Chapter 19: Chapter 19 – Kumo’s Story [4]

'Oh, no no no.' Kumo thought as she rushed through the forest. She did it. She did the worst thing she could have done. After learning to speak, she did what was told not to do. She approached a group of humans, she just wanted to talk to them. Hoping that they are like Anya, Anastasia and Kuro. But... They attacked her immediately, talking about a unique monster. Happy to hunt her because they could sell her. They called her an Arachne. Apparently a known but very rare species. And so, she fought back.

After she evolved, she got a powerful skill. String Shot. String Shot allowed her to shoot threads over a short distance. And these threads can have an effect. A paralyze effect, a toxic effect, an acid effect. Also, she learned some pretty creative tricks with her threads as she could control them just by her will. While running away she used her poison thread. She didn't want to kill the adventurers, but just weaken them. Unfortunately, an adventurer was hit on the head. And he died. Kumo has been blaming herself since then. Expecting to get hunted but for the next few days, it was quiet.

And now, her web got attacked. Kumo knew it was her fault. She felt like her brothers and sisters were dying. If she would have just avoided them... Now her curiosity should be the end for her web. She had to hurry. In her web she was the strongest. By far. Maybe she can fight them back before everything is lost.

Long before Kumo arrived at her web she already realized the smell of burning wood in the air. And soon after she saw the devastating fire. The entire outskirts of her web was already burning. She couldn't do anything else but stop from shock. And then she heard it, two humans were talking. Fortunately, they hadn't seen her yet.

“Should we really burn the entire web? That must be worth a fortune.” A male voice said.

“It's not like we have a choice, right? The guild told us to burn the web and bait the spiders out. But I agree, its like setting money on fire.” A female voice said.

“Lets just hope there will be some net left after we are done. Even the net of a single big spider is more worth than I earn in a year. If we could even get a tiny bit of this... We could finally retire.”

“For how long will this go on?”

“I don't know. They haven't said much to me. I guess the higher adventurer teams are already preparing an attack.”

“I hope they kill every single one of them. Some mutated spider has killed Brian. He wont rest in peace before we are done here.”

“!!!” Kumo was shocked. They planned to burn everything down and kill everyone. She couldn't believe what she just heard but remembered Kuros words. 'If you kill one of them, they send three, if you kill three of them, they send ten and if you kill ten of them, they send everyone.' She remembered the words but couldn't believe it back then. Monsters were different. There were disputes and even fights, but after it ended, there was no grudge left. Well, that was the case most of the time, obviously there were exceptions. Now she was even more sure. It was her fault.

But what should she do now? Just kill them? Kumo observed them. They were not that strong and not experienced, as they did not mind their surroundings and were just watching how her home burned down. Their equipment was used up. It looked almost sad compared to the equipment Anya had. Kumo guessed that they were left behind for a reason. Just fighting against the very few spiders which tried to run away from the fire. And they were successful. As Kumo looked closer there were several corpses of smaller spiders in front of them. All of them cut in pieces.

And so, she decided to fight. There wasn't a great plan. Kumo knew that she couldn't kill all of them. But that wasn't important anymore. She had to do something, even if it cost her her life.

Kumo used her smallest threads and carefully threw them on a branch, above the heads of the adventurers. Their threads were invisible to human eyes and so they did not even notice how the threads slowly wrapped around their necks. Only at the last second did they feel that something was wrong.

“What th...”

Crack

Kumo infused her threads with mana and pulled them up at the same time. Silently killing the adventurers by breaking their necks like a straw. '… and they send everyone.' Again, she remembered the words. Whatever happens today, even if she is somehow able to defend her web, tomorrow will be even worse. She crossed the line and she was well aware of that but that doesnt matter anymore.

Contrary to the inexperienced adventurers she was always aware of her surroundings. There will be more of them. Kumo knew it, so she silently moved along the fire. There was a tear in her eyes. She didn't know if it was because she was sad or the burning ash around her.

Shortly after she met another adventurer group. And they looked like the first one. Poor equipment and inexperienced. So like before, she used her threads to break their necks. Unaware of how many of them were still here, she knew that the stronger adventurers wouldn't wait at the fire. The weaker groups were only there to clear the leftovers. So she moved on.

The fire continued to burn. More and more of her web was engulfed by the flames. When she was closer to her web, she could also feel the emotions of her family more intensely. A lot of them were dying. Some of them by humans but most of them by the fire. She heard the screams in her mind but wasn't able to cut the connection. Today, her natural ability was nothing but a curse. She became more and more angry. In the beginning she blamed herself, but by now, there was only pure anger left. Her family didn't deserve to die like that.

From afar she heard human voices again. “It's about time right? Yes, we will attack soon. There should be a sig... wait.”

A single arrow slammed into the tree next to her, which Kumo could not follow with her eyes.

The impact almost felled the tree.

'They're strong.' Was the only thought before Kumo turned around and ran in the direction she came from.

Another arrow followed her, but she was still confident in her speed and knew that they wouldn't be able to follow her in the forest.

Kumo came away savely. If they would have known that she is a unique monster, they would have probably followed her but Kumo guessed that they just thought she is a spider that somehow made it out of the web.

Kumo tried to think about her options over and over again. After killing the four adventurers, she had some hope. That she might be able to defeat the humans. But now, her hopes were crushed by a single arrow. If she fought in her web she might have a chance. After her evolution, she was able to control almost every thread in her web. Even for a strong adventurer, it should still be a challenge. There was also another option. Gather every spider which made it somehow out of the web and flee. But she couldn't just let her family die. So she decided to fight.

Kumo jumped over the trees to avoid the fire and finally entered her web. Now she had control over everything. She was immediately aware that there was a larger group of adventurers in front of the fire, ready to attack. And they were strong. There were also several smaller groups surrounding her web. These were always groups of two, so Kumo was sure that they won't enter and were just there to catch the runaways.

So it was just about her and the larger group. However, only one of them scared her away and her chances were slim. But she had no choice. First, she ordered every spider back to the middle of the web. She wouldn't be able to protect all of them. Only the larger spiders would join her in the fight. Their chances to survive were even lower, but they had no choice. After getting a name, Kumo became the leader of her web. It's a natural law that the strongest spider in the web is the leader. If she ever left, or... worse, the second strongest spider would take her place.

Kumo gave a command to the larger spiders that they should defend against the group of adventurers as soon as they entered the web. In the beginning she would support them with her threads. But they had to win some time, maybe even defeat one of the adventurers first. And so, they finally made their way to, what Kumo expected, their end.

They tried to defend in a half circle over a wide spread area, so the humans couldn't reach the heart of the web and the smaller spiders were safe. For now.

Painful long minutes passed. And then they moved. Kumo tried to keep track of everything. She was lucky that she evolved. Spiders from her tribe were intelligent, but not that intelligent. Using tactics in a fight wasn't something that they should be able to do. However, after she evolved she also became smarter and was able to copy human tactics. Just because she didn't approach them at first, didn't mean she didn’t observe them. By now, she was quite familiar with how humans fight. Maybe another chance. They must underestimate them. Until... something unexpected happened.

“Huh...?” Kumo said out loud. She lost contact with one of her biggest spiders. And then... another one. 'What is happening?' Another one. Someone moved through the forest. And the person was incredibly fast. Even Kumo wouldn't be able to move that fast in the forest. 'That can't be a human, right?' Another one. 'I cant...' Kumo panicked. Everything she had planned turned to nothing in an instant. Only after two minutes a dozen spiders were already dead. And she didn't even know who, or what, killed them. It was moving so fast. The other adventurers hadn't even started fighting yet.

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She had to join now, she decided. One last desperate try. But before she moved, she finally saw what killed the other spiders. Something was moving towards her at an incredible speed and in an instant it was in front of her. She jumped back, but...

Swing

Her two front legs were sliced from her body. Before she could feel any pain, she fell forward. Almost burrowing her head in the hot ash which covered the ground in her entire web now.

Everything is over now. She will die here. She couldn't do anything else but just cry, tears were flowing from eyes. She took a last glance at the person in front of her. A human. Small in size, but with long black hair and a mask covering the face. She held a sword in her hand and pointed it on Kumo.

“So, it's actually an Arachne.” A female voice said quietly. “Your face. You look like a human. Well, if it wasn't about your lower body.”

“I guess that doesn't matter anymore.” She said and raised her sword.

Kumo lowered her head. She didn't want to see it. She didn't want to die here.

But before she could swing her sword they heard a loud scream from behind.

“Shizu... Wait!” A familiar voice screamed.

Shizu didn’t lower her sword but waited. “What is it, Anya?”

“She... please don't kill her. She saved my life a few month ago.” Anya said, completely out of breath.

“An Arachne saved your life?” Shizu asked. She got Anya's attention now.

“Yes! Well, no...” Anya was still heavily breathing. “ She wasn't an arachne, but a normal spider back then.”

“Explain.” Shizu said curiously.

“We killed a salamander. But we didn't know it would explode. We still don't know the reason but the spider tackled me away and I survived because of her. But she got badly hurt. Look at her stomach... And then, I... gave her a name.” Anya said, finally able to breathe again, but still using as few words as possible.

“You... did what? You know that's it's illegal to give monsters a name, right?” Shizu asked. Obviously, every adventurer knew that, so why would she do that?

“I know... And I didn't expect her to evolve like that. But she saved my life and it felt like the right thing to do back then.” Anya explained.

“She killed Brian. You know that, right?”

Kumo joined the conversation, she was still crying and in a desperate voice she tried to explain what happened. “I didn't mean to...! I didn't want something bad for them... Just talk... And they attacked me without a reason! I was running away and wanted to scare them of... But I accidentally hit him with my string. It wasn't on purpose! I'm not lying!” Kumo let everything out that she wanted to tell someone since she killed the adventurer.

Shizu sighed. “So she can talk, too. What's your name?”

“I'm Kumo.”

“... Kumo?” She looked at Anya now.

“Uhm, actually, we gave her the name because of you. You said they would call spiders kumo in your country. Also it's a nice name, isn't it?” Anya said.

Shizu just sighed again. “We? So I guess Anastasia and Kuro are also aware of her...” It wasn't even a question.

'Damn it.' Anya thought. She only joined the raid because she expected to meet Kumo here. She even told Anastasia and Kuro to stay away or they might find out about what happened. Anya decided that she wouldn't drag them in her mess. After all, it was her decision. And now she revealed everything by accident.

“Can you walk?” Shizu asked Kumo.

Kumo tried to stand up. It wasn't only her front legs, even the lower half of her middle legs were cleanly cut off. But with her threads she could stabilize her body. It looked weird, almost funny, in the beginning. But after a few tries she was able to slowly move forward.

“Okay, gather some of your friends and Anya will bring you out of here. There should be a path in the north. Just go there and run. I'll tell the other adventurers that I killed you, but you burned to ash. So they won't follow you. Just hurry now. And don't come near humans ever again.” Shizu said, but it was an order. How can such a young girl have an aura like that? Kumo was confused but also thankful.

Now Kumo had to make the hardest decision of her life. She knew, she couldnt bring all of the spiders to safety, if the humans even suspect that they got away, they will hunt them down. So she decided to only take a dozen of her youngest siblings with her. The rest of them, all of them will die. And that only because of Kumos recklessness. On that day, Kumo decided that she will never leave her web again after they found a new place to live.

70 years later.

“Six Month. It took us six month to finally reach this place. In the deepest part of the forest so we will never meet any humans or other intelligent lifeforms again. When we finally came here and found the cave over there. Only four of us were left. Three young spiders and I. The first years were hard. There were many monsters and our web wasn't strong enough to fight all of them back. But over the years, we grow stronger and now, the forest is ours. Well, that's my story.” Kumo finished.

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