Eventually, I woke up, as much as I didn’t want to. ‘I wonder how much magic it would take to just stop the sun from rising for a couple of days…’ After I fully came to my senses and got something to eat, all in all, I decided it wasn’t going to be a bad day. Despite how I felt the night before, I didn’t have any dreams at all, much less nightmares, so I was already off to a pretty ok start.

‘I can’t take quests for the moment, but I’ll probably be here another few days. I’ll fill up my storage with spiders I can turn in after the fine is lifted, and then I’ll work on leveling my magicy stuff. I bet I could make some fancy potions with some of the minitour's blood, but I’d need alchemy tools for that.’

I casually moved out into the forest after getting ready. I knew I had gotten stronger, and after my last two battles, and burning my hand with the spider's acid, I was hardly nervous around them at all, bordering on a side of carelessness.

Either way, I made short work of every monster I found, but it was worrying that I didn’t come across any wargs. Before I knew it I was already deep into the forest, growing closer to the entrance of the dungeon where they were no doubt all coming from. ‘This place is bad news… My storage is pretty full anyway. I should probably just head back.

I turned around on the tree branch to see a man's face and nearly tripped and fell, just barely catching my balance. “Taggart?” I whispered

He was tied up in webbing and hanging upside down from a branch farther up. ‘How on earth did I miss this?’

I was trying to figure out a way to sneak him out of there without disturbing the webs when he suddenly opened his eyes and nearly made me trip again from shock. “Chika? Is that you? I suppose you do seem the daring sort. Are you here to help me then?” He casually freed one of his arms and, even upside down, started sipping his brew from a flask.

“Yeah… I mean I can, when I cut you lose the spiders will probably be all over us though, can you run?”

He waved me off. “Oh no don’t worry about me, I’m just fine. I meant help me save the poor girls that are about to show up.”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking…”

“Just wait…”

Several moments later there was still nothing.

“Hm… I guess the people around here are getting better at fighting.”

I sighed. “How much have you had to drink?”

He slowly put his flask away, dangling his arms. “Not much. Ah… Here they come.”

We suddenly heard heavy footsteps that clanged like swords as they hit the ground and an unsettling rattle as the webs around us began to move. Sure enough, an unconscious girl was slung up into the trees right next to him.

‘He was right?’

I looked down and froze, reflexively hiding even though I probably didn’t need to. One spider towered over all the others with swords for legs and a rocky armored body covered in thick plates. ‘I knew something was off… Is that a freaking knight?’

“So my daring friend. I see you now realize why I’m here.”

I turned back to him and suddenly he was out of the webbing and standing next to me, making me grow from another shock. “You’re not going to fight it are you?”

He looked down. “No… I told you, we have to save this poor girl? I let myself get captured every now and then so that I can save these poor people who get drug away by the spiders. Stealthy infiltration.”

‘I’m not even going to try and unpack that…’ “Can you get her out? We need to run… Now. If we end up having to fight a spider knight were screwed.”

I felt my chest tighten again. I hadn’t prepared anything for it… My breath felt heavy enough to scrape my lungs.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

‘The minotaur didn’t kill me for a total of three reasons. It only managed to hit me once, when it did hit me it wasn’t with a weapon, and finally, the impact of its one hit was blunt, and absorbed by my armor. Knight spiders are faster, and their attacks are all piercing. They spit more potent acid, and their webbing is barbed.’ I paused, taking a deep breath. ‘There's a difference between cowardice and having a brain… I’ll fight it someday, but only when I’m strong enough to guarantee victory.’

I felt chills run down my arms as the tightness vanished, almost surprising me with how light I felt afterward. ‘I think I’m starting to figure a few things out finally…’

Taggart used a highly controlled fire spell to slowly melt the webbing as he carefully started taking on the weight, leading to a smooth removal of the girl from the webs, rather than a yank from the web snapping. When he was done it was time to go. Thanks to the dozens of lesser spiders I had killed earlier it made for safe travels. After a while, we made it back to camp and while he took the girl in for medicine, I headed to the inn to post a notice.

The problem wasn’t even just that there was a knight… But the presence of a knight at all meant there was a spider lord… The presence of which also meant there was a spider queen… In other words, the threat level of the entire area was likely about to rise again…

With everyone starting to go into a panic, some leaving on the spot, I was left alone to do whatever, so I just casually loaded up on food again. As far as I knew my muscles had all grown back, but whether it was stress or some other reason, my body only looked more like that of a man than before. My arms grew and my legs swelled out with muscle, and my shoulders as well, making me look broader. ‘I feel like a balloon…’ I finished eating and listened to everyone still scurry around like mad as I started Cutting up the several spiders I caught, harvesting what I could.

‘My storage capacity has increased as well.’ It normally capped out at a set volume and weight, and the old one used to be able to only hold maybe 15 spiders in volume, or about 1,500 lbs in weight. Now it held 20 spiders, which meant the amount of weight it could take likely also increased to around 2,000 lbs

I sighed… It was good, but to move my house the weight limit would need to increase to at least around 10,000 lbs Actually, I wonder how true that is. A lot of the house is made from my earth magic at this point, so if I take that into consideration and just move everything else, redoing the magic on the other end… Well, the number would be lower at least… ‘Getting out of that neighborhood is probably for the best if I’m going to keep living alone.’

No matter how much I tried to avoid it, the same bad thoughts kept creeping into my head, and after seeing the spider knight I only had more worries, building into a load of stress that made me want to burst until my hands started shaking a little. After a few moments, I stopped having clear thoughts altogether, the negative feelings just jumbling everything in my head until I lost the will to move, flipping between that and wanting to scream.

To let out some steam I conjured a ball of water, and chaneled my fire breath spell into it until it all evaporated, literally turning to steam. The metaphorical implication was surprisingly helpful in letting me relax, along with my imagining the water as stress literally melting away. It never chased away the bad thoughts though, just the jitters.

‘I ran from a fight… And then Finn had to go and remind me of that… Actually, I guess I have the order on those things reversed.’ I let out another sigh. ‘Not that any of it matters. The past is what caused the present, so studying it can be useful… But there's no point in feeling bad about it.’ I threw everything back in storage and headed back to my room, still trying to somehow reason with my own brain but, ultimately failing in the end. There was a brief time while I was in the bath I managed to truly relax, although admittedly even then I had to use magic to fill the water with cloudy minerals in order to help keep my mind off the fact I was naked.

I tossed and turned all night, but eventually, I did manage to fall asleep. When I woke up I had nothing better to do, so I talked to the innkeeper and helped him out in the kitchen for a while, catching him up on butchering all the meat that adventurers had sold him in the past.

I didn’t mind it, but everything was starting to feel dull like things were just happening around me. I wanted to go on an adventure and get away. I slammed the clear into the counter and paused for a moment. ‘I think I’m starting to get it now… When I’m in a fight my mind becomes so clear. I feel completely in control of even my own heartbeat, forcing it to pound harder and faster so I can force my movements even more… When I’m not in a fight I just feel like this. Like… I’m only doing this because I’m bored. Helping people is nice and all but it feels like there's no purpose.’

I sighed, picking up the cleaver and getting back to work. ‘Well, I’m not saving people's lives, but I am keeping them fed, so this specifically isn’t so bad either I guess. Although, it’s not exactly a hard task, and it lets my mind wander too much…’

“Chika…” The innkeeper called quietly stepping through the door into the backroom. He set 30 obsidian coins down on the table for me. “There are some guards here looking for you… I told them you were in your room, so whether you run or not it’s up to you.”

I felt chills run down my arms. If they were looking for me again it meant they were probably going to arrest me… Guards wouldn’t deliver a second fine in person, not if I hadn’t paid off the first yet.

“Thanks for that…” I grabbed the coins and put them in my purse, only coming across as calm because I was too in shock to come up with a proper response.

“You’ve been more than generous to me, and even if you weren’t you saved my cousin when you brought back those herbs. This is the least I can do.” He sighed, leaning against the wall. “So… What are you going to do?”

‘If I run then I would have to travel for three weeks to get back to Rothet. That’s a long time to go without anyone defending you… Especially when you make yourself look guilty.’ “I didn’t do anything wrong… And I still technically never broke any laws… I’ll go with the guards, and wait for this to all get sorted out, I’ve been working with Finn to expose his bad dealings, so this should get sorted out soon…” ‘I hope.’

He smirked. “Well, I hope you’re right. You make it out of this I’ll give you another jug of Airag, and if what you say about Alden is right, and you bring him down, I’ll even rename the inn in your honor.”

‘That's a bit much isn’t it?’

I used magic to wash all the blood off my hands and clean my blades before heading out the door. They didn’t so much as announce themselves or give reasoning. Before I knew it I was being tied up with a rope and dragged away.

‘A rope? I mean… I use fire magic…’ When I got back to the fortress they replaced the rope with metal shackles at least, but I knew metal magic too… Although I guess it didn’t say that on my adventurer card yet.

They never told me why I was being brought in… But I had a feeling I would find out soon enough.

“Let's go. Alden is waiting for you.” One said, taking me out of the holding cell.

‘I wonder what bogus thing he’s going to charge me with this time. I hope it’s at least creative. Maybe something like, I killed his pet chicken, and the evidence is that he found some obscure knife with my name carved into it.’ The guard opened the door to his office, gesturing for me to walk in. ‘I guess I’ll find out soon enough.’