Beyond the Spiderweb Wall

Layla had decided to focus solely on her Strength training.

She heard that Adam was able to lift his greatsword and carry it in his hands for about 10 minutes after only one hour of training. The problem was that he had started training when his Strength Stat was already at 15. Hers was only at 13. But her Agility stat was a lot higher than his. So her high Agility and therefore strong balance should offset the difference in progression. But of course, that wasn't the real problem. The main problem was that for some reason, she gained Strength Points extremely slowly even when training her strength. On the other hand, her Agility and Dexterity Points kept on increasing. Still, she continued to struggle to lift the greatsword.

At first, she could only keep the fighting stance for about 10 seconds. But she kept at it one full hour.

After a full hour of doing nothing but lifting the greatsword and maintaining a fighting stance with it in her hands, she was able to maintain the stance for one minute.

When she thought about it, she could now hold it six times longer than an hour ago, which was impressive. But it was nothing like Adam's progression.

After all that training, she gained 2 Strength Points, 2 Dexterity Points and 1 Agility Point.

Once she got the notification for her second Strength Point gained, she decided to rest for a bit and lied on the ground.

"Status." She said.

[ Name: Layla

Sponsor: (None)

Age: 13 years old

Species & level : Human Lv4 (0/200 Experience Points)

Gold: 105

HP: 260/260

Endurance: 50/130

Stats: Strength:15(+2)

Agility: 36(+1)

Dexterity: 22(+17)

Sense: 10(+0)

Vigor & Endurance: 26(+0)

Unused stat points: 0(-21)

Skill(s): Weakness Exploitation

Title(s): The First Pioneer's Accolytes

Righteous to Evil Points: 150 to 0

]

"Alright. Goal!"

'So the Sponsor thing made it to the top of the list.' Layla chuckled.

'Do you mean it's the most important thing after my name?'

'Oh yeah there was this title....'

She started thinking about many things.

Meanwhile,

"NO! NO! Am too tired. I don't want to run anymore!" Salma was shouting while dramatically hitting the ground with her fists.

"All right, all right. You don't have too. I'll keep running alone then." Before Adam turned back, he made a very sad face.

He started running slowly.

"No fair! You know that if you make a face like that I can't leave you alone!" She ran to catch up to him.

"Fine. Let's run to Layla, then we can stop. How about that?" Adam made a face as if he had just offered a sweet deal.

"YES! Let's do it!" She really thought it was a good deal.

So they ran until they found Layla on the ground, deep in thought.

"Heeey Laylaaaa" Salma called out to her. Salma called her sister four times, only then did Layla notice them.

"Oh. Hi. Sorry I was thinking about ... stuff." Layla said.

"Did you hit your goal?" Adam asked.

"Of course I did. I wouldn't be lying on the ground otherwise."

"Is that so? Maybe that's why your progress is so slow, I used to always sleep for one hour after training for an hour or two."

"Is that so? Maybe resting is more important than I thought." She brought her hand to her chin.

"Yes, but I was starved and dehydrated. Plus I have this really cool skill that lets me recover fast when am sleeping."

[The Hero Who Survived By Sleeping For a Century is winking at you.]

"Oh, so what you just said served no purpose whatsoever?"

Adam was at a loss of words at such a cold statement.

"I'm kidding. Relax. I don't know what we would have done without you so I'll forever be grateful. Don't forget that." Layla gave him a beautiful smile.

"I'm getting bored here. I'm sick of running. Plus am thirsty. Let's hurry up and go on the other side of that wall." Salma was pouting.

"Yeah, I'm pretty thirsty too. We've been moving around nonstop and yet we haven't had a drop of water. It's probably thanks to the System. As long as we have Endurance Points and Health Points we'll be fine. But the sensation of thirst is really annoying." Layla pointed out.

"You guys think we're ready?" Adam asked.

"Yup! Yup!" Salma answered excitedly.

"It would be a nice change of pace. Plus who knows, maybe it won't be as hard as we think." Layla added.

'That's never a good thing to say out loud.' Adam thought silently.

"We stay away from the snake. We only focus on what is beyond the spiderweb wall. If we sense any sort of overwhelming danger, we're out of there. We always stay together and Salma, you listen to every word me and Layla say. Okay?"

"Okay..." Salma said while looking down at the ground, feeling like she was being grounded.

"Well then, let's slowly walk towards the wall, I need to recover some Endurance before going in there." Layla said confidently.

Adam opened the Store, bought 9 Medium Healing Potions and gave three to Salma and three to Layla.

They kindly accepted them and put them in their storage.

Layla bought three torches and handed one to both Adam and Salma.

They took the remains of the snake they had eaten earlier, cut it in three equal parts, and each one put their part inside their Storage.

They hadn't thought about using the Storage to conserve food until now.

They made there way to the spiderweb wall.

A wall they hadn't dared to cross in all the time they had been in the Dungeon.

"How long have we been in the Dungeon?" Layla asked.

[You have been inside the Spider Queen's Lair for over 17hours now.]

"It's not that bad." Salma said cheerfully.

"Well, we're only starting the Dungeon now though." Adam said with a smile.

Salma looked down at the ground. "True..."

The three of them arrived at the wall.

Salma was the first to notice.

"I can hear two spiders on the other side. They're as big as wolves."

Adam closed his eyes and concentrated.

"Yep, I can feel them too."

"I can't feel anything." Layla said.

They wanted to quickly get rid of the monsters on the other side of the wall.

Adam took his Old Assassin's Dagger into his right hand, in his left hand, he had the torch.

Layla had to discard the torch. She grabbed her Iron Mace with both hands, even though she could now use it with one hand.

Using it with two hands was easier and dealt more damage, so she did.

Salma took her Iron Dagger in her right hand, and put her left hand on it. It started to shine. She enflamed her dagger.

She then proceeded to do the same to Adam's dagger and Layla's mace before taking back her torch in her left hand.

Enflaming the mace costed twice as much Mana Points as enflaming a dagger.

Still, they now had three shining weapons.

Along the way, they talked about their formation.

Salma had the lowest Agility and Strength. Her job was to stay behind, hold the torch so that Layla and Adam can fight to the best of their ability, detect all enemies, detect threats with her Primal Instinct Skill, re-enflame weapons if needed and do her best to protect herself with her dagger.

Layla was positionned in front of Salma and towards the left. With her high Agility Stat and good level of strength, her job was to get rid of all monsters on her side.

Adam was at Layla's right. His job was to get rid of everything on his side, but also take care of anything that slips through the middle by using his left hand and his Crumbling Touch Skill.

It was a simple formation. They were only three and this was the best they could come up with.

After Salma stepped back, Adam lowered his torch towards the spiderweb wall.

The wall instantly caught fire. It crumbled right away and kept burning on the ground.

"They're running away!" Salma shouted.

The sound of the webs burning, the smoke and the smell made Adam unable to focus on the two monsters that were there.

Thankfully, Salma did her job.

As soon as Adam and Layla heard her, they started sprinting and jumped over the burning webs.

After passing through the black smoke, they saw two big spiders running away from the fire.

They ran as fast as they could, and catched up to them in no time.

The two spiders were side by side. So naturally, Layla had to take care of the one on the left, and Adam the one on the right.

Layla, now with an Agility Stat of 36, got there before Adam.

Once she was right behind her spider, she noticed that the spider's back was painted red.

It was the effect of her Weakness Exploitation Skill.

But there were parts dyed in a deeper red than others.

She easily lifted the Iron mace above her head and slammed it down on the spider's behind.

Only after Layla landed her first hit, did Adam catch up to his spider.

It was bigger than he thought.

Still, he couldn't give it much thought. Letting them escape meant alarming the rest of the spiders, if they weren't already alarmed.

He jumped over the spider, slashed its behind with his dagger, and before he landed in front of it, he punched its head from above with all his strength.

[1 Mutated Spider has been defeated. Congratulations! You have gained 15 Gold and 30 Experience Points.]

Once Adam landed on the ground, he looked in Layla's direction.

She had already dealt with her spider. Not only that, she had dealt with it in one hit.

"How did you do that?" Adam asked while wiping the blue blood off his dagger.

"I can detect weakpoints. Plus it's better to smash bugs than slash them."

Adam got a slight chill hearing that response.

Salma caught up to them.

"Salma, can I use your mace? It'd be really helpful." Adam brought his hands together as if begging.

"Sure." Salma struggled to lift the Iron Mace. Once it was in Adam's hand, she put her left hand on it and enflamed it. It emitted a bright red color.

"I can hear lots of movement in front of us. About three hundred meters forward. There are probably four or five spiders together. Judging by the sounds they're making, I think they're the same type. But I might be wrong. Let's go slowly." Salma sounded extremely serious and just like an adult at that moment.

When it came to life and death situations, no one was as serious as Salma.

"Right." The other two said.

The deeper they went, the less light there was. But that made sounds echo more, which for Salma and her Cat Senses Skill made hearing them as good as seeing them.

Once the spiders were about one hundred meters away, Adam could feel and hear them too.

That only left Layla that couldn't rely on her senses, as her Sense Stat was too low.

The torch could light everything in an eight meters radius.

Adam decided to buy a torch and threw it towards the group of spiders.

Once it fell in the middle of the group, they were all confused and started attacking the torch.

That made all of them visible.

'Thanks.' Layla thought as she sprinted forward.

She had already hit the weakest parts of two spiders before Adam could even get there.

That was the result of her agility and weapon mastery.

Her dexterity helped her not waste any time with unnecessary movements during a fight or an attack, while her Agility helped her start the fight before the other party was even aware.

Adam smashed a spider's head with his enflamed mace and used the momentum from his attack to hit the one that was charging at Layla.

The fight ended about 10 seconds after Adam threw the torch.

He lifted it from the ground.

"Guess we will be doing that again." He said.

"Thanks, it helped a lot. This is less scary than I thought it would be."

"After seeing that huge snake, I guess big spiders aren't that big a deal. Especially if we get rid of them so fast."

Salma caught up to them.

"You know, this isn't super fun for me." She said.

Her sister patted her on the head and thanked her for her help.

The way in front of them was still an unending tunnel.

They kept going and getting rid of weak Mutated Spiders for a while.

When their weapons turned back to their iron color, they decided to take a break.

Adam had killed 18 Mutated Spiders and Layla had killed 24 of them.

Layla had levelled up twice. Her Agility was at 38 and her Dexterity was at 24.

They had passed 20 minutes on the other side of the wall. Although, that wall no longer existed.

They sat down a bit to recover some Endurance.

They took bites of their food before putting it back in their respective Storage.

After sitting for only a minute, Salma quickly got up, enflamed all the weapons before shouting.

"Get up! Three spiders are coming this way. They're different than the ones from before! It's like they're looking for us! And they're much bigger!"

Adam only felt their presence thirty seconds later. They were 1.5 times bigger than the ones they fought so far. And instead of moving around aimlessly until they found their opponents, these spiders were actively looking for them.

They were more intelligent than the ones they had seen before.

Layla and Adam, the two fighters of the group understood that right away.

Once the spiders got closer, Adam did the same thing as before. He once again threw his torch towards them to cause confusion and let them be seen by Layla.

Except that this time, when the torch hit the ground in front of them, the spiders regrouped and started looking around instead of attacking the torch. They were standing far from the walls.

Obviously, Adam and Layla didn't mind that, as this was the reaction they had expected from the beginning.

The spiders were visible thanks to the torch.

Their color was as dark as the abyss.

The two on the sides had a wide yellow stripe that run through their entire body.

The one on the center had a purple stripe.

Adam and Layla immediately understood.

The ones with the yellow stripe were Paralysing Spiders while the one with the purple stripe was a Venomous Spider.

Their rank was [F+]. Layla had no idea how to compare the jumps from one rank to the other. Therefore, she thought that these would be a bit stronger than the Mutated Spiders[F] they had fought before.

Adam wasn't as confident. To him, rank [F+] meant the closest rank to that of a Hobgoblin which was [E-].

"Let's attack the ones with yellow stripe first. I'd rather get poisoned than paralyzed. Some more might be following them after all." Layla said as she breathed deeply to calm herself.

Adam nodded.

They both ran as fast as they could and tried to stick close to the wall before rushing towards the Paralysing Spiders.

Once the Paralysing Spiders noticed them, they shot a yellow glowy substance towards the incoming attackers.

Adam dodged by jumping to the right while Layla dodged by lowering herself perfectly under the ball of glowy substance. Layla had complete control of her body and her movements.

She arrived in front of the Paralysing Spider and smashed its head before jumping back several times.

'Shit! It moved its head at the final moment to avoid a fatal hit. They're smarter than I thought.'

Meanwhile, Adam had hit the Paralysing Spider with his mace with all his Strength. Even though he didn't hit the weakest point of its body, his strength made up for it.

[1 Paralysing Spider has been defeated. Congratulations! You have gained 30 Gold and 60 Experience Points.]

Just as the Paralysing Spider's body fell to the ground, the other two spiders had no choice but to concentrate on the enemy that killed an ally in one hit. It also was the closest enemy to them.

The distance between Adam and the Venomous Spider was less than a meter.

He thought about stepping back, but decided against it as soon as he saw the monster open its mouth.

Instead, he extended his arm towards it.

Just as it was about to shoot a poisonous purple substance, Adam's hand had reached its face and the spider's head was turned into dust.

[1 Venomous Spider has been defeated. Congratulations! You have gained 35 Gold and 70 Experience Points.]

He stood up and jumped back right away-

He had understood by now, that Crumbling Touch only killed if it either hit a monster's head, or made its whole body disappear.

But he didn't have time to think about how he had defeated the enemy in time.

The other Paralysing Spider was preparing to shoot its paralyzing poison to his face.

Just when Adam raised his hands to protect his face for the upcoming attack...

"You can open your eyes. You got all of their attention so it was easy for me to hit again. I got scared because I missed a weakpoint for the first time. Sorry..." Layla was looking down.

It was a pretty big blunder, he was left alone against 3 monsters of rank [F+].

"It's okay. Next time if you're going to step away like that, tell me." He was a bit mad at her.

Salma came up to them.

"No enemies in front of us. We can sit down a bit."

"Yeah. I really need it. Using that Skill uses way too much Endurance."

"Sorry..." Layla was still looking at the ground.

They all sat down to relax a bit.

"Did you level up?" Adam asked Layla.

"Yeah...twice."

"Six stat points...." Adam said."What are you going to use them for?"

"I'm not sure, I thought I'd leave them for now."

Adam looked up at the ceiling.

"I don't think we're going towards a place where saving up points is going to be possible." He said after a bit.

"Yeah...I know. Show my stats to everyone." Layla said.

[ Stats: Strength:17(+2)

Agility: 38(+2)

Dexterity: 24(+2)

Sense: 12(+2)

Vigor & Endurance: 28(+2)

Unused stat points: 6(+6)

]

Salma looked at the screen and said "The choice is very hard!"

"You think so too?" Layla was relieved that she wasn't the only one who thought so.

"It really is a tough choice. Agility gave you a new stat at 30 so getting it to 40 probably won't give anything. Dexterity gave you a Skill at 20 so getting it to 30 won't do much. On the other hand, there's Strength and Sense, but then you'd be going in the other direction than the one you were going before." Adam rubbed his chin.

"Exactly. But I guess I could get Strength to 20 and Agility to 40 and hope for the best."

"Yes! Yes! I'm praying for good luck." Salma said.

The other two exchanged a knowing look. They were hoping that Salma wouldn't end up as a gambling addict.

"Do it, I guess. Getting Sense to 18 honestly won't help much against these types of monsters anyways." Adam added.

"Alright. 2 stat points in Agility, 3 stat points in Strength and 1 stat point in dexterity."

[ 2 unused stat points have been allocated to the Agility stat.]

[ Agility 38---->40.]

[ Your Agility Stat has reached 40.]

[ You have been awarded a Skill due to your high Agility Stat.]

[ A Skill is being chosen by the System.]

[ Individuality of the user has been taken into consideration.]

[ You have been awarded the Skill "Acceleration".]

"Information?"

[ Active Skill: Acceleration [C]

When used, the speed of all movements is multiplied by 1.5.

The Skill lasts ten seconds and it can be used every five minutes.

Uses up half of the user's Max Endurance Points. ]

"For real...?" Layla muttered. "That's good... Way too good."