"Y-You're serious?"
Aaron's heart beat quickly, the memories of his discovery of a certain diary on the deathly island coursing through his mind.
"Do you have any connection to it?"
Furrowing her brow, Alicia tilted her head to the side, confusion and doubt lacing her voice.
Distracted, Aaron racked his thick skull, thinking of anything and everything he could say.
"I voyaged to the Isle of Gharr not more than half a year ago."
His quiet words echoed through the silent room, causing her to pale slightly, her body language conveying worry.
"W-What do you mean you visited Gharr? It was—"
She cut herself off, a quick look at Aaron's face stopping her in her tracks.
"I know what happened there and what your chief did. I know what you found in that hole that the manticore dug, and what you did when you learned the truth."
He took a steady breath, watching the woman step back out of shock, her voice coming out in less than a whisper.
"T-The only way you could know that, is…"
A heavy silence fell on the room for a few seconds before she finished her thought.
"If you read my diary."
Nodding gently at Alicia's words, he reached inside his coat pocket slowly, revealing a thin metallic coin.
It was nearly identical to the one she had found on the island; however, this one was engraved with a special crustacean that fished day in and day out.
Letting out a gasp, the woman listened as Aaron spoke again, elaborating on the item.
"The original coin you left in the diary saved my life. Now I offer you the same. I don't really get how it works, but one of these coins already saved a life before."
After placing the mystical currency into her palm, he retracted his hand to his side, awaiting her response with bated breath.
She did not speak for a moment, clutching the crab-crested coin quietly as she stared into the boy's eyes.
"W-What is left of my home?"
Alicia's gaze was firm, not a hint of sadness behind them, simply curiosity at what had become of her homeland.
Answering hurriedly, Aaron reminisced on what he had witnessed on his exit from the island.
"Devoured by Gharr after my departure. But the town itself was destroyed and abandoned long before that."
Watching her face contort solemnly, he noticed her hand reaching into her pants pocket with a slick motion.
Deciding not to think about it much, he finally moved from his spot to start organizing the room.
Alicia's voice sounded from the side, flat with resignation, as she spoke again.
"That was as I expected… There was no hope when I left, since the horn of a devil was slowly corrupting the chief."
Grabbing an empty crate and beginning to fill it with a random assortment of pottery, Aaron turned his head over, brows furrowed.
"A devil?"
The air turned cold as they talked, a sigh coming from the woman's mouth as she pulled a small book from behind her back.
"Perhaps this would be easier than explaining it."
She walked over to the blond boy and handed him the thin leather-bound tome.
Accepting it with a look of curiosity, he turned the book over and scanned its front.
"You want me to read your diary? Isn't that invasive?"
Posing the question calmly, he watched the woman shake her head, answering in a somber tone.
"Only the pages I tell you to read. Anything overly private is in a separate notebook as well."
Biting his lip as she spoke, concern welling inside his chest, Aaron nodded slowly, hearing the specific page numbers to read.
"Alright then."
Flipping open the book to page three, his eyes grazed over the slightly wrinkled paper, familiar words entering his mind once again.
"Dear Reader."
…
Raphael's slow steps down the cavern staircase creaked with the temperament of an enraged hawk, the noise sending shivers down his spine.
"Are you sure this is truly safe?"
Speaking to the orange-haired woman ahead of him, he listened as she laughed lightly before responding.
"Temperature is steady, oxygen flow is steady, and most importantly, my energy levels are steady. Therefore, safe as ever!"
High-fiving herself awkwardly, the sound of her feet meeting rock instead of wood echoed throughout the cramped space.
Soon after, Raphael followed, the stony terrain ahead far sharper and with worse visibility than the man-made segment before.
Placing his hand against the hard wall for only a second, he felt a soft feeling caress his skin, a horrific shriek nearly escaping his mouth.
"Erg!"
Hopping back and smacking his head into the wall, he hurriedly cast Divine Light, his breath freezing as he stared at his hand.
Dozens of glowing spiders climbed his fingers, attempting to bury themselves under his nailbeds, wedge their way into his sleeve, or even bite through his skin.
Their beady black eyes stared up at him, bodies scurrying around as light filled the narrow cavern.
"HOLY—"
Instantly screaming out whatever magical chant he could remember, he only managed to call forth a minuscule ball of fire magic to his palm.
Not wasting a single second, he slammed the flame into his other hand, burning away the arachnids in a cacophony of popping sounds.
Ignoring the searing pain that coursed through his hand, he doused it with a quick array of water magic, breathing heavily.
Shortly after, Ashly appeared at his side, examining his hand with a worried expression.
"D-Did any of them bite you!? P-Please say they didn't!"
Her face was flushed white, her body trembling with fear.
Raphael, who was also shaking slightly, did not pay much attention to her terrified remarks, not yet realizing the horror of what he had placed his hand into.
"I have a thin layer of mana surrounding my body. I don't think they could've breached it—"
Stopping himself, he blinked once, then twice, then thrice, noticing a pair of small bitemarks sunk into his flesh.
"H-How did they…"
Gasping in horror, Ashly immediately dug her hands into her bag, pulling out a long syringe and stabbing it into the boy's arm before he could stop her.
"Agh!"
Grimacing at the pain, he tightened his grip, feeling his vision sway and his muscles seized up for a moment.
However, after another moment, he was fine, with only a thick red bump left in the place of the bite mark.
Letting out a relieved sigh, Ashly blurted out word after word, the meaning almost incomprehensible to the white-haired boy.
"T-The cave spiders in this place are mana resistant due to the conditions of the Sea of Mystery. Unless you apply a barrier with a thickness of 1.89 millimeters or higher, they can dig through, injecting you with their venom. Within a minute, you lose your sight and hearing. After two, you lose your sense of touch and the ability to walk. Then, lastly, after five whole minutes, you die."
Feeling his ears ring subtly, the boy nodded in a daze, another thought rising to his mind as his lip twitched angrily.
"Why the hell didn't you tell me they were in here!"
His booming voice resounded through the cavern loudly, making the woman flinch back as she placed the needle into a crimson bag.
Pale-faced and out of breath, she responded quietly.
"T-They are an extinct species. They died off more than one hundred years ago…"
Freezing in place, the golden-eyed boy stared at her, confusion working through his heart.
"What?"
Her words didn't make any sense to him, a cold feeling of dread remerging in the boy's chest as he listened to her explanation.
"They were eradicated to extinction because they were too dangerous. There shouldn't be any left anywhere in these caves. You're lucky I carry this anti-venom with me in case their descendants are still lurking here…"
Taking a step back and nearly hitting his head against the wall once again, Raphael contemplated her words before asking another question.
"What do you mean by descendants?"
She pursed her lips, then answered quietly.
"Smaller spiders now live in these caves; however, their venom is much less potent and can only induce minor paralysis of weak muscles like the fingertips or toes. For the main race to still survive, though…"
Turning her head to where he had placed his hand, she gazed into a small crevice engraved into the rock, a thick web of white filling it like a bandaid.
Through the tear produced when Raphael slammed his hand through the surface, she could view the interior of the nest, a guttural feeling of disgust rasping at her throat.
Thousands, if not tens of thousands, little arachnids crawled inside the hole, their hideous appearance glistening in the shadows.
In their mandibles, they carried pieces of straw like ants bringing them back to the hive, a metaphor that did not settle well with the cartographer.
"I-If they have a new queen, then they could number in the millions in just a few months…"
Staring into the darkness ahead, Raphael could only swallow heavily, thinking silently about the near-death encounter.
First, it was that doll in the ritual circle, then it was that storm that hit right before we entered the cavern. Now it's the reappearance of a long extinct species?
Applying a thicker coating of mana around his skin, a thickness of two millimeters that protected against their bites, he clenched his hands.
Do you mean to tell me these are all coincidences?