CHAPTER 47: CHAPTER 47 - TRAPDOOR

The Core’s stifling silence pressed down on me like a weight. Each step seemed to echo too far, swallowed too fast.

And yet, it felt good to be moving again.

The prospect of the wildlands tugged at me. What kind of people lived out there? Freya had called them barbaric, but strong. A society where every man and woman was a Hunter, forced to be, just to survive. How different would that be from Earth? Or even the outpost I’d glimpsed, carved into the cliff face with towers and armored knights pacing the walls?

The thoughts spun out freely, drifting into speculation I’d never allowed myself before.

And what made it possible to indulge in them, even here, where every tree could hide a predator, was the Bimodal Nerve Matrix.

Parallel thought.

One awareness stayed anchored in the present, scanning every rustle of the undergrowth, mapping paths between roots and shadow, eyes sharp, steps cautious.

The second was free to wander. A stray mind, curious, distracted. Pondering skills, laws, weapon arts, and stranger questions---like the existence of gods, and what that implied. There was so much I didn’t know, and more I hadn’t had the luxury to even wonder about. Now I could.

I darted into the canopy every so often, finding breaks to track the pale sky overhead, making sure I was still heading west. The System map showed only a dot marking my position, no orientation. I had to move to see direction, which made the occasional climb necessary.

It was a welcome break, honestly. A little light, a little breath, before returning to the monotone dread of the Core.

The hours passed. Uneventful.

Until they weren’t.

The unease came gradually. A faint itch at the base of my neck, as if unseen eyes had found me. My head swiveled more often than it should have, scanning shadows where nothing moved. The feeling lingered, vague, sour, impossible to shake.

But nothing showed itself.

Minutes bled together. My boots crunched over roots and damp leaves, every sound too loud in the hush. The gaze never left. Always there, just beyond the edges of sight, neither closing in nor drifting away. It gnawed at my nerves with each careful step. And it gnawed for hours, eating away at calm caution, replacing it with uneasy paranoia.

And unknowingly, it had created a gap in my careful judgement.

Without warning, the ground collapsed under me.

One step was solid. The next plunged straight in as the soil gave way with a muffled roar, my body weight carrying me down a steep chute of packed dirt and loose roots. I twisted midfall, hand already on my greataxe’s haft. The landing jarred my knees but didn’t throw me. By the time I steadied, the axe was free.

I’d landed in a wide cavern. The stench hit first, sour, acrid and wet. Then came the noise: the scrape of claw on stone, the rasp of something massive shifting.

My eyes searched the darkness, and then I saw it.

It rose from the wall itself. A spider, broad as a wagon, legs bristling like sharpened stakes, its carapace mottled brown and stone grey, blending into the cave itself. Its fangs clacked, dripping with a purple liquid that hissed where it struck the ground.

I was ready.

Appraisal.

The prompt appeared above its head.

[Earthfang Trapdoor Spider (Tremor-Class)(Lv.4)]

My guard eased slightly. I hadn’t been thrown into the deep-end just yet.

Now that I’m Silver-Ranked, let’s see how I fare against a Tremor-Class without channeling. I should be able to manage that much.

The spider lunged, earth trembling as if the ground itself served it. I stepped in, body moving with clean efficiency. The axe cleaved sideways in a perfect arc, the blade shaving the stone wall as it forced the spider to backpedal.

Every motion felt crisp. Muscles and nerves aligned, mana-born impulses guiding reflexes with surgical precision---thought and counterthought, each reinforcing the other.

The spider drove its legs into the wall, pulling loose slabs of stone that stuck to the tips of its legs, and then flung them straight at me, like cuboidal javelins. My axe blurred, intercepting one, then another, and another.

I circled as I defended, slowly closing the distance as I waited for it to run out of projectiles. And eventually, it did.

I dashed in right then, not allowing it a moment’s rest.

The spider reared high in a threatening motion, mandibles slamming down. I met it mid-motion, cleaving diagonally upward, a perfect strike right across its face, but shallow.

Still, I smiled. Upward Diagonal Slash. Ironic. Judging distance with it seems a bit difficult even if I have the form down almost perfectly.

It shrieked, but contrary to my expectations, it didn’t shrink back. Its head darted low instead, giant fangs sinking into my shoulder, deep enough to reach through my chest and into my abdomen.

[You have been inflicted with [Poison].]

The venom surged in hot waves, burning veins, weakening muscle. My regeneration screamed awake, neutralizing, adapting. I drove my forehead into one of the spider’s many eyes, forcing it to let go, then pivoted under its body.

The next swing was cleaner.

Another upward diagonal slash, my entire body behind it. The axe tore through belly and split armor with ease.

The Tremor-Class beast shrieked once, then dropped just like that, lifeless, legs twitching in death.

[You have killed a Lv.4 Tremor-Class Earthfang Trapdoor Spider ]

I stood there among the gore, breathing hard, the cavern suddenly still again.

Huh. That uneasy feeling...it’s gone now..?

I looked to the spider.

Was it you..? No that can’t be it. You couldn’t have been watching me for so long, from so far away. This cave is closed off, no other tunnels beyond the trapdoor above...

The poison continued to eat away at me from the inside, but the pain wasn’t worth much. My Gift worked faster.

[Host’s [Poison Resistance] has increased greatly: x5]

[Poison Resistance I -- II]

[Poison Resistance II -- III]

I decided to examine the cave for a bit, but it really was nothing remarkable.

Jagged walls, a ceiling dripping with faint condensation, and the corpse at its center. But even still, I couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer variety of the Core. Wolves, toads, hyenas, panthers---and now a burrowing spider the size of a truck. How did a single forest hold them all?

No answers came to me. Not regarding the variety. Not regarding that uneasy feeling.

So I shook away the thoughts and got to work extracting the creature’s core instead.

Answers or not, I’d be damned if I left free EXP lying around like this.