Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 1 - Chapter 12

Chapter 12: The White Spider’s Tyranny

The air itself seemed to freeze over. The only things moving were the swaying bonfire and the shadows born of it. Our gazes were all affixed to the sudden intruder.

“...An arachne?”

The name reflexively spilled from my lips. I’d heard it spoken back at the Colony. It was a monster said to be a giant spider with the monstrous figure of a woman coming out of its upper body.

It was pretty common in games to have monsters with a half-human form. However, among the monsters of this world, at least in the area of the Colony, only the arachne had an appearance close to that of a human.

Even so, it was impossible to mistake an arachne for a human. That wasn’t just because of its unsightly lower body. As the description “a giant spider with the monstrous figure of a woman coming out of its upper body” would imply, it was the woman’s appearance which was far more monstrous than anything else.

Their mouths stretched all the way to their ears; two large fangs peeked out from their lips. Their eyes were closer to circular cavities, and they had no eyelids. The whites of said eyes were blood red. The surface of their skin looked stiff, and their tremendously skinny bodies displayed an unnatural bony structure within. Even if their lower bodies were completely severed, there was no way anyone could mistake an arachne’s corpse for that of a human.

If arachnes did more closely resemble humans, then it wouldn’t have been out of the question for some exploration team members to hesitate while hunting them. It was entirely possible for casualties to be born from such a mistake. There was in fact precedent for this sort of error of judgment.

The exploration team was composed of cheaters. Even though they possessed tremendous power, they fundamentally lacked any combat experience. So when encountering a monster they had never seen before, there were times when casualties arose from the ensuing battle. There was one instance where students killed in such an encounter turned into undead monsters. Unable to kill monsters who looked like their former friends, even more students died.

Be that as it may, I had never heard of such precedent with an arachne. On the contrary, it had such a monstrous form it triggered a strong sense of revulsion, to the point where exploration team members often talked about it.

That was the monster known as an arachne that I knew about. But the one before my eyes was completely different from what I’d heard. The woman atop the pure white spider was far from monstrous. You could even say she looked sweet. Her facial features still had the appearance of a young girl. She didn’t look any older than twenty. The only thing inhuman about her was her red eyes, but those didn’t give off a monstrous feeling either.

She was wearing faintly transparent clothing that seemed to be made of spider silk and somewhat resembled chiffon fabric. It didn’t hide the elegant lines of her body at all. She looked dainty, yet she had beautiful curves. It was as if she was a work of art designed to tempt men. There was no room for objection. She was a beauty. That truth even overshadowed the fact she was growing out of an enormous, monstrous spider.

“Heehee.”

A smile escaped her bright red lips as she slowly cast her red eyes over each of us. I could intuitively tell that she was here looking for something. But what? Or maybe, who? The moment that thought came to mind, the alarm bells clanging in my head grew even louder. Before I knew it, her red eyes were upon me.

She squinted. “...Found you.”

Even though she had the clear voice of a girl, I felt a shiver run across my skin. I was convinced through pure instinct that this was the calamity we never wanted to meet. In other words, a high monster. The white spider before my eyes was a genuine horror who completely surpassed the term monster.

“Run aw—?!” My words vanished into thin air before I could finish saying them. “Ugh... Oooh?!”

The moment I felt something slam into my right side, a terrific force pulled on my body. I tried to reflexively fasten myself to the ground, but I couldn’t resist the force at all. My body should’ve been as heavy as any other 17-year-old boy, but I floated in the air. At the same time, I heard a hair-raising noise come from the right side of my body which was under an enormous amount of stress.

“Agh, gah...?!”

A sharp pain ran through my system. It jolted my vision.

“...! ...?!”

My voice wouldn’t come out. Something was broken. It hurt so much I had no idea where the pain was even coming from. My waning consciousness was barely held together by my fear, by a sense of danger which told me I couldn’t faint. But it wasn’t able to hold on forever.

I looked down. There was a white adhesive substance stuck to me from my arms to my chest. It was a spider web. It stretched out into a long, long thread... which was connected to the arachne’s hand.

The arachne must have pulled me toward her using that thread. The same thing likely happened to the firefang who was caught in midair and smashed head first into a tree. Meaning, if this arachne felt so inclined, she could also turn me into a red stain on a tree. The danger of that happening had yet to pass, though. My life was in the hands of a terrifying horror. There was no way my companions were just silently watching.

“Master!”

The first one to leap into action to save me from the white arachne’s hand was Rose. She did so without hesitation. She was nearest to me, about five meters from where the arachne had me trapped, but such a distance was nothing to her. By the time I saw her move, her axe was already coming down.

“Release my—”

In the next instant, she vanished from my sight.

“—Gyah?!”

Rose screamed in anguish. She was blown away into a bush, her wooden body clanking about. I could only watch in shock. I knew what happened, but I didn’t want to accept it. All the white arachne did was casually thrust out one of her legs. That was all. And she absolutely crushed Rose.

I didn’t even have the time to worry about her because the white arachne began running at a terrifying pace. I couldn’t move the right side of my body because of my injuries, and I couldn’t put up any sort of meaningful resistance. Not that I could do anything against an enemy who brought Rose down in a single attack, even if my entire body could move just fine.

The light from the bonfire grew farther and farther away, and the forest around me sank into the night. At the same time, the pain surpassed my limits, and my consciousness was swallowed away by the darkness.

“Masteeeeer!”

The last thing I saw was Lily—on the verge of tears with her hand stretched out toward me.

◆ ◆ ◆

The bubble of my consciousness burst as it touched the surface of water between dream and reality. A chill assaulted me as I woke. I began trembling, my eyes only half-open. A moment later, I recalled what happened right before I had lost consciousness.

“Where...?!”

My body shot up off the ground in a hurry.

“Argh!”

An intense pain suddenly ran down my right side, causing me to groan, and I fell back to the ground.

“Ugh... Gah... Haah... U-Ugh...”

After ten seconds or so, I somehow managed to get my breathing back in order and then took a look at my body. The sight had me completely in shock. Scraps of my shirt clung to my upper body, and my right side was in a disastrous state.

First off, the contour of my wrist was weird. Some of my fingers were bent the wrong way. I’d heard ribs were easy to break, and they were screaming in pain as if to reinforce that fact. Moreover, my ankle was probably twisted. I could feel a throbbing pain from my foot.

It was fortunate I was numb to half the pain, perhaps because the worst had passed while I was unconscious. But I couldn’t really move like this. Not that I could do anything even if I could move. I was completely incapable of fighting on my own, after all. I was completely powerless. Realizing that, my body began trembling violently.

It’s cold... It’s so cold... I feel like I’m going to freeze to death... Lily... Rose...

The two of them weren’t anywhere nearby. I couldn’t sense their presence through our mental path like I had all this time. I didn’t think such a feeling would leave me so hopeless.

“...Shit. Don’t lose your nerve.”

I scolded my own heart for wanting to curl up into a ball in fear. I had a responsibility as Lily and Rose’s master. They were surely worried about me. I had to get back to them and let them know I was okay.

As it was, I could have died while I was unconscious. It was good luck that I was even alive, taking that into consideration. Such a thought might have only provided a temporary peace of mind, but even so, I had to at least avoid descending into a panic. As such, I encouraged my weakened heart and took a look around me as I got myself back up.

“This is...”

“This is my nest.”

A bewitching voice answered my mumbling. I froze and then slowly turned around. A girl with pure white hair as thin as threads was right there looking down at me.

“Y-You’re...”

The girl was resting her chin on the hair of her white spider legs as she gazed at me with a playful look. There was no mistaking it. This was the arachne who attacked me right before I lost consciousness.

“Your... nest...?”

I only just noticed I wasn’t lying down directly on the ground. There was a wooden floor beneath me. It was a bit of a disorderly mess of reasonably sized logs thrown atop a spider web, but it was in fact a floor about the size of a small gymnasium.

I had been put to rest in a space which felt relatively level. Just maybe, this spider was showing consideration toward my injuries. It was fatal to continue under the assumption she was showing me sympathy, though.

Multiple trees were used as natural pillars for the nest. There were no walls, but there was a ceiling which looked to be supported by a spider web. There were cocoons dangling from the ceiling by threads; mysterious red lights flickered within them, which dimly lit the nest.

It seemed I was dragged all the way back to her home. Not only that, I was all on my own. It was a hopeless situation.

“What do you plan to...?”

I faced the white arachne once more and unconsciously gulped. Fear froze my heart. Nevertheless, I unreasonably forced my solidified jaws to move.

“...Wait, more importantly... What happened to Lily and Rose?”

The girl laughed in a truly amused manner. “Hmm. So your thoughts move to your servants before your own well-being?”

“Worry not. I have no interest in taking such insignificant lives. There is but one thing I desire.”

“...Me?”

The white arachne nodded. “Indeed.”

It seemed I wasn’t going to get killed right away. After giving it some more thought, it would have been pretty simple for this girl to kill me back there. So, there had to be a reason for her to go out of her way to bring me here. I could only pray it wasn’t for something cruel like taking her time to eat me back at her own nest. I had no way of resisting her if that were the case.

“Why me?” I mustered all my strength to ask.

“Can you not tell? There is no way you cannot. You should know full well what I am.”

Even when she put it like that, this was still the first time I met this arachne. There was no way I’d forget seeing the specimen before me. Not only did her appearance stand out, her very existence overwhelmed all others. I could firmly declare I had never met her before. As such, there was no way I could know what she was. Or... there was no way I should know.

“...Hang on.”

I immediately denied the one possibility that came to mind. However, I couldn’t misinterpret this feeling within me. It came from my very instincts—from a power which only belonged to me.

“It can’t be... My cheat...?”

“Hmm? I don’t really understand when you put it like that.” The girl then closed one of her red eyes. “But I do believe I am exactly what you think I am.”

Her tone sounded as if she found everything in this world endlessly fun.

“Right, My Lord?” Those simple words lovingly spilled from her bright red lips.

“No way...”

Reality didn’t change no matter how much I denied it. The monster before me was tamed by my cheat.

In other words, she was my servant.