Lifestealer: Cursed Healer [A LITRPG Isekai Survival]

A spider only had so many legs. Symon hoped that, if he and Entisse could disable enough of them, it would retreat rather than risk death; if not by them, then by falling the hundreds of metres to the forest floor. Even if it survived that, which wasn't out of the question for a Second Step monster — even a weak one if the damage they were doing to it was anything to go by — it would surely be set upon by monsters in the forest.

They had been abundant enough in the forests around Brackstead, let alone the far more dangerous dungeon, so it probably wouldn't want to take a risk.

Then again, he was hardly an expert in spider psychology, and he had just harvested its children for vitality…

"Keep going!" Symon shouted as he slashed across the tough, shell-like surface of the spider's leg, doing his best to ignore the burning numbness of the spider's venom spreading through his side. "We can win, just don't let it scratch you!"

Entisse let out a laughing hiss in response as she dashed in and clawed shallow furrows into the side of the limb. A third leg forced its way into the cave just as the original one limply retreated, but she'd already been expecting it. After all, she'd just seen the same thing happen to Symon.

There wasn't much room to dodge, but a simple jump was all it took to pass over the spear-like leg as it thrust below her. While she could easily avoid the attacks, her claws were only doing superficial damage.

Meanwhile, Symon had the opposite problem.

Though simple and unenchanted, his sword was well-made. Most of his hits were glancing blows, but when he got the angle right and managed to shove the point in through the weaker and more flexible exoskeleton around the joints, he could do some real damage. Dodging attacks was difficult enough with the darkness and cramped conditions, not to mention the rapid spearing attacks the spider was capable of, but he could also feel himself slowing down from the poison.

On top of that, all the attribute boosts from Twilight Vigour had faded when he'd healed himself, and the damage from the poison wasn't yet bad enough to return much of them. His vessel was filling with vitality faster than it was used to heal him, but his magic had limitations. It would fix the damage caused by the spider's venom, but it wouldn't do anything to remove the venom. If he'd had a normal Healer class, he probably would have had a spell for that, but his magic didn't work the same.

Instead, he had to rely on his low-level resistance and similarly low Constitution to endure the venom.

The fight progressed mostly as expected from there. The pair continued to slowly wear down the spider's limbs, with Entisse fluidly dodging the attacks while Symon barely scrambled out of the way or deflected them with his sword. He took another hit from one of the oddly placed stingers, but it had only been a slight scratch that transferred only a few drops of venom.

Even still, he was feeling worse for wear by the time the fourth leg retreated, despite the healing of all visible injuries. The two remained still, panting from the exertion of combat, but no further attacks seemed imminent. Pointedly, the spider didn't leave from where it had pressed its oversized body against the cave entrance.

"Ugh, I dun' feel scho guude…" Symon mumbled as he took a few steps back. "Gimme uh' minute…"

Aware that the spider could resume its assault at any moment but also that he couldn't allow the venom to continue wreaking havoc, he focused his attention on healing. The spider was still in range of his draining, though only barely, and his thread seemed able to continue the draining even without his guidance now that the spider had been weakened.

He pulled some motes of vitality out and guided them to the spot on the side of his ribs where the first and largest dose of venom had entered. He'd grown used to his magic being able to fix everything, but to his surprise, the venom was hurting him faster than he could heal. It must have stacked up more than he'd realised.

"Shit…" he groaned as he tried for the next best thing. He couldn't overpower the venom, but he could at least guide it to the least important areas. He did this by holding the vitality between the main area of the poison and his upper organs, forming a blockade of regenerating cells and forcing the poison to expand down instead of all over.

"Are you well?" Entisse asked.

"Not exactly," he answered, though he was feeling a little better than he had moments ago. "That venom is some strong stuff." It was far worse than the black pollen around the manor, at least for Symon and his mostly mana-less body.

The shirt and the older white robes he'd been wearing had long since been destroyed, so he had a good view as a wave of blackening flesh slowly grew down his side in real time, like an oil spill over water. Or the world's worst tattoo.

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"It appears to be killing you," she said neutrally after flicking a glance to his side before returning to staring at the spider.

<Next time, don't get poisoned by something twice your level,> Keelgrave chimed in helpfully.

"Yeah, you're telling me," Symon replied to both of them. The numbness continued to spread down his side, interspersed by flashes of red-hot pain that made him wince. Considering the level of his Pain Resistance, it had to be an excruciating venom. "Uh, I think I'll live," he started cautiously, "but this is taking all my focus and vitality just to hold it." If he got stabbed again — something he found likely considering his worsening state — the scales would tip completely and he might as well throw himself out of the cave and at least make it quick.

"I will assist," Entisse stated, already backing up to stand beside him. All the while, the spider hadn't moved.

Before he could ask how, she poked him in the side. Hard. To his satisfaction, his skin offered a slight resistance before her claw cut through. She withdrew her natural weapon immediately after, along with a copious amount of blood.

Far, far too much blood for such a little wound.

"Ow, fuck!" It gushed out in a torrent, splattering onto the ground before he diverted a smidgen of vitality to the surface to seal with over. He needn't have bothered rationing it, however, as most of the venom had spurted out alongside the cupfuls of his blood.

"Wow, thanks, that's way better already," he said once the initial shock wore off. Without the venom to constantly battle against, the blackened flesh rapidly began receding. With his life no longer on a rapid timer — something he was getting uncomfortably familiar with — he could refocus on the other, more physical threat. When he looked back at the cave entrance, he made eye contact with the spider.

Eyes contact. So, so many softly glowing amber coloured eyes stared back at him. There were dozens of them, some big, some small, and a scattering of pinprick lights that must have been even tinier ones.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered as he attempted to take another step back, but he was already pressed to the end of the cave. The creepy things weren't even symmetrical, being plastered onto its head seemingly randomly. The nightmarish vision only worsened as he took in the rest of the monster.

Large, articulating fangs twitched eagerly, two on the top and two on the bottom. They vibrated in anticipation as the too-intelligent eyes swivelled independently, locking onto Symon and Entisse. When its mouth opened to release a high-pitched hiss that set his ears ringing, the tiny glimpse he got inside its maw was more than enough to haunt his dreams, even mostly obscured by the shadows of the cave and comparatively blinding light silhouetting it from outside.

He much preferred when its body was out of view and all he had to look at were its weird, hairy legs.

"Do you have a plan?" Entisse asked. "I do not appreciate its appraising gaze."

"Me neither. I was kinda hoping you would."

She stared the spider down unflinchingly as she considered. "How long for your magic to defeat it?"

Symon made some quick estimations in his head. He had no real way of telling how much vitality others possessed, only how strong it was once he started draining them. The draining process was still slow going, like a leaky tap occasionally dripping water, but each tiny particle of stolen essence filled his vessel with burning power.

"Half an hour, at the very least. I doubt the spider's going to be happy to wait that long."

In response, the spider rammed its bulbous body into the cave entrance with renewed zeal, though it was clear to the both of them that it had no chance of fitting.

"I suspect not," she replied, one clawed fingertip tracing the outline of her jaw in thought.

"Ugh, wasn't that claw just inside me? Wait, and it was inside the spider before as well!" She'd… she'd stabbed spider blood into him! Just because he could heal through infections didn't make it any less gross.

She licked her clawed fingertip before shrugging. "There, now it is gone."

"No, no, that doesn't make it any better at all!" Symon sighed, but he didn't have the energy to argue over this.

"You need not be embarrassed. Your blood is most palatable."

Symon's next sigh was twice as hard. He thought that if he continued at this rate, he'd just be able to blow the spider off the cliff.

"Anyway, can't you like, magic at it or something? You haven't explained what exactly you can do."

"No, Lifegiver, I cannot magic at it," she hissed. "It is far too powerful for me to manipulate its blood to any useful extent."

"Well… what can you do? Let's lay our cards on the table and figure something out before the spider does. I don't like how smart it looks either."

"Uh, actually," Symon continued mentally, a sudden dark idea coming to him, "it's not… thinking like us, is it?"

The largest of the spider's eyes was still locked onto Symon, an animal cunning glinting dangerously from within.

<No, it's not,> Keelgrave answered confidently. <Older and more powerful monsters get smarter, but if they don't reach our level by adulthood, it'll never happen.>

So it was merely a giant predatory spider instead of a hyper-intelligent giant predatory spider. Oh well, he'd take what he could get.

"A Bloodfang Huntress focuses on empowerment, consumption, and some slight physical manipulation of blood," Entisse responded to his earlier question. He'd already known these things in broad terms, but it was good to hear it from her.

"So, could you throw balls of blood at it? Maybe make spikes?" he offered.

She hissed at him in a way the translation ring associated with a harumph. "I would have already done so, were it possible. The Hemokinesis is weak, and blood is not sharp."

"Hmm, right. You're the expert," he admitted. "I've got… let's see, there's the healing and draining, my sword, and the undead servant thing." He considered mentioning Keelgrave, but figured it wasn't the time. The existence of the spirit wasn't an important secret in the way that the fact he was technically an alien was, but a lot of people would get the wrong idea about him having a ghost trapped inside him.

He doubted Entisse would really care that much, but it wasn't like the Essence Bond was a flashy ability he could bring out. Keelgrave was relegated to dispensing advice, which, admittedly, had been quite helpful over the past weeks. Ultimately, he decided to table any potential reveal of Keelgrave to Entisse for later.

Ideally, it would be when they weren't trapped at the end of a tiny crack in a wall by a giant fucking spider.