章 45: Setting Off

Much like Mary, Shin picked a light leather armor and opted for two weapons, a good warbow and a longsword to cover both melee and ranged combat. But even with that, he wasn't sure of his current skill with those two weapons so he headed to the backyard of Mary's shop, there she had some barrels he could practice on with the bow.

Ase looked through the armor and weapons, not finding anything that might interest her. She is far more comfortable fighting with her claws and fangs than with swords and maces. Armor didn't interest her either as even the lightest and the best made failed to meet her first requirement, silence.

While Ase boasted high physical power and could probably wrestle two large men, her fighting style resembled that of cats. She prowls in the shadows and kills her targets with a single bite to the neck. Her claws are merely for holding onto her prey and she barely uses them to slash.

So instead of weapons, Mary suggested that Ase pick some bombs that she could plant inside enemy camps while sneaking around as a cat. After counting the weight of her clothes as was able to fit three large bombs and two small ones inside the storage bag Mary picked for her.

In the meantime when Shin tested his weapons outside Mary had come up with a simple plan. They'll track the camp and send Ase and Char to sneak inside, grab the money, and plant bombs in their place. They'll then sneak back out and blow the whole place into the heavens. The assassins should attack right after and slaughter everyone inside, while the slower knights would just clean the mess and write a report about finding a destroyed imperial camp.

When Mary proposed her plan to Shin he agreed. "Low risk, high reward. We get in, get back out and blow it. They won't know what hit them."

Ase on the other hand didn't seem that excited about the plan, "How am I supposed to ignite the fuse?" She looked at the mobs in her hand. They were spherical and had a short fuse on top, they'll explode in less than five seconds.

Char, being a little spider jumped on the table and lifted one of her limbs. A candlelight burned over it and she smiled. Shin looked at the girls, "She's my tamed…spider. I can make her use my magic."

"You can?!" Mary didn't know that was possible. All the tames she met could only command monsters and animals, not give them abilities. But she explained that that ability is quite limited as he's the one taking its burden and the additional cost of transferring it. If he can normally cast ten spells, making Char cast them would drop his count to just six and with a fair bit of lag.

Arachne took over and sat on her butt. It was weird seeing a spider sitting like that, and it only got weirder when she started speaking like a human. "If the fuse is too short, we can use my threads to extend." She reached back into her butt and pulled a long fine black thread.

In a spider's body, the tread was far too small to be useful, but in her human form, she could produce threads as thick as a human finger and as durable as steel, but they could burst as fast as paper covered in oil.

"So your webs are strong and durable but weak to fire?" Mary looked at her, "Did no one try to use that against you before? Like, burn your web?"

"They are coated in my venom which evaporates when burned. I'm not affected by it, but anyone else would die breathing that." Arachne smiled, "The whole world would die in the biggest toxic smoke storm ever." She giggled, "But I also used to cover my enemies in the web and set them ablaze."

Shin looked at Mary with a tired face, "Her nest was in the underworld, exactly inside a burning volcano. The demons she kills and eats worked tirelessly to make sure fire and lava don't get into her nest and release the toxic gas."

Ase who was staring at Char for a moment finally spoke, "You pull threads out of your ass?"

Char turned toward her with a confused face, "Yep."

Arachne had to intervene before the misunderstanding grew longer. "We spiders have an extra hole where a tail should be, it's called the spinneret. Threads come from there, imagine it like a regenerating tail."

"That's still my ass or butt? Is that what you humans say?" Char said with a passive smile, only for Arachne to growl back at her.

"That isn't the same place! I'll not get into the specifics with you." Arachne sighed and looked at Mary, "For now, let's…So we shit webs?" Char cut her immediately and Arachne cried with a frustrated screech, "SHUT UP!

"So that's why they saw spiders' houses are shitty." Ase looked at her with a smile.

Char growled for a moment, "My house isn't…" But she then paused, "Wait, you're right. They are shitty, 'cause I shit them out!"

At that moment, Char felt Arachne smacking her soul back inside as she tried to fully take over. She grew into a large spider the size of a sheep and smacked Ase on the head with one of her limbs, "You shut up as well, cat!"

Mary looked at her, "I know this is late now, but is Char's body okay transforming like this? I mean you can grow bigger or turn into a human."

"Don't worry, the moment she ate my egg and ingested my soul her body transformed. She isn't a normal spider, she's a different creature now." Arachne turned back into her human form, sitting naked on the desk. They were lucky only they were inside Mary's office.

"She's now a demon spider. This thing." She shifted back into her large spider form and Shin sighed, "Why did you even shift?"

"I know they sound cool to humans, but demon spiders are just the spiders that live in the underworld, they are still bugs there." She then giggled, "But imagine thousands of spiders my size swarming a city, nightmarish right?"

"So you were just a bug in the past?" Mary tilted her head but Arachne giggled with a smug face. Shin couldn't believe that a spider was able to make such an expression. "She only ate one of my eggs, not nearly enough to achieve anything. This is a heavily devolved form. We'll probably need to find my body to get my full power."

"The eggs are protected by a shell, but won't your body rot away? Or get eaten by those abominations?" Mary had a concern, and it was valid.

"Arachne's body won't decay. She technically had an immortal body, even if she died of starvation, her body remain in perfect condition for at least a hundred thousand years." He sat on a chair, "True immortality is a myth, it doesn't exist. But some beings can get really close to it."

"I'm not the only one that got close." Arachne sat on her butt and cross her front two arms, "Many got, but none managed to beat time at the end."

"You're right, even now, we don't have that much time. Let's go." After gathering everything they saddled the horses and rode straight out of the city with the prisoner woman tied to the back of one of the horses like a grain bag.

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