"Mm, so you've said, many times thus far. You've yet to actually explain why, however." Cypius said, his patience growing short. "It is a defective, useless egg than cannot hatch. It is protected by spiders above the level of our planet, yes, but from your own words they are barely children compared to the strength they should have had if the egg was not defective. Why would anyone fight for that?"
Shaking his head, Karkum explained, "It is precisely because it is defective and weak that they would fight for it."
"Why?"
"If you were a planet with the opportunity to study the corpse of the child of a being whose strength rivals that of an entire planet on its own, would you not fight for it?"
"I would. But this is hardly that, is it?"
"No, you are correct, the parent of this egg does not rival planets. It eats them. This unfinished egg itself was meant to be the size of a planet."
Cypius gasped as he struggled to imagine how large the parent of the spider egg must have been to create a planet sized egg, and why it failed and left its egg on their world as it did.
What could have happened to force it to abandon its offspring?
"Could we not be the ones to obtain the egg and study it? Our world, of course, I do not believe we alone have the capacity to do so."
Karkum scoffed at Cypius' words.
"You overestimate us, and underestimate the egg. I doubt the entirety of our planet working together to exterminate the spiders within would succeed, and that's if we are disregarding the safety and security of the egg. Trying to kill them without harming the egg...that would be so far from our reach, its unfathomable."
"Even 6 alone could hold his own against the guardian spider, no?"
Thought Karkum didn't know why humans laughed, or truly understand their humor in the slightest, he felt as though he was beginning to. Hearing Cypius speak made him want to bellow out in laughter, as if it were the funniest joke of his long life.
"Hold his own? The boy ran, before it even neared him, and even with a head start he failed to keep it from him for more than a minute. And during that time, not even once did he consider counterattacking, not that it would have done him any good. The guardian could stand still as you, 6, and I all attacked it with our greatest efforts for 10 days and nights, and we would not put a scratch on it, and I suspect that goes for the rest of out planets strongest fighters as well."
Back in the spider's nest, 6 had just disappeared.
The guardian spider knew instantly that its spear had only succeeded in skewering its own allies, failing to harm the intruder that it hated so much.
With rage, it began lashing out at the walls around it, destroying everything it touched in the room, turning it all into dust.
As it struck, throwing itself at the walls surrounding it, the red covering its body slowly took over more and more, bit by bit. It was slow, but it was visibly spreading, staining its white body. The red liquid within the cracks was coursing non-stop, like an angry tide was trapped inside.
6 opened his eyes to see a full black void, much like the one he found when he entered the combat training facility on Trivrium.
He was tempted to joke about being dead again, but his better judgement prevented him from saying it after Trivrium had saved his life.
"Welcome back to Trivirum. Glad to see you made it back safely?" A voice sounded throughout the black room.
As 6 looked around to find the speaker, he took note of the fact that his vision seemed to be back to normal, no longer enhanced in the dark like it had been in the nest.
In the middle of the room was the exact same set up as the combat facility sported, as if he was in the exact same room, but nothing else. He couldn't see anyone who might have been speaking.
"There was never a question about it, actually. Nothing bad ever happens to me." 6 spoke confidently, just now remembering to deactivate [Intensified Blood Flow].
He thought about how nice it would be to use it as a passive, but he knew there was likely some kind of serious drawback to its use in long term, like shortening his life or something stereotypical like that.
"I'll bet. Ready to get your pay?" the voice asked.
"More ready than I have ever been for anything, ever. In fact, if you asked all of my closest friends, they'd say "Yeah, 6 is so ready to get paid. He always is, best part of his days," and it's true, it is the best part of my days."
After a very brief silence, the voice said, "I do not believe that you have close friends."
"Not true. There's this one girl, uh...we'll call her Triv. We're tight, super tight. The tightest. That means we're close friends, if you didn't know." 6 said.
With a bit of teasing in the voice, it said, "Right. Well, here you go."
As the voice finished speaking, a screen appeared in front of 6's eyes.
[Spider's Egg]
[Requirements: Basic combat abilities.]
[Mission: Explore the spider's nest to gather information about the nest itself, the spiders inside, and the cause of the infestation. This is a basic scouting mission, so you aren't expected to solve the issue, just gain as much information about it as you can.]
[Details: No one is entirely sure of when the spider's nest appeared or what caused it. There was a previously a town where the nest is located, but it has been confirmed to be entirely wiped out. Since the discover of the nest, several advancements have been made by nearby lords and mercenaries in attempts to rid the land of the infestation of the spiders. Each attack against the spider's nest resulted in a total wipeout. Thus far, only one way into the spider's nest has been created, a result of an attack of a massive party of people.. The spider's do not seem to know how to repair or guard the opening, and only attack people who enter the radius of their nest. Stealth is possible, but contact with spider webs are likely to alert nearby spiders. So far, no one has left the inside of the nest alive.]
[Mission Results: Completed]
[Basic reward: 300 points]
"Wait a second, what the hell are points?" 6 asked, confused above the term he had never seen before.
"Looks like Trivrium decided that points would be the best thing to refer to the universal currency for you. It'll be translated when you speak to others, so don't worry. It's the same thing as velvs or dollars, or anything of that sort." The voice explained.
6 shrugged his shoulders and continued reading the mission completion screen in front of him.
[Discovered general strength of spiders on the inner edges of the nest: 200 points]
[Discovered presence within the nest: 500 points]
[Additional Reward: A small amount of Carusian salt.]
Though he had no idea what Carusian salt was, obviously it was more valuable than the 1000 points he received.
[Carusian Salt]
[Type: Consumable]
[Quality: Basic]
[Special Effect: Increases overall vitality and defense of your physical body by a small amount]
[Usage: Ingest]
[Description: I'd suggest adding it to food first, unless you want to chew on extremely potent salt.]
It was like someone knew exactly what he needed. Now that he was done with that mission, he would no longer have the [Protective Blessing of Trivrium] to buff his defenses, and this Carusian salt came at the perfect time.
Even if it was only a small amount, an increase is an increase, and 6 would take what he could get.
There was just one more line below that on the mission completion screen, but it was actually the one 6 was most excited to see.
[A complaint was lodged regarding the incorrect information provided by the mission world. the complaint was found to be valid. Additional compensation will be provided at the cost of the mission world.]
[Compensation Reward: Random Item.]
Thinking to himself, 6 figured that the reward of a random item could be both good and bad. It was good due to the fact that he could get something amazing, that far outweighed the supposed reward value of the random item chance, something like his Cor-Ruby. But on the flip side, he could get something entirely useless.
Given the fact that he was lucky with the ruby not too long ago, he didn't have high hopes for the random item. In fact, if he could sell the reward for a guaranteed item, he would almost definitely do that.
'Trivrium, is that actually possible? Could I trade the reward with someone before I actually claim it?' 6 thought. His hopes weren't high, as that would be far too convenient.
"No, you have to claim the reward. There's no way to trade rewards granted to you, only the actual items you receive from them." The voice echoed throughout the room as it spoke.
"My human senses are tingling. Is it just me, or did I ask the sweet lady in my mind that question, only to be answered by a disembodied voice that was definitely not in my mind." 6 said. "Almost as if you are the sweet lady in my head, whose voice I can now hear for some reason."
"Alright, stop playing. Let's talk about the mission." Trivrium said, 6 being absolutely sure that he was speaking to her now.
"Sure, sure, can do. Whatcha wanna talk about?"
"The nest. Did that feel like a nest of spiders, who have gathered together for a purpose, to you? Or like a breeding ground for spiders?" Trivrium asked.
"No." 6 said as he shook his head.
"No, nor did it seem as such to me. What do you think it may be?" She asked.
"Could be any number of things. An army waiting for orders, a special place to the spiders, so on and so forth. Could be an egg, of course, but I'm sure that possibility has occurred to you already given the mission name."
"What do you think about the chances of it being an egg?"
After a brief moment to think about it, 6 responded, "I don't think they're nonexistent, but i don't think the odds are high. It just didn't seem to be an egg but rather some kind of structure to house the spiders. Plus, if it was an egg, whatever laid it would be absolutely fucking huge. Why would something that big protect its children with what would basically be ants to it?"
"In my own opinion, for the same reason it left its egg on a low level planet. Food."