WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Irevi

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Chapter 55: Hidden Boss

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The Twilight Spider nest twisted and branched off in every direction, making it the perfect place to get lost.

"I told you not to rush ahead! If you don't mark the path properly, you're bound to get lost!"

As a precaution, Rizmel used some special tool to leave marks along every path we'd taken.

"That won't happen, so just keep up."

Still, I left Rizmel behind and strode onward. Of course I did. There was a map of the nest in an Open Community guide.

Unlike the Lizardman ruins, which had been packed with traps, the Twilight Spider nest matched the terrain described in the guide exactly.

I already knew where the wide area that probably held the boss was. All I had to do was move forward while killing the occasional spider that popped up.

"This is why I hate brats. At least don't get too far ahead. It'll be hard to find you if we get separated!"

Rizmel said that, but kept following me just fine.

After walking for a while, we soon came across an area with a completely different atmosphere from the one in the guide.

Aside from the webs everywhere, the inside of the Twilight Spider nest had looked like an ordinary stalactite cave until now.

This place, though, had unidentified glowing minerals embedded all over the walls like barnacles.

"What's this?"

I tapped one of the glowing minerals with my hand. It felt far harder than ordinary rock.

It looked like one of those glowing crystals you always saw in fantasy stories.

Maybe it was a rare material used for Mage equipment.

"This is... Light Mithril?"

Rizmel seemed to know what the crystals were. Startled, I immediately asked,

"This is mithril?"

Mithril was one of the rarest and most powerful materials in the Tower of Trials, along with adamantite and orichalcum.

Even among the items I owned, the only thing made of mithril was a wand I'd gotten from opening a large box on Floor 1.

If all of this was mithril, this wasn't just good luck. Something was seriously wrong.

"Not mithril, Light Mithril. The names are similar, but they're completely different things. Humans don't know that?"

"Uh, what's the difference?"

"It's a rare crystal. They call it that because its color and hardness remind people of mithril."

Rizmel said it was like the relationship between gold and pyrite, but how the hell was I supposed to know what that meant?

I decided it was just a vaguely similar but much lower-grade mineral and left it at that.

"It's not as rare as real mithril, but it still doesn't belong in a spider nest."

I agreed with that. Mithril was an absurd metal, and something compared to it was scattered all over a place like this.

Besides, the Open Community guides had never mentioned anything like this.

There was clearly a considerable amount of it. Even second-generation Challengers should've found it at least once and put it to use.

That meant the information had probably been lost for some reason connected to the boss room ahead.

"Let's keep going for now."

I put the Light Mithril out of my mind and moved forward again.

The farther in we went, the more Light Mithril there was.

At the same time, its glow grew dimmer and dimmer.

The crystals embedded in the walls no longer had their distinctive pointed shape either. They were all shattered or crushed into deformed lumps.

Shattered, sure. But what the hell would you have to do to crush it like that?

As I advanced with that minor question in mind, we finally reached the boss room.

-Crunch, crunch.

A giant spider answered that question at once.

* * *

A sound like stone being ground down echoed from the deep darkness.

Thanks to the [Darkvision] skill I'd gotten after clearing Floor 6, it wasn't hard to make out its shape even with only a little light.

A giant spider, overwhelmingly larger than any other Twilight Spider, was chewing on crystals.

"Well, now I've seen everything."

"Shh, be quiet!"

When I let out a dumbfounded noise, Rizmel covered my mouth with a hand.

Shadows slowly crawled up around us. It looked like Rizmel had used some kind of stealth magic, but from where I stood, it was already too late.

The prickling warning from my [Intuition] skill pointed toward that spider. It probably meant we'd already been caught in its sight.

Even if it hadn't noticed us, quietly hiding wasn't an option in my book.

-Crunch, crunch.

A strangely crushed lump fell from the spider's rear as it gnawed at a crystal with its grotesque teeth.

That spider was eating glowing crystals, then shitting out crystals that had lost their light.

I could roughly guess why just by looking at it.

The thing wasn't simply huge. Its entire body was made of glowing crystal.

Either it consumed crystals, Light Mithril, and took on their traits, or it needed to eat crystals because of those traits.

Either way, that bastard definitely had insane Durability and attack power.

Naturally, the reward for killing it would be huge too.

-Clank.

"Hey, stay still...!"

As I readied my shield and prepared to step forward, Rizmel freaked out and tried to stop me.

"We've already been spotted. We have to fight."

I ignored Rizmel, took up my stance, and pulled steel balls from my inventory.

The spider seemed to want to finish what it was eating before dealing with us, but I had no intention of sitting around and giving up the first move.

I gripped two steel balls at once and hurled them with all my strength at the spider's eyes.

-Boom!

The steel balls struck the Crystal Spider's head with an explosive crack, and a system message appeared.

[A subspecies of the Twilight Spider, an artificial life-form created by someone, a monster born from a rotten branch of the World Tree.]

[There were many theories about its identity, but one thing was certain.]

[It was the most dangerous spider under the sky.]

[HIDDEN BOSS - Crystal Spider Aranacia]

The house-sized Crystal Spider raised its heavy body to kill us.

* * *

The whole nest shook just because it unfolded its curled-up body.

Baby spiders hiding everywhere quickly scurried away. Were the ones swarming around the entrance also driven out by this thing?

The Hidden Boss title, which I'd never seen before, bothered me a little, but there was only ever one thing I had to do.

Keep moving forward without backing down.

"Then..."

I glanced at Rizmel, who was in hiding. Rizmel glared at me with a tense expression.

"I'll hold it off, so you run and call for help."

I hadn't expected Rizmel to say something like that. So Rizmel only acted prickly on the outside and actually liked humans deep down.

Too bad that wasn't happening. What did I come all the way in here for?

There wasn't even a speck of me that wanted to run away after finally meeting a boss. If it were the other way around, maybe.

"No."

"Hey!"

Rizmel shouted in anger at my short answer. Keeping my attention on the Crystal Spider's movements, I said,

"I told you I came here to do this. Whether you call for help or fight with me is up to you. I'm not running away."

Rizmel looked like she was about to say something, but I ignored it and charged straight at the spider.

-Whoosh!

The spider raised one of its front legs, slicing through the air. Each leg looked unbelievably heavy.

If one of those things stomped on me, there wouldn't be anything left. Still, it was probably no different from the other Twilight Spiders at its core.

-Thud!

I dodged the Crystal Spider's front-leg attack and leaped toward its head. Yeah, it wasn't that different.

The timing of its leg attacks and where it stomped down were exactly like those of an enlarged Twilight Spider.

The moment I thought that, the spider's mouth split open grotesquely, as if it wanted to show me the difference.

Countless crystal fragments fired out from inside its mouth.

What the hell was that, Adamant Barrage?

I quickly raised my shield and protected the parts it didn't cover with the [Iron Wall] skill.

-Crackcrackcrack!

"Ah, fuck."

A few fragments lodged in my shield and thigh. They hadn't gone deep, but failing to deflect them was still a failure.

That attack power was stronger than I'd expected.

Still, I'd landed on the spider's head. Because of its body structure, getting on its back meant I was safe for the moment.

I pulled the crystal fragment from my thigh, then swung my sword before drinking a potion.

-Clang!

Just as expected, it was tough as hell. Still, that strike left a fairly large crack.

Well, it wasn't impossible to kill.

I should keep attacking one spot, widen the crack, then drive my sword deep inside and trigger a critical hit.

-Swish!

Then a shadow suddenly surged up from beneath my feet, and Rizmel popped out beside me.

"Seriously, why do you only pick the most dangerous things to do? You don't have long to live as it is, so are you trying to die even sooner?"

Rizmel used some weird movement skill to instantly get next to me and immediately started nagging.

But I didn't have time to listen. My [Intuition] skill suddenly gave a sharp warning beneath my feet.

-Screeeech!

The Crystal Spider's head, which we were standing on, bent at a right angle. Its grotesque teeth turned toward me.

I thought it was going to fire fragments again, but Rizmel suddenly went pale and shoved me away as light burst out.

-Boooom!

"What the fuck?!"

Why the hell was a spider firing laser beams?

Footnotes:

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