Chapter 46: The Wise Devours the Fool

Every person who received the sudden invitation from the queen of spiders immediately got their hearts shrouded with suspicion, They looked at the spiders who suddenly appeared in their lair without them even noticing its existence.

"Why she of all people?"

"Is she planning something?"

"What is going on?"

Questions started to surge out of their mind like a waterfall, After all the spider queen is an information broker and one will always expect the base of such an individual to have secrets that should never be shown to anyone no matter how the spider queen trust a person.

"And she just wants us to go inside without restriction?"

They cannot help but smell a putrid scent of plot with the invitation they have received, after all, the strongest individuals of the forest are already secretive and they cannot even form a proper intelligence team, and the person who has a scouting web spread around the whole forest including the fifth layer and the mysterious of all of them suddenly just indicated her willingness to make all of her secrets be known for her competition.

However, this invitation is also a chance, a chance to gather and unite for the first time in their whole life because of a common enemy that threatens the harmony of their home, thus no matter how mysterious this invitation is, they decided to accept it regardless.

_Maybe it was just me overthinking?_

Some of the monsters thought so to themselves.

_______

Days passed and the meeting finally arrived, in a cave located in the deeper parts of the first layer, a part littered with snow-white trees caused by the numerous webs of the spider queen's spawns, 5 individuals are present, sitting on a rock made circular table with chairs of similar materials.

One is a pink colored bat with a huge mouth that is as tall as the spider queen in her spider form, obviously she cannot sit on a chair, not like she is doing so because she is currently in an upside-down position like the bat that she is, the bat is the representative of the fourth layer, the next one is a small girl with silver colored scales all over her body, all her time in the lair, she has not spoken a single word and her chin is up high as if every person in the room is of lower descent than her mighty self.

This small one is the sole owner of the third layer and the Oni with light blue skin and dark blue kimono with a katana strapped on his waist is nothing but a freeloader. The last one is an obsidian-colored mantis, no one knows what in the world did the spider queen have in mind when she decided to invite the self-proclaimed rival of the monkey tribe leader, but either way, all of the participants are now present and the meeting can finally start.

Arachne, upon seeing all of the invitees present started speaking.

"As you all know, I invited all of you here to"

But before she could even introduce the agenda of the meeting, the Oni shouted with his voice that sounded like it had been in a blender.

"Stop being formal, spider! We all know how you are the weakest of all people here!"

The Oni pulled out his katana and then pointed it at Arachne, Arachne looked at the tip of the blade for a moment, after which she looked at the foolish man that pointed it at her for also just a brief moment and inhaled.

"The hero prospect-"

Several veins started to pop out of the forehead of the Oni as his eyes turned bloodshot because of him being simply ignored, For him, Arachne is not worthy of his time and just came to the meeting to shame her, not the other way around.

"Yet, you still dared to lure us into your lair! You guys do not need to be smart to know what is she planning right!?"

All of the monsters in Arachne's lair except Arachne herself got the blood on their face to drop whilst the silver-scaled child just raised her eyebrow.

"Yes that's right, all of this is her plot! From the moment that child was abandoned to the point in which she became a threat to all of us! I mean, who the fuck will think that a human child will survive in the wild without someone taking care of her right!? I bet that brat is your bitch that you cultivated to be your fist because your weak-ass self can't ravage this place upside down and her becoming a hero prospect is just a bonus for you!"

The Oni started to wave her blade in the face of Arachne that just kept staring at it, the Oni who was just here to cause trouble seem to be proud of himself for making Arachne speechless, but then what Arachne did next make her finally lose his mind.

"As I said, she became too strong-"

The Oni cannot take the embarrassment anymore as he was ignored by the person he wanted to get embarrassed and all the people in here, he also realizes that his accusations just sound like conspiracy theories because of how they tracked back from the very start of the information the spider queen has given to them, but the Oni cannot lose face, thus he put his sword overhead and shouted while pouncing.

"DON'T IGNORE ME!"

Arachne looked at the Oni and moved her fingers, and sneakily, two spiders went into the two sides of the meeting hall and shot their webs into the path of the Oni, suspending him into the air and for the first time since they couldn't remember when, they saw the spider queen's glare as the now terrified Oni was sent flying into the ceiling headfirst, now half his body pierced the ceiling like an ugly chandelier.

_I may be the weakest, but I'm the smartest... And I am her bitch, not the other way around._

Arachne is of course furious that her lady is being referred to as someone lower than she is, but because of her disguise, she cannot let loose and has to act like the intellectual that she is.

"Phew... Let's start the meeting."

Arachne said as she just finished dealing with a troublemaker, the participants nodded their heads silently, they were quite shocked at how Arachne dealt with someone stronger than her, some even thought she was hiding her strength all this time, but the matter at hand is more important so they ignored their shock and started to discuss, ignoring the Oni hanging on top of their heads.

Yes, they are so focused on the matter at hand that they do not notice a grey-colored spider lying around in the darkest corner of the room.

[Sophia's POV]

I cannot help but smirk at the cool display of Arachne, if only she had some fighting ability, then she would sure become one of my flashiest subordinates, too bad all the abilities she can have are blocked and are seemingly transferred to her offspring, I also identified the person Arachne has given me a warning about.

"Isn't she a loli like me?"

I muttered out loud whilst still at my room, I can command people while half asleep so it's fine, don't worry, as I was thinking of that, [Guide] spoke to me so suddenly.

[For the record, she's also a hero prospect that is yet to take her test.]

I woke up suddenly the moment I learned about this information.

... I'm... Getting suspicious of the gods of this world right now... I mean, why would the both of us have child-like physiques?

[That's what you're worried about?  Anyway, you have to be a little bit more tense with that information, that person is chosen by a god, though by a minor one.]

Do you know who it is?

[No, I am blocked from tracing the name of gods, unfortunately, but with the place she is living in, I can say it's a water-based subordinate god of the god the undead.]

The name of the hero prospect?

[Her name and even her existence are protected by her lord, and the god of the undead only allowed me to learn that she's a hero prospect.]

... Did he plant her as my... tsk, most probably.

The fuck you understand a mortal's emotions.

I sighed as I started to wake up to prepare for the upcoming war in advance whilst continuously listening to the meeting, I just ignored the fact that there was a god that sneaked in someone who could fuck me over because I am sure that pops have my back.

_I need to bust a second hole up his ass the next time I see him._

______

After about half a day, the vigorous meeting finally came to an end, they started to pull the Oni to the ceiling who was yet to wake up because of the shock on his brain as they started to leave, Arachne seemed to be regretful for she wants to experiment on the body of the water Oni, but as the liar that she is, she did not even show it at her face and respectfully sent back the monster leaders.

Well, the content of the meeting is too many and I do not want to narrate everything piece by piece, so I will instead give you a summary:

Well, the strategy is rather simple, all of the community-type monsters inside the meeting namely the Water Oni, the Bat, and the Obsidian-colored mantis have a very small amount of people, 100 for the Oni, 50 for the mantis, and 5, fucking five for the bats.

Now I see how the monkeys maintained their position as the greatest of community-type monsters, no is not as lame as they are the strongest because they are too many, its because the community types got their asses destroyed when they tried to be greedy and wage wars against them, or at least I can see the mantises and the bats doing that.

The mantises look stupid and the bats look proud, so...

Anyway, that's why no community types even tried to fight against the monkeys.

Going back to the topic at hand, because of this severe lack of numbers, the bats will brainwash as many goblins and orcs as they can to be the force that will engage the first settlement, which will account for four thousand goblins and one thousand orcs, oh and her simps as she call it will also brainwash goblins and orcs, all of them combined will be giving one thousand goblins and one thousand orcs.

So a total of seven thousand, right now the spiders of Arachne are helping the bats to find goblins and orc villages, though I doubt orcs have villages at all.

The obsidian mantis boldly proposed he attack the volcano and because, well they're obsidian the meeting said that it was probably fine, actually the mantis seems to get discriminated against because of his arrogance of calling himself the rival of the monkey tribe leader, the Oni after he was pulled out said the Ogres will act separately but will also attack the volcano, he glared at Arachne but cannot do anything because he is the one who started things, and the hero prospect serpent as [Guide]  has told me will act on her own too, she will most definitely attack me.

Well, that's how they arranged themselves in the invasion that will be happening seven days from now on.

I started to walk into the corridor in which my subordinates were in, they were still hiding from the mad researchers of this place.

"Yo there folks, I have an order for Lyra and Kabuto..."

I then elaborated that another war would be coming and I wanted them to help me prepare, so I had Kabuto go back to the first settlement to recruit archers and make the weapon craftsmen to make as many bows and arrows as possible, Lyra would be recruiting archers from this place, I will not be able to train them because they are not me that can learn things on the first try, so I will just rush the formation of an archer unit, the wolf cavalry already has a good chemistry because the monkeys and the dogs have a very close relationship, so I won't bother them anymore.

And of course, because I am being targeted, I also have to improve myself, yes I have magic and I am quite good at it, but I also need to make use of my physical skill and every practitioner of the martial wishes for thing at the description makes me want to grab it more, anyway my Martial Arts skill seem to be able to skip the process of levelling by absorbing two martial practices at the same time, so I will be learning swordsmanship because I already have the [Spearmanship] tanked in the [Martial Arts] skill

Of course,   I will be learning from Saru, so I immediately summoned her as she bowed at me, but because she was looking up at me nonetheless, I let her stand up and observed her having less hair than before, which is also the case for her brother and father and all the monkeys, well I guess that's why naming is so good for them.

"Hey, can you use a rapier?"

Saru looked at me and nodded.

"Yes, my skill lets me know sword style other than my expertise, but my preferences are that of a katana so I cannot guarantee-"

I interrupted her as I grabbed a rapier in the monkey's armory whilst asking the blacksmith to produce spears that are bigger than the normal ones, preferably feet taller than Arachne, after which I said to Saru:

"Oh, don't worry, I will be learning by practical experience."