The Elementary Crystal (3)

A giant spider with legs and eyes is in front of me. Now it makes sense what those heroes were saying, I am not in front of a simple monster, I am in front of the terrible monster that lives in this region of the forest. Tension builds in the room, maybe she will leave me alone, since she is going to finish devouring the bodies of the other heroes anyway, so I think I'd better move very slowly so that she leaves me alone.

But as soon as I move a bone in my body, the spider makes a terrible sound and leaps towards me. I throw myself aside immediately, and the spider attaches itself to the huge web where the heroes are trapped. I must pay proper attention to its movements, or I will be a dead man. The worst of it all is that I am in her territory, where I am sure she feels very comfortable to move and attack.

Worst of all, I couldn't bring my spear, but even if I did, moving with it in a forest full of trees and webs would not be easy at all. Speaking of webs, I know that a spider's web is extremely dangerous for any spider prey, well, the spider I am facing is bigger than me, so the only thing I am sure of is that I shouldn't even go near that web.

But I am not unarmed. I brought a knife that I made in the same way I made my spear. Even so, I am sure that I should not put my knife against the web, for sure it is not sharp enough to cut this web.

The spider threatened to attack me once again. Then, it threw several lines of webbing in my direction, if I get hit I will die for sure, so I make sure to dodge them all. The webs hit the trees and then she starts walking through these webs at an incredible speed. I manage to get a little bit away from her, but she continues to throw the webs at me.

Even though the webs are fast, it's nothing that absurd. I continually manage to dodge them, and then once again it climbs the webs and comes after me as usual. This is too easy... so easy that it's obvious that there is something behind it.

I'm sure that these heroes who died have had all kinds of training, and of course they must be stronger than me, so how did they die to this spider that even a novice can dodge its attacks? This is very suspicious.

The spider always has a waiting period of between 5 -10 seconds to either attack or throw webs at me, it's as if she is thinking what to do next, which doesn't make much sense since she is a monster. After another round of her attacks, I decide to see if my deduction is correct and in her rest break, I decide to look around.


- "Ah, as I had thought."


The spider's web attacks were honestly easy to dodge, so easy that it was evident that hitting me with the web was not her main goal, in fact, her goal was for me to "dodge" the webs. We are in a forest full of trees, as I thought this environment ė perfect for her, as she can either hide waiting for her next prey, or she can use her web as she pleases.

The spider is making a trap with her webs, sticking them to all the trees around us. And not only the trees, many parts of the ground itself have webs stuck to them. Each time I stray, she traps me more and more in this "web cage" that she has made. That is why she always attacks me quickly in a certain time interval, this is planned so that I will escape to another place where she can trap me more and more.

In the end, if I hadn't noticed, I would either get caught in one of the spider's webs, or, I would become indecisive and trapped in thought unable to dodge the spider's direct attack, and that would be deadly for me.

Looking around, I am getting more and more trapped, if I don't kill this spider fast, in another 2 or 3 rounds I will be caught by it.

I have to think, and fast.

The spider attacks me again with its webs, and at first I decide to dodge once more. There are spider webs everywhere, so if I stray too far, I might end up touching a web... damn! It's got me...

I barely have time to think straight and most of all, I have to watch out for the spider's direct attack or I will die. There is no way, I have to risk it. For two rounds, while the spider spins its webs, I'll think of a plan, I'll only stop thinking when the spider attacks directly. I have no way of knowing if in these 2 rounds if I will already be caught, and I'm also not sure if I will have a plan then, but I have to try.

So, as always, I follow what the spider wants, and continue to dodge its attacks. I almost get caught in the spider's direct attack in the penultimate round, because I thought too much, I had to dodge quickly and without thinking to the side and because of that I caught my shirt in the spider's web.

As I desperately try to free myself, the spider with its fastest attack yet, leaps at full speed towards me with its final attack.

- "Hehe, I got you.

I rip my shirt and, with practically all my Nill in my knife I attack the spider directly, tearing it in half.

Victory is mine.

I am dead tired, if not for the spider's carelessness I would now be dead. Besides, I had to use Nill, on my body to tear my shirt quickly and then I had to use all my Nill practically on my knife. Sheele said that using too much Nill would be dangerous, besides, this spider is much stronger than me, I could only win because I figured out her scheme, and, because of the carelessness she gave of attacking me directly without thinking.

The spider begins to disappear and the taste of having won this duel is unequaled. The tension, the strategy, and finally the final blow, is like a manga plot.

When it completely disappears, I notice that something has been left on the ground where the spider's body was.

It is a kind of... Crystal ?

A white polygon-shaped crystal that I have never seen anywhere is with me now. Is it... an Elemental Crystal ? I have never seen one, so I couldn't be sure, but Sheele said that if I ate the Crystal I would soon know if it was an Elemental Crystal or not.

The idea of eating a Crystal is not very interesting to me, besides, I don't want to stay another minute around these webs, if I accidentally get caught in one of them, who knows how long I'll be here. Well, I don't know why, but I feel as if I should eat this crystal, it's an unusual desire, it's as if I feel its power.

After a while of looking at it, I make my decision: I'm going to eat the crystal.

I take a deep breath and chew the crystal and swallow it. The feeling of eating it is like eating glass, it feels horrible (not that I've never eaten glass before).

Er, what a strange sensation... but I don't feel anything different so I guess this crystal was a false alarm.

I better get out of here. Then carefully, I walk out the only place where there are no cobwebs.

I'm sweaty, but after today, I'd better take a shower tomorrow morning. After looking a little closer at the markings I notice that they are a little too deep, and there are remnants of web on them, so that's why I got lost, I wasn't following my markings, but the spider's. After looking around a little, I find that I'm not following my markings, but the spider's. I'm getting lost.

After some searching, I find my markings and manage to find my campfire. I climb a tree as usual and lie down to rest for a while.

Looking forward to another new day.