I Am Not Goblin Slayer

Chapter 297: Talent Extraction

"It's over."Maggie's body was stuck to the spiderweb, suspended in mid-air unable to move, like a moth that had fallen into a spider's web. No matter how she struggled, she couldn't escape. On the contrary, the spider silk that released powerful adhesive force was wrapping around her tighter and tighter.

Her pupils trembled violently, and she could only watch in terror as the monster in front of her stepped with almost silent, light footsteps, walking leisurely along the vibrating spider silk toward her.

The distance between them was so close.

So close that she could smell the strong stench coming from the other's body.

It finally stopped moving.

On both sides of its head were two rows of compound eyes, totaling eight black eyes.

Those eight black eyeballs stared at Maggie unblinkingly from different angles.

Yet its face showed a human-like expression of pleasure, seemingly greatly enjoying the fear emotions radiating from its prey.

Its entire body was covered with creepy gray fur, its abdomen bulging like a huge sphere, and the spider silk was precisely sprayed out from the glandular organs in that abdomen.

Seemingly having appreciated enough of the terrified expression on her face.

Its lower abdomen, plump like a pregnant woman's belly, shot out gray-white spider silk.

The silk precisely wrapped around Maggie's neck as if it had a life of its own.

"......"

The spider silk slowly tightened around her throat, gradually increasing the pressure. Maggie felt herself gradually suffocating.

Her vision gradually blurred.

Suddenly, a flash of azure blue crashed into her peripheral vision.

"Boom!"

"Crack!"

The spider silk that kept wrapping around her body was precisely cut by a fleeting azure blue light.

As the silk broke, the tightening force around her neck suddenly loosened.

"Hah—Hah—"

She instinctively gasped for breath like someone saved from drowning.

Her mind went completely blank.

"Made it in time."

A clear male voice faintly came from beside her.

She struggled to turn her head to look.

She saw that the originally thick fog-filled environment had unknowingly quietly dispersed.

And in the air beside her, a tall male figure was floating in the air.

Did he save her?

Although Maggie had never met him before, she quickly calmed down.

He seemed to possess a magical power that made even someone meeting him for the first time instinctively feel trust toward him.

It was like facing the suddenly clearing sun after enduring overcast days for a long time.

"Next is you."

The man shifted his gaze from her to the monster not far away, his eyes gradually becoming sharp.

The newcomer was Gauss, who had quickly arrived at the scene using the Fly spell.

"Hiss hiss!"

The Ettercap stepping on the spider silk, being stared at by Gauss, lost all its previous arrogant, playful attitude toward its prey, replaced by a soul-deep sense of shock.

Even Gauss's stare made it feel an intense sense of crisis, all its hairs standing on end.

Its spider-like mouthparts emitted hissing sounds, attempting to intimidate this unknown enemy through sound.

But Gauss remained expressionless.

He just swept his gaze around.

After the mist dissipated, the situation on the swamp ground and around the withered trees became visible.

Many spiders of various sizes were everywhere.

No other Ettercaps were seen.

However, through environmental analysis, Gauss could determine that this swamp area shouldn't have only this single Ettercap in front of him.

Probably in other areas, each occupying their own habitats?

Gauss quickly thought to himself.

Confirming that he couldn't lure out other Ettercaps, he didn't delay any longer.

Time was tight, the mission heavy.

Today he hoped to preliminarily establish an advantage in the ranking list.

"Magic Missile."

He slightly opened his mouth.

The pre-prepared azure blue Magic Missile shot out from his mouth.

The Magic Missile rapidly expanded upon entering the air.

Trailing beautiful yet deadly blue light bands, it shot toward the Ettercap.

This attack was too sudden, and coupled with the Magic Missile's inherently fast flight speed, even though the Ettercap had been continuously watching Gauss's movements, it couldn't react immediately when it saw the blue light appear.

And this momentary delay in combat was enough to take its life.

"Boom!"

Gauss's Magic Missile hit its spherical abdomen that occupied most of its body.

"Crack!"

Its proud, hard abdominal shell shattered like fragile eggshell under Gauss's Magic Missile.

"Bang!"

Dark green foul-smelling body fluids mixed with large amounts of unformed spider silk mucus splattered in all directions!

In just an instant, its lower body was blown to nothingness. Fortunately, its claws hooked onto the spider silk below, preventing it from falling to the ground.

Not dead yet?

Gauss glanced at its remaining half-body.

"Hiss hiss!!!"

It continuously emitted sharp, miserable cries.

Clearly, having its lower body violently exploded brought it intense and lasting pain.

Gauss ignored it.

His gaze turned to the spiders crawling everywhere on the ground.

They looked somewhat different from ordinary spiders.

Their surface color was a dark purple close to black, similar to the Ettercap.

The spiders subordinate to the Ettercap were all raised by the Ettercap like a mother caring for her children.

Thus their relationship with the Ettercap was far beyond what could be compared to ordinary monster tribe leaders and their underlings.

Watching the Ettercap on the overhead spiderweb emitting waves of painful, mournful screams.

The spiders below seemed to boil over.

One after another quickly climbed up the spiderweb, showing an appearance of "eager to save their mother."

Even with his obvious, powerful enemy presence.

Such loyal spiders.

Gauss shook his head.

He had read books and thus knew some information about Ettercaps.

Therefore, he knew the positioning of the spiders it cultivated in the Ettercap's eyes was accurately not a familial relationship, but a purer form of tool.

They were cold "spider shepherds." Although they released pheromones to brainwash their servants, in reality, these spiders were merely similar to "hunting dogs," "workers," or even "mobile food supplies."

When food was scarce, they would not hesitate to eat these spiders.

Although Gauss found their moth-to-flame-like brainless loyalty strange, even somewhat peculiarly appreciative, he absolutely wouldn't show mercy.

Streaks of Fire Bolts shot out from in front of him.

His intelligence was as high as 15 points.

The Fire Bolt cantrip was almost as simple as breathing for him.

Every spider he targeted couldn't escape the Fire Bolt's lock-on.

"Killed Ettercap Slave Spider*1"

...

Accompanied by Gauss's spellcasting, kill notifications constantly flashed before his eyes.

Indeed, Gauss knew they weren't ordinary spiders.

Each one was the size of an adult's head or larger, plus their inherent toxins. In special terrains like forest swamps with low visibility, they were even more threatening to ordinary people than most low-tier monsters.

Walking through muddy water, once bitten by a spider hiding in a corner, the toxins would make movement increasingly difficult, attracting more spiders to surround until becoming the Ettercap's food.

And the Ettercap would use the prey hunted by these servants to continuously produce more slave spiders.

This was also why this commission was marked as urgent.

The Ettercap Slave Spider became Gauss's 50th normal monster species in the Monster Encyclopedia.

Although the target was met, there were still many enemies in front of him.

He was like an aerial artillery platform, continuously releasing flames, cleansing the monsters below.

After some rest, Maggie, still hanging on the spiderweb, had regained consciousness.

Watching the flames shooting out from in front of Gauss like a storm, her eyes flashed with some unreal dizziness.

The terrifying spiders turned into charred, dried corpses under the baptism of flames. Even the muddy swamp ground continuously steamed white mist under high-temperature fire roasting, quickly drying and hardening.

This terrifying swamp that had tormented her for over a day, like a ghost realm, was easily overturned before this handsome man.

"This is... an adventurer, this is... a Mage?"

She murmured with her lips, her heart immensely shocked.

Although she had heard that some powerful professionals possessed immense power beyond ordinary people's understanding, that was after all just hearsay. Only with the appearance of the man before her, flames like obedient pets in his hands, even the environment instantly changed, did she deeply realize how remarkable professionals were.

Not long after, Albenia and others who were a step slower also arrived at the battlefield.

"Gauss, I'll help you."

"I... I'm here too."

...

The battle concluded in a very short time.

"Total monsters killed: 8433"

Gauss had killed a total of 121 normal monsters Ettercap Slave Spiders, and 1 elite monster Ettercap.

Only then did he have time to take the woman hanging on the spiderweb down and hand her over to the team's doctor, Serlandul.

"Don't worry, this is my companion, Serlandul. He is an excellent physician."

Noticing the woman's slightly fearful look toward the half-snake person Serlandul, Gauss explained.

"Okay, thank you, my lord."

Maggie swallowed.

Although she was still somewhat afraid of Serlandul's monster-like appearance, since her savior said so, she could only suppress the unease in her heart and obediently nodded.

Nearby, Albenia, whose face was slightly pale, glanced somewhat enviously at Maggie in Gauss's arms.

"Are you okay, Albenia?"

Gauss noticed her somewhat abnormal complexion and asked with concern.

He hadn't expected that Albenia was truly afraid of spiders.

Fortunately, this commission didn't require much effort from her.

"Maybe you should find a place to rest?"

Although they still needed to sort through the loot, if a companion was unwell, Gauss naturally wouldn't insist.

"Lord Gauss, I'm fine." Albenia swallowed.

Since she said so, Gauss didn't say more. Getting more accustomed would be good too.

He focused his attention on the Adventurer's Manual.

After collecting the 50th normal monster species in the Monster Encyclopedia, Gauss could finally draw a talent again after a long time.

So what would it be?

Speaking of which, 50 monster species was quite a lot.

He was also very curious about which monster's talent he would draw.

Could it be Goblins again?

His first two normal monster draws were both Goblin talents - the first was Rapid Digestion, which had now evolved into Special Stomach. The second was Reptilian, which had now evolved into Sturdy Scale Bloodline.

If there was a third time, he wouldn't be surprised.

But he felt it was somewhat too fixed.

Although there were many Goblins, drawing Goblin talents was beneficial for his improvement, but appropriately expanding the reward pool was also quite good. After all, he wasn't hunting Goblins every moment.

But thinking so much was useless. Talent drawing was random, not under his control.

"Normal monster encyclopedia species count reached 50 types: Goblin, Slime, ordinary... Ironclaw Giant Crab, Spined Arrowfish, Ettercap Slave Spider."

"Randomly drawing racial talent abilities and modifying adaptation for constitution."

Images constantly flashed before Gauss's eyes.

Around him, Aria and others who were collecting loot or scanning with crystals to record points simultaneously looked up, surveying their surroundings.

The surrounding air seemed to have undergone some changes.

The mist was dispersing, and the sunlight above was slowly shining toward this swamp land that was perpetually shrouded in fog.

"What's happening?"

Aria blinked.

Instinctively stopped her actions.

Although not understanding what was happening, in the wilderness, sudden changes always required preparing for the worst first.

Until Serlandul looked at Gauss and noticed a strange power surging around him, then signaled to other companions about Gauss's situation.

Then he lowered his head again to continue treating Maggie's swollen, purple legs.

After examining for a few moments, Aria also tacitly continued collecting loot.

Sunlight shone on Gauss, making him feel warm all over.

After a while.

When he regained his senses, the text before him had new results.

"Drew one of the abilities from the monster Goblin-like creature race, 【Degraded Draconic Language】"

"Modifying into, racial talent 【Elementary Draconic Language】 Hundred Color quality (can advance)"

When Gauss clearly saw the content, he immediately raised his eyebrows.

"Draconic language counts as a racial talent? Shouldn't this be a skill?"

And...

It finally changed monster targets.

This time from Goblins to Goblin-like creatures.

Indeed, was the drawing probability related to the number killed?

Gauss couldn't help but suspect.

The number of Goblin-like creatures he had killed was already considerable.

When food was scarce, they would unhesitatingly eat these spiders.

Especially not long ago, he had just cleared out a tribe of nearly a thousand Goblin-like creatures.

If his guess was correct, that hunting operation probably greatly increased the probability of Goblin-like creatures being drawn from the reward pool.

While he was pondering.

His body began to undergo some changes.

A massive stream of information flooded into his mind.

Strange knowledge squeezed into his brain in a rough manner.

Causing his mind to enter a blank, crashed state for a short time.

Then, his throat - waves of slight pain and itchiness surged in his throat, as if countless invisible micro-scalpels were performing precise modifications to his throat.

"Ah..."

Gauss felt alternating waves of burning heat and icy cold in his throat.

Only at this moment did he realize that the Elementary Draconic Language racial talent was probably not as simple as he had initially imagined.