early.” Bark’s voice sounded even more rough. It sounded like he didn’t want to be awake yet. “Killa, I understand. She doesn’t suffer physical fatigue, but you, Rina—”he pointed at me while sitting up“—don’t make any sense. You were more tired than I was. Yet now you’re acting like yesterday never happened.”

  I stood up and didn’t feel the slightest bit of stiffness or pain. “You’re right. I feel fantastic.” My body felt so light and energetic. My energy bar was still more than a third full on the second bar. For some reason, I couldn’t help myself and bounced on the balls of my feet. A gentle laugh escaped my lips. “This is something else.”

  We prompt the recovery of the host’s entire body. The host’s regeneration improves all recovery aspects.

  “Yeah, yeah. Rub it in, why don’t you.” Bark rubbed his temples with his fingers. “I’m going to get those nanites.”

  I stopped and stared at the shaylip. He’s been different ever since he learned about my different system and my nanites. Maybe if I can help him get nanites to work for him, he’ll be back to his nice self again.

  “Look, Bark, I’ll help in any way I can.” I walked over and held out a hand.

  He waved my hand away as he stood up. “Sure, whatever.”

  I backed away from him and stood next to Killa, who watched Bark with a deep frown. She wrapped her arm around my shoulder and shook her head before she put a finger to her lips.

  “What do you say to a quick meal before we start clearing the second floor?” Killa asked as she headed to the pile of three packs.

  Bark mumbled something but then turned around. “Yeah, let’s get moving quickly. You have your gun, right, Rina?”

  I nodded as Killa handed Bark a sealed bowl then me one of her fingers. My shoulders slumped as I stared at it. “Killa, please don’t. I have plenty of energy. What you gave me last night was more than enough.”

  The host should eat it.

  Orange, stop.

  Killa looked at the finger she held and shrugged. “Okay. But I’ll be honest with you, seeing you eat that much of my arm is both really cool and a bit frightening.” She fidgeted as she seemed to not be able to look me in the eye. “The stronger you get, will your appetite grow too?”

  Yes. The higher the host’s quickness attribute will also increase the necessary calories.

  Is she afraid that she’ll not be enough to feed me? “Yes. Why? Are you worried that I might need to eat more than what you can spare?” I grabbed her hands. “Don’t worry, it’s still weird for me to eat a piece of you.”

  Killa relaxed. “Well, I don’t really know how to say this, but something about you makes me want to take care of you. I’ve cared about my spawn less than you.”

  My eyebrow crept up. “Your spawn? Like kids?”

  “If you call me splitting myself on a cellular level and witnessing the resulting mass of slime sometimes gain consciousness as giving birth, then sure.” Her deadpan expression sent a shiver down my spine.

  Slimes reproduce via mitosis.

  I don’t think I ever needed to know that. And she cares about me more than her own self-replicated sentience. I don’t know if she’s crazy or if I’m just that special. Probably crazy. “Can you do that at any time? Are there going to be more of you?”

  Also, there is something I really need to know now. “And what’s with all the tentacles that you summon?”

  “Why? Do you have a tentacle fetish?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you want one?”

  I backed away from her slowly. I made sure she didn’t summon any tentacles and put them where they didn’t belong. “Nope. I’m good.”

  Killa started laughing. She kept laughing as she folded over and clutched her stomach. Then she started rolling on the floor, still laughing. I turned and saw Bark, taken aback by her display.

  She stopped and let out a satisfied sigh. “Oh, kiddo. Thanks for the laugh.”

  She stood up and smiled at me. “But you won’t have to worry about me splitting myself. The system doesn’t let me do that anymore. Which is fine, since some of them turned out terrible. I don’t want another Joy.”

  “Is that the one that…” Bark began.

  “Yes,” she sneered.

  I flinched. “If you split yourself, wouldn’t the other one be like you? Shouldn’t they be nice like you?”

  She snorted. “Not even remotely. If they develop a personality, it’s completely random. Most of them gain consciousness, but they exist only to eat, grow, and multiply. It’s hard to love something that will attempt to reabsorb you back.”

  I sucked on my lip. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

  She waved her hand. “No worries, kiddo. It’s good that you think I’m nice, but know that I wasn’t always like this. There are things in my past I’d rather not relive.”

  That’s fair. I should probably not ask her unless she’s ready. Whoever that ‘Joy’ was must’ve really done something bad. Even I know better to ask about it right now.

  “Anyway. My magic always looks like a tentacle because a kraken taught me how to use magic.” She started giggling again as I felt my face contouring in confusion. “Don’t think too hard about it. Visualization is key to magic. And since I want my magic to be as powerful as possible, my mentor and her tentacles make visualizing strong magic much easier.”

  “That… makes sense,” Bark said as he held a small piece of meat inches from his mouth.

  Killa clapped her hands. “Well, enough about me. That was some hundred years ago on a world I’ll likely never see again.” She marched up to Bark. “Hurry up and eat. Once you’re done, we’ll get going.” She waved me over as she headed to the sleeping bags. “Come on kiddo, help me pack everything up while he eats. You’re not eating and I’ve already eaten all the spiders and collected their cores.”

  I pointed to Killa. “That reminds me. What is the point of the monster cores that you’re collecting?”

  Killa held one up. “They are a good supplementary form of income. Crafters use them to make magical items like your gun there.”

  Bark turned his head away from his food to glance at us. “Other people who are climbing the Nexus won’t have them, just the monster that it makes for us to kill will have them. The stronger monsters have stronger cores. So all those smaller spiders will have weaker cores and thus won’t be worth as much shards.”

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  I scratched my chin. “Can we make items with them?”

  Killa shook her head. “Not unless you know how to enchant. Since you haven’t used any mana, I’d assume you aren’t a caster.” I lowered my head. “Thought so. Don’t worry, we’ll try to get you something for armor when we get back if we have enough. These cores will be roughly strong enough for self-repairing clothes.”

  My clothes were slightly damaged, from the fangs from the spiders, but nothing catastrophic. “Yeah, anything so that things don’t hurt me sounds good.”

  Killa placed the core back in her bag and placed her hand on my shoulder. “But before any of that, we’ve got to find Gary.”

  I helped her roll up the sleeping bags. They rolled up tighter than I would have expected. But then again, they fit in our packs with other stuff. While I waited, I scrounged up any pieces of rock I could find and filled my gun and pocket with stones. Bark finished his food and Killa ate the bowl as we headed down the dark stairway.

  The steps were wide, with flat slopes on the edges. Killa still walked with a white tentacle wrapped around her arm. And, of course, I had to lead the way while Bark brought up the rear. Eventually, the stairs ended in a massive set of stone double doors.

  I pointed at the doors. “Uh, there’s no way I can move those.”

  Bark walked to the right side of the doors. “You don’t have to. There’s a lever around here somewhere.” He swept his hands over the stones until some of his fingers slipped into a groove. “Ah, here it is.”

  I heard a click, and the doors pulled apart with a loud grinding sound. I looked down and saw that the doors were on some kind of track. The room that lay beyond the doors was more massive than an amphitheater I stayed in before it was scheduled for demolition. It wasn’t my best month.

  The walls and ceiling were still the same black stone throughout the first floor, but there were a dozen colossal metal buckets. Beneath and surrounding each bucket were also metal tracks, like an assembly line. The air felt colder and smelled even worse than on the first floor. A complicated network of spider webs draped over all the buckets, the ceiling, walls, and tracks. I even saw several spheres of webbing cradled by even more webs as they hung from the ceiling.

  I went to take a step forward, but Bark put his hand on my chest, stopping me. He held up a finger. “The majority of the second floor is one giant room. It’s some kind of golem factory, based on what we’ve been able to figure out in the past.” He turned to me. “Spiders don’t really have a sense of hearing. But if you so much as brush the webs, you’ll call all of them down on us.”

  “And have a repeat of yesterday?” I don’t like the sound of that. “I’ll be careful.”

  Killa patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry, kiddo.” She’s back to using that nickname again. It was nice when she wasn’t. “There shouldn’t be nearly that many spiders. It’s just that they are going to be larger than the ones you saw upstairs. And I’m talking about the bigger ones.”

  Bark drew his swords. “The spiders just keep getting bigger the further you go down. Thankfully, there are only three floors.”

  I looked out into the factory floor and saw very little room to walk without stepping on a web. “So, what’s the plan? Burn the webs? Oh, wait, no fire.”

  Killa nodded. “Right. You two still need to breathe. Actually, our plan is to walk through and kill them with ranged attacks.” She waved to Bark. “Since he’s the only one without a ranged weapon, it’s up to you and me to kill them. Just make sure you aim for the head with your gun. Hopefully, it’s powerful enough to crack through their exoskeleton.”

  “Doesn’t killing one of them alert the others when its body tumbles to the ground?” I asked.

  “No. Why? That’s the question.” Bark waved his arm towards the small path. “It’s one we don’t have an answer for. We’re not exactly arachnid specialists. Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”

  This place is going to give me arachnophobia, isn’t it? My hands shook as I took the first step in, carefully stepping over a silvery string across the entrance. “Careful, there’s a web right there.” I pointed at it. “It’s like a tripwire.”

  Killa and Bark looked down. “Uh, we don’t see anything,” Killa said.

  I chuckled. “My eyes are that good now? Huh.” I looked out and didn’t see any spiders. I wonder how far I can see in the dark. “Hey, Killa. Can you dim your light until I say stop, please?”

  My companions shared a shrug before the tentacle wrapped around Killa’s arm slowly dimmed. Surprisingly, I didn’t have trouble seeing. I could see the far walls without any trouble. Even when Killa’s light was as thin as it could get before disappearing, my vision was perfect. When she let the light go out, then everything went dark for me.

  Okay, so long as there is some form of light, I can see. This darkness is quite unsettling. “Can you turn the light back on, please?”

  Everything lit up as Killa summoned another tentacle around her arm. “What was that about? Why did you have me put out my light? It’s disturbingly dark down here. There’s no light anywhere.”

  I held up my hands and shrugged. “I wanted to see how well I could see in the dark. Which is pretty much perfect, by the way.”

  Bark groaned something incoherent. “So quit your gloating and get to killing already.” He pointed his sword further into the room.

  I flinched. “Sorry.”

  Bark kept pointing, not showing any sign of accepting my apology. I’m still new to this. Take it easy on me. What’s his problem? It felt like no matter what I would have said at that moment, he wouldn’t have heard me. So I hung my head and walked further in.

  I made sure to point out any other tricky webs that they might miss as we walked. There were a few times I had to jump to the next place, and I could barely believe how easy it was for me to keep my balance. But then, when I walked around one of the metal cauldrons, a spider slowly stalked around it.

  The thing was probably ten feet wide. Its coloring was similar to the spiders upstairs, but its legs were wider. I focused on them, and my vision seemed to zoom in, and I could see an edge to their legs. Are their legs giant blades? That’s terrifying!

  Sword spiders are arachnids. All eight legs of a sword spider end in thick chitinous plates with serrated ridges. Although their eyesight is poor, sword spiders locate their prey using tremorsense through their webs feeling for minute vibrations in them.

  I raised my gun and took a quick glance towards Killa, who followed me. She gave me a quick nod. I took my time to wait for the spider to stop moving, aimed for its head, and fired. The bullet pierced its head in a small explosion of green blood. It tumbled down the side of the cauldron and thrashed around on the webs for a moment before curling up and dying.

  The moment it started falling, my heart rate exploded on my HUD, and I held my breath until it stopped twitching. I received five stat points and three hundred and ten shards. And just like Bark said, no other spiders showed up. My heart kept pounding in my chest as I let out a long breath I didn’t know I was holding.

  So our hunt through the factory floor continued. We snaked our way through, killing every spider along the way. Killa didn’t collect the cores because she didn’t want to risk disturbing the web and calling the other spiders. There was plenty of open space, so I could see the spiders long before they were a danger to us. There were a dozen spiders, and Killa let me kill all of them. Each spider added the same five stats and three hundred and ten shards. It all felt almost too easy.

  We made it to the other side, where another set of double doors greeted us. Killa circled back through the area and collected the spiders’ monster cores once they were all dead.

  Bark put his pack down. “Put your packs down here while we wait for Killa.”

  I placed mine next to his. His eyes were shifting around more than usual. “What’s up?”

  He frowned as he eyed the doors. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this. This dungeon has been acting differently than the last couple of times we were here. There have been more spiders, and these were even larger than they should have been.”

  “Are you saying the Nexus is trying to kill us?”

  Bark smirked. “The Nexus is always trying to kill us. But yeah, this feels different. At this point, I’m expecting something strange beyond this door.”

  “Wait, hold up.” I held up my hands. “Why are you talking like the Nexus is intelligent and controlling everything?”

  Killa placed her pack next to Barks when she rejoined us. “Because it is, and it does.”

  I blinked as my mouth fell open.

  Correct. We can’t provide more information than that.

  Why can’t you tell me, Orange?

  Because we do not have more information to provide.

  Bark put his hands on the handles. “So, you better be ready for anything.”

  He swung the doors open, and a room of the same size as the one we were just in sprawled out before us. There was one major difference. There were no cauldrons, no assembly lines, nothing. Nothing except for the webs all over the ceiling and walls.

  “That’s unnerving,” I said. “It’s empty. Why is it empty?”

  Bark scowled. “I don’t know, and I don’t like it. But we need to reach Gary. And that requires us going through.”

  He marched through the doors. Killa shook her head and followed him without saying a word. If you know it’s a trap, why are you going in? The words rang through my head as I followed them against my better judgment. I took a quick peek at my status, unsure of where to put my stats at the moment.

  I looked around and didn’t see anything. But when I turned around to look above the door we walked through, something didn’t seem right. There were more webs above, and it looked like something was underneath all of them. I stared at them until I saw something moving underneath. Two massive spider legs moved and stretched out from under the blanket of webs as they closed the doors behind us.

  The webs flattened as the world’s largest spider crawled out from under them. I stumbled backwards and bumped into Bark and Killa. My mouth wanted to say words, but my mind couldn’t find any. Some random babel of nonsense flowed out of my mouth as I couldn’t take my eyes off the spider that blocked our escape.

  I couldn’t begin to guess how wide it was, but each of its eyes was as round as I was tall.

  It’s twenty-five feet tall.

  “Fooooood,” the spider hissed.

  What was left of my sensibility shattered at the concept of a giant talking spider that trapped us in a room with it.

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