They continued deeper into the forest without stopping, their horses maintaining a punishing pace beneath the thickening canopy.
Priestess Kalia and Priest Felon struggled to remain close behind the three adventurers, their temple mounts less accustomed to being pushed through uneven woodland at such speed.
Whisper of the Gale.
Wind carried their voices cleanly through the distance between the riders.
"How much farther, Captain?" Lord Zen asked, focused despite the pace.
"Here."
G6 pulled sharply on Kira's reins. The stallion slowed at once, forcing the others to bring their mounts to a stop behind her.
G6 turned in the saddle and looked past Edmund and Lord Zen toward the two priests lagging several yards behind.
"Hey, you two. Don't be a nuisance."
Priestess Kalia and Priest Felon nodded hurriedly. Both were pale from exertion, though the unfamiliar darkness of the forest contributed just as much to their unease.
Priest Felon leaned toward his companion and lowered his voice.
"What was Archbishop Xyril thinking? Look at them. They seem more like mercenaries than adventurers."
"Shh. They'll hear you!" Priestess Kalia whispered back.
Her uncertain expression suggested that she was not entirely convinced.
"This is as far as we go on horseback."
G6 swung down from Kira. Edmund and Lord Zen immediately followed, guiding their horses toward a sturdy tree where the reins could be secured. The priests copied them somewhat less gracefully.
"One of you stays with them on the ground," G6 said.
Both men understood the problem. The priests might be useful for healing, but they could not move through the upper canopy with the same speed. Any rapid reconnaissance would require the party to split.
Lord Zen looked toward Edmund.
"I am not really… sociable."
Edmund sighed.
"I need to be at the Captain's side."
"I'm not waiting for you to decide."
G6 took two quick steps toward the nearest massive pine and planted her boot against the trunk. Wind lifted beneath the push. Her hand closed over a thick branch more than ten feet above the ground, and the rest of her body swung underneath it. She hooked a knee over the wood, pulled herself up, and settled into a crouch with one palm braced against the bark.
Priestess Kalia and Priest Felon stared.
G6 glanced down at her companions.
"One of you will follow me after you sort that out."
She turned toward the neighboring tree and pushed off. Her leading boot found the broad base of a branch close to its trunk; her knee bent to take the landing, then straightened into the next leap. Wind carried her across the gaps and softened each contact with the wood. By the time the first branch stopped trembling, she was already two trees farther on.
Lord Zen watched her disappear farther into the canopy.
"Edmund."
A faint smirk appeared.
"This one is yours."
Before the butler could object, Lord Zen murmured, "Full-Body Enhancement," and ran toward the same trunk.
Physical Enhancement drove his upward push. He caught the lower branch with both hands, swung a leg across it, and hauled himself high enough to plant his feet. His next leap carried him after G6.
Edmund stared after him.
The last trembling leaves marked where Lord Zen had vanished.
He pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Right."
The two priests looked at him expectantly.
"We shall follow their path from the ground. For your own safety, do not stray more than three paces from my side."
"Y-yes, sir," Priest Felon answered.
Edmund started forward, with Priestess Kalia and Priest Felon remaining close behind.
Above them, G6 continued advancing through the canopy.
Echo Trace.
Wind moved outward from her position, gathering the faint disturbances produced beneath the branches.
"I am going out."
Daunt emerged from the chained rose behind her right ear in a brief shimmer of blue light. His paws found the branch beside her with effortless balance.
"Help me scout ahead."
"On it."
He bounded away through the trees, his silver-white form disappearing between the branches.
Lord Zen landed behind G6 a moment later.
"Captain, why are you not using Reaper's Ascent for speed?"
"I am using it. Just… subtly."
She pushed from another branch.
The difference was visible once he watched carefully. Wind was not carrying her outright; it was assisting the momentum she already created. Each leap stretched farther than it naturally should, each landing absorbed with almost no sound before she moved again.
Lord Zen followed as best he could.
The deeper they went, the less sunlight reached them. Branches knitted overhead until the bright morning beyond the forest became a muted green twilight. The ordinary chorus of birds and insects had also begun thinning.
G6 checked the next branch, the ground beneath it, then the shadows to either side. Her weight was already transferring into the landing when her boot pressed through a nearly invisible strand of silk stretched across the wood.
The strand caught across her ankle and pulled taut.
"FUCK!"
Her upper body carried forward while her trapped foot jerked sideways. She reached for the branch, but her fingers scraped bark and found nothing to grip. The web's anchoring twig snapped under the pull, releasing her into the gap between the trees with a length of silk trailing from her boot.
"CAPTAIN!"
Lord Zen's shout followed her down.
Wind Cushion.
A dense spiral of air gathered beneath her. G6 struck it hip-first; the cushion compressed, slowing her fall before she could hit the roots below. She pulled her knees toward her chest and turned with the pressure, bringing her boots underneath her.
She glared toward Lord Zen through the branches.
"I'm fine."
She pushed off the fading cushion toward a bare patch of earth and landed with bent knees. One hand tore the loose silk from her boot while her eyes swept the ground around her.
The forest floor had changed.
What should have been damp soil and fallen leaves was covered in pools of glistening green mucus. The thick substance clung to exposed roots and gathered inside shallow depressions, its surface moving faintly beneath the filtered light.
Daunt landed nearby, his muzzle wrinkling.
"It seems we have officially entered their territory."
Lord Zen descended more carefully and landed several paces away, deliberately choosing a patch of clear earth. The worry that had crossed his face during G6's fall disappeared beneath alert concentration.
"Let's move forward, but leave traces for Eddie to follow."
G6 snapped a dead branch from a nearby tree. Holding it at arm's length, she lowered one end into the nearest pool and lifted a small amount of the green substance.
"Hmm. This melts skin, right?"
"Indeed," Daunt answered. His ears shifted toward the surrounding trees. "I detect no movement."
"Me neither. I've had Echo Trace spread over twenty meters around us. Nothing."
G6 tossed the contaminated branch aside.
Lord Zen had already drawn his sword. He used the point to carve deeply into an exposed patch of ground.
0
G6 glanced over.
"'O'?"
"Zero."
He deepened the angular mark until it was large enough to see from several paces away.
"Whatever. Make it big enough for that old man to see."
"I believe Edmund's eyesight remains functional."
"For now."
Lord Zen wisely chose not to answer.
They moved on.
The changes in the forest became more pronounced with every hundred paces. Green residue spread across the roots and lower trunks. In several places, bark had begun sloughing away where the venom had eaten through it. The air carried a faint acidic tang that irritated the back of the throat.
More troubling was the silence. No birds called overhead, no insects stirred among the leaves, and no small animals fled before their approach.
They stayed on the ground. Above them, webbing thickened between the branches until the route through the canopy narrowed to a tangle of silk. Even the path at their feet demanded care: strands crossed between roots at ankle height, while others stretched across their chests and faces, visible only where a sliver of light caught them.
G6 slowed.
The forest was not empty.
It was waiting.
A faint skitter disturbed the shadow beneath a twisted root.
G6's hands moved.
Her twin reaper daggers appeared from her Dimensional Vault, one in each hand. Crimson raw mana gathered from her palms and flowed along the matte-black blades, coating their edges in a dense, quiet sheen.
"Ready."
Beside her, Daunt lowered his head as a growl vibrated through his chest.
Lord Zen brought his drawn sword forward. Pale raw mana gathered around the steel, the manifestation steadier than it had been during his earliest lessons beneath Daunt.
This is going to be a grind, G6 thought.
The absence of natural mana did not empty the reservoir inside her. What it removed was the environmental current she had learned to draw upon so unnaturally easily.
Everything here had to come from within: Mana Form, Wind, Echo Trace, Reaper's Ascent. Her reserve remained immense, but every ability carried strain through the same flesh-and-blood pathways that had already failed her before.
Lord Zen had even less room for waste.
No spectacle, then. Fine.
Green lights appeared beneath a root ahead. Another cluster shone beside a trunk to the left, then more to the right. As the shapes eased out of hiding, the glimmers resolved into eyes.
Skittering clicks spread around the three of them. Jointed legs gripped roots and pressed into the leaf litter, but the bodies behind them stopped short of a charge.
G6's attention dropped to their raised abdomens.
"LEAP UP!"
She drove upward toward the nearest thick branch as green venom erupted through the space around them.
"STONE SHELF!"
Lord Zen's chant came at the same instant. A thick slab of earth thrust upward beneath his boots. He bent his knees against the sudden rise as venom splashed across the stone's front edge instead of his legs.
Daunt sprang onto a low branch. Beneath him, the converging sprays struck the places where they had stood. Leaves shriveled in the green pools, and a violent hiss rose from the exposed roots.
G6 caught her branch with one hand, brought both boots onto it, and dropped into a crouch. Below and to her left, Lord Zen steadied himself on the shelf.
"FUCK! SNEAKY BITCHES!"
Her cloak settled behind her as she looked down.
The darkness sharpened.
Movement separated into bodies, distances, angles, and lines of attack.
"ZERO. CODE RED."
Lord Zen's expression tightened.
Greenhill flashed briefly through his mind: G6 establishing the field codes, Code Red assigned to disadvantageous conditions.
"Are we to retreat, Captain?"
"Like hell we have that luxury."
She scanned the moving shapes beneath them.
"We're finishing this. Daunt, listen. Find a cave-looking dungeon. You'll recognize it immediately if it's man-made."
Daunt looked toward her from the neighboring branch.
"How?"
"You just will. Go."
The Fenrir growled.
"Don't die."
Then he disappeared through the trees.
G6 remained above the swarm, studying it through Perception. The shadows, clicking legs, raised abdomens, and glistening venom ceased to register as chaos. Her attention divided them into manageable pieces.
"Five at two feet tall. Six at four feet… and three at seven feet tall."
Her voice carried the same tone she might have used while counting ammunition.
Lord Zen tightened his grip on his sword.
Pure Mana Form attacks, he thought. This is going to hurt.
G6 tracked the clusters moving below.
"Yeah. Right."
She pointed toward the cluster on their left, then shifted her daggers toward the larger bodies crowding the right.
"You take the 21 o'clock cluster. I've got 15 o'clock."
Lord Zen looked toward the group she had assigned him.
"But the 21 o'clock has the two-foot small ones. You're giving me the handicap."
"Never underestimate your enemy until it's over, Zero."
A faint smile appeared beneath G6's hood.
"Now… let's clean up this batch."
G6 stepped off the right side of her branch. Below her, one of the seven-foot spiders reared its abdomen to follow the drop.
She fell with both daggers held close, watching the wet gleam at the creature's spinneret. It spat. Only then did she turn her hips and drive Reaper's Ascent sideways through her descent.
The venom shot past her shoulder and burst against the branch she had left.
She came down beside a four-foot spider already turning to intercept her. Its front leg stabbed toward the landing. G6 set her left boot outside the descending point and cut across the exposed joint with her left dagger. Crimson Mana Form drove the edge through; the severed limb struck the earth beside her foot.
The creature's weight dropped toward the missing support. G6 followed its flank before the remaining legs could close around her, turned her right wrist, and drove the second dagger backward into the softer underside of its abdomen. She pulled the blade free as its body sagged.
A smaller spider skittered across from the left-hand cluster and fired silk at her ankles.
G6 lifted her forward foot. The strand caught beneath her instep instead of binding both legs together. When it tightened, she let it draw that foot inward and pivoted on the other, stepping around a projecting root rather than trying to stop the pull.
The silk caught against the root. Beyond it, the spider was still rushing toward the place where she had stood. The sudden change in tension dragged its abdomen sideways; two legs scraped for purchase, leaving its head exposed as it stumbled past the obstacle.
G6 planted her lifted foot, met it with a downward thrust through the eye cluster, and withdrew her dagger. A short cut freed the silk from her boot before the body finished collapsing.
The seven-footer that had fired from below her branch lunged across her right side. Its abdomen rose again as it closed.
She stepped onto the smaller corpse before it settled flat. The shell dipped beneath her boot, but the brief height was enough: she pushed off with a restrained lift of Wind, tucking her legs as the spray passed underneath. Her boots struck the seven-footer's back behind its head.
The creature bucked. G6 dropped low, one knee flexed and the other leg extended for balance. The hard shell slid beneath her soles as it veered toward a nearby trunk, bringing the side she occupied toward the bark.
She waited until the trunk filled her peripheral vision, then pushed away from the plate behind the creature's head. Wind carried her backward over its body, turning her hips into a low, horizontal rotation.
Her right dagger cut first through a seam between plates. As her shoulders came around, the left crossed the same opening from the other direction. The resistance jolted up both forearms; she drew her elbows in to clear the blades before the spider's movement could wrench them from her hands.
G6 landed behind it with one boot sliding through loose leaves. She let the knee bend, recovered her footing, and turned with both daggers raised. The spider screamed beside the trunk, its legs staggering as the intersecting cuts opened across its back.
Across the battlefield, Lord Zen waited for a gap between the moving legs below his shelf. Venom was eating into the stone's edge. He stepped onto the last firm section and jumped toward a patch of clear earth, landing with his sword between himself and the left-hand cluster.
One of the smaller spiders rushed him. Lord Zen shifted outside its mandibles, planted his front foot, and drove his point into the nearest eye cluster. Pale Mana Form held close around the steel as it pierced the softer opening. The impact traveled through his wrist; he braced the hilt, withdrew along the line of entry, and stepped clear before the folding legs could catch his boots.
A second spider raised its abdomen.
He turned sideways. Venom skimmed his cloak and hissed against the edge. The creature followed its shot with a forward rush, one leg reaching to pin him. Lord Zen let it extend, then brought his sword across the joint in a short cut. The limb buckled, pitching the spider off line.
Another pair split around the fallen bodies and closed from opposite sides. Lord Zen backed toward the clear ground he had just crossed, keeping both in view until the nearer one committed to its approach.
"STONE SHELF!"
An angled slab thrust up beneath the nearer spider's reaching legs, lifting them and tipping the creature away from him. Lord Zen stepped onto the lower edge as it rose. The stone stood between him and the displaced spider, leaving him free to turn toward the one approaching from the other side.
It lunged at his legs.
He drew his forward foot back along the shelf. The mandibles snapped beneath his knee; the movement exposed the gap under its head. Lord Zen drove his Mana Form-coated point down into it, braced through the impact, and pulled the sword free before retreating a step up the slope.
On the far side, legs scraped over stone. He turned his blade toward the sound. The shelf had bought him room to fight one creature at a time, but his next spell would have to wait.
G6 caught another four-footer moving around the wounded giant. A foreleg swept across her path at chest height. She ducked beneath it and stepped close to the body, where the limb had no room to turn back on her.
Her left dagger entered the exposed joint. She pulled it clear as that leg gave way, turned beneath the sagging body, and drove her right blade into the neighboring joint. The spider lurched sideways. Beyond it, another abdomen lifted.
G6 withdrew and rolled toward a bare strip of earth beside a root. Venom struck where she had crouched. She came out of the roll on one knee, planted her other boot, and rose behind the trunk before the creature could correct its aim.
Across the clearing, Lord Zen's sword flashed above the edge of his shelf. G6 moved along the right flank, keeping a trunk or a damaged body between herself and the next raised abdomen whenever she could. Each time the spiders tried to close around her, she cut toward the nearest gap and forced them to turn.
The next four-footer met her beside a root slick with mucus. G6 checked her leading step before her sole touched it, shifted onto clear ground, and let the creature's foreleg pass her shoulder. Her dagger entered beneath its head. She pulled free as it fell and took a sharper breath than she intended.
Her grip remained steady, but she could feel the cost of each burst of Wind between the movements of her own body. There was no ambient current here to draw upon; her core and the pathways carrying its power had to bear the whole exchange.
Fine.
She stepped around another pool of venom.
Then be efficient.
The Reaper continued working.
「EDMUND'S TEAM」
Edmund had been leading Priestess Kalia and Priest Felon through the forest for more than half an hour.
Their pace stayed just below a jog.
"S-Sir Edmund…"
Priest Felon's breathing had become ragged. Priestess Kalia was not doing much better beside him.
Edmund looked back.
"What is it?"
"C-can we rest for a moment?"
"Did you not hear our Captain? She was clear: do not be a nuisance."
"I-I'm sorry, but they have been gone for so long…"
Priest Felon pulled his canteen free and drank while continuing to walk.
Edmund's mouth tightened.
"So am I. I would prefer to be accompanying the Captain."
The irritation in his voice made both priests straighten.
"However, she entrusted you to me. Which means you will keep moving until it is unsafe to do so."
Neither argued.
A short distance later, Edmund stopped so suddenly that Priestess Kalia nearly walked into him.
He raised one fist.
Both priests froze.
The forest had changed.
A glistening patch of green mucus covered one of the nearby roots.
Priestess Kalia stared at it.
"W-what is that?"
"Venom."
Edmund's attention swept across the surrounding ground.
"Do not touch it. It will not merely burn. It will liquefy your skin."
Priest Felon stepped away from the nearest pool without looking behind him. His heel came down on a damp stone and slid. His arms flew outward as his weight tipped toward the larger patch of venom behind him.
Edmund caught a fistful of robe between the priest's shoulders. He planted his own rear foot on dry ground, bent his knees against the sudden weight, and hauled Felon forward. The young man stumbled into him, boots scraping safely onto the path.
"I said, do not touch it."
Priest Felon went white.
"Y-yes, sir."
"Look!"
Priestess Kalia pointed toward the ground several paces ahead.
A large angular symbol had been carved into a patch of exposed earth.
0
Relief flickered across Edmund's face.
"Zero."
He crouched briefly to examine the marker before looking toward the increasingly dark forest ahead.
"We are on their trail. And we are already deep inside their territory."
The canopy had become thick enough to turn morning into twilight. Webs passed between the upper roots and low branches, many almost impossible to distinguish until they reflected a fragment of light.
Edmund rose.
"We go farther. Stay close, and be silent."
"F-farther?"
Priest Felon looked ahead.
"It is so dark…"
Fear won before caution did.
He reached for the pendant at his chest and murmured a brief prayer. Warm yellow light gathered around the holy focus, extending several feet around him.
Edmund turned sharply.
"Extinguish that light. NOW."
Too late.
The glow reached the webbing overhead.
Countless green reflections appeared within the silk.
Priest Felon stopped breathing.
A dry clicking sound answered from beyond the light.
Skitter.
Another followed.
Then several at once.
Priestess Kalia raised one hand toward her mouth.
"Oh, merciful gods…"
Six shapes emerged from behind the roots and darkness.
They were the smallest of the brood, each around two feet tall, though the spread of their legs made them appear larger. Their many eyes remained fixed on the three humans while their abdomens lifted.
Green venom pulsed at the tips.
"Get behind me!"
Edmund's dagger was already in his left hand. His right reached beneath his cloak and drew his sword. Pale raw mana flowed from hilt to tip in the controlled manifestation Daunt had forced him to learn over the preceding days.
He moved backward toward the thick tree, keeping his sword between the spiders and the priests. Felon reached the trunk first. Kalia was still hurrying around Edmund's left side when the nearest spider's abdomen contracted.
Edmund had begun returning the dagger to its sheath. He seated it as the venom left the creature, then stepped across Kalia's path and drove his shoulder into hers, shoving her toward the shelter of the trunk.
The shot passed behind them. Its edge caught his cloak with a hiss; the rest struck the ground beyond his trailing boot.
His freed left hand went beneath the cloak and came out holding a small, elegant crossbow. He kept the sword angled across his front while bringing the loaded weapon level with the spider's head.
—THWIP
The bolt crossed the short distance and struck its largest central eye. A faint trace of raw mana reinforced the tip as it penetrated. The creature shrieked, its front legs buckling beneath it.
Edmund was already shifting his aim past the collapsing body, though the crossbow in his hand was now empty.
The remaining five were already spreading out, their skittering steps forming a tightening half-circle around the tree.
"Stay close to the trunk," he ordered. "Do not move."
Priestess Kalia gripped her pendant with both hands. Priest Felon pressed himself against the bark beside her, his earlier light extinguished.
Edmund lowered the empty crossbow beside his hip and adjusted his grip on the sword. Pale Mana Form held close around the blade, illuminating the edge without carrying far beyond it.
The five spiders advanced.
And the butler stepped forward to meet them.
—To Be Continued…—