Born in apocalypse

"Olivia, should we go in that direction? There are very few monsters here. I’ve only leveled up one time after coming here," Grace, the tank of the group, asked as he looked at his team leader.

"No, we shouldn’t be going that deep into the cave." Olivia clearly rejected his suggestion and continued to move around the area she and her group had chosen.

"I was just suggesting because there are very few beasts and monsters here. I mean, what could happen? We are only going slightly into the cave... Did you forget we had killed a boss?" Grace muttered in his defense.

"Grace, no means no... and killing a boss on your own and killing a boss in the supervision of tens of tier 3 people is a different thing," Olivia replied. After replying, she put one finger on her mouth while looking at the tank.

Even though Olivia silenced her team members, she was pondering over one of his said matters, ’The number of monsters here is indeed few compared to our previous location. Is something wrong here?’

She was a proud member of the modern world, thus her knowledge about the rules of the jungle was almost negligible, but that didn’t stop her from learning about it.

With just a few seconds of focus, she was able to remember Thala’s lessons about this exact circumstance.

She clearly remembered Thala’s words that there could be only two reasons that can create a scenario where the number of beasts is few in a particular area compared to the rest of the place.

The first and the very obvious one is that the resources there are scarce.

Remembering this, she turned her head around. After looking at the area surrounding her, she was able to confirm that the first one could be ruled out, as everything here was as abundant as it was in other places.

’Then is this the result of the second one...’ She thought, quickly activating her mana senses.

The second one is that there is a strong predator there that is disturbing the natural cycle...

Before she could even think about it fully, she was able to catch someone hiding behind a long bush. She didn’t have any time to react as the monster already had her lower half directed at one of her teammates.

"Kamal, duck down..." She shouted as she observed that a monster spider had fired a blob of web toward him.

Being an archer, Kamal had invested heavily in agility. This agility served him great as he was able to dodge the attack at the very last second.

He didn’t just dodge either; the moment he regained his balance, he placed an arrow on the bow and fired at the abdomen of the monster.

Tap! Tap!...

Using all eight of her legs, the monster quickly dodged the arrow, but what she wasn’t able to dodge was the slash that came from Olivia. She had used the time when the monster was focused on Kamal to her advantage and had gotten behind her.

The first slash of hers wasn’t able to do anything, as the monster had a heavy coating of exoskeleton that was protecting its soft flesh. She didn’t think about this and directly changed her target location...

"Piercing Stab..."

Thinking about the name of the skill, she stabbed her sword directly into the monster’s head. The blood and the brain matter of the monster got all over her face as she continued to stab the monster.

Looking at Olivia with all eight of its eyes, the monster fired a gas of poison from her mouth before dying.

[You have killed the monster, Poisonous Adult Arachnid (Controlled).]

[You have earned 1000 CC]

[You have reached the maximum level limit of your species. Please EVOLVE if you want to absorb experience from the monster.]

Ignoring the notification in front of her, Olivia called for help, "R-Raina...here..."

Her face was turning darker each moment as the poison began to act quickly. By the time Raina had reached her, she was on the brink of passing out.

Reaching the leader of her group, Raina cast [Cleanse] thrice. She wasn’t satisfied with this and after casting the poison-cleaning spell, she cast [Intermediate Heal] twice.

Blgrhhhh!!!

A few seconds later, Olivia puckered something green as the effect of Raina’s spell began to take over.

"Ahhhh!..." Taking a deep breath, she looked at the notification that was still there in front of her. Before addressing anything else she remembered the behaviour of the monster.

’Something was wrong with that monster...’ While thinking about this, she scrolled through the notification to clearly look at the name of the monster.

The moment she read the name of the monster, everything around her began to happen in slow motion and her mind began to work at its full power.

She didn’t know if it was the effect of multiple [Cleanse] spells used at the same time or something else, but one thing she was sure of... she was determined to use the time as much as possible.

’Why is there a controlled suffix at the end of her name? There wasn’t any mention of this by anyone on the island. Is this something that they haven’t encountered yet? Noo.. No, don’t think about that.’ As if she were on drugs, her thoughts were all over the place.

After much difficulty, she was finally able to arrange her thoughts and began to think about it from the start.

’....There might be some monster that is controlling that spider; this clearly means that a monster at tier 3 or even tier 4 is around us controlling it. I have to warn everybody.’ She finally comes to a conclusion.

She turns to warn her teammates but the words stuck in her throat as she encounters something... something monstrous.

There was a spider in front of her, towering at almost 3 meters in height; everything on her body was covered by a black exoskeleton. Her legs... her leg was something that resembled more of a weapon than a body part.

The monster in front of her stared at her with strong malice; with the same malice, she opened her mouth. In just a single second, a thick purple-colored liquid concentrated in her mouth.

Puuuuccc

Without any warning, the monster spat. The liquid was flying at her chest with speed that was faster than she could’ve imagined.

Because her mind was racing, and she knew what she should do to dodge that attack, But unfortunately, her body couldn’t keep up with her mind.

She wasn’t able to dodge the attack, and the liquid that was meant for her chest landed on her right arm...

Sizzle....

The effect of the spells wore off as he saw her hand melting in real-time.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!" She shouted with all her might as her brain finally processed the pain she was feeling.

Olivia cry only fueled the monster more. Without wasting a second the spider opened its mouth and began to charge another spit. Two seconds later it fired another shot of acidic spit at her, this time determined to aim at her head.