Despite being initially against Hazel’s plan, upon further explaining what she wanted to do, Zoe and the others soon warmed up to it and concluded that it was their only option at the moment. They couldn’t invade the spider queen’s nest without entering her thousand-meter radius range, and they also couldn’t just send other players that weren’t cursed due to them being too weak to actually take on and defeat the spider queen.

  The only players currently strong enough to even attempt such an extradition would be Zoe’s group, Hazel, Astrid, and Chegyaeyi. All of whom, except for maybe John, were unable to do this because they were marked. Of course, even if they weren’t diving into the queen’s territory was a recipe for death. Their best chance to survive at the moment was currently Hazel’s plan.

  And that was what they were doing now.

  After going through Hazel’s plan back at the Jetport, the group then drove back to Portland. Specifically, the West End of Portland. Because the radius had increased by another five hundred meters, the Queen’s current range was now a solid one thousand.

  After checking the map of Portland back at the Jetport, this meant that The Old Port, West Bayside, India Street, Arts District, and Downtown were within the range of the Spider Queen’s detection. If Hazel or the others currently marked attempted to enter any of these areas of Portland, they would immediately alert the swarm and get bombarded with spider monsters.

  Of course, alerting the horde was part of the plan, but not right now. Right now, they needed to make their preparations for the Swarm.

  Stopping their vehicles in the middle of West End, all the players including Hazel, Astrid, and Chegyaeyi stepped out while being greeted by the city before them. Once out, Chegyaeyi was the first that stared at the towering buildings before her in awe.

  “Amazing,” She muttered in shock. “For such tall buildings to exist...and even those mechanical carriages...” She turned back to look at the military cargo vehicles.

  “Those are called trucks,” Hazel explained. “They’re one of the many vehicles invented on Earth.”

  “It is remarkable...” Chegyaeyi said. “Normally, it should’ve taken us several hours to cover this kind of distance, even by carriage. And yet those vehicles...it got us here in no time.”

  “Indeed,” Anais noted, agreeing with the Lizardfolk warrior. “Despite riding it plenty of times myself, I still can’t comprehend how advanced everything is compared to our world.”

  “Don’t you guys have magic in your world?” Hazel questioned. “Shouldn’t some of our advancements be covered by that? Like flying and such?”

  Although Hazel was flattered by their amazement over her world’s technological achievements, they should’ve had some of them substituted with magic. A good example would be transportation. Shouldn’t they be able to cover long distances with flying spells or teleportation?

  “While magic exists in our world, there were certain limitations to it,” Zoe explained. “For one thing, not everyone was capable of using magic. Those that could were called Mages or Magicians.”

  “Like myself,” Anais proclaimed. “Still, using magic to fly is very restricting and draining. The most we can do is use the elements to attack and such.”

  Well, that made sense. Though it was also very disappointing as well. Hazel figured that since they could use magic then they were capable of doing many things with it. But apparently, that wasn’t the case. How tragic.

  “So, you guys don’t have any teleportation device or anything like that?” Hazel asked.

  Anais leaned her head to the side while skeptically looking at her. “Why would we have something like that? Spatial Manipulation isn’t possible with our current capabilities with magic. At least back when our world was on its own.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Hazel couldn’t help but hang her head in despair. Although she expected their magical advancements to be a bit stagnant, she didn’t expect this kind of snail's pace.

  Spatial Manipulation was probably one of the strongest types of magic. If you could master it, the possibilities were endless. Teleportation, pocket dimensions, and so much more. Hell, one of Hazel’s items currently allowed her to store items in a pocket space. If that was possible, then teleportation should be just as plausible.

  But they shouldn’t be worried about that right now. Their main priority at the moment was the swarm and most importantly, farming them.

  Since the queen was quite likely stronger than them, Hazel and the others needed to level up more to stand a chance against her when they reached the fifth and final stage. The only way to do that was simple; they planned to use the horde and farm for experience points. Hazel did this last knight and yielded tremendous results.

  So, to deal with the queen, they needed to deal with her children first.

  “Alright, everyone,” Zoe announced, catching everyone’s attention. “You know the drill. We will be setting up multiple guard points around the spider queen’s radius to try and lessen the numbers by splitting them up. There will be at least five to six groups around the edge of the queen’s range. Now, go to your designated checkpoints and wait for my signal!”

  Everyone including Hazel, Astrid, and Chegyaeyi nodded upon hearing Zoe’s orders before marching off to their respective checkpoints.

  What all of them were planning was rather simple. It was a tactic called Divide and Conquer. Right now, their opponents were a large swarm of spiders that could easily overwhelm them because of their sheer number. However, there was a solution to deal with this.

  Instead of fighting the spider swarm as a whole, their best chance at defeating them was splitting the swarm up into smaller and more manageable numbers for the players to take on. But the real question came with how they planned to accomplish such a thing.

  Well, the answer to that was rather simple, and it was actually thanks to the Spider Queen that they were able to make this plan work in the first place. They planned to separate the swarm by using the players that were cursed as bait.

  Upon entering the spider queen’s range, she was capable of detecting those under her curse and thus sends her children to kill them. So, if she detected Hazel and the others who were cursed in multiple different spots, then it should be possible for her to split her forces to catch all of them. And by doing that, the numbers would become more manageable for the group to deal with.

  That was Hazel’s plan anyway. By splitting their numbers and making them easier to take on, all of the players participating in the fight would be able to level up from this battle and grow stronger from it. And if they do this enough, their levels should at least be on par with the Spider Queen, or at least be enough to inflict significant damage on her.

  Hopefully, Hazel’s plan would work and this strategy could assist them in getting stronger. She and the other needed to at least reach level 30 or higher if they wanted to take down the queen when she finally arrived. That and they could use the time given to improve their skills as well, and possibly obtain or make new ones.

  If they were right, then there were only three days left of the spider queen’s curse before she decided to come out of her nest and attack them herself. Three days to prepare. While that seemed impossible, Hazel knew from experience that there was a chance after everything she went through in the Fractured Dungeon.

  Hazel rode alone in the military cargo ship as she and several players joining her made their way over to their checkpoint. The reason why Astrid wasn’t with her was that since she also possessed the curse, it would be best for her to go to a separate checkpoint to assist in splitting up the forces as much as possible.

  Thankfully, she wasn’t entirely alone. Sitting next to her was none other than Chegyaeyi, the Lizardfolk warrior. When the group split up to drive to their checkpoints, Chegyaeyi asked which group she should join.

  That was when Astrid told the lizardfolk warrior to join Hazel’s group. Neither Chegyaeyi nor Hazel objected and simply listened to her offer before heading off in their separate vehicle.

  “Do you believe that this plan of yours will work?” Chegyaeyi suddenly asked.

  Hazel, who was sitting calmly next to her, took a moment to respond, organizing her thoughts accordingly.

  “The spider swarm only targets those that are under their queen’s curse,” she explained. “In theory, by entering her range from multiple areas, the swarm should split off and hunt down the marked players, thus mitigating their numbers exponentially compared to if they fought as a whole.”

  “But this is still only a theory, yes? What if you’re wrong?”

  Hazel hesitated to answer. It wasn’t like she didn’t know what to do. It was more along the lines of her praying that it doesn’t happen and things went exactly as she wanted them to. Since that would be less of a hassle for her.

  “If I’m wrong...then we’ll simply retreat and come up with a new plan. That’s all we can do at the moment.”

  Instead of responding, Chegyaeyi remained silent, either having the answer she was searching for or she didn’t want to further plague Hazel’s mind with doubt.