"Hello? Hello? Are you still alive?"
"Wake up. If you keep sleeping, we're sending you to Herta for dissection and research."
When the spider woke up again, she found herself lying flat on her back beneath a tree while Silver Wolf poked her face repeatedly with a branch.
Turning her head, she saw blue skies and white clouds. They were already back aboveground.
Dissection and research?!
"Aaaaaah!!!"
She flipped over and sprang awake, nervously examining her surroundings.
It looked as though a huge piece of the earth had been forcibly gouged away. For dozens of kilometers around them, nothing remained except a bottomless crater.
The Great Elroe Labyrinth and every monster within it had been permanently erased from the planet.
Was this the power of an angel?!
The spider was dumbfounded. Previously, even encountering a low-level monster inside the Great Labyrinth had forced her into a battle of wits and courage. Her greatest wish had merely been to escape the labyrinth and break free from "Mom's" control.
Yet the moment these people made a move, they had effortlessly destroyed the entire labyrinth.
Even Wakaba Hiiro, who had been observing from above, was somewhat surprised.
"Oh, her power has already surpassed that of mythical-class creatures, hasn't it? Calling her a Demon Lord wouldn't be an exaggeration."
"That was only a tiny fraction of Heavenly Smite's power."
Jibril looked immensely proud.
"Hmm... If she attacked with her full strength, she could probably shatter this planet without much trouble. That's assuming its administrator didn't intervene halfway through."
"I even held back a little so we could preserve an experimental specimen."
She pointed nearby.
A gigantic dark-brown spider monster, as massive as a small mountain, lay curled on the ground with wounds covering its entire body.
Most of its eyes and limbs had been destroyed, yet when it met the gazes of the spider and the others, its eyes still erupted with intense killing intent and a vicious gleam.
"Eek—"
The spider instinctively retreated two steps and used [Appraisal] on it.
[Queen Taratect LV87]
[HP: 55/20,557]
[MP: 31/22,301]
[Average Attack Power: 35 (MAX 24,439)]
[Average Defense Power: 56 (MAX 24,286)]
[Average Resistance Power: 66 (MAX 21,946)]
[...]
Because of its grievous injuries, all its attributes had fallen to less than one percent of their original values, leaving it roughly comparable to the spider before her level-ups.
Under the effects of skills such as HP Ultra-Fast Recovery and MP Ultra-Fast Recovery, its health and attributes were still rapidly recovering.
As the final boss of the entire labyrinth and a mythical-class monster, the Queen Taratect could destroy five earth dragons as powerful as Araba, and it still had a vast number of unused skill points.
Uh, are you really not going to kill it first?! Mom is terrifying when she gets angry, you know?!
Thinking of the monster whose every step could trigger an earthquake, the spider trembled uncontrollably.
Clunk—
A small spacecraft descended.
Herta's puppet hopped out of the cabin and examined the Queen Taratect.
"Tch, it's so ugly. I think Ruan Mei would be interested in this thing, considering it's a creature from another world."
"Once I've finished studying it, I might give her some of the specimens."
Rumble—
Bang!
She pulled out a hammer far too large for her body, spun it around twice, then landed a critical hit on the giant spider's head.
The spider saw it clearly. The Queen Taratect's status changed to "Unconscious."
Next, a small squad of Angeloids stuffed it into the cabin, started the engine, and flew away without another word.
"Abababa..."
Although she and the Queen Taratect could hardly be described as having a deep mother-daughter bond, and she dreamed every day of rebelling against her mother and escaping the labyrinth, seeing a boss-class creature defeated so easily still dealt the spider an enormous shock.
These people are terrifying! Anyone who offends them will definitely die horribly, won't they?!
However, her attention was soon drawn away by the system notifications.
[Conditions Have Been Met. Individual Small Lesser Taratect Can Evolve.]
[Multiple Evolution Paths Are Available. Please Select From the Following Options.]
Whoosh—
An evolution menu appeared before her.
"What? I can evolve again?!"
The spider excitedly looked from side to side.
Because she had accumulated an excessive amount of experience, she could evolve through several stages in succession.
As a low-level spider monster, she could evolve into an adult spider and eventually become a Queen Taratect like her "mother."
However, if she wanted to obtain a humanoid form in the end, she had to follow the small-species evolution route.
[Evolution Path Selected.]
Evolving into Small Poison Taratect. Skills acquired: Poison Magic, Poison Synthesis, ...
Evolving into Zoa Ele. Skills acquired: Perseverance, Evil Eye of Extinction, ...
[Parallel Minds Has Increased to LV4.]
System notifications rang out one after another as waves of light erupted from the spider's body.
All sorts of outrageously powerful skills poured into her skill list as though they cost nothing.
At last, the small, round-headed spider monster evolved into a creature with sharp horns covering its back and scythes in place of its forelegs.
Her body had grown only slightly larger, but all her numerical attributes had increased more than a hundredfold.
Seriously?! I evolved five times in one go?!
So this is what it feels like to get carried by powerful teammates?! Whoa?!—
She stared at her status screen and countless skills, letting out a string of foolish giggles.
She had not even needed to join the battle. An enormous amount of experience had simply been poured directly into her.
Being carried by experts felt amazing.
Ah, at this rate, becoming human doesn't feel very far away anymore?!
As long as we keep hunting more monsters... Wait, I should be pretty strong now too, right?! At the very least, I'm much stronger than the Greater Taratects serving Mom, aren't I?!
The spider hugged herself and rolled back and forth across the ground. After laughing foolishly for a long while, she finally stood up.
She checked her experience and found that she was only a short distance away from her next evolution, Arachne, which possessed a half-human form.
This was already the maximum amount of experience obtainable from clearing the Great Elroe Labyrinth. Aside from the Queen Taratect, nearly all the experience had been allocated to her.
In addition, when she entered her mental space, she discovered three more spiders lined up neatly inside.
One wore a large wizard's hat, one wore glasses, and the last had a headband tied around her head.
"I'm the Magic Minister! I'm responsible for preparing magic!"
"I'm the Body Minister! I'm responsible for controlling and training the body!"
"I'm the Information Minister! I'm responsible for gathering and analyzing information!"
"Ooooooh—"
Her solo comedy routine had upgraded into a group act. The four spiders chattered noisily inside her mental space for quite some time.
Each of them represented one of the spider's independent minds, allowing them to process different tasks in parallel.
"Hehehehe..."
The ministers gathered together and were happily imagining their future spider lives.
Bonk—
Jibril struck her again.
"Now that we've dealt with the Great Labyrinth, we still have other things to do."
"You have at least a little combat power now. Would you like to come with us?"
"Of course!"
The spider agreed immediately.
Having just received such a massive infusion of power, she felt terrifyingly strong and could not wait to test her new abilities.
More importantly, she needed to evolve into an Arachne as soon as possible and obtain a humanoid form.
"As for what comes next... We're going to deal with the remaining human kingdoms in this world."
Jibril had the Sophon project another holographic map and marked several locations on it.
"There's also the Elf Village. Potimas and his subordinates must be eliminated."
"Uh, maybe we should just capture them for the Commander? I wonder how much computational power Elves have..."
"Whoa—"
The Starsea Empire's ruthlessly efficient way of doing things left the spider staring in bewilderment.
After thinking about it, she decided this was fine. She could follow these powerful experts around, explore the world, and grind levels by fighting monsters. Fighting people for experience would work too.
Moving her tiny legs, she followed in the Trailblaze team's footsteps.
...
On the other side of the distant continent.
A black-haired, red-eyed girl wearing a tight-fitting short outfit and a cloak stood at the edge of the demon castle, gazing into the distance.
Dozens of spider monsters of all shapes and sizes surrounded her. Some were species comparable in rank to the Queen Taratect, while others were lower-level monsters.
"Hmm..."
As Ariel played with one of the small spiders, her expression suddenly sharpened.
She had received a plea for help from the Queen Taratect, who was also her child.
As the Origin Taratect and the oldest divine beast, Ariel considered the Queen Taratect in the depths of the Great Elroe Labyrinth her child, which made the spider her granddaughter by generation.
"Otherworlders destroyed the Great Labyrinth? One of your children escaped Kin Control? What?!"
Whoosh—
Ariel considered the matter briefly, then decided to investigate in person. Her figure blurred and vanished from where she stood.