Chapter 54: Chapter 51: Effective Use of One’s Resources Part 2

I looked away while whistling merrily. Collateral damage, nothing but collateral damage.

「You know, the strong will eat, the weak are meat and all that, right?」

「When you put it like that it is hard not to agree, but……」

Somehow, I can feel an incredible heaviness in my chest. I look into my inventory…… Geh! Over-encumbered! Looking at Emul’s inventory he was over-encumbered as well! It only goes to show just how many items we managed to gather from the hive. We also managed to earn some hefty amount of EXP, but it was sadly still not enough to Level Up. Before challenging the area boss, I would like to raise my level some more.

「Speaking of which, are you absolutely sure that there is a boss in this area?」

「Yes, that’s right. They are called Crown Spiders and they have a nasty habit of coming down on their threads and ambushing you when you least expect them to.」

Hmm…… So they must be very mobile and possess various skills and special attacks that allow them to fully utilize their unique characteristics. I’ve had experience with monsters like that, so it shouldn’t be too hard of a battle.

But then, suddenly we heard some really weird sound, like clicking or something like that…… What the fuck was that!?

For now we were okay, but right now we were sitting atop of a tree, looking down towards the ground.

「There were no other players here besides us…… Small wonder we were able to hear them all the way from there.」

「Fighter, Fighter and Fighter…… This party has some major issues with balance, let me tell you.」

「Shouldn’t they at least have a medic in their party?」

It was a rule well known to every single player out there, especially in games where you could still move to some extent after being put into “dying” status: medics were an indispensable part of every party out there. Their ability to heal and revive was simply too good to pass up.

And although a party like that had its advantages, mainly because of their sheer firepower and balls-to-the-wall kind of strategy, at least one magic caster couldn’t hurt to balance things out. It is something you learn the hard way while playing sh*tty games.

Anyways, we were hiding because we wanted to observe these guys attempting to fight the boss. There were all Fighters, but their equipment looked rather high-level and so were they, so their ability to deal damage must have been quite good when compared to someone like me.

「…… I’m starting to feel envious of people who can wear normal clothes like that.」

「You know, Sanraku-san, that’s not something that you should feel envious of……」

It’s a normal thing, I know…… Normal thing, hehe. Shame that a newbie like me couldn’t actually make any use of that option right now.

There was this gigantic tree in the distance, and the party of Fighters entered it with caution. We jumped off the tree we were hiding in and followed them, munching on medicinal herbs to mitigate the damage we received during our fall.

And while we can’t enter the boss arena while the other party is challenging the boss, we could look inside and see everything that was happening in there. And while my excuse for that was that I wanted to gather some information, I really wanted to see just how other people are fighting in this game. I looked inside the boss arena, condoning what could easily be described as video game voyeurism.

「Ooh, you were right, Emul. It is exactly like you said.」

Crown Spiders…… They certainly looked flashy as hell. Their arena was cylindrical in shape and was covered in spider webs on which they were moving around, jumping down from time to time and swinging on their own threads. Like that, they could even go to places that I couldn’t see all that well from over here.

The three Fighters were stunned upon seeing that. They didn’t have any means of long distance combat. Only one of them could apparently use magic, but as far as I could see the fireball he was shooting at the spiders were unable to even reach their targets.

「Don’t shoot at them while they are up! Wait for them to come down! Don’t waste your magic!」

「Ahh, this isn’t good! This isn’t good at all……!!」

Ahh, what a sight to behold. I would like to have some popcorn to chew on and some juice to drink. And maybe a chair. Yeah, a chair would be nice as well.

It seems that the Fighters managed to cool down a little bit and were now waiting for the spiders to come down and face them. Sadly, as Emul and I were about to witness, the spiders weren’t exactly having that. Instead, they started to shoot their webs right at their opponents from above.

The web hit the magic using Fighter, immobilizing him in place as the web was surprisingly sticky and elastic.

「Wow, they can even do that, huh?」

The other two Fighters tried to help their friend, but when they were doing that, they suddenly looked up, screamed loudly and started to run away.

In the next moment, the immobilized player was crushed, as there was a huge log coming from above. Oh, it looks like that player died, being flattened to death.

They had no way of escaping from there. The other two players could only be chased by the spiders and be picked off one by one. Then both of them disappeared in the geyser of red polygons.

It seems that one of them noticed me just before he died, but sadly there was nothing I could do to help them. I could only thank them for giving me so much valuable information. Rest in peace.

「Right, thanks to that little display, I have a rough idea of how this fight works.」

「Isn’t that a little bit too fast!?」

There was no need to mourn them. They would soon enough respawn in Thirdrema, but thanks to them, I was able to grasp the general concept of their attack patterns.

But before that, let’s level up a bit.