Arriving at Stone Mount Village

Somewhere within the region of Stone Mountain Range finds a group of wild golem creatures was currently being besieged. What made this strange was the act that this group was being taken on by three figures that looked the same, along with a half meter tall spider jet black in color with purple highlights on various points on its body. Naturally, the group besieging the golems was Kirou, his clones, and his new pet.

[-150]

That was the damage Kirou dealt with one of his knives to the body of one of the dozen golem monsters in the group he's fighting. To his disappointment, no matter how many times or where he attacks, he hasn't been able to land a critical hit on any of these golems. It is for this reason why Kirou had summoned up both clones at the excess cost of his MP.

He didn't want the golems to kill off the spider he's raising when he's only in combat to allow it to gain experience. Looking at the group of a dozen golems, Kirou could only shake his head before releasing a sigh of resignation.

Monster: Stone Mount Earth Golem

Level: 13

HP: 8950

Skills: Rock Throw, Tremor, Earth Spire, Summon Help

Looking at the skills of the golem monster caused Kirou to release a sigh before he put away his knife and started fighting with his bare hands. Since the damage to the golems' bodies won't get a critical modifier with his weapons, Kirou decided to not lower his weapons' durability by using it on such a sturdy body and just decided to beat it down with his bare hands.

Kirou was momentarily stunned when he landed an attack on one of the weaker golem's body and saw the result. Immediately after, Kirou started attacking the golems as if he had gone berserk, as his attacks were all over the place and each on landed a devastating blow on whatever it hit.

<Critical>

[-380]

<Critical>

[-425]

<Critical>

[-398]

Those were the damage figures Kirou received when both he and his clones landed their bare-handed hits on the body of a golem. With the combination of the passive ability of the skill <Eagle Eyes> and Kirou's natural use of his other skills that can be employed with his bare hands, Kirou and his clones were finally able to land the critical hits that he's been trying to achieve for the last few minutes.

Not wanting to be outdone by its master, the spider pet, Shadow Arachne started to generate a wide net of sticky web. It then used said net of sticky web to slow down and root a few of the golems making their ways over to aid the golem that Kirou and his clones were currently beating to death. Following up on this, the spider pet then pounced on one of the trapped golems, which it then proceeded to sink its poisonous fangs into. Unfortunately for it, since the golems are earth-based life forms, besides the initial damage of [-30] which it gave the golem when it bit into it, the golem had not been poisoned as it had no blood, to begin with. This left the now silly-looking spider to sulk before proceeding to pin down that golem, along with the rest caught in its original net in an even stickier web, completely robbing the already slow-moving golems of any movement they still possessed.

Glancing at the series of events that just took place on the spider's end, Kirou couldn't help but think back to how all of this even started in the first place.

***************Flashback**************

Kirou had finally arrived at the Stone Mountain Range. It had taken him a few hours of constant traveling from the time he tamed the Demonic Spider to get to the mountain range on the other side of the continent. Naturally, this speed is impossible to replicate normally as one would need a mount to be able to move that fast. Kirou was able to bypass this due to him possessing the skill <Shadow Teleportation>.

By expending a large portion of his accumulated MP potions that he's both bought and created, Kirou was able to take advantage of the special effect of <Shadow Teleportion> to cover greater distances by sacrificing his potions when they were off cooldown and running at full speed in his Lycan form while the cooldown was active. Rinse and repeat for a few hours and now we have Kirou on the other side of the continent.

If asked if he would be willing to do a repeat of traveling to the other side of the continent with this method, the person asking would receive a few charged shots to the face as Kirou's answer. Seeing that he's now basically increased his free time by a very large margin, Kirou decided to take another look at Shadow Arachne. Now that a few hours have passed, that terrified status should have been resolved by now, right? It was only after taking a look that Kirou released a breath of relief.

Pet Name: Shadow Arachne (Demonic Spider)

Pet Species: Demon Spider

Pet Level: 1

Condition: Healthy (Curious)

Skills: Thread Generation, Poisonous Bite, Sticky Thread

Seeing the new 'Healthy' condition along with the 'Curious' in brackets right next to it made Kirou decide to summon his pet. As soon as the pet spider was summoned, Kirou noticed the reduction in his MP gauge. This caused him to remember all of the new skills he obtained when the taming system became available to him.

Skill: Tame Monster

Skill Level: 1

Rank: B

Cost: 10% of the user's max MP

Skill Creator/Generator: System

Description: This skill allows the user to attempt to tame a monster in the wild or a monster egg. While taming monsters in the wild has varying degrees of success or failure, using this skill on a monster egg immediately causes it to be tamed. The user is usually given ten attempts to tame the monster, as represented by the MP cost. Following this, the monster will enter a state of immunity to the taming skill and be unable to attempt to be tamed for a full 24 hours.

Skill: Release Monster

Skill Level: 1

Rank: E

Cost: 10MP

Skill Creator/Generator: System

Description: This skill allows the user to release a previous tamed monster back into the wild. Once this skill is used, that monster will forget any memory of the former master and may attack the master on sight, depending on the type of monster. This skill is mainly present to free up the pet storage space should the user fill them up.

Skill: Summon Pet

Skill Level: 1/3

Rank: C (A)

Cost: 25MP

Skill Creator/Generator: System

Description: This allows the user to summon a pet that is stored within his/her respective pet storage space. The pet summoned can usually be via the user's wish but if the user just chants <Summon>, the oldest pet in the user's possession is the one that is summoned out in case the user has multiple pets.

Skill: Store Pet

Skill Level: 1/2

Rank: E

Cost: 10MP

Skill Creator/Generator: System

Description: This skill allows the user to send a summoned pet back to the pet storage space to rest and recover. When chanting the skill, the user is normally prompted to select which pet to send back in case he/she has multiple pets summoned at once. Should the user just chant <Store>, the pet with the lowest health will be sent back to the pet storage space.

Skill: Replace Pet

Skill Level:

Rank: D+

Cost: 50MP

Skill Creator/Generator: System

Description: This skill allows the user to swap out a summoned pet with one in the pet storage space. Should the user just chant <Swap or Replace>, the weakest pet that is summoned out will be replaced by the strongest pet in the user's pet storage space.

Reminiscing the details of those new skills, Kirou watched as the half-meter tall spider pet was currently looking around the environment with obvious curiosity. When Kirou saw the creature like this, Kirou couldn't stop the thought that entered his mind.

'It's almost as if this spider is a baby.' This thought made Kirou chuckle for a few seconds before a realization dawned on Kirou, causing him to say out loud.

"Wait. It IS a baby at the moment. How could I have forgotten?" was what Kirou said as he gave himself a facepalm. This action caused the pet spider to stare at Kirou in confusion. It could remember that it was terrified of Kirou the first time they met but it was completely clueless as to why at the moment. The pet spider then did a shrug-like gesture before casting its gaze back to the foreign environment.

Looking at the baby pet spider, Kirou could only shake his head at his carelessness. "It's a good thing that I've got a few extra days. I can help this little one in the meantime while I slowly trek to Stone Mount Village."

Following his words, Kirou called out to the pet spider and told it to follow him, after which, he started walking in the direction of Stone Mount Village while taking the long ways to run into monsters.

*****************Flashback Ends******************

It has been a full day, both in-game and in reality for Kirou and his pet spider. After a full day of fighting with Kirou, spartan style, the pet spider has managed to get to level 10, where it is now capable of joining battles as it saw fit.

Pet Name: Shadow Arachne (Demonic Spider)

Pet Species: Demon Spider

Pet Level: 10

Condition: Healthy (Cold)

Skills: Thread Generation, Poisonous Bite, Sticky Thread, Thread Manipulation

HP: 3000

MP: 2500

Attack: 90

Intelligence: 75

Constitution: 250

Defense: 70

Agility: 55

Looking at its stats, besides its high constitution, the pet spider was basically all-rounded where the rest of its stats were concerned. It wasn't Kirou's desire to develop the spider in this way but the spider itself choose this route after joining Kirou in combat, all on its own. Kirou could only shake his head at the pet spider's decision. It was truly apparent that the spider had no idea what its name meant.

Now that Kirou was free to attack the golem all he wanted, that is exactly what he did. After cycling through his active skills, Kirou and his clones then started to beat down the golem in front of them with regular attacks. The golem wanted to retaliate but it was just too slow. Whenever it got a proper chance, it would either be interrupted as it tried to move or was given a powerful counter-attack that rendered its attack useless along with it receiving even more heavy damage from the trio. This continued for a good 2 minutes before the golem had finally succumbed to its death.

Following the death of the first golem, Kirou and his clones then turned their bloodthirsty eyes towards the other golems robbed of their freedom. Shadow Arachne thought it imagined it because it could have sworn it felt the subdued golems under its threads tremble the moment Kirou and his clones looked at them. It then made that shrug-like gesture once again as it watched its master go to work with killing the golems with his clones.

The whole golem slaughter was finally over after half an hour. Following the death of the last golem, Kirou was bathed in a ring of white light, signifying that he had leveled up. The prompts confirming this were also sent to him by the system but Kirou ignored them. He made sure to search the golem remains for any usable items, whether they be usable or not before he gestured towards Shadow Arachne to follow him. Kirou then left the area with his pet spider following behind him, leaving behind a battlefield covered in upturned earth and sticky white webbing.

***************

After walking for another fifteen minutes, Kirou had finally made it to his destination in the Stone Mountain Range, Stone Mount Village. Looking at the village ahead, Kirou could see a wide variety of races entering and leaving, as opposed to Elderwood Village which mainly had Lycans while Thousand Wood Village had elves mainly roaming about.

Kirou took stock of his immediate gear and inventory before turning towards Shadow Arachne.

<Store>

Following his words, Shadow Arachne started to fade away in a mass of light. It gave Kirou a saddened look as it left but Kirou could only steel his heart as he did this.

"Don't worry. I'll summon you out when we are leaving this village," was what Kirou said as he watched Shadow Arachne finally finishing fading away.

While it wasn't rare for players to possess pets as archers and summoners do have skills to obtain them, Shadow Arachne was a bit too unique for him to be showing off. Who's to tell that someone else hadn't seen it when it was still the Demonic Spider? While Kirou was sure he could deal with any fallout that might take place, he would rather avoid the entire situation if he could.

After storing away Shadow Arachne, Kirou started making his way towards Stone Mount VIllage. Along the way, he had run across players and NPCs of varying racings but all they did was glance at Kirou before going about their own business. Seeing them like this, Kirou knew this was a village used to the high traffic and dealing with just about every race.

Immediately after entering the village, Kirou stopped someone with the appearance of an NPC villager. Following that, Kirou then asked his question, "Pardon me. Could you point me in the direction of the village head?"

Hearing the question, the person that Kirou stopped, a human male, gave Kirou a look before pointing in a direction and speaking, "Head roughly two blocks that direction, turn left, walk another three blocks and his house will be right ahead. Trust me, you can't miss it." Following those words, the human male, dressed as a mage, left before Kirou could properly thank him.

Kirou, for his part, looked at the back of the departing player, wondering what was up with him.

'It couldn't be because I asked him for directions as I would one of the villagers, right?' As that thought entered Kirou's mind, Kirou gave the departing mage another look before turning around and following the path said mage had just given him.

"It couldn't be," was what Kirou said to himself as he walked before shaking his mind free of those thoughts.

Funny enough, that was exactly what was on the mind of the mage who gave him directions.