[You have killed an [Arachnid]. For your valiant effort, you are awarded 14 Coins]

  [You have killed an [Arachnid]. For your valiant effort, you are awarded 15 Coins]

  [You have killed an [Arachnid]. For your valiant effort, you are awarded 14 Coins]

  [Contract | Lesser Gnome - Level 2 -> Lesser Gnome - Level 3]

  These messages just kept on piling up and up as the spiders curled up into small balls upon death. He had an extremely lucky moment just now. Ashton had just killed one of the larger specimen, and noticed some others that had hidden in the back of a truck, building a smaller nest in there.

  While he was taking apart the arachnid, he was about to be assaulted by exactly that group. Of course, at first glance, that might seem extremely unlucky, but well... Ashton could just close the door at the back by slamming it shut with the wisp, keep it open just a slit, and basically rip the monstrous spiders' legs off as they were trying to squeeze through the small gap that he had left.

  And a legless spider wasn't exactly a threat. And really, these guys were an absolute treasure-trove. Animalistic monsters had far more harvestable resources. Sure, technically that was just a self-imposed restriction, as it was possible to make orc leather, but well, that seemed a bit macabre. Humanoid, organised species like that were a bit too far for most.

  There was a little bit of irony in there, considering that Ashton had eaten a bowl of myconid stir-fry just earlier in the day. They were also vaguely humanoid and organised into tribes, but somehow, myconids were always different to Ashton. Particularly because they weren't really 'sapient' on their own. They didn't have individual experiences, or at least that's what he learned when the Summoner had forced a couple into submission.

  When that happened, they were completely disconnected from their hive-mind, and just turned into completely mindless puppets. The Summoner was actually quite happy to see that, because they wouldn't need to train any more trouble-makers like Ashton.

  Either way, with these massive spiders, you could get a ton of materials on your hands.

  In a pinch, the chitin was useful to reinforce simple shields or armour, spider meat was ridiculously delicious, and they were stock-full with ingredients useful for magic and potion-making.

  Mostly, this was their eyes, silk and venom glands, fangs, and of course their heart. And that heart in particular was currently being taken out. With spiders this size, the long-tube shaped hearts were around the length of Ashton's forearm. The heart itself wasn't what he was interested in, though, but rather the magic stones.

  Really, he had no idea why, but the magic stones of these spiders formed in a pretty interesting way. Rather than small splinters, they were thin strands that covered the outside of the heart, almost like an extra layer of muscle. This was the case with basically all arthropods.

  However, it was incredibly hard and delicate work to collect all these magic stones like this without them snapping, but if you managed to get one of the threads out of the heart, you ended up with an incredibly useful material. It was possible to make threads out of mana stones yourself, and Ashton actually knew of some potential summons that he could call on in the future that could mass-produce these, but all these methods were extremely time-intensive and required a level of fine-control that Ashton was unable to achieve with his current spirit stat. He would have to have at least somewhere in the range of 55 to 60 to be able to make a useful thread, and it would be of a much worse quality than this, and not nearly as flexible.

  Sometimes, 'naturally forming' magic stones just couldn't be replaced.

  On their own, these things obviously weren't exactly useful for anything beyond what other magic stones could be used for, but if you managed to weave the threads together into string, you had a shockingly sturdy material for magicraft.

  But, just as Ashton's luck had it, with just a single brush of his finger, not even against the magic-stone threads themselves, but just against the surrounding tissue, they snapped into small pieces. Every single one of them.

  "It's fine, man, just fifteen more minutes..." Ashton said to himself. Frankly, this all might not even be because of the luck potion. He was just incredibly, incredibly impatient because he couldn't wait to try out the damned epic item that he got out of the random box.

  But really, right now, Ashton could not at all risk using that camera in any way. He already almost dropped it when giving it to the backpacker. And yes, while an epic item should have the durability to survive a simple drop, Ashton refused to take that risk.

  Whether it was some kind of malfunction, him dropping it for real this time, or maybe even having the camera get stolen by some monster — Ashton was not going to leave this up to chance. Especially because for every 10 bouts of bad luck, he only had one thing that he could somewhat count as good luck.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  "Ah, fuck!" Ashton groaned. He heard some footsteps not too far away, and that distracted him for a moment just when he was about to cut the venom gland out of the spider. Instead, he nicked the organ and covered the inside of the spider's head in venom, not just ruining the gland, but also all the meat that he could have gotten from the head.

  But it was fine, there were going to be plenty other spiders that he would kill when his luck wasn't magically being adjusted, so he would probably have an easier time doing this then.

  By now, Ashton had collected everything that he wanted from these guys, and quickly moved on. By now, he had killed a handful of these spiders and cut down some of the larger webs that were blocking entire roads. After all, they were pretty tough to break apart if you didn't know exactly where to cut. There was a reason why the spiders were able to catch literal goblins.

  He had another ten minutes on the effect of the potion. If he could, he should probably stay away from other people right now, and the footsteps that he had heard just now sounded like those of a person.

  They were definitely wearing shoes, and the steps sounded too heavy for a goblin, whereas orc feet were too large to fit any human shoe, and lizardmen feet were simply a completely incompatible shape. However, there was a problem that came with that. The closer he got to the presumed spider nest, the more he could hear those footsteps.

  Was there someone else stupid enough to try and take on the spider nest on their own?

  However, as Ashton got closer, he was more than just surprised by what he saw. It was a woman, stabbing a spider in the abdomen with a rusty old sword, the kind that Ashton had been seeing around a lot. However, in contrast to that sword, she was wearing a shockingly fancy outfit.

  Suit trousers, a matching vest over a white-button up, and a tie around her neck. Of course, she was also covered in splotches of blue blood from the spiders, but beside that, this outfit seemed shockingly intact. Something about it just seemed off, though. It wasn't exactly what you would see a person wearing just out and about, and it also wouldn't be many people's first choice for clothes to survive the apocalypse.

  So, it was very likely that this was an outfit given as beginner gear for a class. And then, Ashton saw it. The woman held forward her hand, and a coin appeared on her palm. Without hesitation, she flipped it, and smiled when it landed back on her hand.

  "No... no way," Ashton smiled wryly as he approached the woman, "Uh, excuse me?"

  She turned toward Ashton, startled. Without hesitation, she held the sword forward, seemingly quite confident, "Stop! Don't come closer!"

  Ashton sighed. That made sense, he figured that some people, particularly women, might be a bit wary of lone travellers. Though, considering the way she carried herself, it clearly wasn't just out of mere caution. She probably experienced something that gave her a reason to be careful over these past few days.

  "No worries, I'm not dangerous. I'm just on my way to take down the spiders' nest," he explained with a smile, but the woman just frowned. Now that Ashton got a proper look at her, she was shockingly well-built for someone with a class like hers. She wasn't particularly tall, maybe even a bit below average height, but her rolled-up sleeves revealed some well-defined forearms. Her biceps were also pretty filled out. Clearly, she at the very least worked out, and maybe even did some kind of sport. Though, that made her choice even weirder.

  "Are you taking the piss out of me right now? What do you think you're doing, just oglin' me like that?" She tightened the grip on her sword, clearly angry with this stranger in front of her. It was clear she was also trying to figure out what all those things around Ashton were. The wisp, undine, sylph, and gnome were all clearly visible right now.

  "Hm? Oh, sorry, no I wasn't doing that. I mean, I guess I was? Depending on what you mean with ogling," Ashton laughed a bit, "It was just a bit surprising. I mean... you're a 'Gambler' aren't you? Like your class, I mean."

  The woman flinched, confused, "Excuse me? How do you...?"

  "The outfit, and the coin-flipping gave you away. I was just a bit confused why that's the class you picked, you know?"

  "And what are you? Some kind of magician?" she scoffed, but Ashton just smiled and shook his head.

  "I'm a Summoner. But I really do wonder what made you choose the 'Gambler' class, so if you wouldn't mind telling me, that would be great."

  "That's none of your business! Now buzz off, I'm going to take care of those spiders myself, alright?" she asked, quickly turning around. And right then, as if it had been waiting for the perfect moment, a car-sized, giant spider came practically running around the corner.

  The woman was immediately stunned and started shaking, "I... I got this!" she said with a grin on her face. She held out her hand, and another coin appeared. It was a different kind from the one that Ashton saw earlier though.

  "You sure this is the time you should use that skill?" Ashton asked, as the spider started rushing closer.

  Immediately, the woman flipped the coin, laughing, "You clearly don't know my luck!"

  However, once it landed back on her hand, her face revealed that she wasn't quite as lucky as she thought.

  "Sorry, I think that's because of me," Ashton said with a bright smile on his face, "I've got some pretty extreme luck right now as well."

  "What?! Your 'luck' is when I fail?"

  Obviously that wasn't what he meant, though that probably wasn't quite wrong either. He didn't know if this was an effect of his good or bad luck, Ashton just knew that it was most likely a side effect of his potion. At the very least, the timing of the giant spider was, whether the coin-flip was affected by Ashton too was unclear.

  Either way, it seemed like the woman wouldn't exactly be useful in a fight right now. One of the Gambler class' skills was that they could basically play a simple game of chance to give themselves a small boost. Usually, the user could choose what exactly was boosted, like a stat, something like their eyesight, or even the effect of a specific skill.

  The boost from a fifty-fifty chance game like a coin flip wouldn't be a lot, but the effect could easily stack.

  However, if you failed the game, the thing you wanted to enhance would be diminished. The previously gathered stacks would be flipped around, as well. So depending on how lucky this woman was before now, she might be extremely useless at the moment.

  "I'll take care of it," Ashton said with a bright smile. After all, the effect of the potion was about to run out, so this might be a bit of a finale. The spider was a result of massively bad luck, in return for the amazing luck of finding this woman.

  After all, if Ashton played his cards right, she could become extremely, extremely useful.

  The effects of the Gambler's buffs could affect other people as well, after all.