So I'm a Spider, So What?, Vol. 8

by Okina Baba

Wait, that thing’s dead as a doornail!

  Doesn’t that mean its monkey pals are gonna come looking for revenge?!

  “Well, if it happens…you know.”

  As if sensing my concerns, Vampy casts a meaningful glance toward Sael.

  All eyes in the igloo gather on the puppet spider.

  Yeah, that makes sense.

  She’s the strongest fighter in this group, so if anything happens, we’ll have to count on her.

  With all eyes on her, Sael’s expression doesn’t change, but she is definitely emitting a Me? Seriously?! kind of vibe.

  Um, are we gonna be all right?

  With Sael being the way she is and all?

  Nah, it’s fine, no problem.

  I’m sure of it. Probably. Maybe.

  “Then I shall emit a signal. If I cast a spell toward the sky, I have no doubt Lady Ariel will see it.”

  “Perfect. Thank you.”

  Mera exits the igloo.

  By the way, this igloo doesn’t have any entrance or exit.

  If you want to go out, you have to use Ice Magic to make an exit.

  As soon as Mera does just that, the reason for this annoying design choice becomes abundantly clear.

  Eeeeek!

  What is this?!

  It’s freeeezing!

  Mera fires a spell toward the sky and hurries back inside, closing the entrance behind him.

  This is crazy, dude.

  It’s way too cold out there. If we left an exit open, we’d almost 100 percent freeze to death.

  I don’t think we could leave this spot even if we wanted to.

  Vampy and crew might manage out there, but not me.

  Nope. If I went outside, I’m sure I’d be a goner.

  My defense against the cold, my blanket, was all frozen up even before I lost it in the avalanche.

  Seems like I lost all my heating magic stones in the commotion, too.

  In other words, I’m totally unarmed.

  Technically, my clothes are meant to be somewhat cold resistant, but that’s nothing in the face of this frigid wasteland.

  So I guess our only choice is to wait until the Demon Lord and the others come running to save us.

  There were still extra blankets and magic stones in the carriage, so I’ll be able to get by with those.

  With nothing else to do, we warm ourselves around the fire.

  Vampy is prodding at the dead monkey, sniffing the blood around its mouth and stuff.

  You know those things taste gross, right? Trust me on this one.

  Now, after I turned into an arachne, I confirmed that my spider half and my human half had different senses of taste.

  The spider half could eat all kinds of unpleasant things without much of a problem, but in the human half’s case, some things were too gross to swallow.

  So if that monkey tasted gross to my spider body, you better believe it’s gonna be nasty for a human.

  I ate tons of those things as a spider, and I hated every bite.

  There’s no way a human can eat one.

  I gently take the baby bloodsucker’s hand and pull it away from the monkey.

  When she looks at me in confusion, I just shake my head.

  You can’t eat that.

  My meaning seems to get through to her. She wrinkles her nose and lets go of the monkey.

  I can’t help but notice a relieved expression flashing across Mera’s face.

  Yeah, you didn’t want to eat that, either, did you, buddy?

  Maybe he just figured that desperate times call for desperate measures, and that’s why he didn’t stop Vampy.

  He may be a servant, but he’s still able to warn his master when she’s about to make a mistake.

  I guess during our journey, she must’ve gotten so used to eating monsters that she saw this monkey as a possible food source, even if it’s painfully obvious how gross it would be.

  I’m not sure whether to be impressed at her hardiness or disturbed at her lack of girliness again.

  I mean, look at Mera’s face, will you?

  He’s all, Young Miss, no waaay can we eat that!

  Vampy’s gotten more powerful and adaptable, but her maiden instincts have seriously lapsed.

  Hmm. Well, uh, good luck with the romance, kid.

  While I give the baby bloodsucker a tepid gaze, my hand casually touches the ground—and a shiver runs down my spine.

  Something touched my hand when I put it on the ground.

  It’s an enormous white scythe.

  My personal weapon that I crafted from my own body.

  You could even say that it’s my other half.

  I thought it was still in the carriage, yet somehow, here it is.

  When I absorbed all the energy of that bomb and turned into a deity, my body alone wasn’t able to take in all that power, so some of it flowed into this scythe. As a result, it’s got more than a few mysterious powers.

  Even before I evolved, its abilities were usually based on my own skills, but what it did and when it did it varied quite a bit, and in ways that even I didn’t fully understand.

  Not to mention, it did all those things without my willing it to do so, as if it had a mind of its own.

  Just like it’s doing right now.

  But it doesn’t do things randomly—there’s always a reason.

  In this case, it probably came to me by way of teleportation, but that means something caused it to happen.

  There’s some reason that I need to have my scythe on me right now.

  In that instant, I don’t even wonder what to do.

  An instinctive sense of danger overwhelms me, so I trust my instincts, grab my scythe, and stand up with it held out in front of me.

  But somehow, that action winds up saving my life.

  With a loud boom, the world around me suddenly changes.

  I don’t know what happened or why.

  All I know is that it’s painful.

  It hurts.

  My whole body hurts but especially my arms.

  Not only that, but my vision is filled with pure-white snow.

  Just as I realize that I must be lying facedown on the ground, vicious cold assails my entire body.

  S-s-s-so cold!

  I must be outside the igloo now.

  I don’t know what I’m doing out here, but I know I’m freezing my butt off!

  I have to get back inside!

  But when I sit up and look around, I don’t see the igloo anywhere.

  Instead, I see two big chunks of ice that must be the remains of the igloo.

  Like what would happen if you chopped the dome in half, straight down the middle.

  In fact, that’s gotta be exactly what happened.

  But instead of focusing on the destroyed igloo, my eyes wander over to what stands beyond it.

  A person?

  There’s a person there.

  Specifically, a man, who appears to be half-naked in this awful cold.

  Actually, more than half. The only thing he’s wearing is a tattered piece of cloth to cover the most vital bits.

  You some kinda pervert?! Wait, this isn’t the time!

  But seriously, um, aren’t you cold?

  Okay, now’s not the time for stupid reactions like that, especially not once I see his face.

  It looks totally human, except for the two horns sprouting from his forehead…but that’s not why.

  It’s the face itself that surprises me.

  I know that face.

  “Sael! Get him!”

  While I’m frozen in shock, I hear Vampy’s voice cry out.

  Immediately, Sael hops out of one of the two pieces of the igloo.

  The baby bloodsucker peeks out of the other, checking around.

  Luckily, it looks like they were in the safe parts of the igloo, so they didn’t get hurt.

  Hmm? Does that mean that I got caught in whatever destroyed the igloo and thrown all the way over here?

  As I bela
tedly realize what happened to me, the blood drains from my face.

  The only reason I survived must be because I had my scythe at the ready.

  I’m sure I would have died if it didn’t defend me.

  That would also explain why my arms hurt so much.

  The scythe must have used some kind of barrier to reduce the damage.

  Otherwise, with my weak constitution, I would never be able to survive an attack that could destroy the igloo like that.

  Attack… That’s right.

  We must have been attacked.

  By whom? Well, that’s obvious.

  There’s only one new person around here.

  The man with the horns over there.

  So the man with the horns must be the one who attacked us.

  No wonder the baby bloodsucker ordered Sael to attack him.

  Sael whips out her six hidden arms and their respective weapons as she charges at the horned man.

  Her crazy-high stats mean that she attacks so fast, a now-normal person like me can’t even follow her movements.

  I knew that she produced her arms and pulled out her weapons before only because I’m familiar with her actions, not because I was able to see it.

  It’s just like how even someone who knows a lot about guns wouldn’t be able to follow a fired bullet with their naked eye.

  And they wouldn’t be able to stop that bullet, either.

  Before I can call out to stop her, Sael’s already finished her attack.

  Or rather, I guess she finished before I even thought about trying to stop her.

  That’s how fast she moves.

  And no ordinary person could survive an attack from a monster like Sael.

  But somehow…

  “Huh?”

  Vampy murmurs in shock.

  The man with the horns managed to block Sael’s attack with the katana he holds in both hands.

  I can’t believe it.

  How was he able to defend himself against Sael?

  And as if to prove that it wasn’t just chance, he keeps parrying each of Sael’s successive attacks.

  It doesn’t look like he’s going to be able to counterattack, but Sael’s attacks aren’t touching him, either.

  They’re evenly matched.

  I guess this guy with the horns is no ordinary person.

  In fact, I think I know exactly who he really is.

  After we’ve heard so much about him, it’d be crazier not to realize it.

  The ogre. The one who wiped out all the adventurers in that town, got chased away by the imperial army, and caused all this abnormal weather by antagonizing the ice dragons.

  He honestly looks way more like a human than an ogre, but he’s sporting some horns, so it’s probably a safe bet.

  Maybe he underwent some special evolution from an ogre or something.

  Anyway, for the time being, we’ll just call him Mr. Oni.

  And if my guess is right, Mr. Oni is probably—

  “Merazophis!”

  A shriek from Vampy interrupts my thoughts.

  Oof, my ears are ringing!

  Turning toward the source of the cry, I see Mera looking like he’s in pain and the baby bloodsucker running up to him in a panic.

  Come to think of it, Mera was sitting right across from me in the igloo, which got sliced in half.

  If that attack blew me away, then it must’ve blown Mera away, too.

  But while I had my scythe to defend me, Mera didn’t have anything to soften the blow.

  “My deepest apologies. I was unprepared.”

  Um, come on.

  How were you supposed to be prepared for a complete surprise attack?

  It doesn’t make sense to me, but knowing Mera’s serious personality, he’s probably ashamed to have fallen victim to a totally unforeseen sucker punch.

  I guess he thinks he should have noticed earlier somehow.

  “No, it’s fine. Let’s just heal your wounds.”

  The baby bloodsucker starts casting Healing Magic on Mera.

  Uh, helloooo? He’s not the only one hurting, y’know.

  Just gonna ignore me?

  I see how it is…

  Left with no other choice, I use my scythe as a cane to drag myself to my feet.

  My whole body hurts, probably from getting bowled over by that initial attack.

  My arms are killing me. I wouldn’t be surprised if I broke a few bones.

  And on top of all that pain, the cold just makes it ten times worse.

  Hmm, this isn’t looking good.

  I’m not gonna die immediately, but if things stay like this for too long, I might be in serious trouble.

  I could freeze to death within the hour.

  Shoot. We’ve gotta take care of this problem and make a new igloo to hide in.

  How exactly are we supposed to solve this issue, though?

  I look toward Mr. Oni, still locked in battle with Sael.

  It really is amazing how well he’s holding his own, but I think Sael’s still going to win in the end.

  Sael looks like she has a lot more energy to spare than he does.

  Each of Sael’s stats is over ten thousand, she wields six swords, she can move them in typically impossible ways because she’s a puppet, and she’s even got Poison and Dark Magic like any good spider monster.

  Between their high stats, solid strength, and tricky strategies, puppet spiders are really difficult to take on, especially if you’ve never seen one before.

  Thus far, they’ve mostly faced only enemies so weak that they could kill them in one hit or enemies like the tank from two years ago that are so strong, they can’t even fight back, so the puppet spiders haven’t had much of a chance to show off their skills, but they really are multitalented.

  They’ve got the abilities of spider monsters, and since they control human-shaped puppets, they can imitate human movements, too.

  Not to mention, those puppets can move in ways humans can’t, and they don’t need to worry about getting hurt.

  Frankly, as long as their stats are evenly matched, the spider puppets can beat just about anyone.

  They’re invaluable allies.

  …Even if it’s easy to forget that when they’re so useless most of the time.

  Anyway, if this battle keeps going like this, my money’s on Sael to win.

  It’s been so long since she faced an evenly matched opponent that it almost seems like she’s panicking and not using her abilities to their fullest, but I’m sure that’s just my imagination.

  Yeah, let’s go with that.

  Once Sael calms down, things will turn even more in her favor, I’m sure.

  But should we really be okay with that?

  I mean, this oni here definitely looks like—

  “You’ve certainly done it now.”

  Interrupting my thoughts yet again, Vampy stands up slowly.

  You can almost feel the rage over her precious Mera’s injury rippling off her body.

  I think I can actually see a black aura around her.

  Um, hellooo? You’re still gonna ignore me even after you healed Mera?

  I managed to stand up somehow, but I’m still in pretty rough shape, y’know.

  So you haven’t noticed me at all? I see…

  But that’s going to be a bit of a problem.

  I have to stop the bloodsucker from charging at Mr. Oni, so I start wobbling my way toward her.

  “Lady White!”

  Mera, bless his heart, notices me first.

  He stands up, his body already healed by the little vamp’s magic and his own automatic self-healing.

  His clothes got torn up in the attack, so he looks kind of wild and sexy, like the cover of a romance novel.

  Between him and Mr. Oni, that’s two men now who are severely underdressed for the cold here.

  “Ah.”

  The baby bloodsucker looks at me blankly.

  What do you mean, ah?!

  You for
got about me, huh? You totally forgot I existed!

  “Oh dear! We’ve got to heal you right away!”

  After a momentary look of Oops! Vampy hurriedly transitions to a panicked expression and runs over to me.

  Yeah, I’m sure you really are panicked, but isn’t half of it because you forgot all about me for a minute there?

  As she somewhat awkwardly starts the healing, I can’t help glowering at her a little.

  But now’s not the time for such petty thoughts.

  “Look.”

  As Vampy heals me, I point at the oni, locked in battle with Sael.

  I know it’s rude to point, but I can’t worry about that at the moment.

  “Oh yes. That must be the ogre we’ve heard so much about. Ogres look a lot more like humans than you’d imagine, don’t you think?”

  No, I know that part.

  That’s not what I’m trying to say right now, though.

  Wait, could it be that she hasn’t noticed?

  I have no choice but to say out loud what’s been bothering me.

  “Sasajima.”

  This oni’s face looks very familiar to me.

  But it isn’t one that I’ve seen in this world.

  His face is among Hiiro Wakaba’s memories.

  Along with the name Kyouya Sasajima, a Japanese high school boy.

  “What?”

  Apparently, I was right: She hasn’t noticed. The baby bloodsucker looks at me like I’m a crazy person.

  So I’m forced to point at Mr. Oni again and say his name out loud.

  “Kyouya Sasajima.”

  “GRAAAAAAH!”

  Looks like that name set him off.

  The oni’s roar echoes through the area.

  It’s an inhuman sound, the howl of an ogre.

  Startled by the sudden noise, Sael freezes in place for just a moment.

  And the oni swings down the sword in his right hand without hesitation.

  The sword is wreathed in flames, obviously different from his attacks up until now.

  Sael quickly recovers from her shock and jumps back, narrowly avoiding the attack.

  Cutting through air, the oni’s attack smashes into the ground instead.

  And then an enormous cracking sound fills the air!

  Flames ripple out from the center of impact, accompanied by a shock wave.

  The flames melt the ice, and the shock wave breaks the very earth!

  Judging by the fact that Mr. Oni was evenly matched with Sael, I already figured his stats had to be around the ten thousand mark.

  Since the earth dragon Araba was able to use magic to create pillars of earth instantly, and his stats were only around four thousand, you can tell that high stats basically grant the ability to cause natural disasters at will.