Shadow Walker (Part 2)

While waiting for Richard and Robin to show up, Grant made sure to keep his distance from the spider. He wasn't sure what the requirements for that skill would be, but he didn't want to take any chances.

After waiting for a minute or two, Richard and Robin came running into vie. Grant circled around the spider so that he was standing between it and the two kids. It appeared as if the spider had noticed them straight away, but unlike in the break room, it made no attempt to attack them.

The spider didn't wait for the kids to arrive before it started to attack yet again with it's jaw and legs. Grant made sure to avoid all the attacks while trying to maintain a safe distance.

When he heard the footsteps approach from behind him, Grant glanced over his shoulder to make sure that the two kids were still okay.

They appeared to be safe, so he quickly gave them a couple of instructions.

"Richard, I need you to take your sister into the aisles to try and find some vinegar. The stronger stuff, the better. I need you to bring as much of it here as you can.

If you can find a couple buckets or something to fill up with the vinegar, that would be great as well. But be careful, I cleared out a large portion of the zombies in the area, but I can still sense a few in the surrounding area."

Robin, who was standing next to Richard was too distracted by the giant spider to say anything but Richard was able to respond with an affirmative that he had received Grant's orders.

"On it! Lets go Robin. Stay safe Grant!"

Grant noticed that although Robin was following Richard, she seemed really scared. Whether she had arachnophobia or still hadn't recovered from the trauma of the day, he wasn't sure. Now more than ever though, Grant was happy that she was able to carry on with her tasks without complaining.

Especially since he didn't have any attention to spare for her at the moment.

As Richard and Robin disappeared into the store, Grant once again took the initiative and engaged the spider head on.

In the time it had taken Grant to instruct the kids, the spider appeared to have recovered most of its energy because it wasn't as lethargic with its movements as it had been immediately following its use of the shadow skill.

Grant wasn't sure he could defeat it with just his bare hands, so he had taken the chance to give the spider some time to recover and hoped that Richard and Robin would come back with the stuff he needed.

After a couple more minutes exchanging blows with the spider, Grant started to hear the sounds of combat in distant part of the store and couldn't help but feel anxious.

Grant said a silent prayer for the kids while dodging leg strikes from the spider. He was praying that the kids had leveled up sufficiently to combat any zombies or other monsters they came across.

The sounds of the kids fighting made Grant wonder why the zombies remaining in the building hadn't ventured towards the area that him and the spider had been fighting.

The only idea he could come up with was that maybe the zombies could somehow sense that the two entities fighting in the area, mainly him and the spider, were far beyond their ability to contend with.

Their was a glaring loophole in his theory, mainly that zombies seemed to attack anything unconditionally, but Grant figured now wasn't the time to worry about that.

It would also imply that some semblance of rationality or reasoning still existed in them which made him somewhat anxious because he had just considered them to be mindless walking corpses. If they managed to gain intelligence as they grew in strength similar to the monsters, it meant that they could become a serious threat in just a few days or weeks time.

They did not need food, sleep, or anything else for that matter. So they would be an unending and constant threat.

While being concerned for the kids, Grant continued his back and forth with the spider. Occasionally Grant would land a blow or two on the spider which was returned in kind when Grant happened to make a mistake.

After maintaining a relative stalemate with the spider for 10 minutes, the two kids eventually returned to the area, both holding multiple large jugs of vinegar and a couple buckets.

Seeing that the kids appeared to be fine, Grant let out an audible sigh of relief before he gave them another set of instructions.

"Pour all of the vinegar into the buckets until they are full. Tell me when you're done so we can get started with the next step!"

The kids immediately place the buckets on the ground and started to rip the caps off the vinegar bottles to pour their contents into the buckets.

As the kids began to fill up the buckets, the spider suddenly started to look lethargic again.

[Fuck, its about to use another skill!]

Grant, without hesitation, turned and ran away from the spider. He wasn't sure what the range of the skill was, but he could only hope he could avoid the skill long enough for the kids to finish the task they were assigned.

So while the kids filled the buckets with vinegar and the spider "cast" its skill, Grant ran around like a chicken with its head cut off trying his best to avoid being caught by the skill. Thankfully, in order to use the skill, it appeared as if the spider needed to remain still so he only had one threat to avoid.

Sprinting around, Grant glanced over his shoulder and noticed that a shadow was following him around and slowly but surely getting closer to him.

Knowing that it was inevitable that he was going to be caught, he made sure to run towards the kids so that whenever the shadow inevitably caught up to him, he would be close enough for the kids to do what he needed them to do.

"KIDS!!! I NEED YOU TO HURRY!!!!"

Grant was able to evade the shadow for another half a minute before the shadow finally caught up to Grant and firmly locked him in place.

Thankfully, he had managed to reach the two kids and was standing almost right in front of them.

Once the shadow locked Grant into place the spider finally moved, charging towards the immobile Grant and the two kids behind him.

As the spider approached rapidly, Richard and Robin finally finished filling the buckets.

"We're done Grant! What now?!"

"Throw them in the path of that spider! Now! Don't wait!"

The kids immediately shuffled their way next to Grant, and using all their strength, they pulled the buckets up and back before they threw the contents into the path of the spider.

The spider didn't seem to consider the liquid flying in it's direction a threat, because it continued with its forward momentum. The moment that the vinegar landed on the spider though, it started to writhe in pain on the ground while screeching louder than Grant would have thought possible.

"Don't stop! Throw as much on it as you possibly can!"

The kids didn't hesitate to keep throwing the buckets of vinegar they had prepared onto the spider. Now that it was rolling around on the floor, they were able to cover it with even more vinegar than they had on the first attempt.

The spider started to screech louder and thrashed around even more vigorously with each bucket of vinegar that doused its body.

After 15 seconds of being locked in place, Grant was finally freed from the clutches of the shadow.

The moment he was freed of the skill, he charged towards the spider.

Since the spider was on its back from having been thrashing around, Grant landed on its stomach and immediately started to rain down punches on its sternum.

No matter how much pain it caused him, Grant didn't hold back and used both arms to punch the spider so that he could inflict as much damage as possible as quickly as possible.

It seemed like the vinegar had managed to weaken the skin of the spider because Grants punches finally started to do noticeable damage.

While Grant was in the middle of punching the spider, he felt the spider attempt to rotate back onto its legs, so he immediately reached an arm out to his left and right. In both hands, Grant grabbed a tight hold on two different legs and pulled as hard as he could.

After a brief moment of resistance, Grant managed to rip the legs right from their sockets.

He continued to pull the legs out until all of the spiders legs were now separated from its body.

As Grant did more damage and the kids threw more vinegar, the spider slowly stopped moving.

In a final move to end the fight, Grant moved towards the spiders head and stomped down on it with his foot, crushing part of its head.

{Congratulations on killing Mutated Wolf Spider - Shadow Walker Level 26.

You have reached level 24.

Gained four status points to be distributed freely.

You have absorbed +23 Strength, +54 Agility, +32 Health, and +49 Stamina.

You have gained +100 Credits and 2 Random Rolls for successfully leveling up.}

Grant took a few deep breathes to calm down his rapidly beating heart and the searing pain in his arm that he overexerted.

He had no idea if his plan would work but he was glad that things had gone in his favor.

He didn't know where or how he knew the fact that spiders were weak to vinegar, but he had never been so glad to know such random information.

"Son of a bitch that was an annoying fight. Thank god that's over...

Are you kids okay? Thank you for your help. I don't think I could have killed it without you."

Turning around to check on the kids, he noticed that both of them had stunned looks on their face.

Robin was the first one to react though.

"Mr. Carrot! That spider was level 26?! The experience from you killing it managed to increase my level to level 15! Also, it gave me a ton of stats!"

Richard followed up with a similar statement. Both of them had managed to get some experience apparently and also absorbed some stats due to their contributions in killing it.

"How many stats did you two absorb from it?"

Richard was the first to reply, "I got +15 across the board"

"Same here Mr. Carrot!"

Grant didn't know how to respond because considering the level of the monster and the strength it possessed, they should have gotten more stats.

[Maybe they didn't get as many stats because they never actually engaged the spider in combat?

I guess its already a good thing that they managed to get any experience and stats at all..

Ah whatever, no need to think on it too much.]

"That's great for you two, I'm happy you managed to gain something from the fight. Lets go back to the break room and relax. My arm is killing me right now and I seriously need some time to let the pain recede."

The kids readily agreed so the group of three walked back towards the break room and sat down to relax once they were back inside.

Grant made sure to question the two on what happened when they were looking for the vinegar and Richard told him that the two of them had run into some low level zombies.

Thankfully they were spread out and didn't attack in a large group.

Richard made sure to emphasize that he was the one who dispatched the zombies so Robin could continue to rest her mental state. At least for now.

While they were resting, Grant walked out into the store to grab the bags he had dropped and store some more food and drinks, before returning and continuing small talk with the kids.

As if waiting for things to calm down Sherlock finally broke his silence.

{Congratulations on killing your first Enlightened tier monster.}