They both agreed to get some rest before heading in at midnight. Of course, when Dumrivil made the suggestion, he was looking rather conspicuously at Ezra’s eyes—because they were probably bloodshot to hell and back.

Ezra found a large boulder he could put his back against and sat down. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. Filamenta appeared on his shoulder in her spider form. They sat like this for about 2 or 3 hours before Filamenta spoke.

“We’re almost at the end of this particular journey,” Filamenta said. “I seem to recall you telling me that you weren’t planning to get involved, right?”

“Oh, shut up,” Ezra muttered. “I wouldn’t have gotten involved if not for Villscha making it my business.”

“Still, it’s funny. You came here to get some quick cash, and now you’re about to overthrow the current guildmaster and save the town,” Filamenta said.

Ezra adjusted his seating position. Turned out that trying to sleep against a boulder was hard on his back. Who would’ve thought?

“So, where are you going after this?” Filamenta said.

“To hunt the next boss monster. And maybe I’ll get to stay away from everyone else for once. Except you, of course.”

“Oh?” Filamenta’s tone turned coy. “Am I the special exception?”

“No, I just literally can’t get away from you except in death.”

“That sounds a lot like marriage.”

Ezra started and stared at Filamenta with wide eyes. “Y-you! Don’t even joke about that! If nothing else, you’re, like, 5000 years old or whatever, so you’d be robbing the cradle! That’s ignoring the fact that you’re a damn spider!”

Filamenta cackled. “Oh gods, your face! You looked like a deer about to get run over by a wagon!”

Ezra grumbled and tried to relax his body again.

“What about Prise?” Filamenta said. “Have you fully committed to sparing her?”

Ezra’s eyes went off to the side. “Well, I’ve already let her go. It would be pretty stupid if I turned around and said that I changed my mind.”

“Still, do you regret your decision?”

“I don’t know,” Ezra said. “She did something wrong, yeah, but… if I were in her position, would I have done any different? Yeah, I probably would’ve—I would’ve ignored my mom, took out a knife, and finished the job before the poison did.”

Filamenta hummed. “Interesting. So you forgive her?”

“Absolutely not. She’s persona non grata in my eyes. If she ever, ever tries to wrong me again, I’ll kill her.”

He meant it, too. He knew he would do it.

No second chances. But right now…

“When I think of her turned into a pile of meat,” Ezra said. “I just don’t get any satisfaction. I feel sort of empty instead. If I feel like that, then what’s even the point anymore?”

Filamenta sighed. “Personally, I just want to have her blood all over the floor. She needs to pay for what she did. I was half-considering taking things into my own… hands… and killing her myself.”

Ezra’s eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t think you would feel that way about the whole thing.”

Ezra felt the mental impression of a shrug over their link.

“What can I say? You’re my partner.” Filamenta’s tone turned lighter. “And besides, you’ve kind of grown on me over the past couple of weeks. Like a parasite, attaching to my body and slowly draining the life out of me.”

So, it seemed like the scientists were right when they said that friendships are often built off prolonged proximity, huh? Not things like compatibility between personalities, similar interests, similar lifestyles, base moral beliefs—

“Shut up,” Filamenta grumbled. “Besides, keep in mind that when I met you, I was going through a tough time. I wasn’t acting like my normal self.”

Tough time? “What do you mean?”

“You joked about the 5000 years,” she said. “But the truth is that I remember very little of that. For me, it was like a long nap. One day, I was a ruler of armies and the most powerful woman on the continent. And then I go to sleep and wake up hearing the thoughts and voice of some boy a hundred miles away. I start to realize what’s happened—I’m no longer a ruler, I’m a subordinate. Not a queen, but a pawn.”

Ezra didn’t interrupt. This was clearly something she’d wanted to get off her chest for awhile.

“I’m a tool now, and… well, I’m starting to come to terms with that.” She jumped down from Ezra’s shoulder to look at him. “Going forward, I’m going to do my best to support you, Ezra. I will protect you from harm, I’ll fight against your opponents, and I’ll give you the strength you need when you need it the most. From now on, I’m your weapon, your sword, and your partner.”

Ezra looked away from and pursed his lips. Coming fresh off the betrayal of someone else, he couldn’t help but wonder if she was lying. But something deep inside him told him that she meant every word. He wasn’t quite sure how to respond. Nobody in his life had ever said something so sincere to him before. Not even his own mother.

She paused. “This doesn’t mean that I’m going to support your stupid decisions, by the way. I’m still going to argue against those.”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Ezra chuckled and shook his head.

He was still hesitant to call her a friend… but she was something close to that. The word she chose was probably the right one.

Partner, huh? He could get used to that.

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

Ezra stared at the well. “You’re kidding me. The haunted well stuff was real?”

Dumrivil blinked.

“Huh,” he said. “Honestly wasn’t expecting that one.”

They had gotten back inside the city under the cover of darkness. The instructions had been vague about what they’d find, but it was specific about the location. At this specific landmark, at these exact pebbles, they’d find an entrance to the main base.

“Well, nothing for it,” Ezra said.

He threw himself over the side and gripped onto the edge of the stones. Dumrivil watched him and gulped.

“Be careful! I’ll come down in… uh, a second!”

Ezra rolled his eyes and climbed down the wall with ease, [Cat’s Grace] working its magic as usual. In minutes, his feet splashed against the water at the bottom. He let go of the stone and stepped onto the ground under the water. It was pitch black and the air was musty and wet.

Dumrivil fell into the water with a short screech and splashed all over Ezra’s clothing. Above him, a torch fell through the well. Ezra grabbed the torch out of the air and glared at Dumrivil. Dumrivil laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck.

“I lost my grip,” Dumrivil said.

“Yup,” Ezra said. “How about we figure out what’s been causing all that noise that everyone’s been complaining about?”

Ezra felt around the wall of the well for a few seconds before pausing. One of the sections he’d touched felt… off. He leaned in closer and felt the air being dragged in through the cracks. He pulled on the stone, and it shifted, uncovering a gap behind it. With one strong tug, a large square metal shaft appeared, wide enough for them to walk through.

“Oh, this is going to be so much fun,” Ezra muttered.

“What?” Dumrivil said. “What’s this?”

Ezra looked back. “Ventilation. If this is deep underground, they need air funneling in so they don’t die.”

Dumrivil’s eyes widened. “Oh…!”

“Come on, let’s get in there. Try to be quiet.”

Ezra took a slow step forward and tested his weight against the metal. It was sturdy, and his footstep was silent. He crept forward. Behind him, Dumrivil walked and the shaft gave a loud groan.

Ezra winced and turned around. He glared at Dumrivil. The man rubbed the back of his head. Dumrivil took another step and this time it was a bit quieter. He inched forward and his oversized sword banged right into the metal.

Ezra resisted the urge to throttle Dumrivil. The two of them continued in this fashion for several minutes, Ezra not making a noise, and Dumrivil creating a huge racket.

Ezra stiffened. A moment later, the metal gave out and they fell toward a tiled floor. The metal of the vent clanged against the ground. Dumrivil fell on top of the metal with a loud thud. Ezra did a casual flip, and landed perfectly on top of Dumrivil’s head. Dumrivil let out a little groan when Ezra fell on him.

“You couldn’t have landed somewhere else?” Dumrivil said.

“You’re lucky that you got away with that much,” Ezra muttered. “Anyway, take a look at this.”

“Take a look at what—the hell?”

Dumrivil paused and looked around in confusion. They were in a long corridor. The walls were solid slabs of smooth and polished stone. There wasn’t a single imperfection to be found. Running throughout the side were pulsing green lines arranged like circuitry. The light from the lines dimly illuminated the corridor.

“Does this remind you of anything?” Filamenta whispered in his mind.

“The Spiritforge,” Ezra muttered. “This place is made of the same stuff.”

He looked down. The ground was made of a grey tile with some kind of white filling in between. He hadn’t seen construction like this anywhere except the Spiritforge. Did that mean Queen Lysandra was in on this? He wouldn’t put it past her, but it seemed like such a weird thing for her to do. She was a ruthless bitch, but helping the Demon Lord overrun her kingdom would’ve been monumentally stupid.

No, something else was going on here. He was sure that he was missing something.

“Come on,” Ezra said. “We have to go deeper.”

Dumrivil nodded, his hand wandering to the hilt of the sword on his back.

They continued walking and eventually came across a small room with a table in the center. To the side were dozens of surgical tools while on the wall sat various materials, ores, and objects.

Ezra looked closer at the table. It was covered in blood.

“He’s not just breeding them,” Ezra said. “He’s experimenting with them. Artificially creating new monsters with more power.”

“How does this even work?” Dumrivil said. “I’ve never even heard of something like this.”

They walked through the next corridor for several minutes before they came to a wide, open room. In the room, the walls were covered in massive glass cylinders containing fluid along with black shapes on the inside. Ezra stepped closer to one of the containers.

An Unibbit sat inside of it with its eyes shut. It yawned and shifted around the inside.

“This is where they’re stored,” Ezra said. “When Villscha is finished experimenting and breeding.”

“And then he ships them out to his goons. He must have a massive underground network to be pulling that off.”

Ezra shook his head. “I just don’t get how he’s doing this. This isn’t cheap—at least, I’m pretty sure that’s the case. I don’t care how much he’s extorting Prise or anyone else, there’s no way that he managed to buy enough labor to build a gigantic underground facility and then have not a single person blow the whistle. Nothing’s adding up.”

Dumrivil stared off toward the end of the room. “There’s got to be some kind of command center where he keeps all his documents.”

Ezra nodded. They continued walking before they came across a solid wall. The corridor ended.

“It just ends here?” Dumrivil said. “Why have this corridor stretch on like this?”

Ezra narrowed his eyes. There was something they were missing. He flipped on [Mana Perception].

His vision shifted. The wall had an intricate circle of mana woven into it. Ezra couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but it was clear there was something else going on.

“It’s a magical door,” Filamenta said aloud. “Locked for none other than the caster. I’ve seen these once or twice in my time, though usually they’re not so intricate.”

Dumrivil jumped, then glanced over at Filamenta. “You startled me, don’t do that.”

Filamenta snorted and turned her head up.

“I only listen to my partner, not to random humans,” she said.

Ezra ignored the conversation and focused on the door. “Is there any way to open it?”

“For a mage, sure,” Filamenta said. “But neither of you are mages.”

Ezra stood there for several seconds.

“Wait, we have a hack, remember?” Ezra said.

Filamenta winced from atop his shoulder.

“Bad move. [Bind] is detectable as a foreign influence. There’s no telling if there’s some kind of security mechanism that it’ll trip,” Filamenta said.

Ezra looked at the wall where the only mana flowing through was coming from the circuits. He looked down at the floor where there was no mana at all.

Filamenta followed his gaze. “Oh. Ohhhh, okay, that might work.”

“Can someone please let me in on what’s happening?” Dumrivil said.

“You’re gonna want to hold your breath,” Ezra said. “It might be bad if you breathed the air in and I turned it back into stone.”

Dumrivil’s eyes widened. He sucked in a breath and pinched his nose. Filamenta transformed into a needle. Ezra activated [Telekinesis] and shot her through the stone up ahead, just in front of the door. He activated [Bind] and transformed the dirt into air, creating a large hole. After a few seconds, he turned the air back into stone.

Particles and clumps of dirt materialized from the air and fell onto the ground. Ezra repeated the process one more time, creating a tunnel that went directly underneath the door.

“You’re gonna have to tell me what that skill is at some point,” Dumrivil said.

“Nope.”

The two went into the tunnel and came out the other side.