"Otso, hey Otso... OTSO!"
'Uhh, yes, what do you want'
" I'll go inside the cave to take some rest, stay guard outside "
'alright'
"Oh, why are you so obedient, what happened?"
'Nothing, I lost without an excuse, so I have to admit my weakness and obey'
"Eh? Well, that's better anyway, see you tomorrow morning"
while saros was asleep, Otos was thinking of ways to keep himself useful for saros, he didn't know if these were his thoughts or if they are influenced by him being Saros's mount, but he knew that he had to get stronger no matter what.
Next morning
munch...
Saros was eating some juicy gazelle meat while hearing Otos unravel the forest's secrets to him
'so as I told you, the forest is about 1 million kilometers, extremely massive, so naturally, I can't know everything, but I'm knowledgeable about the events and the situations in the 50 thousand kilometers radius around us, the situation here is fairly simple, this zone is divided into 4 areas each ruled by a different species of fierce monsters that would turn you and me into dust,their forces are pretty equal and they also have generals and soldiers under there command so don't try to provoke them, it's ok if you kill one of them outside their territories, but never do that in their areas, that's a death sentence in their book.
these species are, the spiders, they have many tricks at there disposal and no one dares enter their territory alone, their numbers near 800s and they control ten thousand kilometers.
then we have the wolves, wolves are extremely fast, agile, and have good teamwork matched with sharp claws and fangs, they number in the 1000s.
then you have us the bears, we are very strong with tough hides and I'm nothing but a soldier, although I'm a bit special since I'm intelligent, and we are about 800s.
and then... the most annoying, although not intelligent nor strong as an individual, their numbers are about 5000, and if you kill one of them in their territory and they released their nasty chemicals you're done for... those damn ants, they look harmless but. they're an absolute nightmare'
"Alright, thank you for the information Otos, this is really useful, thanks to you I decided where I'll head next... the spider's territory, hmph your time is coming you nasty tricksters"
'Huh, WAIT WAIT WAIT SAROS, who do you think you're to invade the spider's territory, they are the weakest but that doesn't mean you can just go in there!'
"Don't worry, Otos, I just want that delicious EC they give, but that doesn't mean I'll go in there just like I own the place, I don't have the power to do such things"
' then tell me, how are you supposed to go in the spider's territory without alarming their queen?'
hmph "simple... I'll just turn my self into a spider"
'..... w-what?'
" just watch, active spider transformation [Jorogomo]"
[transforming into a spider is activated, the user can turn back to the original form cost free]
CLICK... CLACK... just the sound of the bone reforming itself would make anyone feel the pain, but saros couldn't feel anything, as if it was natural, he grew 4 black legs from each side, then his torso started changing horrifically transforming itself into a black spider's abdomen and head his exoskeleton looked really tough to pierce. Saros clanked his fangs and stretched his legs then stood up with his body reaching a 6 meters height. Otso was stupefied out of words, it just happened too quickly, without any warning whatsoever, shocking him into silence.
" where is the spider's territory?"
'A-ah, just keep walking towards the east, until you find an area with trees blocking the daylight'
as saros walked away, Otso was questioning everything right now.
.....
Saros was really surprised by how quickly he got used to these long legs, he also managed to control his legs while sprinting in no time, he was also surprised by how fast he was with the mix of [gravity defiance] and [gravity adaptation], with eight legs instead of two, his speed was on another level.
by noon, Saros reached the territory that Otso described, the trees were really tall with lots of leaves and branches, painting the whole area with darkness, this area was ten thousand kilometers, making up half of the spider's territory.
Saros walked around carefully studying his environment, he could hear skittering everywhere, from above him, from the sides, he could even hear those chilling sounds coming from the underground! giving him an ominous feeling, saros thought about which one of those nasty spiders would be feeding on his insides if he didn't enter as a spider.
Saros looked around for somewhere without any spiders which wasn't an easy task, finally finding an unoccupied tree group near the borders, he climbed on top of the longest tree and started making a web around himself and extended an extremely sticky web downwards and threw some gazelle meet on the ground making a trap. Saros waited for a long time, but the spiders that pass by never approach, saros thought about the possibility that the spiders didn't approach the trap because it's in there territory, so they thought it's a trap set up by one of their own for the fierce beasts outside, so he decided to make the trap outside of the territory, in the path that most spiders take, so he went there and built multiple traps. most spiders that went by actually ignored the gazelle meat finding it suspicious how it's placed right outside there territory, but the young inexperienced spiders took the bait, once they started biting on the meat Saros would drop the sticky web on top of it then drop down piercing there head with his legs that got weight boost by using [personal gravity].
Saros set up 10 traps and lurked on top of the trees, sometimes using a women's scream to lure spiders in, like that he killed 20 spiders in various colors and sizes gaining 5 levels in total and recovering his mp, he also got some web skills like [poisonous web] [acid web] [acid resistance] [poison resistance]
Saros finally decided to go before doing any more disturbances to spiders causing the more intelligent ones come to investigate the situation, so he quickly ran back to the cave, made a soft web bed, transformed back to his original form and fell in deep slumber after the constant hunting he did today.