Episode 17: Save the Children!
After following the children for a while, we arrived at a place where two large trees stood side by side. It was quite far from the village, so even if the children screamed here, the adults wouldn’t hear anything. Or rather, the children, who had been so noisy, had become quiet before I knew it. I guessed it was probably due to the Bewitching Butterfly’s skill, “Scale Powder.” Their eyes were vacant, and there was a glittering powder-like substance swirling around them.
Between the two trees, a large spider web was stretched, and in the center was a giant spider, probably two meters long. It clicked its sharp mandibles, as if praising the Bewitching Butterfly for bringing it prey. Its four eyes each moved independently, in a creepy, goosebump-inducing way.
Well, at this rate, the children would likely be eaten by the Poison Spider and the Bewitching Butterfly. I first targeted the Bewitching Butterfly and swooped down from the tree.
The Bewitching Butterfly, engrossed in scattering its scale powder, was too late to notice me charging from above, and its body was impaled by my horn. With the Bewitching Butterfly still stuck on my horn, I shook my head, sending it flying towards the space between the two trees, where it got caught in the spider web. The Poison Spider happily approached its prey in the web and began to munch on it.
It seemed that while the Poison Spider was stronger than the Bewitching Butterfly, it wasn’t very intelligent. Even with an enemy right in front of it, it was engrossed in its meal. Moreover, it was eating a companion that it had been coexisting with until just now.
The children were still in a dreamlike state, so I could use my power without reservation.
Even so, it wasn’t an opponent that required me to fight seriously. I severed its eight legs with Air Cutter, and it fell to the ground with a thud, twitching for a while before stopping.
Since the Bewitching Butterfly was dead, the scale powder had already cleared. It was only a matter of time before the children regained consciousness. I had also been in the scale powder, but thanks to my stats, I didn’t seem to be affected much. In fact, I could even see the words “Bewitchment Resistance Lv1” in my skill list. It seemed I had acquired a resistance skill without realizing it. Then, before the children woke up, I flew away and decided to observe from a high tree.
“Ugh, ugh… Where am I? My head feels fuzzy…”
The boy who had discovered me first seemed to be the first to come to his senses. As his consciousness gradually cleared, he began to understand the current situation, and he hurriedly grabbed the shoulders of the remaining children and started shaking them.
“Whoa!? What’s that?”
After all four of them regained consciousness, they checked their surroundings and immediately discovered the corpse of the Poison Spider.
“Could it be that we were brought here by that butterfly and were about to be eaten?”
“No, scary. I want to go home.”
The two girls were trembling, hugging each other. Having regained consciousness, feelings of fear had welled up.
“But look. That big spider’s legs are all messed up. Even the adults in the village couldn’t do that. Who on earth did it?”
The leader-like boy muttered, but no one could answer. Or so it seemed…
“It was a beetle. That silver beetle. Because, the only one who saw us chasing the butterfly was that beetle!”
I was surprised. You can’t underestimate a child’s insight. He was right, what he was saying. As expected of the one who discovered me.
Furthermore, what he said was surprisingly accepted by everyone. Perhaps it was because children didn’t have strange preconceptions. An adult would probably dismiss it with “There’s no way that’s possible.”
Then, they began to look for the way back. Fortunately, the footprints of the four of them were still there, so that problem was quickly solved.
Here, the leader-like boy said something outrageous.
“Hey, let’s take that spider’s legs home!”
He actually said they should take the Poison Spider’s legs home. Naturally, the girls were strongly opposed, but immediately after the leader-like boy said, “We might be able to sell them for money,” they looked at each other and then silently picked up the legs. It seemed that the girls in this other world were more shrewd than I thought.
Each of them carried a spider leg in one hand and started to return the way they came. They used the spider legs like sickles to cut through the overgrown grass. What resilient children.
Since there were no more monsters left in the area, they safely reached the village after walking for about an hour. The adults who had come to look for the missing children rushed towards them in a panic.
The children also saw them and started running towards the adults, but because they were swinging the huge spider legs they were holding, the adults were startled and ran away, resulting in a reunion that was like something out of a comedy sketch.
In any case, the adults seemed relieved that the children had returned safely. After this, they would probably face scolding and questioning, but they wouldn’t die from it. After seeing them safe, I decided to return to my usual spot.
~Side: The Children~
My name is Kyle. I live in this village of Myra. I’m 10 years old, and I have three friends of the same age. There’s Rock, who’s always timid but suddenly gets energetic when it comes to bugs. There’s Helena, who’s usually quiet but scary when angered. And there’s Marie, who’s small and easily frightened. We usually play together, the four of us. But there’s nothing to play with in this village, so we mostly just play adventurer or catch bugs. For the past 10 years, every day has been the same, but yesterday was different. It was an experience I’ll never forget.
It all started a few days ago, when we went outside the village, which we’re forbidden to do, and were looking for bugs as usual. We don’t usually go that far, but this day was different. We had heard that Eric-niichan, an adventurer from this village, and his group had come to exterminate the monsters around the village, so we went a little further in.
That’s when Rock, who loves bugs, found a beetle perched on a tall tree. It was a rare, silver beetle. Even though it was perched very high, we could clearly see its figure. I think it was probably a very big beetle. We tried hard to catch it, but it was perched so high that there was nothing we could do, and Marie, who was easily scared, was getting nervous, and Helena said we should go home because we’d get scolded by the adults, so we reluctantly decided to go back.
The next day, thinking maybe it was still there, the four of us went to the same place, and amazingly, the silver beetle was still there. We were so excited then. Rock and I tried to figure out how to catch it, kicking the tree and trying to climb it, but the tree didn’t budge, and we couldn’t even climb a meter. But even though we were making a fuss, the silver beetle stayed still, so Helena and Marie gradually got used to it, and going to see that beetle every day became a routine for the four of us.
And then, yesterday, the incident happened.
After the four of us tried our best to catch the beetle as usual, we gave up and were about to go back to the village when we found a big butterfly we had never seen before.
Powder was swirling from its beautiful colored wings, and even Helena and Marie were immediately captivated and started chasing it. Unlike the silver beetle, the big butterfly was flying low enough that we could reach out and touch it, so the four of us chased it with all our might.
But soon after we started chasing it, we noticed that Rock, who was closest to the butterfly, was acting strange. He stopped running and suddenly started staggering like a drunk adult. When we caught up and looked at his face, his eyes were vacant and he was even drooling. We hurriedly looked at Helena and Marie, but they were both the same as Rock.
(This is bad!)
By the time I thought that, it was already too late. I suddenly felt faint, and when I came to, I was in a terrible situation.
I was the first to wake up. But even though I said I woke up, it seemed we had been walking even while we were unconscious. I knew this because the surrounding scenery was completely different from what I remembered. When we were chasing the butterfly, we were near the village, and there wasn’t much grass, but here, the grass was about waist-high, and there were many trees.
I immediately shook the shoulders of the three of them to wake them up. Even though they had been staggering around unconscious, I was relieved that they were all nearby. Then, the four of us checked our surroundings, and when we found it, I was truly chilled to the bone.
“This is… a Poison Spider’s corpse. Could it be that we were almost eaten by this thing…?”
Rock’s voice trembled as he stared at the Poison Spider’s remains, now just a head and torso lying on the ground. Its eight legs were scattered haphazardly nearby, the points where they had been severed looking as if they had been cleanly cut by a sword or something similar.
A giant spiderweb was stretched between the trees a little further in, with fragments of the butterfly that had likely led us here caught in it.
“I’ve heard of it. Bewitching Butterflies are monsters that lead prey to stronger monsters, hoping to get some scraps…”
As we turned pale looking at the Poison Spider, Rock began to explain in a terrified voice. But the more he explained, the more it matched our current situation, and we all understood that we had undoubtedly been on the verge of being eaten.
“But, why were we saved?”
Helena, who usually acted like an older sister and tried to explain everything, seemed unable to explain how we were still alive in this situation. Well, I couldn’t either.
“Did they have a fight?”
It wasn’t exactly what Marie said, but when I saw the Bewitching Butterfly caught in the spiderweb, I did think that too. But that doesn’t explain everything.
“That’s unlikely. The Bewitching Butterfly isn’t strong enough to cut off a Poison Spider’s leg.”
That’s right, as Rock just said, the Bewitching Butterfly doesn’t have the power to defeat a Poison Spider. It shouldn’t have the skill to cut off those hard legs either.
Maybe the Poison Spider defeated the Bewitching Butterfly, but something else defeated the Poison Spider. Rock, who loves bugs, said that the same something else probably defeated the Bewitching Butterfly. Usually, he’s shy and can barely speak, but when it comes to bugs, he becomes a different person. I’m grateful for that right now.
“The one who defeated the Poison Spider must be that silver Beetle! Because the only one who saw us chasing the Bewitching Butterfly was that Beetle!”
Rock, who had been observing the Poison Spider’s corpse, suddenly shouted loudly. For a moment, I thought, “That’s ridiculous,” but when I thought about it, it seemed like the most likely explanation. I don’t know why, but I felt like that silver Beetle might have saved us.
Helena and Marie nodded as if they thought so too, so everyone must have had the same idea as me.
Now that we had an idea of who saved us, the four of us looked for the way back. Fortunately, we found the footprints that we must have left, so we quickly figured out the way back. The grass ahead was also flattened.
Just as we were about to head back, my eyes caught sight of the Poison Spider’s leg.
(Hmm, can I take that back?)
I knew it was inappropriate in this situation, but I remembered Eric-niichan’s stories about ‘Adventurers’. He said that high-ranking Adventurers hunt rare monsters and sell their materials for a lot of money. He had spoken passionately about how he wanted to be like that someday, so I remembered it well.
The Poison Spider’s leg in front of me was about 1 meter long, and we could probably carry it back if we tried. I didn’t know if it was a rare monster, but those sharp claws seemed like they could be worth some money.
I stopped everyone who was about to leave and suggested that we take the Poison Spider’s leg back. Rock, who loves bugs, immediately agreed, while Helena and Marie objected, saying it was gross. But in the end, when I said, “It might be worth money,” they immediately started picking up the Poison Spider’s legs. Women are scary, aren’t they?
We each carried a Poison Spider’s leg in each hand and went back the way we came. They were a little shorter than our height, but surprisingly light, and everyone managed to carry them somehow. In fact, they were a great help in cutting through the grass along the way. The claws were sharp, so we could cut through the grass with a swish. Everyone else was enjoying it too.
After walking for about an hour, we finally reached the village. Now, all that was left was to endure the scolding from the adults.