“There you go again, acting like the bad guy. I’ve had more than enough of your cheap sense of evil,” Tisalia snapped. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing at her reply. Her words got to the heart of the matter.
No matter how hard Arahnia tried to pretend to be an evil woman, a thief, or some kind of villainous mastermind, I knew the true extent of her malicious motives. She was just pretending to be a trifling scoundrel—transparent even to someone as simple and straightforward as Tisalia.
“Either way, I still think that going for the dragonscale charm was going too far,” Tisalia added.
“That’s off limits, Arahnia. If you stole that, Dr. Glenn would try to get it back—I’ll give you that. But you won’t get the reaction that you’re hoping for. He would take it back, and that’d be the end of it. You won’t get strung up like a criminal or anything like that. Dr. Glenn is so busy he doesn’t even have the time for it,” I said.
Arahnia hung her head silently. She was reflecting on her actions. No, that wasn’t it—she should have known from the start that what she was doing was a crime. She was a woman capable of differentiating between what she should and shouldn’t do.
So why did she do it, despite knowing that?
The answer was simple—she truly wanted to put it to the test. Would Dr. Glenn still refuse to turn her away, even after she stole the most precious thing he owned? Would he hate her? After she had crossed the line with her pranks and done something to be hated for, would the kindhearted Dr. Glenn truly hate Arahnia?
She wanted to test just how far Dr. Glenn’s good nature went.
It was a bad habit.
She couldn’t feel confident her relationships wouldn’t collapse until she had completely stretched them to the breaking point. An arachne, more cowardly than anyone else, and because of it, unable to make any friends.
Although I wasn’t one to be laughing at another’s cowardice.
“Lately, I’ve even felt strange to myself,” Arahnia said, putting her head in her hands. “I accepted the job because I thought I’d try to get close to Dr. Glenn and embarrass him a little. But even though that doctor has such a hard time handling me, he doesn’t try to avoid me at all…”
“He’s not the type to do that, you know,” I remarked.
“When he’s closely watching me and teaching me how to suture, his face will get red when I tease him a little, yet he doesn’t even try to lay a hand on me… He’s so careful with his work, and gentle… What’s the idea?! Does he think that I’m a terrible woman? Aaaargh, honestly, I have absolutely no clue what that man is thinking!”
Was Arahnia’s face red from her ginjo? Or was it, perhaps, some other reason?
“Arahnia, why don’t I give you an exam?” I asked.
Her eyes widened in surprise at my abrupt change of subject. Normally, Dr. Glenn would be the one to give exams, but—I was sure it would be fine. I could handle being his replacement without a problem.
“E-exam?” Arahnia replied.
“Recently, have you been thinking about Dr. Glenn when you fall asleep?”
“I already told you, didn’t I? That strange man is all I’ve been able to think about.”
“Does your chest tighten when you do?”
“Now that you mention it, it does sometimes…”
“Does your head begin to hurt, and does your face get hot?”
“I haven’t had any headaches, but…I suppose, lately…I have felt some heat come to my face.”
“Do you think about wanting to tie Dr. Glenn down?”
“Always.”
Oh boy, I thought. I exchanged glances with Tisalia. It was something so easy to understand, yet Arahnia was in total confusion. She hadn’t realized it herself. I had talked with her under the assumption she knew why she was consumed by thoughts of Dr. Glenn, but Arahnia was, generally speaking, slow on the uptake.
“Arahnia, you’re definitely sick,” I continued.
“You mean my habit of stealing things, don’t you? I know that, but—” she began.
“No, separate from that. Arahnia, you’ve stolen away men from other women and slept with them before, right? And you still don’t get it? Really?”
“Hm…? I have absolutely no idea what you could be talking about, but seducing men is part of my habit of stealing things, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and I’d assume that would entail sharing intimate feelings with another person, correct?”
“Hm? This conversation is becoming more and more confusing. You see, I’m skilled at seduction, but I have no experience with what comes after. I’m just satisfied taking a man from another. I discard them as soon as I’ve taken my prize.”
My goodness, I thought, that was no doubt quite a cruel ending for the targets of her seduction.
This time I let out a good, loud laugh. I had reached my limit and couldn’t hold it back any longer. Tisalia joined me, and with her laughing too, I couldn’t stop myself—thanks in part to the wine I was drinking.
“Pft, hahahaha.” It was truly too funny for me to handle.
“Hey, what the heck is with you two?! Why are you laughing?! Do you have something to say?!” Arahnia exclaimed.
“Arahnia, it seems you’ve been distressed about all this for a while, but for us, this is something we’ve already had quite a lot of experience with…” Sapphee replied.
She was testing Dr. Glenn? She couldn’t stop a bad habit, one that was bred into her?
These excuses were laughable. True, Arahnia could be a slightly troublesome woman, but that and the reason she was so interested in Dr. Glenn were completely different. As long as she spouted these inconsequential anecdotes of hers and failed to realize her own true feelings, try as she might to make herself seem rich with experience, she was just the same as any other innocent young virgin.
I had finally figured it out.
Arahnia’s worst habit of all wasn’t the stealing or her desire for the things of others. It was that she didn’t understand her own true feelings at all, despite speaking with a pretense of wickedness and villainy.
“I’ll tell you all about it. You see, Arahnia…” I begin.
I was glad that I was one or two steps ahead of Arahnia when it came to matters of the heart. Tisalia also seemed triumphant that she could get back at Arahnia for what previously happened between the two of them.
Together, the two of us carefully explained it all to Arahnia—that the truth of what she was currently feeling was something Tisalia and I were very familiar with.
It was lovesickness.
Arahnia was surprised at first, her six eyes growing wide, then at long last her face turned red, and she finally tried to hide her blush by finishing the rest of her drink all in one gulp.
It was definitely an unhealthy way for her to finish her drink. However, she probably didn’t have any other way of dealing with the fact that she was in love—perhaps for the first time in her life.
***
What exactly did these three young maidens discuss on that day in the Giant Squid’s Inn?
That is something I can’t possibly write here.
All I will say is that it might have been a little bit more vulgar and a little bit craftier than a gentleman of the world might expect. Of course, either way, it was simply a drinking party. It wasn’t a particularly significant conversation.
What I can write is that our dinner party was very fun—and the party continued without any mention of Arahnia’s attempted theft. Arahnia hid her face and told us that she had a good pair of friends. She had most likely been crying, but she was too proud to show even her closest friends her tears.
After that, Arahnia’s pranks in the clinic came to an abrupt end. She would probably never want another’s property again. The reason was simple. It was because now she realized she didn’t want the things of others—what she really wanted was something all to herself.
***
Just when I thought everything had come to a peaceful co
nclusion—
“…What are you doing, Arahnia?”
“S-Sapphee?! W-well, you see, hmm, this is just, well… How should I explain it…?” Arahnia was unusually panicked upon realizing that I had entered the room.
But it was probably natural she would be flustered. After all, both of us were standing in Dr. Glenn’s bedroom. While I was confident she wasn’t thinking about trying to steal one of Dr. Glenn’s belongings again, it was nevertheless troubling to have her barging into the doctor’s room on a whim—troubling for myself in particular.
“Well, let’s see… Promise not to laugh at me, okay?” Arahnia said, continuing her explanation as she withstood my ice-cold glare.
“Okay.”
“At first, you see, I tied myself up in my own silk, you know, to act like I was stuck, and call out to Dr. Glenn, ‘Ahh, I’ve been caught, please help poor little me!’ That’s what I was thinking anyway…”
“Yes?”
“…But I ended up really getting caught instead,” Arahnia confessed, a defeated tone in her voice as she stood covered in silk.
Both her four upper arms and her six lower legs had all been intricately entangled in a way that made me wonder how in the world she could have even ended up in such a state. It appeared she had made a large amount of her prey-capturing silk, and the sticky slime clung firmly to her arms and legs.
It was absurd to believe that an arachne so at home with handling silk could be so unskilled in its use. However, it then dawned on me that while she had used her silk to capture prey before, she had probably never had any experience tying herself up.
I guessed her secret plan had been to show Dr. Glenn what she looked like all tied up, have him save her, and—if everything went well—charm him with her wiles. The fact that I happened to find her before he did meant that her plan was doomed.
Arahnia moved her long, segmented legs and tried to wriggle free, but it seemed futile. Her silk was such that the more she struggled the more she ended up entangling herself.
“I’ll go and call Dr. Glenn,” I said.
“Aaaah! W-wait hold on! This is too embarrassing—I can’t let the doctor see me like this!”
“All the more reason to call for him, right?”
“Demon! There’s a demon in the clinic!” Arahnia shrieked.
“Who are you calling a demon? I’m a snake.”
She was honestly annoying to deal with. While she had previously behaved calm and composed after awakening to her love for Dr. Glenn, as if she could see through everything, she had begun showing off more innocent and maidenly forms of expression. Meanwhile, I was worried to death at the appearance of another rival for Dr. Glenn’s love.
As her friend, I should have been happy that Arahnia was now able to honestly face her own feelings. But that was an entirely different matter.
As long as she had become a rival, she was the same as Tisalia in my eyes. I couldn’t let her take Dr. Glenn away from me. This time, it wasn’t just for Arahnia’s own amusement or a practical joke—she had become a serious rival for his affections.
“All right, then, what do you want me to do?” I asked.
“…Will you help me out of here somehow?” Arahnia replied.
“All right, all right,” I answered, slithering into the room. My decision to help her had been an unwise one.
“Huh?!”
I’m sure this goes without saying, but I am a lamia. I’m different from the humans and monsters that wobble along on two or four legs. The long tail of our lower body lies flat against the floor and is far more stable.
Therefore, “tripping,” or any similar sort of blunders, are completely irrelevant to us lamia.
However, there are some times when I forgot how overly long my body truly is. And the inside of Dr. Glenn’s bedroom was already covered in spider silk thanks to Arahnia’s schemes.
In other words, I didn’t fall down—I simply hadn’t paid attention to the silk, got my tail stuck in it, and my body ended up losing its balance. As simple as that.
“…Now I’ve done it,” I said, having fallen prey to Arahnia’s silk and tumbled forward into her chest.
“Sapphee… Now, I may not be one to talk, but you’re pretty clumsy yourself, aren’t you…?” Arahnia said.
“This is all your fault in the—No, saying that won’t make any difference.”
Grabbing Arahnia’s breasts, I tried to get myself free. A soft, rice-cake-like sensation spread across my palm. Her bountiful chest was unbelievably aggravating. I wasn’t able to prop myself up at all.
Nevertheless, it was pointless after all. Arahnia’s silk extended across her whole body, and it almost seemed to have a mind of its own as it entangled me as well. The slime had even gotten stuck to my face, but when I tried wiping away the unpleasant sensation, my hand ended up getting stuck, too.
The spider silk—strong enough to capture the arachne who created it—was not to be underestimated.
Arachne could make proper use of both prey-capturing silk and non-prey-capturing silk by controlling the amount of their sticky secretions. On the other hand, when this white slime was used incorrectly, it could lead to the miserable state of affairs that I had found myself in.
“Ahn…! W-wait, Sapphee, where are you touching?!” said Arahnia.
“I’m not touching them because I want to—Hey! Where are you touching?!” I replied.
“What am I supposed to do—it’s too sticky for me to move!”
Covered in silk, the two of us briefly squirmed before we finally realized it was useless and became still.
I knew for a fact that the old Arahnia would never have made this kind of blunder. For better or worse, by relaxing a little, her naturally careless disposition had come to the surface. Either way, her carelessness had ended up getting me wrapped up in the damage as well.
“Hey, Sapphee,” Arahnia began.
“What?” I replied.
“…Forgive me, please. For always causing you trouble.”
“It’s fine.”
Seeing this moment of tenderness, I suddenly wanted to act a bit nicer toward her. When I thought about how she only ever showed me this side of herself, I felt a little sense of pride and superiority.
“After all, we’re friends,” I continued.
“Sapphee…” she replied.
“That being said, we have to do something about our situation.”
I tried using my long lower body to grab on somewhere, but Arahnia’s silk had a rigidity to it that made it hard to move anything well. My tail could usually grab on to things, but with the slime getting in the way of friction, it had lost a lot of its usefulness.
“It would be awful if Dr. Glenn saw us and had some strange misunderstanding,” I remarked.
“Oh yes, about that,” Arahnia replied.
“What?”
“From the beginning, I’d planned to lie in wait around the time I assumed he’d be back. In other words—”
By the time I had realized it, it was too late. Sensing that someone had entered the room, I turned around, and there stood Dr. Glenn.
His face—I couldn’t really bear to look at it, but I was sure he was shocked.
“D-Doctor…” I stuttered.
“Um, uh, well…” Arahnia began.
Arahnia’s four arms were tied down, and she couldn’t move her body. I had my face buried in her chest, covered in slimy silk. Our clothing had become disheveled from our struggles.
Troublingly, my tail was intricately twisted around Arahnia’s eight legs, in what I was sure was an indescribably titillating scene to behold.
“Well, you see, I thought that I’d head over to the Council Hall, but… I would have never thought the two of you would, uh, be in my room like this…” Dr. Glenn began.
“S-Sensei! Um!” I called out.
“P-please, take your time?” Dr. Glenn said, leaving the room as if to escape.
“Take our time?! No, you’ve got it all wrong!”<
br />
“Dr. Glenn! Wait! Please help us!” I yelled after him.
“It seems he’s already gone,” Arahnia replied.
“Nooooooo! Drat!”
In the end, we borrowed the help of the fairies and managed to tear ourselves out of the silk. It fell away easily with some hot water. While it only involved boiling water, it ended up taking the fairies a significant amount of time.
During the wait, Arahnia and I remained as we were, tightly embracing one another. My head began to hurt when I thought about how to explain the circumstances behind the incident to Dr. Glenn.
Falling into your own trap.
Those were the words that came to my mind.
One could say Arahnia had always been tying herself down. The ties binding her couldn’t be unraveled in a short period of time. But if it was her awakening to her love for Dr. Glenn that made her return to acting like a normal young lady, then I thought it was absolutely wonderful.
That being said, my assistance as a medical professional ended here.
If she was going to try her best to attract Glenn, then I couldn’t relax my guard, either. After all… I, too, love Dr. Glenn. I felt like my tail was on the verge of rattling in warning. Arahnia wasn’t the only coward.
“Hey, Arahnia, did you notice?” I asked as I wiped down my body with the towel the fairies had provided us.
“Notice what?” she replied.
“Dr. Glenn was wearing his dragonscale charm.”
“…Wait, did he find out? About my crime?”
“I wonder…”
I always thought of him like a slow-witted younger brother, but perhaps he had noticed that Arahnia had tried to steal the charm.
I brushed off this thought as being absurd, but then I considered the fact that Dr. Glenn was very smart. If he had actually figured it out, then that meant that he was still allowing Arahnia to work in the clinic as normal, knowing all about the pranks she had been playing. Should that be true, then it truly meant there was no limit to how kindhearted and good-natured he was.
“On the other hand, maybe he finally convinced Miss Skadi…?” I pondered.
Monster Girl Doctor Vol. 3 Page 18
