Fattening Up the Demonic Spider

Kirou was currently online and rushing through the treetops of Elderwood Forest. After his "research" on the guild operations and their relationships, Kirou spent some time looking over a few details for Immortal Era from its website. One of those details happened to be the 'World Map'.

From his findings, Immortal Era is divided into nine continents. So far, players have only been given access to just four of them and even then, these four continents have a few places that players cannot access via normal means as they are either sealed or the monster level cap is far above their own. The four continents that the players currently have access to are called the 'Four Cardinal Continents'. Each continent is named after the cardinal directions North, South, East, and West, and these continents form the outer layer of all nine continents, showing off a greater landmass together than the remaining five continents combined. This was the main reason why it took Kirou so long to travel from one end of the Southern Continent to the other, even with his cheat-like movement skill <Shadow Teleportation>.

The next set of continents are called the 'Four Kingdom Continents'. Just like the Cardinal Continents, the Kingdom Continents also appear in similar cardinal locations surrounding the final continent while being surrounded by the four larger continents. The reason they are called 'Kingdom Continents', however, is that each of these four continents is supported by one or more kingdoms belong to the different races of Immortal Era. The continent with the least kingdoms possesses just one while the continent with the most possesses five. Another thing that separates the Kingdom Continents from the Cardinal Continents is that each of the Kingdom Continents is home to a specific race or races of monsters. An example of this is that the Western Kingdom Continent is home to insect creatures while the Southern Kingdom Continent is home to beast creatures. This makes it so that every Kingdom Continent possesses resources not obtainable in the others and gives them a reason to partake in trade with each other, even if the races of the ruling kingdoms running each continent have disagreements with one another.

As for the final continent, Kirou only saw the official website name this continent as the 'Continent of Death'. Kirou had raised an eyebrow when he had seen this name but further research on this continent was impossible as the official website gave no more information on it. Correction, it did give another tidbit of information but Kirou had no idea how to interpret this information at the moment. The line of information went like this, 'Details locked until the War of Immortals begins.'

Remembering the information, Kirou could only shake his head as he thought about that final continent. He didn't want to think about it but he was sure that if he continued down his current route, he was sure to be involved with this 'War of Immortals', whatever that may be. With that in mind, Kirou once again reaffirmed his decision to do his best to get out of doing these world quests.

As Kirou sped through the trees, he took a glance over his shoulder to see his half-meter tall demonic spider trailing after him while moving its mouthparts constantly. If Kirou didn't know any better, he would have sworn his spider was cursing him for making it run alongside him for this mad dash to Elderwood Village. Kirou shook that thought from his mind as he faced ahead and started to speed up, causing the spider behind him to curse at its master for leaving it behind.

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It has been a few hours now since Kirou and his spider have been running. By now, both werewolf and spider alike have now managed to make it to the center of Elderwood Forest. They were less than a few kilometers away from the entrance to the village. Kirou had stopped to allow Shadow Arachne to finally catch up. After it did so, the spider tried to bite Kirou a few times, only for Kirou to shove a small piece of scorpion meat into its mouth.

Shadow Arachne looked at Kirou with a gaze filled with hate but that quickly changed to delight after the spider started the chew on the piece of scorpion meat. It seems that the scorpion meat was able to calm down the angry spider, much to Kirou's relief.

While the spider munched on the piece of meat, Kirou took out some items from his inventory. Along with pieces of boar meat and some spices, hand made, of course, Kirou also took out some wood. Kirou used his tools to reshape pieces of wood into a wood spit, which he then attached the boar meat to the center while using the leftovers as firewood. Kirou also made sure to wrap up the meat with his wires before he dug a hole, placed the firewood inside, and started the fire under the meat.

As the boar meat cooked over the fire, Kirou made sure to rotate the meat and add on spices every once in a while. This kept up for a few minutes until the boat meat turned golden brown, dripping fat and emitting a delectable taste. Off to the side, the demonic spider that had finished its raw scorpion meat earlier was now eyeing the golden brown boar meat with greed and a mouth dripping with saliva.

Kirou saw this from the corner of his eyes and released a chuckle. He then called over the spider and when it got close, Kirou cut off a piece of the boar meat with a knife which he then fed to the spider. Shadow Arachne greedily chewed and swallowed the roasted boat meat, showing an expression of delight, completely different from what it showed earlier when it ate the raw scorpion meat. Kirou watched as the spider ate the piece of roasted boar meat in delight. He never said anything but just sliced off a few more pieces of boar meat and gave the spider. The spider happily ate the boar meat, not noticing the peculiar gaze Kirou was giving it as it did so.

As soon as the boar meat was finished, the spider looked over at the spit with disappointment in its eyes. Apparently, the spider wanted more meat to eat. Kirou said nothing as he took out a few more pieces of boar meat which he then added to the spit and started roasting. Shadow Arachne saw this and was delighted, so much so, that its eyes had turned into crescents. While all this was going on, it never noticed the peculiar gaze Kirou would send its way every once in a while.

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It's been a few hours now since Kirou had started roasting boar meat and feeding it to Shadow Arachne. During this time, many players, both low and high leveled alike had passed by the area and witnessed this. They were initially drawn to the scent of the roasted meat but when they showed up and saw the werewolf constantly feeding the spider meat, the players couldn't stop shaking the feeling that something was wrong. Granted, they couldn't tell what it was but they always felt that something was up with what Kirou was doing.

That being said, they still went over to Kirou and asked if he could cook something for them as well as there was a mechanic in Immortal Era that players could recover health and gain temporary stat bonuses when they ate meals in-game. Kirou told them to gather the materials and he would cook them right there as what he had on hand was for his spider to eat. The players looked at the spider happily gorging on the roasted boar meat before they too left to hunt down creatures for this mysterious chef to cook for them.

As this happened, a few hours had passed and now there was a bloated spider laid out on the floor before Kirou as he prepared a few dishes for the players that just came back. After he finished the latest batch of food, Kirou spoke to the remaining players.

"I'm sorry everyone, for I have to head back to the village now to restock on spices. Why don't you meet me there around the same time tomorrow and I'll open a shop for you guys to make orders from." Kirou may have said this to the players within the area feasting on the meals he cooked but his eyes never left the bloated spider beside him.

The players were saddened when they heard that Kirou was out of spices but that quickly changed to delight when they heard that he would be setting up shop in Elderwood Village the next day. The players paid him for his services as they left, some with coin while others with materials. To Kirou, this was just an experiment and from the looks of it, it was a resounding success. Aside from that, his experiment with Shadow Arachne seemed to be a success as well as the bloated spider finally got up and crawled over to Kirou.

After arriving next to Kirou, the spider started to release a lot of thread from its body. Shadow Arachne was currently using its skill <Thread Generation>, except that it was continuously releasing thread, a lot more than what it normally does on its own when it used the skill before. Kirou, for his part, made sure to collect all of the thread that Shadow Arachne was releasing. This went on for over five minutes and by the end of it, Shadow Arachne retreated to the pet space on its own, leaving Kirou with over a dozen large spools of 'Demonic Spider Silk.' Kirou ran his fingers over the spools of thread, feeling how soft they are to the touch. Kirou nodded his head in satisfaction before he cleaned up the area and continued on his trip to Elderwood Village. He still had a few hours to turn in the quest so he wasn't in a rush to finish it earlier. As Kirou made his way to the village, he looked over the description of the item he obtained earlier.

Item Name: Demonic Spider Silk

Item Type: Thread

Description: A type of thread created by the Demonic Spider. It is smooth to the touch and pitch black in color but is very strong. Resistant to dark magic. When woven into armor, depending on the amount used, it grants its dark magic resistance to the armor. Due to recent discovery, this thread can also be woven into a wire-type weapon, capable of being used by a weapon master and makes a good conductor for energy.

As Kirou recalled the information on his newly obtained item, he couldn't stop the smile that formed on his face. It seems that he should do more experiments like this in the future. They yield him quite nice resources when it's done just right.

'I should probably avoid doing this again anytime soon. The poor spider seemed to be suspicious when it saw me collecting its spider silk after fattening it up so much. If it wasn't for the fact that it now obtained a new skill, it probably would have seen through my ruse.' As Kirou thought this, he couldn't stop the smile that formed on his face. Kirou also made sure to open up the pet menu and take a look at Shadow Arachne's stats.

Pet Name: Shadow Arachne (Demonic Spider)

Pet Species: Demon Spider

Pet Level: 12

Condition: Tired (Bloated)

Skills: Thread Generation, Poisonous Bite, Sticky Thread, Thread Manipulation, <Gluttony>

HP: 1500/3120

MP: 100/2600

Attack: 100

Intelligence: 85

Constitution: 260

Defense: 80

Agility: 65

After looking over Shadow Arachne's stats, Kirou nodded his head with content before closing the pet menu and continued on his journey. The few kilometers distance wouldn't take too long for Kirou to cover so he decided to get a move on and get his troubles over with.

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Kirou was now standing in the center of Elderwood Village. Before Kirou stood the village head of the village, Old Wolf. Old Wolf smiled upon seeing Kirou show up before him.

"Well, young one. Have you returned to finish my quest?" Old Wolf asked this while giving Kirou a grandfatherly-like smile. With his wolf-like features, this seemed a bit off but Kirou didn't mind it.

"Well, Elder, I have come to do just that, along with passing on a message to you from Old Oak as well." Having said this, Kirou looked as if he was hesitating about something. Old Wolf saw this but said nothing as he was waiting for Kirou to continue. After a minute of contemplating, Kirou finally spoke up, "Elder, would you be willing to accompany me to visit Senior Bladesmith?"

"And why is that, young one?" Old Wolf had an idea as to what Kirou was going to say but he decided to allow Kirou to say it.

"Elder, along with passing on a letter from Old Oak to the both of you, I'll have to recount my experiences and I feel it would be better for both you and Senior Bladesmith to hear it at the same time and do your private discussions while in a secure area." Kirou closed his mouth after speaking, awaiting Old Wolf's decision.

Old Wolf narrowed his eyes slightly upon hearing this. He could tell that whatever Kirou had to tell both him and Bladesmith was of utmost importance. After contemplating for a moment, Old Wolf finally opened his mouth and spoke, "Please lead the way then, young one."

"Very well, Elder." Following those words, Kirou turned around and started walking in the direction of the village's armory with Old Wolf in tow.

For the first time since Immortal Era had begun operations, today marked the first time that a village head had left their main post and it was the beginning of many important events for the Southern Continent.