Munch munch. Chomp chomp. Gobble gobble. Gulp.

Adon woke to find himself nom nom nomming on a hefty piece of vegetation. He only vaguely recognized the taste. Cucumber? He had never seen cucumbers growing in the garden before. But this didn’t feel like a memory.

As his vision came into focus, he saw Goldie standing above him, feeding one cucumber rind after another into his mouth like it was the opening to a wood chipper. Where the heck did Goldie get cucumber?

Then he noticed the posture of her body and realized that the spider seemed quite stressed.

Of course. She must have been taking care of me the whole time I’ve been out. Wondering that whole time if I would ever wake up. He felt a deep swell of affection for the spider—and his feelings toward her had not been shallow before his venom-inspired coma.

Goldie! he sent. I’m okay!

Adon! Her inner voice was almost a scream in his mind. He wanted to cover his nonexistent ears, but the sound was coming from inside his head. I thought you might die. She covered him with her body in an aggressive hug. Are you alright?

Well, I’ve definitely felt better, he sent, returning the hug as best he could with his weak, tender body. Thank you for taking care of me! Did you get all the Kleptomaniac Dewdrop Spiders?

Thanks to you, yes, she thought.

Where did you find all this yummy cucumber? Does it grow around here?

Then Goldie began recounting her story, and Adon didn’t interrupt until he had heard everything.

You went out hunting? he asked when she finished. By yourself on the ground?

My mate went with me, but yes, she thought proudly. Then she paused for a moment. Wait. That is surprising part?

It sounds like you ran into a princess who lives in the palace over there, Adon replied casually. We’ve met before. Too bad you couldn’t understand what she was saying.

Local language never seemed like useful Adaptation, Goldie replied. I cannot form word sounds. Never bought Telepathy.

Local language… I guess we’ve been speaking in another language, haven’t we? Adon realized. He hadn’t thought much about which language he was speaking when he interacted with Goldie. Whatever language it was, it was something deeply embedded in his brain. Something he spoke naturally. But given that he had lived so many lives, and he still had crucial memories from so many of them, he might have access to dozens or hundreds of languages that he simply never had occasion to use.

I suppose we are, Goldie thought. She did not seem interested in elaborating, and Adon decided not to push it. He remembered how the spider had reacted last time he brought up her prior life.

They both stood silently, containing their thoughts inside themselves, for a moment. Goldie was the first to articulate a thought that Adon could hear.

So you met the princess before you met me? she asked. Strangely, he seemed to detect a hint of jealousy in her voice. He would need to manage this carefully. He carefully kept himself from sending any thoughts until he had formulated his response.

Just briefly, he sent, trying for casual again. We didn’t really talk, but I heard her speak. She had brought some food out for me, as a way of apologizing for siccing a Ladybug Larva on me. So I just said “Thank you.”

The spider nodded. She did not seem to like insects much. Scary how she stepped on cockroach and only looked annoyed at having bug guts on her shoe.

Adon suppressed his desire to say that he would have reacted the same way as the princess—and indeed, that he was glad she had stepped on the cockroach so that Goldie hadn’t brought it for him to eat. Those seemed likely to be unhelpful remarks. The spider’s feelings were still coming through Telepathy as slightly prickly.

She genuinely seems a little jealous that I met a princess, Adon thought in the back of his mind. He was getting better at controlling what leaked out and articulating concealed thoughts even while using Telepathy. It’s like Goldie thinks I would prefer the princess’s company to hers.

Well, maybe Goldie did think that. Adon was always focused on his own deficiencies as a friend and conversation partner. Goldie might be the same as him, except worried about her broken grammar skills instead of general social awkwardness.

I missed talking to you a lot, Adon transmitted. In my dreams, I kept visiting different places from my memories, but I wished you were there. It was true. Adon had felt a loneliness in the prison of his comatose wanderings, and Goldie was the only friend he could imagine sharing his memories with—if the day should ever come when she became comfortable going back and forth about past lives. Most importantly, she needed to know that he would continue to be there for her.

Sure, I wanted to be a social butterfly in this life, Adon thought below the surface of his mind. But I’m grateful I have one friend. I would never abandon Goldie—not even to have some kind of cool fantasy adventure with a princess and make lots of new friends.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

I missed talking to you too, Goldie thought. Please do not die again.

Adon wanted to respond with something glib and silly like, I haven’t even died once yet, but that wasn’t even true from his perspective. He had died so many times. Every life but this one had ended, many of them violently. And if he tried, he could remember every single one.

I won’t, he finally sent. At least not until we get enough superior creature flesh in you to pay for another Evolution. Something with a nice long lifespan.

Goldie was silent for a long few seconds. Honestly, I do not know how you do it, she finally thought. Hunting every day. I was almost mad with fear. Did not even kill a single enemy.

Because the princess gave you food for me, Adon replied reassuringly. I’m sure you would have managed it.

She stared at him, then looked at the ground. I am not so certain. I think this is not my gift. You are a good fighter, Adon. Unusually good. Especially for caterpillar! When we struggled against thief spiders, I could barely make myself attack. It was worse outside of web. I am a coward. Perhaps I should be content with the days that I am given. Not go chasing death to try and steal more years of life.

Adon was shaking his head fiercely as he listened to her thoughts, even though the forceful movements made his vision swim and threatened to set off a migraine.

I won’t let you—I mean, I won’t let that happen. I can’t just let you die! You’re my only friend, Goldie. I insist that you at least share whatever I kill. If that helps you get to a new stage, great. If not, at least I know I tried. He knew that Goldie would feel guilty about him going out to hunt food for her specifically, so he framed it in a way that would hopefully make her agree. If she didn’t, he would just bring this back up later. Right now, he was too tired to argue effectively. Recovery had drained him.

Fortunately, Goldie seemed to recognize his weakness without him having to spell it out.

We can talk about this when you recover, she thought.

And Adon was forced to agree. I’m going to walk around and see how my body’s doing, he sent. Do you have more of those vegetables?

Goldie nodded eagerly. I made three trips! She gestured behind her, and Adon saw that she had stuck a ton of what looked like kitchen leftovers all over her web. Like someone had turned over a garbage pail. She seemed so happy that she had managed to get him the food, even though it made a mess of her otherwise well ordered home.

Thanks, Goldie, he sent. Going silent for a bit. Then he deactivated Telepathy, got up, and started walking. The pain in his abdomen was immediately noticeable, but dull. Definitely less than what it had been when he was floating in and out of consciousness.

Adon looked down and saw that where he remembered he had suffered a venomous bite wound, there was now barely a mark. The exoskeleton had mostly healed up without him having to shed his skin. Unless he had done it in his sleep.

I can’t afford to be in so many close scrapes, he thought. If I didn’t have resistances and Goldie to take care of me, I definitely would have died in this one. And there was no reason that fight should have been as difficult as it was! I was invisible, I had a ranged attack, I was physically stronger and faster than them, and I have Mana Manipulation now. Mantises kill spiders all the time, to the point that the System rewarded Goldie for eating one. I killed a mantis without taking any injuries. Therefore, I should’ve been able to win this fight singlehandedly, not force Goldie to rush in and save me—and then take care of me while I recover from these stupid spider bites.

Adon was getting angry at himself as he walked up and down the web, and he tried to calm down. He was testing his body’s recovery right now. It was possible that doing things to ruin his mood might hamper his recovery. The mind and the body were linked, and all that.

Then he slammed his right forelimb down on the web in frustration—or almost did, before he remembered that Goldie would feel the vibrations of his fury if he did. That would probably scare her. And his Strength was high enough to cave in exoskeletons. It might be enough to meaningfully damage her web. A fine way to repay her for taking care of him.

He held his foot back, just slightly above the web. There was still a vibration from the intense movement, but it was smaller than it might have been.

Goldie looked at him curiously from further up the web, but Adon didn’t feel like explaining that he was trying to restrain himself from having a tantrum. He just waved sheepishly and did not reactivate Telepathy.

The spider got the hint and returned to whatever errands she had been up to before Adon almost punched the web.

So how do I avoid putting Goldie—and myself—through this again? he wondered. His anger at himself was dying down now, as he tried to replace it with a more constructive thought process. The fact that he was suffering from moderate physical pain as he moved made the anger a bit harder to sustain. He imagined this must be what physical therapy was like.

Fundamentally, the problem he had encountered in the spider fight was the number of enemies. They had swarmed him. This seemed to be an issue he was destined to run into over and over again. More than one species of ant, spiders, and probably any number of other species were capable of working together in groups.

He was confident now that he was faster and stronger than any of these team-fighting insects individually. He also could have reinforced his body with Mana if his reaction time was better—There! That’s it. Mana. Mana should have been the difference-maker. That was what I needed to rely on more. Fighting while invisible was a good strategy at first. Once they had a good idea of my location, though, I needed to shift from focusing on that to armoring myself with Mana.

And he still hadn’t even touched on the fact that he didn’t know anything about Mana use outside of physical enhancement. He knew what he needed to do to learn more. The System’s brain download had given him that much. The next step once he had moving Mana around his body down fairly well. He had not mastered that yet, but he would during this convalescence.

Then he would go on to explore magic. The Mana Manipulation download indicated two broad methods. One was inaccessible to him right now; it required the use of spellbooks. Time and study. The other option was available to any organism that learned how to manipulate its Mana. It was an unguided path, though. Even the rudimentary brain download made clear, it was more than a little risky.

But if I had better command of Mana and its applications, those spiders wouldn’t have even gotten close to me. As things played out, I survived, but it could have gone the other way. I have to be capable of taking on far more enemies than just a handful of spiders at once. The physical body of a caterpillar can’t do it without some serious help. I need to take the risks to move forward into magic, and it’ll probably save my life a thousand times in the future. Now is the perfect time to try to learn. While I’m recovering from the venom.

First, though, he would try to master the first basic exercises that he had interrupted before. Pulling Mana out, moving it around his body, and using it to enhance himself.

Adon closed his eyes and found the round orange light suspended in the dark once again.