Chapter 71: The Spider’s Nest
Joo Joowon could not help wondering whether this was the true purpose of equipment durability.
As long as durability had not been completely consumed, would the equipment forever remain in the exact same condition as when it was first equipped?
After thinking about it for a while, Joo Joowon felt that there was a very high chance that his guess was correct.
However, there was no way he would deliberately waste equipment durability simply to test the theory.
He could only continue observing through future battles and practical experience.
After confirming that there was nothing in the trading market worth paying attention to, Joo Joowon finished putting on all of his equipment properly.
He did not rush to sell the Compound Crossbow he had replaced, because his supply of bolts was limited and there might still come a time when he would need to use it.
As he checked through private messages and comments, he headed upstairs to collect the supplies.
With the Spider Chimera present, the supplies on that floor had most likely never been taken away.
Although he could not be certain whether someone had gone to investigate the area and picked up the leftovers after he left, it was still better to check in person than to simply assume that everything had already been looted.
While holding a flashlight to illuminate the path ahead, Joo Joowon slowly made his way upward.
With three talents protecting him now, he genuinely was not particularly afraid of dangers lurking in the darkness anymore.
There was no such thing as a world without danger in the apocalypse.
As long as someone possessed methods to deal with unexpected situations, they naturally became much calmer and more composed.
Joo Joowon was currently in exactly that kind of state.
His Physique attribute was only two points away from unlocking its own talent.
Unfortunately, although the increase in Physique had greatly improved his eyesight, the structure of the human eye meant that no matter how sharp his vision became, he still could not see in complete darkness.
Without light, there was simply nothing he could see at all.
On the contrary, the talent Mind’s Eye was completely unaffected by whether it was day or night.
The damaged floor was covered in devastation and ruin.
Joo Joowon glanced at the spider webs on the twelfth floor that had remained untouched, which meant that no one had entered the area yet.
Under the beam of his flashlight, the density of the webs was almost comparable to the cocoons spun by caterpillars and other creatures before they transformed into butterflies.
Thinking back to the enormous size of the Spider Chimera, Joo Joowon could not help wondering how something that large had managed to move around so freely in an environment like this.
The web density was so extreme that perhaps only spiders the size of fingernails could move through without obstruction.
How exactly had the Spider Chimera navigated such an environment with ease?
Looking at the corridor completely sealed off by layers upon layers of spider silk, Joo Joowon felt an intense headache coming on.
There was no way he could simply set the entire place on fire.
After all, a single fire extinguisher would never be enough to put out a blaze of that scale.
What if the flames spread out of control?
Besides, female spiders were capable of laying eggs.
Although Joo Joowon did not believe that only three days after the apocalypse began, the Spider Chimera could already have produced an entire swarm of baby spiders, some possibilities simply could not be ignored.
Even with the help of his flashlight, Joo Joowon was unable to clearly see what lay beyond the web-covered corridor.
The tightly woven silk had almost completely occupied every inch of space inside the hallway, making it impossible to determine whether any danger still lurked within.
After standing there and thinking for quite a while, Joo Joowon originally planned to find a stick or some other tool to test whether the webs could be torn down.
If the silk proved extremely durable, then he would think of another solution.
Just as he was preparing to do exactly that, inspiration suddenly struck him.
The equipment dropped by bosses seemed to have some kind of connection to the bosses themselves.
Could that equipment perhaps be useful in a situation like this?
Trying it certainly would not cost him anything.
Joo Joowon raised the Spider Web Launcher, aimed it toward the tangled webbing, and shot out a strand of silk that connected with the surrounding spider webs.
The moment the connection formed, Joo Joowon’s body suddenly trembled.
It felt as though a disconnected network cable had suddenly been plugged back in.
The previously chaotic and incomprehensible web structure instantly became clear and orderly in his eyes.
He could easily distinguish which threads were signal lines, which ones were search lines, and which were hunting threads meant to trap prey.
Even the pathways intended for movement became perfectly obvious.
After all, even spiders themselves feared becoming stuck in their own hunting silk.
And then he noticed something else.
There really were spider eggs hidden inside the webs!
Perhaps that was why the Spider Chimera had chosen to leave its nest and hunt elsewhere.
On one hand, the food supply on the upper floors might already have been exhausted, forcing it to search for fresh prey to replenish its energy.
On the other hand, perhaps it was afraid that fighting near its nest would damage its eggs.
Of course, there was also another possibility.
The Spider Chimera simply had not considered humans worthy of concern.
Even Elite monsters understood the concept of ambushes, so a Boss level zombie naturally possessed even greater intelligence.
And once intelligence increased, it became difficult to avoid developing traits such as arrogance, fear, laziness, and countless other emotions.
Because of that, underestimating its prey and believing that Joo Joowon was incapable of harming it before chasing after him without hesitation was not impossible.
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