Chapter 38

A bead of sweat clung to Lir’s jawline, trembling before descending towards the web strung between her chin and chest.

Trian notched an arrow to the string of his longbow, an instrument larger than his own torso, while Rex, poised to leap, crouched, ready to shield Lir within the chamber.

I focused on the unease settled deep in my chest, bracing myself for the battle soon to erupt.

The small, yet immense, droplet of her sweat finally touched the silken thread.

It met the taut strand, shattering into a dozen smaller beads, sending vibrations across its surface.

The faint tremor traveled through the intricate web, reaching the monstrous spider suspended upside down on the ceiling.

Before the situation spiraled beyond salvation, Rex propelled himself forward, straightening his knees to secure Lir’s safety.

But then, Trian’s hand flashed, halting Rex in his tracks.

“…”

Rex stared at the elf blocking his path, confusion etched across his face.

Trian offered no explanation, his gaze fixed on the giant arachnid shifting above.

Creak… creak…

The awakened spider stirred. The sounds of tearing and snapping web filled the air.

Large, elongated legs, curled tightly against its body, slowly unfolded.

Lir closed her eyes. She didn’t even dare swallow, lest the sound draw the spider’s attention.

I held my breath, watching the monstrous spider, ready to pounce on Lir at any moment.

…In the worst-case scenario, I might have to unleash the Bloom here.

The spider, its eyes still closed, quietly moved its legs, feeling out the web. The strand beneath Lir’s chin vibrated. She delicately tilted her chin up, then down, matching its movements.

“…”

The spider seemed to determine that whatever disturbed its web was not prey.

Perhaps it thought it was a speck of dust fallen from the ceiling, or some other minuscule debris, because it slowly began to curl its legs beneath its body.

Lir, face tight with the effort of suppressing a sigh of relief, waited for the spider to sink back into its deep slumber.

It was fortunate.

There was simply no other way to explain it.

If, even bothering itself, the spider had opened all those eyes and started scanning the room, things would have escalated beyond control.

Lir remained frozen like a statue for a while before she began moving again, towards the center of the room. With nimble fingers I had never witnessed before, she disabled the mine’s circuit, then retraced her steps precisely back towards us.

Trian silently closed the door as soon as she re-entered the room.

Click.

The moment the door was sealed, sighs of relief escaped our lips, and…

“Uwaaah…!”

Lir’s legs simply gave way beneath her.

Her large eyes, now reddened, stared at me.

I didn’t understand why she looked at me with such eyes. It was a plan we all agreed to, wasn’t it?

…Well, one of the four of us had only remained silent… but wasn’t silence an implicit form of consent?

Don’t just glare at me, glare at you for not actively expressing your refusal…

“That was mean, really… really! This time, it was too much!”

“Sorry! I’m sorry, when we get back from this mission, that chocolate pizza bread thing again…”

“I don’t really want to go there! I just want to eat something normally delicious.”

Yeah, it seemed I might have messed up a little here.

Since I was the only one who knew Lir was the type who couldn’t refuse a request, I should have pulled her aside and made sure she was truly willing to do it.

From Lir’s perspective, it was a situation ripe with betrayal.

“……Seriously, what was that about? Not coming to save me.”

“I was about to bolt over the instant anything happened.”

“You were just watching.”

“In that situation, doing nothing was the safest option.”

“……W-well, I guess, but! Still! I felt like I was abandoned. I was really scared just now!”

The elf who had displayed superhuman focus, cutting through spiderwebs, was nowhere to be seen. Before my eyes, Lir pouted like a child.

“Calm down. I’ll buy you an expensive meal later.”

“Then you, Vin, have to find a nice place this time!”

‘……How bothersome.’

I only thought it to myself, refraining from uttering it aloud.

If I carelessly spoke my mind, unimaginable chaos might ensue.

“Seriously, next time, I’m absolutely not doing something like that. Absolutely, positively.”

Lir surprisingly calmed down quickly.

Whether it was because of her inherently kind nature, or because she was swayed by the promise of a free meal, I couldn’t quite discern.

……How can she be this simple?

“Something’s off.”

As I let out a sigh of relief, waiting for the strength to return to Lir’s limp legs, only Trian, among us, hadn’t relaxed his serious expression.

I asked him what was strange. Lir was sniffling and smearing tears on my robe, but wasn’t it fine since she disarmed the mine and didn’t attract the monster’s attention?

“That monster has a habit of immediately throwing itself to wherever something touches its web. So, at first, I was ready to draw my bow and charge in, but……”

“Wasn’t it just luck? Or perhaps it was simply very drowsy.”

“And you, I presume, lose your knee-jerk reflexes when sleepy?”

“Pardon?”

“For that spider, the act of ‘leaping toward the vibration’ is a reflex originating not in the brain, but in the spinal cord. An involuntary reaction it couldn’t suppress, even if drowsy or reluctant.”

“…Didn’t you say it was best not to dwell too deeply on the strange happenings inside the dungeon?”

“You must learn to distinguish between bad luck and events that defy reason, whelp. What just transpired was plainly an ‘event that defies reason’.”

…This b*stard’s calling a general an whelp now.

“Certainly, the monster’s reaction just now was rather lukewarm.”

Rex, too, voiced his agreement, apparently having sensed the same unease as Trian.

“…Looks like we’ll have to investigate thoroughly.”

“I concur.”

“Investigate what, exactly?”

“Everyone, prepare for a possible battle. Though it’ll likely end with a single arrow… Lir, you can rise now, yes?”

Battle? Suddenly?

Wasn’t moving with utmost stealth and quiet the most crucial aspect of this expedition? Why on earth are they contemplating a fight with that gargantuan spider, sound asleep as it is?

Lir, seemingly as lost in the current of Trian and Rex’s conversation as I was, remained seated, gazing up at me.

Why does she always look to me in these situations? I’m just as clueless about what they’re discussing.

“…I’d appreciate some explanation.”

“An involuntary reflex is called an involuntary reflex because it invariably occurs. No matter how bizarre the creature, it cannot control even the unconscious reactions originating in the spinal cord. This is a plainly obvious anomaly.”

“…”

“If you gloss over strange occurrences on the battlefield without proper investigation, they have a way of returning as irreversible disasters. Remember that if you wish to live long.”

Coming from an elf who had lived for over 1200 years in a medieval fantasy world rampant with bizarre phenomena, one couldn’t help but heed the warning.

To have survived over 1200 years in this barbaric age meant, without a doubt, that one possessed both exceptional sensitivity and keen judgment.

“……”

Trian drew the sharp dagger sheathed at his hip and cautiously approached the door.

He confirmed Lir’s readiness, then opened the door without hesitation. His previous carefulness to avoid making noise was gone.

Despite the rattling sound, the spider did not open its eyes.

Trian, as if seeing enough, swung his dagger at the web clinging to the wall. Immediately, a mass of cobwebs detached and fell.

The spiders residing in this dungeon were at least level 40, early stages. Even for Trian, a skilled archer, the ease with which the web was severed seemed unnatural.

Behind the spider silk, effortlessly cleared by Trian’s gesture, corroded bricks were revealed.

They resembled bricks dissolved by a scattering of demon blood.

Sensing the significant tremor in its web, the spider finally extended its legs and slowly began to descend to the floor.

Its movements were undoubtedly abnormal.

The spiders that usually appeared in this dungeon were known for their agility, disproportionate to their size.

“…Stubborn thing’s got a real knack for survival, doesn’t it.”

Trian sheathed his dagger and reached for the longbow and arrows slung across his back as he muttered.

Soon after, the spider placed all eight legs on the ground and opened its eyes.

…A grotesque sight.

Although a spider’s face was inherently grotesque, the face of this spider before me… what should I say, it transcended mere grotesqueness.

In the sockets where eyes should have been, only pitch-black darkness remained.

It wasn’t just the size that made the spider unsettling. On its back, it bore what looked like the half-fused head of another spider.

Eyes, still functioning, stared out from this second, grafted head.

Instinctively, I knew it was a head taken from the spider corpse we had seen earlier.

And I had seen creatures like this, this…configuration, too many times.

This spider-shaped monster before us was no longer just a beast driven by instinct.

It was a slave, moving only at the command of the demonic.

This colossal horror we thought was a spider monster was, in truth, a chimera, two spider monsters violently merged.

“Wait there,” he said, drawing back the bowstring. A declaration aimed as much at the demonic watching us from beyond the chimera as at the creature itself, “I’ll be there to kill you soon.”

* * *

The demonic Ifrit, missing one leg, sat in the center of a dungeon chamber, eyes closed in quiet concentration.

He was just one of the unlucky demonic who, upon receiving orders from his superiors to plant magical landmines throughout the Akiliptus Forest and temporarily retreat, had been sucked into this dungeon while laying those mines.

For a long time, he had wandered the dungeon, desperately searching for a way out.

He couldn’t even remember how many days he had been lost in this labyrinth.

His mind, a repository of countless methods for killing humans, elves, orcs, and dwarves, held no knowledge of how to escape a dungeon.

With outside communication completely severed, and unable to summon reinforcements to control the mutated chimera, the demonic, following his superior’s last command, wandered aimlessly through the dungeon chambers, planting magic mines.

His body had been ripped apart countless times in the battles that followed, but fortunately, his core remained intact, allowing him to survive.

Then, as he stumbled through this endless maze, he picked up a strange, unsettling signal.

The sensation of his landmines being disarmed, one by one.

He had felt the mines explode before, of course. The dungeon’s monsters had stepped on them more than once.

But this sensation of…disintegration… it was a first.

It was a curious thing. The demonkin, they were a race that valued efficiency above all else. No demon, not even a mid-level manager, would throw themselves into a dungeon just to rescue one of their own.

So, whoever stepped foot inside was no ally.

The thought barely formed before the demonkin hastily dispatched the mutated spider-creatures it had conjured, intent on concealing the bloodstains.

The intention was to blanket the blood-soaked chamber with webbing, preventing their enemies from tracking them.

So far, so good. It was a plausible camouflage, and had they stopped there, Vinn and their party likely wouldn’t have bothered entering the spider’s lair.

But the Ifrit’s thoughts didn’t stop there.

‘What if their objective…is the spiders themselves?’

Those who ventured into dungeons did so for various reasons. Some aimed to clear the dungeon and claim the immense rewards. Others focused solely on decimating any monster they came across.

Especially within this dungeon, the spider monster venom was of remarkably high quality.

If they had the strength to spare, they themselves would have loved to craft a potent mutant warrior, armed with the venom glands and fangs of these very spiders.

If this venom were to find its way into the continent’s black market, it would surely fetch a handsome price.

The Ifrit, considering the possibility that the adventurers’ objective was ‘the spiders themselves,’ concluded that their presence could expose its trail. It ordered the mutated spiders to bury a magical landmine, hidden in another chamber, in that very spot.

That was the mistake.

A magical landmine planted squarely in the center of the room, with a massive spider slumbering atop it.

Even an adventurer who entered the dungeon with the sole purpose of hunting spiders would hardly risk stepping into that chamber.

…At least, that was the thought before a certain elf opened the door and began their acrobatics.

With clumsy movements, the elf navigated through the web and strands, and swiftly disarmed the landmine that was right in the middle of the room.

…The uninvited guest’s goal was neither dungeon completion, nor venom collection, but the ‘landmine disarming’.

Who could have possibly foreseen such a thing?

That the reason they hurled themselves into this perilous dungeon wasn’t for gold and jewels, nor for monster venom, but to ‘disarm landmines.’

“…A demolition squad? No, that’s impossible.”

In alleys with heavy foot traffic, or strategic strongholds, the deployment of a mine-clearing team was only natural.

But this was the heart of a dungeon, strategically meaningless. There was no reason to deploy a professional demolition squad.

No, landmines laid here even gave the enemy an advantage, ‘restricting the movement of monsters.’

There was no reason to risk sending a demolition squad this deep into the dungeon.

Why, then?

Why? Why would they do such a thing?

In the periphery of Ifrit’s vision, lost in confusion, a shock of white hair flashed by.

“Ah.”

The spider, linked to Ifrit’s sight, followed the white hair that brushed its vision and moved its head.

“Vin.”

The genius mage who fought Grand Duke Maltiel to a standstill was caught at the edge of Ifrit’s view.

“Why the hell is that monster…?”

“Wait for me, I’ll be there to kill you soon.”

Immediately after, Ifrit’s vision went black as an arrow from the elf archer, whom he had been neglecting, struck true.

“…Huh.”

Ifrit’s mind couldn’t make sense of the situation.

Only one thing was certain: that monster’s days were numbered.