12. open (2)
To be precise, a woman’s upper body protruding from the spider’s stomach was attached to the wall. The spider’s body hair was thick and covered all over the body, and the hair on top of it had the shape of a beautiful woman. It was a mutant monster with strong magic that could not be born normally. Perhaps that sprouting female body is one of the many adventurers that damn bitch has eaten in the past.
‘Aragrid’.
I knew what that guy was. Because it was one of the monsters that Arjen faced in the original work. It was a monster corresponding to the boss that lurked in the deepest part of the anthill, and a monster with a ‘name’. There are two cases in which a monster’s individual has a name. Either you survived long enough to have a name and gained notoriety, or you have an ego and have the intelligence to put a name on yourself.
“hi? I am Aragrid. It lives in the deepest part of this burrow.”
Unfortunately, that bitch was a monster of both.
“A delicious smell wafted all the way to the bottom of this oyster.”
The spider spoke to us with a voice that sounded like rolling marbles carved out of ice. There was a clicking sound like a choo-im bird at every word.
“Especially you over there, you smell very irritating.”
In the light of my torch and Harvey’s lantern, the white-less eyes on Aragrid’s head glistened like black marbles. And, the place where those eyes are directed is exactly in my direction. Does my body smell like pork belly?
“… I guess I’ll have to run to the back. Talking spider monster, I’ve heard of it in the guild. Wouldn’t it be better to go deeper into the burrow?”
Harvey whispered to me, realizing that he wasn’t serious.
“This whole cave is like my nest, so I’d really appreciate it if you could come in.”
Kindly, Aragrid answered Harvey’s whisper with a chuckle. I was startled that the spider could hear me. The spider came down the wall with a click of six paws in a web. When I saw why I had six feet, the other two became arms and touched my face. The sound of spiders crawling and nibbling on the stone floor seemed to pierce my ears and massage my brain.
“It will be a good meal for my babies.”
chicks?
Square, square, square, square, square.
From behind me, I began to hear a sound like fingernails scratching eggshells. Harvey’s face hardened, Robin’s eyes widened, and Leah looked back. I wanted to see what was going on behind me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off that monster. I kept trying to look back and grabbed the spasmodic neck, grinding my teeth gently.
“Spider… Spiders… .”
Robin’s voice sounded like a scream. The sound was coming from deep within the pupil. It seemed that the offspring of Aragrid were crawling out from the depths of the cave.
“We must fight.”
Leah said as she grabbed the axe. Even in this situation, the Holy Sword showed no signs of waking up. Can not help it. Even in this situation, if I try to rely on such a miracle, how will I cope with the many variables that will happen in the future? I erased the word “opening” from my mind and took a cardinal expression.
Spiders crawling out of the depths of the burrow surrounded us. Similar to their mother, Aragrid, the baby spiders were also ignorantly large. At least a hundred baby spiders the size of a human body. Even though they are babies, each of them must be as strong as most monsters.
“Warrior… .”
Robin and Harvey, who were not combatants, looked at me desperately. Spider eye, human eye. The gaze was heavy. Dozens or hundreds of pairs of eyes were all looking at me. It seemed that the whole pupil had become one huge eye, trying to crush and kill me by looking at me.
The silence on the battlefield was a time bomb that didn’t know when to explode. The clicking of the spiders’ feet replaced the second hand as they crawled toward the explosion. As it left one last click, Aragrid’s voice broke out.
“Isn’t that it?”
Aragrid slowly moved towards me with its six legs. The baby spiders that were filling the surroundings stepped back and made a way for their mother.
“If it wasn’t for the man standing in front of me, I wouldn’t have come up here. That man smells so rich and delicious that even I, who sleeps in the deepest part of the burrow, can’t stand it.”
The human-shaped upper body slowly leaned forward. The spider made sure to meet the adventurer party members one by one and smiled eerily.
“You are being sacrificed. Because of this man who came with you. And, this guy is pretty strong, but I can’t beat him.”
The eyes of Robin and Harvey, who had been watching me all the time, were trembling. Her expression didn’t change as much as Leah’s, but she was looking at her colleagues with anxious eyes.
“Aren’t you angry? Oh, didn’t you say you were angry? Aren’t you embarrassed? It’s okay if you guys don’t die here, but you don’t have to die slowly melting by being tied to me in a spider’s web.”
Aragrid’s smile hangs in the air and swings like a pendulum. The monster looked at the adventurers’ reactions as if savoring them, and tore their mouths even more terrifyingly.
“Are you resentful? Do you want to survive somehow?”
Aragrid’s head was completely at eye level with the adventurers. The monster put his head between Robin and Harvey and lowered his voice like a whisper. The monster’s horse was sliding through the people like ice.
“Shall I teach you a way to live?”
Aragrid’s glittering eyes met the adventurers’ eyes.
“Actually, even if you eat them, they don’t taste good. It’s not even rich in mana. What I really want is that man.”
Aragrid pointed at me and smiled.
“If you say you’re going to leave this guy behind, I’ll let you go. I hate losing a lot of my pups needlessly. You just have to go back as if nothing happened. Do not worry about it. Oh, because I will hold on to him.”
Again, the adventurers turned their attention to me. I said nothing. There was no change in expression, and he did not even try to make eye contact with the adventurers. Just as he had taken the jockeying ceremony, his eyes were fixed on Aragrid. Surprise could not. It was because Aragrid’s movements kept me in check.
“… I have to go.”
I heard Harvey’s voice. Robin didn’t respond, lowered his head, and Leah opened her eyes and glared at Harvey, as if asking what the hell she was talking about. The appearance that had been consistent with the playful voice until now was nowhere to be seen, and it seemed that it had completely hardened.
“What are you talking about.”
Harvey’s face twisted at Leah’s words.
“I do not know? There’s no reason for us to die here. First of all, I don’t want to die right now. Robin might be thinking the same thing. If you are a leader, make a cool decision. Even though we’ve been together for a while, the hero isn’t our party. Are you going to fight here and kill us all? If you don’t want to come, I’ll go first.”
Harvey nodded and grabbed Robin’s hand. Robin was dragged along by Harvey, and Leah kept looking at me, then turned her head around and followed Harvey.
I never paid attention to the adventurers until they disappeared. All the while, he was only watching Aragrid’s movements. In the cave where the torches and lanterns were gone, my vision slowly recovered and I saw Aragrid again.
“Hmm.”
Aragrid smiled at the disappearing adventurers.
“You are unique. Aren’t you angry? Aren’t you killing those guys? I deliberately loosened my guard.”
“How many people have you eaten?”
Aragrid’s mouth went up at my question. A monster that could speak human language was dangerous. It was because he had the power to make people listen to even nonsensical threats that would never work. The fact that monsters were talking was fear, and fear eats away at people’s reason. They play with people like that and then kill them.
“Do you know me well?”
Aragrid’s feet clicked. I put my fingers under my chin, and the monster’s head tilted. It was a terrifyingly beautiful and disgusting face.
“I must have thought that if those adventurers and I resisted together, there could be a variable. That’s why I was trying to get rid of the option of resisting that remains in their heads. To make it easier to kill me. If you meet moderately strong people, you will usually react in this way.”
Aragrid looked genuinely surprised.
“How do you know so well? A hundred out of a hundred other people attacked their own side.”
Then, as if in doubt, he narrowed his eyes.
“And, knowing so well, why didn’t you try to attack me? If you attacked me, those adventurers would have had to fight too?”
“If so, I would have missed the chance to save even those adventurers.”
It may be a shame that you left me behind, but it was the best thing for them. Even if I stayed, the only person who could actually help me would be Leah, and that Leah would have died without winning in the end if she fought this monster.
He didn’t try to kill me, and he didn’t blame me either.
I’m not a saint, but at least I wasn’t a psychopath enough to decapitate people for being annoying. And, there was still a chance, albeit a little, of surviving. I recalled the words Harvey had secretly verbalized to me before leaving the cave.
‘I’ll come back with the people.’
If you take your time against him and hold on, reinforcements may come. I spit it out and raised my mana. The Holy Sword does not wake up. There is no protective magic. Will I be able to hold out for long? Death took on a distinct form in front of my eyes, staring at me.
“Sorry. There is a deduction there.”
Aragrid spoke with a long tongue.
“Didn’t I know that these guys weren’t really, desperately trying to run away? stupid guys. If I had thought of such a strategy, I should have run out of my nest right away with a pale face. He stayed and thought about it leisurely, and said that he would call in reinforcements. You have no idea how funny I was when I saw it.”
Aragrid exploded in madness. The monster’s laughter pierced his pupils as sharp as razor blades. It reminded me that this monster bastard, besides basically harming people, also loves to play with them.
“But do you know why I let them go?”
Power entered my hand holding the holy sword. Aragrid looked down at me and gave me an enraptured smile. Eyes that had nothing but black eyes glistened. square, square, square, square. Spiderlings swarmed in front of Aragrid, forming a barrier as if to protect their mother.
“My cubs need to learn how to hunt alone by now.”
I triggered the mana in my body and fired the new model. The spider’s barrier became a torrent and attacked me, raising the holy sword. Then, without hesitation, he thrust the tip of his sword into the spiders in order to cut off the head of that heinous monster.
—
“Hey! Harvey! why the hell are you… !”
Harvey frowned and gave an urgent signal to be quiet as Leah approached. Leah, not knowing why, looked down in even greater anger, and stopped in a panic as Harvey covered her mouth with his hand.
“I’m going to call reinforcements.”
Harvey said in a low voice. Leah opened her eyes wide and looked at Harvey. Harvey asked for silence again, then removed his hand from Leah’s mouth.
“I don’t know why that spider monster let us go… , Hurry up and get out of here and return to the capital, or ask for help from passing adventurers. If you’re a hero, you never know, but you’ll never be able to last long there.”
Leah listened to Harvey and nodded with determination. Robin glanced back as if he was still concerned about the hero’s presence, but soon he hurried to keep up with the group’s footsteps.
“It’s absurd to ask an adventurer passing by. Don’t even think about looking for an adventurer and head straight to the capital to ask for help.”
Harvey’s expression was not good. He too believed in the hero’s strength, but he was not sure how long the hero would hold out against the monster.
“that’s right. Since you’re a hero, if you can somehow quickly dispatch regular troops… .”
Leah’s footsteps stopped. Before Harvey could even ask Leah why she had stopped, she realized why.
square, square, square, square.
On the other side of the aisle you jumped out of. Dozens of spiders the size of a human torso were coming out of the cracks in the rocks.
—
tell me what you want
“It’s too bad.”
This is how it feels to become a super corpse. I stared at Aragrid, pinned against the wall of my pupil, a pair of her freshly severed legs sprouting.
“I had to lose quite a few of my sweet pups because of you.”
As a result, I managed to break through the swarm of spiderlings that were blocking Aragrid. It seems that they were just following Aragrid’s control, not yet equipped with intelligence. It was because he prioritized protecting Aragrid rather than systematically attacking me. Thanks to that, I swung my sword like rowing and killed countless spiders…
Strictly speaking, the share of the mother of these baby spiders is not easy. He punched through the spiders and fought a battle with Aragrid. When I first fought, I thought I was more determined than I thought. He had several cuts on his body and had three legs cut off. Of course, the wounds were piling up on my body little by little, but the pain of the wounds was dull, overshadowed by the hope of defeating this monster and surviving.
‘You’re more annoying than I thought, you.’
Saying so, until Aragrid swallowed a baby spider. Aragrid indiscriminately killed and ate its offspring whenever it was seriously injured. The cub became the mother’s nourishment, made her severed limbs grow, and regenerated new flesh from the cut wounds on her torso.
While I was in a tattered state with large and small wounds, that spider monster was as clean as if it had just woken up.
“… It’s not enough.”
The speed at which Aragrid’s legs sprouted noticeably slowed. Aragrid distorted his face and indiscriminately picked up the baby spiders on the floor and poisoned them before eating them. I couldn’t help laughing at the bizarre sight.
“I’m glad I let you eat my babies.”
Aragrid came towards me, speaking in an angry voice. While letting go of disgust through my teeth, I stood up with my holy sword on the ground. It’s still fine. Still, you can hold on.
bang-!!
“Kuh-!”
Aragrid’s foot flew in, and I stomped unsightly to avoid the attack, then was kicked and sent flying through the air.
“Cheuk.”
It was dangerous. If I allowed more attacks than this, the body I was forcibly holding on to with my mental strength would completely collapse. My body, which was about to get up again, was picked up by Aragrid with his hand.
puck.
I was thrown back and landed under the wall on the other side of the pupil. It looks like a few bones are broken. He must have broken a couple of ribs, judging from the tingling in his chest every time he breathed. Will Leah hold up well? He shouldn’t have died before me. Even though I was shaking, I never tried to let go of the holy sword I was holding in my hand.
what do you want
And, someone has been talking strange things in my ears in a nonchalant tone since before. Are you the grim reaper? People seem to hear strange noises as they face the danger of death.
I asked what you want.
what do i want Isn’t it natural Kill this spider now, save the adventurer party if alive, and survive. And without having to get involved with Arjen again, defeat the remaining disasters, and in the end, in the end… .
– I want to protect it.
Something inside of me, something that didn’t seem like me, completed the last sentence of the answer.
“[Got it.]”
Key Yiing-!!
Brilliant light emanated from the blade of the holy sword, and unprecedented power enveloped my body.
Let’s go
Ohh so the sword finally recognized him 🧐