Do you know what a spider's natural enemy is?
Oh, and of course I'm not talking about fire.
Normal spiders in nature don't go out of their way to walk into flames, you know.
Anyway, back to the topic of a spider's natural enemy.
I'm not exactly an expert on this, but spiders have, I believe, two types of natural enemies.
I learned about it while half-watching a nature documentary while playing an MMO.
Looking back now, I should have paid closer attention to that show.
You'd never dream that you'd actually become a spider, after all.
If I'd known more about spider ecology, it might have come in handy for all sorts of things.
I'm getting sidetracked again.
The first type of natural enemy for a spider is — bees.
I transferred from My Home in the Upper Layer and arrived at a familiar vertical shaft.
Looking up, I saw the same swarm of bees as before.
So I'm back here again, huh.
Just a little while ago, the thought would've been unimaginable.
This place has a lot of traumatic memories for me.
The biggest trauma is, of course, getting my entire nest blown apart by an Earth Dragon, but there were other life-threatening situations too.
Come to think of it, this might be the first place I ever became truly aware of death.
I got stung by a bee, and that's when the countdown to my death began.
*Sting!* Yeah, that's right, just like that.
— What the, OW?!
I got stung!
Hey, you, what the hell kind of cheap shot is that while someone's busy reminiscing?!
Read the room!
I restrained the bee that had latched onto my back and was driving its poison stinger into me by wrapping it in thread, same as the old days, then flung it over my shoulder with one swing.
A dull *crunch* sound, and that alone took out about seventy percent of its HP.
For the finishing blow, I added a Slash attribute to the thread and shredded it to pieces.
Man, they really don't hold back.
To think they'd ambush someone like me, who has Detection.
Well, my HP barely dropped and I've already fully recovered thanks to auto-regeneration, so it's fine.
Back in the day, this used to nearly kill me, though.
It punched a hole through my back, and since I didn't have HP auto-recovery back then, my only option was to molt via level-up or die.
*Sting!* Again?!
Pain Reduction makes it barely hurt at this point, but that doesn't make it any less annoying!
Throwing them is too much of a hassle now, so I just cut it apart with a thread controlled through Thread Manipulation.
Ah, so two times means three, does it?
How the hell are they sneaking up behind me without triggering my Danger Perception?
Oh wait, maybe they don't register as "dangerous" to me?
They barely deal any actual damage, so whether they count as a threat is kind of borderline.
Actually, that means the current bees aren't even being recognized as enemies, huh.
Well, I suppose I only recognize them as food anyway, so it's not wrong.
*Sting!* Enough already!
Seriously, something's not right here.
Why can they get behind me so easily when they don't even have Stealth?
Even accounting for me being a bit dense, this is weird.
Come to think of it, aren't bees a natural enemy of spiders?
Maybe there's some kind of hidden affinity bonus outside the system at work?
Nah, no way.
Anyway, the damage is negligible, but they're annoying as hell.
I'll give them credit for their courage — charging at me without flinching against my Intimidation plus Terror combo. But they picked the wrong opponent.
That settles it — time to exterminate!
I bounce through the air with Spatial Movement.
I blast magic at every bee in sight and slash apart any that get close.
Whoa.
I'm so OP right now that bees, which used to require me to hole up in my home just to stand a chance, are nothing.
BWAHAHAHA!
Look at me!
The bees are nothing but garbage!
Oh?
Some kind of bee I haven't seen before showed up.
Let's have a look.
『General Finjigoat LV4 Status HP: 371/371 (Green) MP: 299/299 (Blue) SP: 366/366 (Yellow) : 301/361 (Red) Average Attack Ability: 200 (Details) Average Defense Ability: 160 (Details) Average Magic Ability: 139 (Details) Average Resistance Ability: 143 (Details) Average Speed Ability: 215 (Details) Skills 「Poison Stinger LV9」「Pierce Enhancement LV3」「Poison Enhancement LV3」「High-Speed Flight LV2」「Coordination LV6」「Command LV6」「Dark Vision LV7」「Poison Resistance LV6」
Skill Points: 900』
Oh ho.
So this is a higher evolution of the captain bees, huh.
Yeah.
Its stats are pretty low, but the Skills are well-stacked.
Among Monsters with similar stats, it'd probably be considered pretty strong.
Well, to be blunt, its stats are way too low to be a threat to me.
When I first fell into this vertical shaft, most of my stats were only in the low double digits.
If I'd run into one of these back then, even using My Home might not have been enough to survive.
But.
My strength now is incomparable to back then!
To be specific, there's roughly a hundredfold difference!
It's kind of troubling just how much stronger I've gotten in raw stats alone.
Factor in Skills and it might be more than a hundredfold.
My growth rate is insane!
Anyway, as sorry as I am to cut short the dramatic entrance they put together for me, I'll go ahead and send the General Bee packing.
Oh — and just as I thought that, more of the same type started swarming out.
Ah, so we're getting close to the main nest.
I can see what looks like it up above.
Actually, calling it an "object" isn't quite right — it's practically a building.
Three-meter-class bees' residence. Gotta hand it to them, it's huge.
Well, I've hunted plenty of bees and stockpiled enough food for now. Let's call it a day here.
It's more efficient to leave them be and let them multiply a bit rather than wiping them all out at once.
So, time to retreat and collect the carcasses that fell to the ground.
I left the swarm of General Bees that were still trying to attack behind me in the air and dropped down toward the ground.
I used Spatial Movement to land silently like a ninja.
Nailed it.
But then I sensed my Danger Perception activate.
Not bees.
Those things didn't qualify as dangerous.
I looked toward the source of the threat.
Spiders have two types of natural enemies.
One is the bee.
The other is a spider — one that hunts spiders exclusively.
And there, before my eyes, a spider Monster was revealing itself.