Dark Dragon: The Summoned Hero Is A Villain

The dead bodies of the small spiders left behind littered the tunnel floor, twitching faintly as the last traces of life left them.

Leo stepped forward first, his sword still slick with dark, glistening fluid.

With the toe of his boot, he flipped one of the spider corpses over, inspecting the underside.

Then he crouched, pulling out a small dagger from his belt.

Galahad followed, already kneeling by another spider.

"Check the spinnerets," he said. "And the venom sacs. Those are usually the most valuable parts."

Cal and Bronn stood back at first, keeping an eye on the tunnel the rest of the swarm had escaped down. But after a moment, they relaxed and joined the grim work.

Noah and Arlo remained behind the group, watching with interest.

Leo spoke as he carved into the corpse with practiced ease. "These Bullet Spiders are quite the nasty little things. Those webs of theirs can punch a hole straight through a knight's helmet."

"Charming," Arlo muttered.

Leo went on. "It's rare to find them this young in a monolith without at least one adult Spider nearby. Bullet Spiders usually hunt in clusters around their matriarch."

Noah frowned. "So… we're going to meet the parents?"

Leo shook his head. "Not necessarily. This is an E-rank monolith."

"At most, a young adult might've snuck in and laid eggs. We're probably seeing the result of that. They'll be at most, D-rank. The real adult Spiders are C-rank, but they wouldn't be able to enter a E-rank monolith, so we're safe."

He held up a glistening sac between two fingers. "Still, these venom sacs are worth something. They're used in paralysis potions."

Galahad sliced a spinneret from another corpse, dropping it into a cloth pouch. "The thread is valuable too. Enchanters use it to bind small objects or weave magical seals. Weak but flexible."

Cal approached with a handful of harvested parts. "This enough to sell?"

Leo nodded. "Barely. But if we get more monsters like this, we'll break even."

Noah knelt beside a corpse and inspected it closely. He didn't have the tools to harvest anything, but he wanted to learn.

"These things are light," he observed. "But strong."

"Speed and accuracy are their strength," Galahad said. "Not power."

Once the last of the useful parts were secured, Leo gave the signal.

They regrouped quickly, no one saying much.

The air in the monolith was already stale, but after the harvesting, Noah could now smell the faint, bitter scent of spider ichor in the air.

After cleaning their weapons and making sure none of it was damaged, they moved on.

The tunnel wound forward another hundred meters or so, the glow of the walls fading and brightening like the monolith was sleeping, taking deep breaths and exhaling.

The jagged walls were growing wider and more irregular, as if the monolith had shifted over time.

Or as if something massive had crawled through them recently.

Then, they reached it.

The first split.

The path diverged ahead into two tunnels. One curved slightly to the left, the other to the right.

Both were lit, though the right tunnel's glow seemed to shift more intensely, like it was daring them to enter.

They stopped right at the intersection, weapons drawn just in case.

For a moment, no one said anything, then Galahad broke the silence.

"We take the left."

Leo glanced at the red-haired mage. "Why?"

"Come on, don't tell me you don't know." Galahad grunted.

"Don't know what?"

"It's common knowledge among monster hunters. Lower ranked monoliths, from D-rank downwards usually make the left paths easier, and the right paths are for stronger beasts."

"While the higher ranked monoliths, from C-rank and above, they usually form with the tougher monsters in the right tunnels."

Leo didn't argue. He already knew Galahad was much more knowledgeable than him when it came to things like this.

Cal nodded. "I think I heard the same thing a few years ago when I visited a monster hunter guild with my dad. Stick to the left until we've cleared enough to make a better call."

"We could find weaker beasts, but more in number," Bronn added.

"Better than one monster strong enough to rip us apart," Arlo muttered.

Noah looked down both paths, then glanced at the rest of the group. "I guess we're going left."

Without further discussion, they turned toward the left passage.

As they walked through it, the glow of the walls stabilized, but they were dimmer, always leaving spots of darkness ahead of them.

They walked on, trying to make as little noise as possible.

They would inevitably face monsters, but being quiet meant that at least, they won't be ambushed.

They moved quietly through the tunnel, boots crunching softly against the rocky floor.

The deeper they went, the narrower the path became. Until, suddenly, it widened again.

They stepped into a small chamber.

It had a low ceiling, with jagged walls and uneven floors.

Another tunnel lay directly opposite them, leading deeper into the monolith's maze of passageways.

But it wasn't the tunnel that caught their attention.

It was the bodies.

All across the chamber lay the curled, dried husks of Bullet Spiders.

They were scattered haphazardly, legs tucked inward, some torn open down the middle.

Others had blackened holes in their carapaces, as though something had punched clean through them.

Some were split in half. All of them looked long dead, their chitin dull and shriveled.

Noah bent low beside one of them, eyes narrowing. "They've been drained."

"They're not fresh," Galahad muttered behind him, stepping into the chamber carefully. "But they're not that old either. Few days at most."

Leo cursed under his breath. "No venom sacs left. These corpses are worthless."

Arlo whistled low, scanning the destruction. "Something did a number on them."

Galahad nodded. "It happens sometimes. A monolith isn't usually home to just one kind of beast. Different monsters can be scattered across the same territory. Most of the time, they avoid each other, each one holding their own spaces… but sometimes, they fight."

"Over territory?" Noah asked.

"Territory, food, instinct," Galahad replied. "Doesn't really matter. When it happens, it's usually like this."

"Whatever did this," Cal murmured, eyes narrowing, "I don't want to meet it."

Bronn grunted in agreement.

Leo took the lead again, stepping over a collapsed husk as he gestured toward the tunnel ahead.

"Nothing to gain here, folks. Let's keep moving."

They carefully stepped through the aftermath, boots crunching over the dried limbs and crumpled shells of the spiders.

But as they left the chamber behind, a small truth was already taking root in their mind.

Something worse than Bullet Spiders lived in this monolith.

And they might be heading straight for it.