The surrounding forest was pitch-black. In the clearing, the soft silver beams of the moon shone down, illuminating the ground and the area in front of Ezra. Ezra himself was standing in a fighting position, his breath coming in great heaves. Why was there a spider in front of him!? He gripped his hands tighter.

The spider continued to stare at him. “Honestly. You don’t recognize me?”

Ezra reached for his needle. Whatever this thing was, it probably didn’t have good intentions for him. No, better to kill it—

His needle was gone.

He growled and held out his hand. “Recall!”

The spider shimmered, then disappeared in front of him before reappearing in his hand. It crawled out of his fist, and then looked up at him.

“How rude!”

Ezra’s spine went ramrod straight. Internally, his mind raced at the speed of light. Why was the spider talking? Why did she appear when he tried to summon his weapon? Was the spider intercepting his connection to his weapon? But how—

Ezra stiffened.

He slowly tilted his neck down toward the spider.

“Filamenta?” he said.

The spider rolled her eyes around—although, to Ezra, it just looked more like she was rolling her whole head.

“Took you long enough to figure things out. You’re not exactly the most intelligent human, are you?”

Ezra’s lips curled back. “Excuse me?”

“Do you need me to simplify this for you?” she said. “Honestly.”

Ezra blinked in shock. A moment later, a hot shot of frustration ran through Ezra’s veins before he shut his eyes and suppressed the urge to do a violence. Ezra raised his hand up, allowing him to get a closer look at the spider.

She seemed to be a normal spider, by all accounts. Like a black widow, there was a symbol on top of her back. Her legs were long, spindly, and curved. Eight eyes wrapped around its head in an eerie manner. There was a soft layer of hair on top of her skin—but Ezra was fairly certain this was a normal thing. It was simply that he’d never bothered to pay attention to such details.

There was one odd thing about her. Unlike a black widow, the hourglass was frilly and fancy, with twirls and off branches and details marking the fact that it was meant to be an artistic depiction of an hourglass as opposed to a natural feature.

The spider made a sniffing noise. “Are you done observing me? I feel quite violated.”

Ezra’s left eye twitched.

“Pardon?”

Filamenta crossed her spider arms.

“Now then, I believe it’s time to get down to business,” she said.

Ezra shut his eyes and held up a finger.

“Wait, wait, wait. We need to discuss this. Are you seriously saying that you’re—?“

Filamenta glowed. There was a flash, and she transformed into the familiar sewing needle that had been by Ezra’s side since the beginning.

She glowed as she spoke, saying, “Do you understand now?”

There was another glow and she transformed back into a spider.

“I’m your weapon,” she said. “I’ve been by your side since the start, watching you, helping you, protecting you.”

She stopped.

“And I’ve never been more disappointed!” she shouted. It was like a bolt of thunder. “Gods above, you’re an idiot! Constantly getting injured, completely ignoring your abilities. It took you an eternity to learn the potential of [Bind], and I had to help you! Of all people, you’re my partner!?”

The urge to throttle the spider came and passed. Ezra sucked in a slow breath.

“Beginning?” he said.

Filamenta sighed.

“[Bind]. It’s far more than any of your normal abilities. Didn’t you notice something odd about it from the start?” she said.

Ezra thought back to the ability. There were several odd things about the ability, such as the fact that it acted more like [Restrain] at the start instead of its later usage as a property transferer. Then there was the fact that it had that little tag saying it was ‘compatible’, whatever that meant.

“Yes,” he said.

Filamenta sniffed. “Good. You aren’t blind. To explain, [Bind] is part of me, Ezra. It’s something that you shouldn’t be able to use unless you’re connected to me.”

Ezra sucked in a breath. “Wait… I had it from the start. How was I able to use it before I ever met you?”

“The connection between Otherworlders is far deeper than what those idiot forgemasters believe or can even comprehend,” she said. “We’re linked, you and I. A red string of fate has bound the two of us together since you arrived in this land.”

Shock and confusion picked at the back of Ezra’s mind. How was this possible? How did this make any sense? But wait, could that explain everything? Didn’t it say he was already bonded to someone at the start when he first came here?

“Ignoring that,” he said. “So… you’re conscious now? Are the other Spirit Weapons going to come alive like this?”

Filamenta was quiet for a moment. “Unlikely. It could happen, but it’ll take much longer.”

Ezra narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“The other spirits are much younger. Infants, really. There are other extenuating circumstances, as well,” she said.

“Extenuating circumstances?”

Ezra could’ve sworn he saw a smirk on her spider face, even though that should’ve been impossible.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“Give it time, Ezra,” she said. “I think I’ve probably revealed enough, now. Your puny human brain can’t handle anymore.”

“I think you just don’t want me looking into your past.”

Filamenta stiffened. “You remember that?”

Ezra snorted.

“Of course I do,” he said. “It isn’t often that the System just freezes up on you and then demands that you respect the privacy of others. That was you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was. My past is my own, you had no right to snoop in it.”

Ezra narrowed his eyes. A half-formed theory was beginning to come together in his mind.

“Fine. Whatever,” he said. “But I want answers about everything else. Why did you mess with my class at the start?”

“What?”

Ezra rolled his eyes. “Come on, you know what I’m talking about. At the beginning, my class said something about being an error. On top of that, you had a different title at the beginning. Moonlit Queen or whatever—“

“Don’t say that.”

Her tone shifted abruptly. Gone was the humor and lightness, it was like Ezra was speaking to a living piece of steel aimed right at his neck.

He raised his hand to put her level to his eyes.

“You want to know what I think?” Ezra said. “Synica told me about the Demon Lord. She said that he could play with the System, so I think that you have some sort of connection to him.”

She marched up as close to his face as she could. “Don’t you dare imply such a thing!”

If the spirit wasn’t trapped in a spider, Ezra believed she would’ve gone for his jugular at that point.

“I would never, never, never work with that bastard in a million years!” she said. “I want him dead and gone for everything he’s done!”

“What did he do to you?” Ezra said.

Filamenta made a little ‘Harumph!’ noise and turned her head. “I can see through your pathetic attempts to extract information, plebian.”

Ezra was rapidly starting to get tired of listening to Filamenta speak. A vague, twitchy smile appeared on his face.

“Are you just planning to insult me all day?” he said.

“Yes.”

Ezra raised his hand up to squish her like a bug.

She jumped into the air, vanishing amongst the grass and leaves. Ezra took a few quick breaths. Filamenta was his… partner? She was important, a method of getting stronger. She was his primary weapon.

And she was one of the most infuriating people he’d ever had the displeasure of meeting.

Ezra looked up at the moonlit sky. Just when it seemed like things were looking up, as well…

----------------------------------------

When Ezra woke up, something was tickling his nose. He opened his eyes to see Filamenta staring down at him. He suppressed the urge to scream like a baby and instead drew in a rapid breath.

“Filamenta,” he said.

“Ezra.”

Ezra pursed his lips.

“So then,” he said. “What are we doing now?”

Filamenta sighed dramatically. “Well, I suppose that I might’ve been a tad… irritating.”

Ezra glared at her. “You think?”

Filamenta crawled onto his chest.

“You must understand that it’s a rather… shocking thing, waking up,” she said. “I’d been trapped as a spirit for so long—to have a physical form again surprised me. Nonetheless, I suppose that I shouldn’t have acted so boorish. You had valid concerns, even if I cannot answer them now.”

Ezra didn’t particularly feel inclined to like her, but the apology removed the edge of his anger. He sat up, Filamenta continuing to stick to his chest.

“Yeah, whatever,” he said. “I suppose I was out of line when I tried to swat you.”

Filamenta snorted. “It wouldn’t have hurt me.”

Ezra’s left eye twitched.

“Right… so I take it you won’t answer my questions from last night?” Ezra said.

Filamenta shook her head.

“I cannot, Ezra,” she said. “There are some things that I just can’t talk about. I’m sorry.”

Ezra sighed. Well, he might as well make the most of it. Filamenta scurried up to his shoulder.

“Now then, I believe that we should begin planning,” she said.

Ezra was quiet for a moment.

“Well, we need a source of income,” he said. “I was planning to head to a town and find some kind of guild or something. If the mangas are right, I’ll be able to get a job slaying monsters.”

“Man-ga?” Filamenta said. “What is man-ga?”

“Uh.” Ezra’s eyes shifted from side to side. “Let’s just call it a visual medium of storytelling from my homeland.”

Filamenta grunted. “What do you plan to do about the fact that the kingdom of Cortia is looking for you?”

Ezra pulled out a loose strip of cloth from his clothes. He wrapped it around his head, forming a rough eyepatch.

Filamenta was quiet, then shifted around on his shoulder. “You’re joking.”

“No, it’ll work, trust me,” he said.

Filamenta laughed nervously. “Seriously, Ezra, this is a very poor idea.”

“I think you meant a very great idea.”

Filamenta readjusted her position on his shoulder. “This is going to end in disaster.” Her tone turned playful. “But it’ll at least be entertaining.”

----------------------------------------

It was cloudy overhead and the breeze was gentle, only occasionally picking up in intensity. The wind rolled through the leaves, rustling them against each other. On the ground, the hard brown dirt crunched against Ezra’s feet as he walked. Dirt flew behind him from each step, bits of it sticking to his boots.

“Favorite color,” Filamenta said.

Ezra furrowed his eyebrows together. His lips turned taut. “Are we really doing this?”

“Well, we’ve got to start somewhere. We’re partners, after all,” Filamenta said.

Ezra looked up ahead, the city wasn’t in sight. No obvious excuses abounded.

“Black,” he said.

“How surprising,” Filamenta muttered from atop his black jacket.

Ezra grunted. “What about you?”

Filamenta adjusted her position on his shoulder. “Silver.”

Ezra raised an eyebrow. “That was fast.”

“It’s a long story,” Filamenta said. “But I have a connection with the color, one could say.”

“Mysterious.”

“Yes.”

There was another time of silence, neither of them saying a single word. Ezra didn’t know what to say. Could he just insult her? Was that considered normal conversational etiquette? He had the feeling that she wouldn’t appreciate that.

“Favorite food?” Filamenta said.

Ezra pinched the bridge of his nose.

“This is stupid,” he said.

There was a strangled cry from his shoulder.

“Of course it is!” Filamenta said. “This was a stupid idea! It’s like talking to a wall!”

Ezra frowned. “You’re the one who proposed it.”

“Yes. And it was a stupid idea nonetheless. Even I can make mistakes.”

Ezra kept his eyes forward, waiting for when the town would appear on the horizon. Surely it would come up any second now?

…

Nothing.

Ezra looked up at the sky. He preferred his weapon back before it could speak and insult him. Would it be possible to get a refund?

“I heard that,” Filamenta said.

Ezra stopped and looked at her.

“Wait, but how? I didn’t say that aloud,” he said.

Filamenta put one of her legs under her head as if she were resting it. Her tone tone was dull and uninterested.

“Deep connection, remember?” she said. “I can hear the really loud thoughts. If I try to listen a little closer, I could probably pick up everything you’re thinking.”

Ezra froze in place.

“You can read my thoughts?” he said.

Filamenta sighed.

“Before you get angry, remember that I don’t have a choice. It’s inevitable, and I’m trying my best to respect your privacy.”

Her quick words dispelled his anger, though a simmering flame remained in the pit of Ezra’s stomach. He frowned sharply.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” he said. “This is ridiculous.”

“It isn’t all negatives,” Filamenta said. “You’re getting insane growth and power that no one else can compare with.”

Ezra shot a glare at her, then shook his head. ”Whatever.”

“Don’t just dismiss me!” Filamenta poked one of her legs into Ezra’s shoulder. “I’m trying to have a discussion with you!”

Ezra turned his attention back to the path ahead. The ground was greener and the clouds were beginning to clear. Overhead, the sun shone down on Ezra, warming his skin. The forest had cleared at some point, replaced with nothing but minty grass as far as the eye could see.

In the distance, a stone city greeted him. Ezra’s lips upturned into a smile.

“Well, it seems that we’ve finally reached our destination,” he said.

Filamenta turned her head away from Ezra’s and looked over. “So we have.”

Ezra walked along the path, getting closer to the city. As it came into view, the sun overhead became brighter and brighter.

“This should go well,” Ezra said. “It’ll be nice to get a break after that last shitshow.”

“You’ll get revenge on Idia at some point, right?” she said.

Ezra smiled.

“Of course,” he said. “I’m going to rip him limb from limb for laying a single hand on me. By the time he’s done, there’ll be nothing left but pieces of meat. I’ll take his heart out of his chest and crush it in front of him. Maybe I should learn healing just so I can do to him what he did to me.”

Filamenta cackled, the sound piercing the air.

“Finally! That’s the first sane thing I think I’ve heard you say!” she said. “But first, we’ll recover our strength. A quiet town seems like the best place to do this—“

At that exact moment, a sound like roaring thunder blasted across Ezra’s ears. Smoke and dust flew out from the middle of the town and soared into the air. Ezra quickly threw his arms up to defend himself, then lowered them and got a better look at what was happening. Ezra’s jaw dropped.

The city was in flames. A fifth of the buildings had been leveled into rubble and destroyed. A loud and deep cry resonated across the fields, emanating from the city. Ezra dashed forward.

Whatever was happening was bound to be interesting, after all.