Prisoners of VR

"Load!" Enrigen spoke slowly as he watched four people load each slingshot.

They had selected a tiny boulder as a projectile, twice the size of a human head, around thirty to forty kilograms in weight. The material was granite and its edges were rugged sharp.

An Elastic Rope had been attached to the tiny boulder before it was loaded on the slingshot. Four Arachmen grabbed the Elastic Rope and pulled it slowly, careful of their steps. They were each equipped with Silk Shoes and Silk Gauntlet Skills.

Thereby, they were able to calculate their grip to hold the Elastic Rope steadily while not losing their foothold from the elastic tension that was being built up.

Thanks to the two Skills, they could pull the Elastic Rope as much as possible, causing the elastic arm of the slingshot to curve, stretching as long as four metres. The two wooden arms of the slingshot bent a couple of centimetres under the stress.

Thankfully, the handle of the slingshot had been lodged deep enough in the ground, as a result keeping it stable. Once the rubber arms were fully pulled, the men announced to Enrigen.

"Let's start, shall we?" Enrigen smirked as a group of people moved at his command. They set up logs of wood and hay. An Arachmen carefully brought in a box, within which was burning hay. They had been using conventional means to light it up, taking around ten minutes to do so.

If the timing was wrong, they would have to do it again. And Enrigen ensured everything worked at the correct timeframe.

The logs of dry wood caught fire, releasing smoke. A tub two metres in diameter was placed over the fire. In it was a Giant Tarantula, alive, immersed in water.

It seemed some sort of poison had been fed to it, preventing it from moving its limbs. But it was wide awake. Time gradually clicked as the water within the wooden tub reached boiling point.

"Screeee!" The Giant Tarantula screamed in pain as its body was being boiled. Some herbs were added to the water in the tub, releasing an aroma.

"It stinks!" Enrigen covered his nose at the smell. It was unbearable for the Arachmen. But it was irresistible for the Giant Tarantulas; the stench was an aroma to their olfactory senses.

In their state of hunger, the spiders began to drool, immediately latching onto the two meat cocoons in their possession.

The Dungeon Boss screeched in response. Even it was unable to endure its hunger, devouring the contents of a meat cocoon on its own. The second one was shared by the elites.

A grudging sense of hunger enveloped their beings at the sounds their boiling brethren made. The elites were vastly more intelligent than the Giant Tarantulas.

Creatures in a Dungeon had superior intellect while the Dungeon Boss could even converse with people. This was a fact verified in the forums already.

And with greater intelligence came a fair share of baggage.

Empathy! Pain! Honour! Sense of belonging beyond one's person!

And upon seeing their brethren being tortured for the fun of it, the Giant Tarantula Elites seethed in rage, intending to destroy the Arachmen. But even more powerful than rage, they felt a rumbling sense of hunger.

They had been fighting against the Arachmen, using the reserve of silk in their abdomen. To replenish that, they consumed food. But, that was a trap. Right as they consumed their reserve, Enrigen cut off their food supply.

And as time passed, their bodies digested the food and replenished the silk in their abdomen. It meant they began to feel hunger already. Due to the pressure posed by the Arachmen, the Giant Tarantula Elites had used up excessive amounts of their silk to increase the defensive webs in the cylindrical cave.

It meant they used up too much of their strength and hence fell prey to hunger.

A Giant Tarantula Elite was unable to handle its anger and hunger anymore as it swiftly moved toward the bottom.

"Aim!" Enrigen calmly shouted as the men behind a slingshot adjusted its aim.

"Fire!" Once the Giant Tarantula Elite was within range, they launched the tiny boulder at it.

The boulder smashed through many layers of web and slammed dead centre on its body, splattering it upon impact. Only after tearing through five layers of webs did the tiny boulder stop. Following that, its weight began to wear down the respective web's strength.

As the initial impact already caused many minute tears to form on the strands of the web, due to the weight of the tiny boulder, the tears only worsened over time.

Enrigen tied his Elastic Rope to a pebble and threw it with force, causing it to latch onto the Giant Tarantula Elite's corpse and yanked it to the ground. He extracted its Invoker Crystal and played around with it, displaying a taunting face towards the spiders, his voice trailing off with a musical tone, "I'm coming for you!"

"Load!" At his command, all eight slingshots were loaded, aiming at dense spots of web joints, "Aim!"

The cylindrical cave's structure meant all the aroma from the cooked spider moved up, concentrating more and more towards the top. Being there meant their sense of hunger only worsened.

Therefore, even when they were aware, at least to avoid losing their sense of reasoning to hunger, the spiders instinctively came down. But that was only temporary as with time, the aroma only thickened.

"Scree!" As more and more layers of webs were destroyed by the tiny boulders, the Dungeon Boss screeched in fury as it rushed down.

"They're here..." Enrigen grinned as he motioned for the Attack Squad to be ready. As the spiders rushed to the bottom, he roared, "Attack!"

'Shit!' The Dungeon Boss realised its mistake at his roar. But it was too late by then. As the spiders rushed toward the ground of the cylindrical cave, they noticed the trap.

Hidden amongst the various paths leading to the cylindrical cave, masked from the view of the spiders at their previous spots were Arachmen, numbering three hundred. In their hands each was a fist-sized pebble.

All three hundred Arachmen had poised in a throwing pose, launching the projectiles at Enrigen's signal. Three hundred pebbles slammed into the spiders. Many missed but many more hit their mark, causing severe injuries.

But, this was just the first volley. It was followed by the second, third, and many more.

The spiders intended to flee back to safety, but the tiny boulders launched by the eight slingshots cut off their paths by destroying multiple layers of webs. Moreover, the dozens of tiny boulders hanging from the webs dropped one after another, raining down onto the spiders.

It was a three-pronged attack. And caught in the centre were the 62 spiders.

"Got you!" Just as the Dungeon Boss intended to target the Arachmen with its Skill, the web-weaving organ's entrance on its abdomen was blocked by Enrigen.

He threw three Silk Bombs at the entrance, closing it up when they splashed open. He followed it up with some pebbles, forcing the stretched silk to pull the pebbles into the entrance, further blockading it.

Unless the Dungeon Boss removed the silk, it wouldn't be able to shoot its attack. The fastest way to overcome it would be to activate its Skill by targeting the silk covering its abdomen. But that meant it would waste one activation of its Skill.

If Enrigen were to block it again, the Dungeon Boss would fall victim to a vicious cycle. Hence, it hesitated for a moment.

Of course, having been planning for it all along, Enrigen didn't miss its hesitation. Held in his hands each was an Elastic Rope, attached to a heavy rock. He rapidly spun them and slammed the rocks on the Dungeon Boss, targeting its leg joints.

When it screeched in pain, he threw a couple of Silk Bombs into its mouth, blocking it. He threw another Silk Bomb at its leg and used the Elastic Rope Skill on it, causing it to expand into a rope.

It latched onto the Dungeon Boss's leg, adding elastic tension. When the Dungeon Boss tried to move, the Elastic Rope pulled its leg back, preventing it from taking a step forward.

In a state of fluster, it tried to leap and clamp his head using its mandibles. But a tiny boulder slammed into its abdomen at this moment, shredding it apart.

"Your movements were obvious." One of the Arachmen behind a slingshot commented in pride. Enrigen's actions had flustered the Dungeon Boss to the extent it intended to take him down with it.

As a result, its only option was to leap straight at him, making its path predictable for the slingshot to aim.

"Attack!" The Attack Squad targeted the injured Giant Tarantula Elites as the Dungeon Boss dropped dead.

Within twenty minutes, all the spiders had been wiped out.

Equipping the Dungeon Boss's Skill, Shrinking Net, Enrigen smirked, announcing in victory, "We have won against the spiders!"

"Victory is ours!"

Everyone at the scene rejoiced, "Victory is ours!"

Following that, the Spades made camps throughout the Dungeon to systematically capture the spawning Giant Tarantulas and extract their silk periodically, transforming the entire Dungeon into a giant, silk-producing farm.

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