—–
I looked at the rabbit girl as she slowly drank her medicine. She seemed to be recovering just fine, as the drink was healing her up quite well, and things were going forward in the right direction. I hope she can heal.
“Hahh… it is bitter… but I drank it all….” She sighed as she rested once more.
I caressed her hair as she slowly fell asleep again.
“Well, that was that… The night’s coming, so I guess we are not moving, for now, right?” Asked Catarina.
“Yeah, we’ll stay until she wakes up and can tell us a bit more about her tribe. I am worried,” I sighed.
“You’re really too good sometimes….” Sighed Lucifer.
“Well, you should have expected me to do this if I just rescued over a hundred slaves, right? I even saved an entire goblin village. If you’ve gotten this far with me, expect me to do this!” I shouted.
“I know! I wasn’t complaining… I would have done the same,” Said Lucifer.
“Partner, what do you think?” I asked.
“I think it’s fine to wait,” Said Partner.
“Yeah, let’s wait for now. I am also worried… What if her entire tribe got infected with this disease? I don’t know what we would do… Can we even cure everyone?” Sighed Emeraldine.
“We would first need to discern which disease is affecting them and where it originated from… If some sort of monster causes it, there could be some cure if we use the monster’s internal organs. After all, if they’re able to carry the disease, there might be a chance that they have also developed their own antibodies for it,” I said.
“You’re right! I am quite decent at Alchemy… I could make some potions, but we need a lot to learn first,” Sighed Emeraldine.
“Hm, for now….” I said.
“Hey, there is this big spider… Should we eat it?” Asked Catarina.
“Oh right… the spider…” I said.
I quickly moved outside with everyone and looked at the giant thing. I had never seen such a big spider in my entire life. It really looked quite creepy, to be honest.
I decided to disinfect it like we usually do with what we hunt, using the Life Spell “Clean” that Emeraldine has. Every beast we hunt is first cleansed with this spell until no weird germs and stuff are over it.
Of course, she can’t use it to heal the girl. This just cleans surface bacteria or viruses that might be stuck to the corpse’s surface.
“Should we eat it?” Asked Partner.
“I-I don’t know. For now, I am going to just store it inside my Inventory,” I said.
After saving the spider in my Inventory, we moved to make dinner for everyone, and after the night came, we dozed off until the next day.
…
“Ugh… Aaahh… Mama… Papa!”
Suddenly, I woke up to the little rabbit girl.
She was talking while sleeping… Was she having a nightmare?
I touched her while she was talking while sleeping as my phantasmal body suddenly made a connection with her soul, and I managed to see what she saw slightly…
A swarm of grotesque beasts crawling all around the forest. The laughter of something eerie in the background and countless crimson-red eyes glaring down on her.
The girl suddenly found herself running away, leaving everything behind as her parents screamed to her to run, run as fast as possible, and never look back…
I quickly pulled out my hand out of her shoulder as I gasped for air, even though I didn’t have lungs. That was quite shocking and confusing.
But was her tribe… was attacked by things? They were like big… creepy crawlers.
With many black legs, and eight crimson-red eyes- ah, spiders.
Wait, is the spider Catarina caught…?
“Maria-sama!”
Suddenly, I was startled by the scream of Emeraldine. I was sleeping in my carriage with the rabbit girl at my side in order to take care of her.
“Emeraldine? What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Th-This is bad. There’s a swarm of spiders coming here! In fact, a few dozens are already fighting against our group!” She said.
“Shit! So these damn spiders are targeting us now?!” I shouted in surprise, rushing outside, then I quickly began to expand my Shadow Domain into a gigantic sea of darkness, and put all the people hiding away from the spiders inside of it, rescuing most in seconds, including the rabbit girl.
“GRYYYSSSHHAAA!”
Suddenly, a large, three-meter-big black spider reached up to me, hissing loudly. Its hissing was so loud that even my ears felt pain.
I quickly directed my hand at it as I generated a large spear of darkness and materialized it as hard as metal, and fired it directly into the middle of its eyes!
CLAAAASH!
The spear pierced right through its eight eyes while reaching deep into its abdomen, piercing most of its body and almost slicing it in half!
“GRRYYEGH…”
The arachnid gave a pitiful groan as it stopped its charge abruptly, falling over the floor and struggling to move but ultimately dying.
“There are more coming!” Shouted Emeraldine, pointing her bow at two other spiders rushing towards us from behind me.
Her arrows were suddenly encompassed in a bright, green light, the light of nature. She then fired the arrow, and it exploded right in front of the face of the closest arachnid to her.
BOOM!!!
The arrow was incrusted into the beast’s head and then exploded into many roots, trapping it and the second one in them.
She quickly finished off the second one by firing a stronger arrow into its head while I rushed to my left, where I found that another three of these were trying to destroy the carriages. Although I had emptied them of people, it wouldn’t be good if they got destroyed!
“Where do you think you’re going?” I roared, shaping my shadows as countless snakes rushed towards them, coiling around their bodies.
The spiders began to hiss and struggle against my attacks, but it was useless…
—–