Though the cave was hard to navigate and the purple crystals were far from Lily and Nari, the little spider easily led the way thanks to the System’s map, which was basically like a built-in navigation aid that worked anywhere.

  On the way there, they saw many critters and low-ranking monsters going about their day. Thankfully, all were friendly—or at least neutral—and didn’t seem to want to fight; in fact, most actually looked away the moment they felt Lily’s presence, and only a couple even dared to look toward her.

  Or at least that’s the impression Nari had.

  “Is it just me, or are some of these monsters eerily focused on us?” the golden-haired girl wondered, looking around herself.

  “Uh, not sure, which ones are you talking about?” Lily replied, walking carefree and sometimes checking the System’s map, making sure they were still headed in the right way.

  “The mosquitoes…” Nari bit her lower lip. “They’re usually very aggressive, especially with humans, but it’s almost like they’re keeping their distance and only observing,” she explained, pointing toward some of the flying creatures that switched direction the moment they crossed looks. “See?”

  Lily stopped for a second to look around. “I mean… yeah, I guess?” She shrugged. “As long as they don’t atta—” In that moment, a strange sensation cut her off. What the hell was that? Lily mused, slightly alerted by her Detection passive.

  “What just happened?” Nari asked, raising one eyebrow as she looked toward the little spider.

  “Nothing, don’t worry,” she replied, nudging the girl to continue walking. “Let’s keep moving, we’re almost there, the entrance is just behind those massive stalagmites,” Lily told her, and without giving it a second thought, the girl immediately agreed.

  “Kyaaa! I’m so excited!” the girl exclaimed, happily skipping forward.

  She’s really interested in those crystals, huh? Lily thought to herself as Nari rushed past her, watching her climb a huge stalagmite and get past the tiny entrance in the rocky wall.

  There they were, tons upon tons of Blue Mana Crystals. “I can’t believe my eyes, there are so many cr—” Nari froze, speechless, as she finally noticed the purple ones shining brighter amid the blue ocean of light.

  “What a bad deja vu,” Lily mumbled under her breath as she walked toward the golden-haired girl, amused by the girl’s shocked expression. “Are you okay?” she giggled, patting her hand as she spoke.

  Nari only nodded once, then stood motionless, watching in awe.

  “You know, now that I take a good look at them, they are indeed quite a nice sight,” Lily said. “Fun fact, I almost died here a couple of days ago,” she added, causing the girl to come back to her senses in the blink of an eye.

  “W-wh—” Nari muttered while rapidly taking a couple of steps back. “H-how, what happ—” She clumsily cut herself off by almost tripping on her own foot.

  “Careful now!” Lily blurted out, raising her limbs in the air, ready to jump forward and catch her if needed. “Phew, you’re gonna give me a heart attack like this,” she sighed loudly. “Anyway, long story short, I was almost burned to a crisp by a powerful monster, but thankfully, I managed to run away just in time from that tiny opening,” she explained, pointing toward the tiny hole in the rocky pavement right under the Purple Mana Crytals.

  Nari took a deep breath and stood silent for a moment. “It was you who changed the crystals back earlier, right?”

  Lily shrugged. “To be honest, I’m not sure… maybe?”

  “How can you not be sure!” Nari retorted, furrowing her eyebrows.

  “Well, those crystals,” the little spider pointed upwards, “changed right when the monster’s fire hit them, while the crystal that became green took a bit before it transformed.”

  “Oh, I see…” the human girl sighed. “Maybe we were just lucky, then.”

  “I mean, the monster that I escaped was a sovereign rank, so maybe—”

  Nari squealed so loudly that it echoed. “A WHAT?!?” She fell to her knees. “You managed to survive a sovereign?!?” Her eyes widened in shock; she was almost petrified. “D-does that m-mean that it c-could be nearby?”

  “I think we’re fine for the time being,” Lily said with a reassuring tone. “Last time the System warned me when it was in the vicinity, so the place should be safe,” she said. “Then again, maybe I could put up a decent fight now that I’ve evolved,” she added, raising her limbs as if to flex her non-existent biceps.

  The girl couldn’t decide if the spider was trying to be funny or serious, but she couldn’t stop herself from letting out a horrified laugh. “That’s basically a raid boss!” she exclaimed. “You’re strong, but there’s no way you’re that strong.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” Lily agreed. “I probably need to evolve a lot more to compete.”

  “Yeah, maybe in a couple of years, and that’s a big maybe,” the girl giggled.

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  “I don’t think it’s gonna take that long, I’m already close to the next rank… just need a bit more experience, “ the little spider stated, shocking her new friend.

  “I give up, you’re the weirdest creature I’ve ever met,” Nari mumbled under her breath.

  Lily just looked at her without saying anything.

  The girl paused for a second before voicing her thoughts. “You’re much stronger than your rank lets on, you talk, you have a name, you say that you’ve reincarnated from another world,” she blurted out in a single breath, “and now you’re telling me that you can also evolve that fast?!?”

  “I’m not sure I’m following,” Lily retorted, scratching her forehead as she spoke.

  “Monster evolution takes a long time, or at least that’s what the books—eh, you know what… it doesn’t matter,” she sighed. “It’s almost like the rules barely apply to you for some reason anyway.”

  The little spider giggled. “Sorry, but it’s kinda funny if you put it like that.” She’s not entirely wrong, though, the System kinda feels like a cheat code to be honest, Lily thought. Maybe things were seemingly more effortless for her precisely because of it, or at least more straightforward.

  “Sooo, what about those?” Nari pointed a finger toward the Purple Mana Crystals. “Do you think you can collect them?”

  The little spider shifted her gaze from the ceiling to the tiny opening, then shot one of her webs over it to close the gap.

  Before Nari could react, the little spider had already leaped toward the crystal and readied to strike it with all her strength, but much to both their surprise, the plan didn’t work out as expected.

  “Ugh, ouch…” Lily shook her hand up and down, staring incredulously at the barely scratched surface. Okay, you want to play hard, huh? “Armament,” she whispered, making her forelimbs glow much brighter than the first time she used the skill, putting more power into it. “Take thi—” But the moment her empowered attack collided with the crystal, the skill deactivated, and her slash only managed to scratch its surface.

  “What happened?” Nari shouted from below.

  “No clue,” the little spider yelled back as she jumped toward her friend. “It’s like it absorbed my skill on impact,” she said. “It’s also much sturdier than the green one.”

  Nari frowned as her dream of making lots of easy money slowly vanished in front of her. “Wait…” she gasped, “I could try boosting you, maybe that way you’ll be able to make a dent in it!”

  Not wanting to waste any time, Lily promptly got into position, “ready when you are.”

  Nari put her hands close to Lily’s back, and a moment later, they started glowing pink, brighter by the second. “Magical Boost,” she chanted, causing the light to spread all over Lily, wholly enveloping her arachnid frame.

  Whoa, this surge of power is insane, Lily thought, feeling the effect of Nari’s magic. “Armament,” she whispered. Her forelimbs shone with an almost blinding light; it felt like her power more than doubled, or maybe even tripled.

  “Wait!” Nari stopped her. “Once we’re away, the effect is only going to last a couple of seconds, so you got—” Before she could finish her sentence, the little spider disappeared right in front of her.

  “YAAAh!” Lily echoed, striking the crystal with all of the power she could muster up, feeling stronger than ever, even creating a shockwave on impact. “It won’t budge,” she whispered to herself as she fell backwards, glaring at the unscathed stone that yet again absorbed her magic like it was weak.

  “Lily!” Nari rushed forward to catch her, worried she had fainted because of the shockwave, or worse, that she had injured herself, but was shocked to see Lily land effortlessly as if nothing had happened. “You had me worried there for a sec!” she exclaimed, pouting jokingly.

  “Sorry,” Lily giggled. “And sorry for the crystal, I just can’t break it…”

  “It’s fine!” The golden-haired girl gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Do you have a ski—spell—to boost physical attack? Maybe that could work,” the little spider wondered, but Nari shook her head. “Then maybe we should come back with Otto’s mining equipment,” she suggested, and the girl promptly shook her head again.

  “We need much better equipment to be able to gather that rarity of material,” the girl explained. “I have the same mining equipment in my inventory, and the maximum I could gather with it is the green version,” she added.

  “Why is it so complicated?!” Lily cried out, reaching for her temples. “I guess we’ll just have to come back here another time.”

  Nari glanced one more time toward the Purple Mana Crystals before turning around, inwardly promising herself that one day she would gather them. “Well… you said that you have other stuff to do,” she said. “Let’s do that.”

  Once again, Lily led the way, this time aiming to reach the entrance of the Hidden Dungeon, excited to finally explore it, yet worried that it could be a safety risk for her human friend.

  A couple of hours had passed since they had woken up, and on the way there, the girls stopped for a quick break and to eat lunch. Nari handled the food since she had brought many consumables with her—too many for a human, yet not quite enough for a spider of Lily’s size.

  Yeah, while she loved calling herself a little spider, she was at least half as tall as the average person ever since her first evolution.

  During lunch, Lily took it upon herself to tell Nari about the Hidden Quest she had found and completed, along with everything connected to it, and it turned out to be much more helpful than she had expected, because the human girl herself was well informed about dungeons.

  In this world, dungeons were special zones, always accessed through a magical entrance of some kind—usually portals—and were considered to be pocket dimensions, or at least that’s what scholars theorized, because their insides were just too different and vast compared to the places in which they were situated.

  For example, one of the largest dungeons ever discovered—and still not cleared or fully mapped—was an archipelago of floating islands, accessible through a portal deep within one of the oldest temples ever built.

  “Honestly, I wouldn’t even know how to begin picturing a place like that,” Lily mumbled under her breath as she ate another of the delicious sandwiches that Nari had brought with her, in one single bite. “I can’t wait to enter the Hidden Dungeon,” she added, wondering what environment awaited them.

  “They’re incredible places,” Nari replied. “But yeah, same, I’ve only ever been into one dungeon… I think,” she added, whispering the last part, catching the spider’s attention.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Nothing, don’t worry,” the girl said, giving her a slight nod as she got up. “I think I’m ready to head toward the dungeon now. What about you?” she asked, giggling at the sight of Lily shoving yet another sandwich into her mouth.

  Clearly, she doesn’t want to talk about it, Lily thought as she swallowed the last bit of food. “Yuuup, let’s go!”