Spider Venom Glands and Rat Killing

As night fell, System searched for mice while testing a new method of attack he had gained after his third molt.

The target System chose was a common forest spider, the kind that liked to hang suspended in the center of its web at night.

After his third molt, System had acquired an entirely new organ—his tentacles.

The tentacles were exceptionally flexible and sturdy. Each one could wrap around and lift a weight equal to his own body weight, and they could extend as far as ten centimeters.

These tentacles possessed System's [Limb Regeneration] trait. Even if they were severed, they could grow back, and far more easily than regrowing limbs covered in an exoskeleton.

Because of this trait, System tried using his tentacles to hunt spiders.

Even if one of his tentacles was bitten by a spider's venomous fangs, he could bite it off himself to prevent the poison from entering his body.

Flapping his wings, System hovered directly in front of a web, silently meeting the gaze of the spider upon it.

It was a blackish-gray spider with a leg span of five centimeters. Judging by its color, its venom should not have been particularly potent.

System slowly extended the tentacles on his limbs, encircling the spider.

The spider did not move. He had no idea whether it had failed to notice System's actions, or had noticed them and simply chosen to ignore them.

Looking at the spider, System recalled catching dragonflies in his previous life.

A dragonfly landed upon the branches and leaves of horsetail grass—

He carefully approached it, making as little sound as possible, then slowly reached out his hand.

His hand drew closer to the dragonfly, closer still...

Then he struck!

His hand pinched the dragonfly's wings, and the dragonfly was utterly unable to break free.

The image of catching dragonflies from his memories overlapped with his current movements as he wrapped the spider in tentacles...

When System's six tentacles were still half a centimeter from the spider's body, they suddenly exerted force!

Several of the spider's legs were wrapped up by System's tentacles at once. In an instant, he yanked the spider straight off its web.

All eight of the spider's legs were tightly bound by System's tentacles. It could not even struggle, and could only snap its fangs at the air again and again.

System carried the spider down to the ground. He withdrew one tentacle from around its body and used it to pick up a hard thorn from a rose stem that he had prepared earlier.

With his nimble, powerful tentacles, System easily used the thorn to pierce a vulnerable part of the spider's skull.

As white fluid seeped out, the spider soon became completely motionless, dead.

System used his tentacles to tear off the spider's legs and put them into his mouth to chew.

After his third molt, the hunger in his body had weakened considerably. Even after a long time, he would not feel hungry.

He did not know whether this was because of [Hunger Resistance], or because his body's need for food had decreased.

System discovered that many foods which had once tasted delicious now seemed blander to him, no longer quite as appetizing, and provided nearly a third less experience.

As he tore apart the spider's organs with his tentacles, System casually discarded some less palatable flesh and the gray fuzz covering the spider's surface.

System used his tentacles to pluck off the venom gland connected to the spider's fangs. As usual, he intended to throw the spider's venom gland away.

But at that moment, System's body reacted in a peculiar way.

It was [Intuition], the strange ability he had acquired from listening to the voice of the world!

His [Intuition] told him that this spider's venom gland was delicious. It would not cause excessive harm to his body, and would be highly beneficial to it.

System waved the spider's venom gland with his tentacles, lightly dipped one tentacle into the fluid within it, and brought the tentacle toward his mouth...

But just as the tentacle was about to enter his mouth, System stopped.

Whether to eat it or not required careful consideration.

To System, eating a spider's venom gland felt like someone holding a bag of rat poison in front of him, pouring it into a cup of water and mixing it, then telling him, "Down this cup of poison. It'll do your body wonders!"

[Intuition] was a marvelous new ability System had acquired, far more useful than his previous [Insect Instinct].

But was this ability truly worth trusting completely?

System recalled the moment he had first awakened. He had accidentally hopped right in front of a toad. If he had not deliberately suppressed the [Insect Instinct] within him, he might have died long ago.

Eating it just like this would undoubtedly mean using his life to test this special ability called [Intuition].

But what if he did not eat it?

System was unwilling to let it go. What if his body, after three molts, really could withstand this venom—and what if the venom truly could help his body grow? He would definitely regret it.

System fiddled with the spider's venom gland using his tentacles, deep in thought.

A few minutes later, human wisdom finally allowed System to think of a solution.

Putting the spider venom directly into his mouth to taste would naturally be extremely risky, but he could dilute the venom before tasting it.

If he diluted a single drop of spider venom several thousand times and still died on the spot after tasting it, then so be it.

As System repeatedly gripped the spider's venom gland with his tentacles and pondered, his antennae suddenly caught a peculiar sound—the cry of a mouse.

Throwing away the spider's corpse and spreading his wings, System flew toward the direction the sound had come from.

Behind a tree over ten meters away, System found the mouse that had made the sound.

The mouse used its claws to dig at the roots of a vine, gnawing away with crunching sounds.

The mouse was dark gray, its right eye tightly shut, with bloody scabs still clinging to the fur at the corner of that eye.

Unless something unexpected had happened, this mouse was the culprit that had nearly killed him and crippled Shawa.

A fleeting blue glint flashed through System's compound eyes as he scanned his surroundings.

Beating his wings, System flew onto another vine of the same kind three meters away.

[Color-Changing Camouflage] activated!

After his third metamorphosis, System's [Green Camouflage] had become [Color-Changing Camouflage]. Like a chameleon, his outer skin could imitate the color and patterns of any plant.

With a slight adjustment of his body, System's form twisted subtly. Before long, he had disguised himself to look almost exactly like the vine's stems and branches.

Against nimble rodents, System still chose the ambush tactics insects excelled at most.

It was not that System lacked confidence in defeating the mouse. He simply worried that if he attacked rashly and let it escape into a mouse hole, it would create needless trouble.

Five minutes later, after the mouse had continued eating an unknown fruit that had fallen from the tree, it finally noticed the vine where System was hiding.

Just as before, the mouse began digging at the vine's roots, clearly unaware of him.

Watching the mouse's movements, System seized his chance and lunged at it!

His tentacles shot out in an instant, wrapping directly around the mouse's four limbs.

The moment System's body came into contact with the mouse, it rolled nimbly across the ground in fright and began leaping about.

But System had prepared his ambush thoroughly. Before the mouse noticed him and was startled, all four of its limbs had already been tightly bound by his tentacles. Its rolling and jumping did not affect the tentacles in the slightest, though it nearly flung System away.

System quickly steadied himself and carried out the plan he had envisioned, beating his wings with all his strength!

By the time the mouse noticed its limbs were entangled in tentacles and began biting at them, System had already dragged it off the ground.

And by the time the mouse bit through the first tentacle System had wrapped around it, System had already carried it to the top of the tree.

By the time the mouse struggled to bite through three of System's tentacles, System had used his exhausted wings to carry it a hundred meters into the air—

Without waiting for the mouse to continue biting and struggling, System released his remaining three tentacles, and his body immediately felt lighter.

For his body, flying while carrying this constantly struggling mouse was still quite exhausting.