Chapter 10. Captive

I looked at the girl, Ione, walking behind me and scanned her body. She shrugged as if something had just tickled her, but I chose to dismiss it and focused on the screen that had emerged.

Archival Inspection.

General Information. Species: Elv’human Sex: Female Tier: 3 Level: 4

Physical and mental attributes. Strenght: 15 Intelligence: 110 Constitution: 25 Agility: 30

“Are this the average human stats?” I wondered in a barely audible tone. “Actually, what was that ‘Elv’ thing attached to the species? Isn’t she human then?”

I’d forgotten about it, but the Archival integration was now complete, and it served the same purpose as some [Identify] skill from any of the games I’d play now a lifetime ago. I only had to focus my eyes on one thing and ask what it was. Point and shoot. It had to be something alive, though. Plants, animals, and now Ione. The result was always a little description and their stats.

At first, I was just like a kid with a new toy, but then I realized it was just boredom kicking in.

After my attempts at calming Ione partially worked of last night, she started crying and almost immediately went to sleep. This morning, however, was like if another person had wakened up in her place. It definitely wasn’t anything that I’d said, as I knew my comforting skills were close to none existent. But since she woke up, Ione started nagging me to escort her to the location of the attack, insisting we needed to find her father.

Naturally, I opposed to it. I didn’t think it would be a good idea since anything over there could trigger Ione into another panic attack. What if her father was dead? To confirm that, I feared we would need to dig out the bodies. And I certainly wasn’t in the mood to explain why there were one and a half of them missing. Also, if I wasn’t careful with what information I gave out about me, eventually, someone was going to piece together that I ate a human just to evolve.

How was I going to justify that one? Certainly, explaining the truth didn’t seem like a good decision, for obvious reasons.

So, considering all this, why we were currently walking towards the location of the carts?

Well, because in the end, I conceded. This girl could be incredibly annoying if she wanted to, and now that she believed I wasn’t going to eat her, she was pushing it.

“How much— how much is left?” she asked, catching her breath.

“Soon,” I said for like the umpteenth time since our journey began. Walking across this forest wasn’t the same thing as jumping through the trees. There was a lot of vines, roots, and thorns to watch out for. I didn’t have to worry about me though because even with this new appearance, the carapace still protected most of my body.

Back at the cave, I caught a glimpse of my current self on the water’s surface. It was mostly how I already imagined it. What previously was just my head transformed into a half humanoid body, while my lower side remained to be a spider’s. My carapace had also changed its color, although it seemed to be temporary. Now it was grayish, but slowly maturing into a darker tone. Perhaps in a day, or two, my carapace would return to its previous black.

“Ouch!” Ione squealed.

I abstained from smiling. “You forgot to step carefully, didn’t you?” If she wanted to get under my skin, I could play that game too. Children don’t like being reminded of their mistakes, and although she looked older, her behavior so far had been all too childish. Seriously, yesterday she was terrified, and now she was overstepping the subtle and unspoken boundaries between two strangers.

“I wouldn’t if you just let me ride you.”

“Absolutely not!” I snapped. “For the fifth time, Ione, I’m not some wild animal!”

“Then let me ride him.” She pointed towards Alpha, who was above our heads in the trees, filling a watchdog’s duty.

“That’s out of the question too. He’s watching over us.”

Actually, I was the one watching through him, but I didn’t want to reveal that.

She pouted, crossing her arms. “You’re no fun.”

“Then you better get used to it.” I chastised.

“So, no riding?”

“No riding.”

“But you’ll still help me find Papa, right?” She asked, fidgeting.

“Yes,” I said. If only to get rid of you.

Using my claws to cut us a path amongst the wilderness, I began to pick up the speed. To tell the truth; the harsh terrain we were walking on was just one of the reasons why we were moving so slow. I also was minding our surroundings looking for any dangerous threat. However, since it had been awhile, and all the other heat signatures I’d detected during that time were just minding their own business and staying away from us, I decided to make haste.

At the beginning of this trip, I got a shiver down my spine when I considered the possibility that the man I ate was her father, as that would just be my luck. However, from the vague descriptions obtained from Ione; I could now be assured that wasn’t the case.

All that I knew so far after Ione's cries of last night, were a bunch of hazy details that I had to put together on my own to form a theory that made some sense. I discovered that she and her father were traveling in a group until they were attacked by another armed group almost two days ago. Apparently, although their guards fought back the best they could, they were all taken captive in the end. However, before the fighting had died down entirely, Ione's father told her to run away using the chaos as a distraction, more or less, explaining how she got into the forest.

There was still a lot of unknowns only Ione could answer, but I didn’t push her to do so.

Under our new pace, the abundant vegetation stopped prevailing, and we arrived at an open clearing. The rudimentary road was extending from east to west, and in the middle, were the remains of a violent encounter that had left at least six people dead.

“Here we are,” I declared, leading the way.

The scenery before us was less crude than the first time I'd seen it now that the bodies were deep below the ground. But it was still something shocking to see, especially for Ione.

“You think you can tell me now what happened here?”

No reply came to me. Turning my body, Ione was standing at the side of the road with an absent expression on her pale face.

“You okay, girl?” I shook her, bringing her back.

She nodded but didn’t say a word.

“They came out of there,” Ione said eventually, between sniffs. Her arm raised, pointing towards the direction of the first wagon. “Someone shouted something. We managed to avoid the fire, but…”

“…But the others didn’t.” I refrained from saying as I looked at the burnt carts. The fire had also consumed most of the supplies inside them, and the ones that somehow had managed to remain intact laid scattered across the ground. It was vast assort of different goods. Some food —most of it spoiled—, rudimentary lanterns, oil, candles, and even textiles. Seeing all of that, and using peerless reasoning, I deducted this world wasn’t that advanced. Or at least not in the same level as Earth was.

That carried both good and bad implications that I would need to consider later in the future, but for now, I had to focus on this current matter.

Since the rest of her group was taken captive, and Ione’s father was alive before she escaped, there was a fair chance he was still alive. That would be the best scenario for me. Rescuing the group, while at the same time reuniting parent and child, would grant me some of their gratitude. Hopefully, enough to answer some of my questions willingly.

“Ione,” I said once a good chunk of time had passed. “Did your father told you to run in a specific direction?”

Her arm rose following the road and pointing east.

“What’s over there?”

“Tamvar,” she replied.

“It's that a city? A town?”

She nodded, once. This place was eating away her newfound convictions, and it was just saddening to see it happen.

“Ione?” She perked her head at my words, and change of tone.

“Don’t worry, we will find him.”

She nodded again, but stronger this time.

Well, that was easy.

I thought for a second after looking at everything that was before us. The group that had attacked Ione and her father didn't even bother to concealed their tracks, and finding them was just as easy as following the trail of clues they left behind. Using a combination of the skills [Infrared Detection] and [Tracking] created an almost perfect view in my mind where even the most significant details stood out. A faint footprint in the mud here, or a broken branch over there. I would have missed most of them if not for the skills. They were extremely convenient.

We only had to walk for over half an hour until we arrived at what I guessed to be their camp. Five tents planted forming a circle, and some incomprehensible chatter was going around. However, seeing this campsite before me, I got the feeling that something wasn’t right. The men and women walking from side to side were all wearing a uniform, long carmine coat that reached just above the knee, with a strange symbol drawn on it. Some of them had equipped a long metallic barrel strapped at their backs that I supposed was the so-called musket, while others had an unmistakable sword hanging from the side.

“Sweetheart,” I turned my body towards Ione and asked her a question, still unsure if I wanted to know the answer. “What does your father do for a living?”

“He’s a smuggler.” She chirped out loud.

I flinched. “Keep your voice down, Ione.” I reprimand her in a whisper, yet my tone carried an ‘or else’ warning in disguise. It was no empty threat, though. Last night had been very productive on many fronts, and knowing what had happened to Ione and her father was just the tip of the iceberg. I had also eaten the spider’s bodies retrieved from the tunnels and laid two more eggs with the biomass gained. Beta’s death had left a void that needed to be filled, after all.

That came without saying that I had also gained the [Arachnid Silk] ability, and although my overall aim gave too much to wish for, it was still enough to slap some of it over Ione’s mouth if she didn’t mind her voice. As much as I liked the idea of getting this over with as quickly as possible rushing it now would only get me captured or killed.

Moreover, for a moment I even considered a complete retreat. This was too big a risk to be taking it lightly. There had to be safer ways of gathering information that wouldn’t imply getting shoot at. However, in the end, I decided to stay. There was no point in debating it now since I’d already given my word to Ione, and that has always meant something to me. Hence, I quickly dispersed those thoughts of running away and focused how to tackle this situation.

But a smuggler, really?

I sighed inwardly.

I’ll assume breaking someone out of jail is still considered a crime even in this world. And here I thought I would be doing something righteous for a change.

Noticing Ione with a conflicted expression on her face, I followed her eyes till I saw a cart with a big metallic cage mounted on the back. In it, there were three people? I wasn’t so sure because of the difference between each other. The first one was human, as far as I could discern, but the other two didn’t fill the description, at all. One was bulky and small, while the other had cat features? And even a tail!

“Papa,” Ione whispered, putting my attention back on the first man, the human. The resemblance was there; he was Ione’s father for sure. I could tell she wanted to run right towards him and was having a hard time trying not to. Was she minding her surroundings for the first time, or was her subconscious preventing her from making a fuss? I didn’t know nor care. I was just grateful she wouldn’t reveal our position amongst the trees by making a foolish mistake.

She looked at me, with sad puppy eyes, but I merely shook my head.

“We will wait for nightfall,” I stated as a matter of fact.

A lot of this encounter was still under the shadow of doubt, and I wanted to have the more advantage on my side as possible. From the time we had been watching over this camp, I counted at least ten armed guards, and less than half of them was wearing a rifle. A bullet was still a bullet, and I wasn’t going to bet my life on [Robust Exoskeleton] to work as a vest against projectiles. Also, despite my several attempts and failures at magic, I believed it was real, and the existence of a man that set fire to the carts almost instantly seemed to confirm it.

With all that firepower taken into consideration, what I needed was some cannon fodder.

Lucky for me though, because I just knew the creatures fit for that kind of job.