“Nothing,” Vice mouthed back and took Anne’s warm hands off his horns.

The arcana in the surroundings had become even thicker than Vice expected after the trapdoor had been opened, and the room was completely bathed in a blue light. As he peered in through the opening in the ground, he couldn’t see anything apart from the blinding blue light. Vice had to quickly cover his eyes because they were becoming irritated.

CRASH!

The large oak door was smashed into smithereens. Vice briefly held his hand at his shoulders as a thick splinter had lodged itself into his body. However, he quickly removed the splinter. A massive beast with the lower body of a spider and an upper body of a woman burst in through the door. The spider was missing one leg, and thick black blood still spurted out of a hole which was missing a limb as the monster sprinted toward Vice and Anne.

‘You ran into a Jorogumo? They exist here too?’ Favian said in a shrill tone.

Vice ignored the voice of his teacher and instead let his mana reach his hands and cast Chaotic Roulette. A spectral bow materialized in his hands, and purple lightning crackled from within the bow.

“FUCK!” Vice screamed when he saw the weapon in his hands. ‘Fucking flames for a bow? What kind of bul-’ He was forced to dodge sideways from the attacking Jorogumo. Pain flared up from his side, and he grunted loudly as his body was flung against the nearest wall. Purple blood escaped the side of his body, and Vice struggled to get back up onto his feet. Just as the Jorogumo was about to smash another one of its sharp legs into Vice, a yellow bolt of energy slammed it away.

Vice swiftly pulled the string of his spectral bow back. Instead of letting the arrow fly away, Vice continued to imbue it with more mana. The moment the creature got back onto its hairy legs, Vice released the arrow. A small bolt of lightning escaped the bow, and as it traveled it increased in size until it was as big as the Jorogumo. The arrow crackled with energy as it smashed into the beast.

A visceral scream was released from the human head of the beast as it was flung many meters away. Its upper body and lower body were separated, and a trail of black blood was left in its wake.

Vice panted wildly as he held onto his side. “We ne-” Vice fell to his knees with a loud thud. The bow he’d materialized disappeared from his hands and arcana was released back into the atmosphere.

“Vice, are you okay?” Anne asked as she ran up to him. “Shit,” she said as she got closer to Vice. The girl quickly forced a red substance into Vice’s mouth, and then pressed her hands, which were shimmering in a yellow light, onto his bleeding side.

“T- Thanks,” Vice grimaced as the healing potion he’d ingested began to circulate a warmth in his insides.

“No stay down, you’ve lost a lot of blood,” Anne said when he tried to get back onto his feet.

Vice stared around the room with a vigilance as his companion healed his wound. His eyes darted to different locations constantly. After about five minutes the wound was completely gone, and there was no scarring either to indicate that he’d ever been stabbed there.

“Thanks, you’re a lifesaver… Literally,” Vice said solemnly as he clasped his hands together.

“Of course I’d save you. Dumbass,” Anne replied and wiped some thick black blood away from his horns. “What do we do now?”

“Well we have two choices, right?” he said. “Either go through the door and fight lord knows how many more of those beasts. Or, we take a gamble with whatever is below that trapdoor.” He took in a long breath before continuing, “Honestly, either one seems like a shitty choice, it’s too convenient for such a beacon of hope to be under a pile of bones,” Vice said before once again catching his breath.

“We need to decide quickly, who knows what monster is gonna come running through that door at any moment. I’ll go with whatever you feel is the right thing, Vice. I trust you,” Anne said as she stared into his eyes with a serious expression.

“Fuck, we jump into it now!” Vice screamed as the decision was taken out of his hands. The ground began to shake furiously as three Jorogumos came sprinting into the room. Vice sprung onto his feet and jumped into the trapdoor as he covered Anne with his whole body, his back toward the Jorogumos. He closed his eyes tightly as the blue light encompassed his vision.

That stomach aching feeling of falling resonated within Vice’s every cell for almost a full minute. He didn’t know when, but he finally felt his body was on the ground, and quickly he opened his eyes. Vice vision was filled with dozens of white specks for a moment. He rubbed his eyes in an attempt to cure his disorientation.

“Ahh my head,” Anne moaned as she scratched her head. Her black hair was covered in a gray residue.

Vice struggled to get to his feet, after which he helped Anne up. “We’re back in the Gwabu Area,” Vice said as he looked around.

‘I have one tip for you, Vice. DON’T just randomly touch a rune or anything filled with arcana. I would’ve stopped you but some lessons are better learned the hard way,’ Favian said.

‘WHAT? You knew? That’s just not cool, I thought you need me to stay alive for as long as possible and become powerful, no?’ Vice raged. Favian went quiet.

The moonlight, which shone down onto the ground, left Vice sighing in relief because he was finally in his natural element. A calm breeze was lurking in the deathly silent area around him.

[DING! Widow maker is making its way toward the host. It is suggested that the host takes caution right now as a confrontation is imminent.]

“Paul, we need help in the Gwabu area right now. There are multiple Jorogumo loose in the area, bring as much backup as possible,” Vice shouted into the golden card he had picked out of his spatial pouch. “It’s coming any moment, Anne. Cast a barrier around me, I’ll buy us time.” He realized that he’d been massively underestimating the strength of his opponents. A single Jorogumo was already a difficult task, but now that he knew there were multiple of them, and that most likely the widow maker was the leader of the bunch, he needed to act with care. ‘If this girl wasn’t here I’d probably have suffered some even more terrible injuries by now,’ he thought.

‘You would be dead,’ Favian said.

Anne went to work on the barrier. She moved her hands into different shapes until a translucent energy sprung forth from them. She aimed that energy at Vice, after which he was covered from head to toe in the shimmering barrier. “I can only hold this for a maximum of three minutes, Vice,” she shouted as sweat trickled down her forehead.

“It’s almost here. Three minutes should be enough time. I hope,” Vice mumbled as he once again cast his Chaotic Roulette. A purple lance and shield materialized in both of his hands, much to his joy. He grinned widely as he watched the purple energy cascading from his weapons.

Dust flew into the air as a loud rumbling sound echoed through the atmosphere. Vice stared at the widow maker sprinting toward him from only a couple dozen meters away. The white wedding dress it had worn when he’d previously spotted it was nowhere to be found, and he could finally see what the dress had hidden beneath it. Eight hairy black spider legs rushed across the ground, leaving small craters in their wake.

“SCREE!” the monster shouted as it got closer to Vice. It raised one of its legs and thrust it toward Vice. The sharp knife-like ends completely missed Vice, who rolled to the side. Concrete and dust hurtled into the air where Vice had just been stood.

Vice slammed his lance into the stomach of the beast, and black blood gushed out of the wound. However, after only a couple of seconds, the wound completely healed up. ‘Shit,’ Vice thought as he held his shield up to block two of the spider’s leg attacks.

Vice continued to dodge and weave away from the arachnid’s attacks and would pierce it with his lance every now and then. However, none of his attacks held weight as it recovered from the injuries too quickly.

“V-Vice, I’m almost at my limit, I can’t hold onto the barrier for much longer,” Anne shouted. The barrier surrounding Vice was slowly losing power, which Vice was able to tell by how the attacks he blocked with the shield were slowly turning his arm numb.

Black saliva dripped from the lips of the Jorogumo as it attacked Vice with all of its legs. The barrier was unable to stand the pressure as the mana fueling it dried out. As a result, Anne was flung back a dozen meters.