6 tossed away the crushed spider he was holding, shaking the thick goo off of his hands in disgust.
He ran to the gray spider's corpse he threw his knife into, scooping the knife up and swiping it through the air to throw the spider goo off of the blade.
Rather than turn to take care of the two spiders that were still nearby, 6 made the choice to charge into the most densely populated area, where the highest number of spiders had gathered together as they crawled toward him.
The spiders formed a small tide of legs and disgusting round bodies, charging at 6 with anger. He kicked the first one to reach him, treating its head like a soccer ball, throwing its body into its fellow spiders.
Another brown spider jumped at him, straight toward 6's face with its fangs exposed. He grabbed the legs of the spider, aiming to grab it and swing the spider around to use it as a weapon, only for the leg to tear off as he swung it back, sending the spider flying across the web-covered field. 6 looked at the spider-less spider leg in his hand, and then threw it at a nearby spider. The small leg bounced off it's round body and fell to the ground uselessly, just as he expected.
'I will use one of these spiders to kill another spider, mark my words.' 6 promised to himself.
Using his knife, he horizontally slashed open the back of the spider that reached his legs, spurting goo into the air like a fountain.
The spiders in the distance began bunching up, abandoning the tactic of surrounding him immediately in favor of making groups to besiege 6 with, hoping that the groups would slow down his killing enough for the rest of the groups to reach him.
Ironically, this worked out in his favor, as the only thing he had to worry about was being buried by all the spiders. The time they took to group up would give him enough time to take out enough of the spiders that the odds of them burying him with spider wave tactics would be negligible.
If they were separated into groups that he could eliminate one by one, it massively lowered his risk and made it easier to position himself.
What worried him was that the spiders showed some level of intelligence with this, more than just 'kill whatever is in front of me'. If these basic spiders outside of the nest could make simple plans, then the more powerful and dangerous spiders inside of it could be even more cunning.
He needed to make sure to keep an eye out for traps.
Luckily this level of intelligence didn't seem to be the result of someone controlling them, or didn't show much of them.
If the mastermind behind the infestation, if there was one, was so simple as to think this kind of tactic would do any good against 6, they wouldn't have had the capabilities to cause such a massive infestation.
Either the mastermind couldn't directly control the spiders well, didn't care for such a minor situation outside of the nest, was remarkably bad at fighting, or did not exist at all, 6 thought.
The spiders left in the group he was currently entangled with made several attempts to grab onto and slow him down, aside from the one remaining brown spider which repeatedly attempted to sink its fangs into him when he would strike or kill the surrounding gray or black spiders.
It didn't take long for him to dispatch the group and move onto the next, and when there was 3 spiders left he managed to succeed in using the body of a spider as a weapon against the rest, this time grabbing 4 of its legs, two in each hand, and bashing it against the other spiders.
When he was done with his spider weapon, he tossed it at one of the other approaching groups, hitting them like bowling pins.
Having gotten into the groove, and having grown accustomed to the way the spiders fought, the next few small groups of spiders became even easier.
With numbers this low, he couldn't understand how these spiders could be such a threat to Folrost, enough to wipe out their experienced warriors.
Though Cypius was probably on the stronger end of his town given his position, he shouldn't be on another level entirely.
The other fighters that Folrost sent to the spider's nest would surely be competent warriors, if not at the very least an average human. These spiders were nothing impressive. Sure, the brown ones could make things a tad complicated, but any random group of 20 adults should be able to kill these 80 or so spiders if they were prepared.
6 continued thinking about this until he was halfway through massacring these slightly disappointing spiders. This wasn't the blood pumping, adrenaline inducing fight he wanted for his first battle of his first adventure.
The final group of spiders, which had conglomerated out of the remaining 30 spiders that he hadn't managed to kill before they managed to group up with the rest, was the only thing left for him to deal with.
Although this was by far the highest number he had faced so far, there was no worry on his face.
A grin flashed for a moment before he became serious again, focusing on the spider tide in front of him. While he waited for the tide to reach him, he glanced once more at the sides of the spider's nest, looking for any new spiders that may be arriving after the somewhat intense fighting going on in his area.
To his surprise he did see a new spider, crawling into his view from the side of the spider's nest. Even from this distance he could clearly tell it was significantly larger than the spiders he was fighting, its body had to rise to at least the height of his chest.
As it rounded the side of the spider's nest its figure became illuminated by the bright moonlight shining down onto it. The large figure of the spider in contrast with the moon that seemed to be hanging just beside it, close enough to touch, made money signs appear in 6's eyes. He was already thinking of what kind of loot he could get from the large spider, ignoring the fact that none of the other spiders dropped any loot, and the fact that he wasn't sure if loot dropping from things was even a thing in this new universe he was exploring.
"Miniboss!" 6 shouted in excitement, his eyes gleaming. An onlooker might believe the man just won the lottery.
He turned his focus back toward the spider tide that was now nearing him. He decided to wipe this group out as fast as possible, not wanting the mobs to interfere with his first real fight.
The spider-tide was almost upon him once he set his sights on it, the first of the spiders within killing distance.
He threw himself at them, his blood rushing as he thought about the fight he had to look forward to after this.
The only thing that dampened his excitement slightly was the fact that he kept getting the disgusting goo in his mouth, which made him want to retch.
For some reason the amount of what must be the blood of these spiders was absurdly pressurized, as if there was way too much stuffed into their bodies. Each time he killed one, no matter how he killed it, the goo went everywhere. It wasn't all bad, though.
It allowed him to mostly confirm that the spider's blood wasn't harmful, to him at least.
In a tight spot he could consider grilling up some spider legs to keep himself from starving, but the though of that brought another way of nausea to his stomach.
---------------------------------------
In Cypius' dining room, Plono and Cypius sat eating dinner in silence.
"Dad, I feel bad." Plono said, breaking the silence.
"We have nothing to feel bad for. He is a grown man, and he made his own choice." Cypius cooly stated. "If he is smart, he may make it back. All we can do is wait."
The silence fell in the room again, only filled by the occasional tapping of metal against wood as the two sat at the dining table.
The moonlight shone in from the windows, the two eating their dinner, both stabbing at the food on their food without eating.
"Aye, what happens happens. Come, clear the table with me dear." Cypius stood up as he spoke, picking up his own dishes as he began putting away the mostly untouched food.
"Yessir." Plono said as he joined him.
As they were cleaning up both of them heard slightly rushed, audible footsteps heading towards their house. They were on the heavier side, not the kind of footsteps any of the children in the village would produce, and the Landless wouldn't have any reason to be coming to their home at this time of night.
"I swear, if you open that door without knocking, properly, I shall slam it shut in your face the moment you open it." Cypius said loudly, projecting his voice so that it was audible on the other side of the door, presuming it was Karkum coming to tell them something again.
The footsteps walking toward the door came to a halt, followed by an awkward and oddly light knock, as if the knocker at the door was unsure of his actions.
The father and daughter glanced at each other, both confused. As far as they knew, that wasn't the way Karkum would respond to Cypius' words, as he would likely just ignore them entirely.
"You may enter." Cypius said, uncertainty and confusion in his voice. Plono looked at the door curiously, wondering why Karkum was being…decent.
The door opened gently and slowly, filling the house with moonbeams.
"Uh…is now a bad time?" 6 said sheepishly, unsure of why he was locked out of the inn and then yelled at immediately after returning to the Folrost.