These hairs almost made me want Cellestra to run her hands over them, but she didn’t seem intent on doing that.

My abdomen, though…

It was beyond huge. Seriously, I must weigh over a few tons, right now.

My head was twice as broad as Cellestra’s shoulders, and probably as tall as her hips to her chest. My legs had grown proportionately in order to support all that weight. I never imagined I’d grow to this size. I guess all the power that came with it was useful for my goals, though. To think I wasn’t even at my maximum size yet…

It was quite scary.

There would be no way for me to hide from anything at this point. The vegetation in this forest was nowhere near tall enough.

“You looking at your options again?” Cellestra said with a smile.

I noticed she’d already laid out the pieces of paper before me. Instead of using them, I simply gestured no with my huge pedipalps. I then spelled some words for her.

“Already done that. Got everything sorted.”

My senses were completely sharp at this point. It also made me realize I was starving, as I had predicted already. What time was it, anyway? I stood up and looked at the sky. As far as I could tell, it was almost evening already.

Had my evolution taken that long?

How much time would I still have to find out what exactly was going on with those humans? Nevermind that. There was no way that I was going to stay hidden with a body this large. What was I going to do?

I would likely be attacked on sight, and truly, I couldn’t blame them. How would I find out what their plans were like this? Would I have to wait until the day things were supposed to happen?

“Are you okay?” Cellestra asked.

“Am thinking,” I spelled out, after turning back to the paper.

“About?”

“What to do with humans. Cannot hide.”

Cellestra sighed. “You’ve been thinking about them non-stop, haven’t you?”

I wasn’t sure whether that was disappointment in her voice or whether she was worried for my well-being. Maybe it was a combination of both?

“I have. Do not want to kill innocents, but I cannot find out information easily like this.”

“I see why that is, yeah.”

Cellestra stared at the letters that were next to her and seemed to think about things for a while.

“I mean… there is one thing we can do that will prevent bloodshed, I guess.”

I lowered myself next to her sitting form and waited for her to explain.

“What you could do is have me go with you, scout the area and see if we can run into any humans. I can talk to them… interrogate them, to put it bluntly, after you manage to capture one. I’ve seen you work with your threads, I imagine capturing a human shouldn’t be much of an issue.”

That… did seem like a good idea, in theory. I was surprised she would be willing to do all this. Wouldn’t she be putting herself at risk like this? I mean, I would be there, but still.

“Sure?” I spelled.

“I mean… this is the one way to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, as I said. I know that is important to you. I would probably not forgive myself knowing that I could have avoided it if things go sour.”

If we could do as she said, and interrogate a human, there wouldn’t be a need to wait for the full week to end before making a move. We could capture them now, and see exactly what their plan was. From there, we would also know their intentions and exactly how innocent they were. Any risk involved in capturing one would be worth it for the knowledge we would gain. The elves wouldn’t come through here any sooner because of our actions. We would be able to completely divert these bandits’ plans.

That was, if I was strong enough to fight bandits. To be completely honest, I didn’t think I would have any issues taking on a fair number of them. The power I now held was many times that of my old life. I didn’t even include the physical properties of my new body in that, which were, truly, beyond reasonable.

“Okay, will accept,” I ultimately spelled.

I would just have to make sure to keep Cellestra safe. As long as she was near me, I’d have plenty of tools to do so. Besides, she would still have her own magic and this new barrier that I was trying to teach her. If she mastered that, I would be more than comfortable with her being there.

“Better practice spell well,” I added, trying to somewhat joke about the situation. It was hard to joke though, when all I had were pieces of paper. It just didn’t have the same feeling to it.

“I will,” Cellestra said. “Don’t you worry.”

“Good. Will eat now. Am starving.”

“I won’t hold you up,” Cellestra said with a smile. “I’ve already eaten. Thank you for your catch earlier. That’s going to be enough for a few days.”

I smiled in my mind at her kind words as I skittered over to the corpse of the boar that was still lying in the grass. I tore away the skin with my massive fangs to reveal the flesh underneath. I then started a grand dinner.

Though, with my new size, it didn’t seem quite so grand anymore. The boar was large enough that I knew I wouldn’t die of starvation anytime soon, but I didn’t think it was enough to quite fill my stomach.

Eating took a while as this creature’s flesh was tough. I was happy I’d upgraded to the highest level of jaws and teeth. It helped out significantly. After finishing, it was already starting to darken as the sun was setting.

I imagined tomorrow would be the day we headed out and started the hunt for humans.

It sounded weird in my mind, but that was pretty much what Cellestra had suggested. The sooner we got working on that, the better our chances of success. I would have liked to go back to the dungeon’s first floor to see if I could get any more experience, but there weren’t any enhancements for me to get, and I already had a bunch of evolution points left over, so it was quite pointless.

It made me wonder what creatures would even give me experience at this point. The creatures inside the dungeon didn’t seem to give as much as some creatures in the past had given me. I hoped it wasn’t a sign of them becoming “too easy” for me.

Then again, they were actually easy. The hardest thing I’d fought in there was probably that sand-covered slime, and even that wasn’t so hard, considering the creature had hardly any offensive capabilities.

I skittered back to the letters where Cellestra stood and waited. She’d done a few things inside the house and then checked up on me to see how far I was with dinner. When I had almost finished, she went back to the letters.

I truly wished I’d get that speech soon…

“Anything you want to talk about?” Cellestra asked.

The truth was that there were many things that I wanted to talk about, but it was far too much to communicate with the letters. I would probably save all those questions for when I could talk.

“Not much at the moment. Want to head out tomorrow? Search for human?”

“If I can sleep somewhat okay, I don’t mind heading out tomorrow. How far were they away?”

I thought about how long it had previously taken me to encounter them. At the time, I think I walked for about four hours before I heard them? I thought I could cover that distance in an hour or two right now, and without even running.

“About two hours of walking.”

“You do walk quite fast though. I imagine it’s more like three hours for me, if not more.”

Cellestra sighed. Apparently, she wasn’t keen on walking. Was there something preventing her from going out that far? Three hours wasn’t that much.

“Want me to carry?” I asked.

“Kealyna… I’d rather not have you do that. The reason I’m asking is that I don’t have any proper footwear made for longer distances. If I’m out for that long, I’ll just develop blisters. I have salves and such for that, but still...”

“Can carry. Not a problem.”

“You would do that?” She asked as she cocked her head.

I didn’t foresee any issues at all carrying her. She could just sit in front of my abdomen with her legs around my thorax and it should be fine. The thought of carrying the elf around was odd, but not unpleasant in the slightest.

“Okay. If you’re okay with that, let’s do that.”

“Will work on shelter now,” I spelled out.

I was going to have to hurry with it, as night was falling, and I’d like to get at least some ‘walls’ done before I needed to sleep.

“You do that. I’ll watch you work, if you don’t mind.”

I shook my pedipalps.

“Great.”

She paused for a second or two.

“And Kealyna… Thank you.”