His own fear rapidly morphed between a variety of emotions. He was stupid. Insane. Mad. Crazy. Out of his mind. Completely, totally bonkers. Actually, these were all the same words.

Zach just had to save the girl too! He was so stupid! Now the nightmare was following both the girl AND him! Why did he just grab her hand like that!?

Well anyways, he had grabbed the mysterious girl’s hand and led her back into the ruins looking for some semblance of cover.

Unfortunately, the spider was so enormous that it could simply step over many of the castle walls. It’s foremost legs crushed rocks and toppled some of the more freestanding structures. But it also didn’t seem intent on crushing Zach or the girl. Instead it seemed to want to get it’s man-sized fangs closer to them. Escape also didn’t seem likely since it had a total of eight large, red eyes.

Although.

He did seem to be moving a little bit faster than before albeit slightly. It felt like he was trying to run through warm honey rather than room-temperature honey. Yay. The good news was, the spider also seemed affected. It moved at the same speed as they did. On top of that some of the walls were simply too tall for it to step over. This meant it was very VERY slow.

That was good. Maybe it was something he could use to his advantage.

From then on, he led his mysterious dream companion around the tallest walls he could find. The castle ruins were maze-like, but thankfully everything was open-aired, allowing Zach to scope out the locations of some particularly large, and not very ruinous walls.

“Hey!” The girl behind him suddenly called. He realized that he was still holding her hand, but he didn’t care right now. “Unhand me this instant!”

Wow. Seriously. He just saved her life. If anything, he held on tighter.

He chanced a look backward at the girl to see what was up. Even with his vision restricted to only looking at her, so to speak, through his peripheral vision, he could tell the girl was very beautiful. Sharp blue eyes peered out from behind a veil of golden hair, glaring at him with a sort of intensity while simultaneously harboring fear for the spider.

“I’m helping you.” He said without breaking stride. It wasn’t hard, everyone was moving so slowly it kind of felt like they were walking.

“Then, I refuse! I can deal with this on my own!”

Zach just ignored her for the moment, trying to think.

The problem was that they seemed to be going in circles. That wasn’t necessarily a problem in itself. He had dealt with the Zerean Werewolf by leading it in circles around a defensible point. In terms of speed, both monsters were laughably slow and he could keep his distance from them by employing this tactic. The only thing that would bother him was that he didn’t have a moment to catch his breath, and his current attacker, the giant “house” spider… yeah, let’s go with that… it didn’t seem to be running out of stamina. He needed a place to hide and that led him to another problem with going in circles.

It had something to do with the strange space. Every time he led them in that circle, the walls of the castle would sporadically rearrange themselves, giving him a completely new battlefield every time he rounded a corner. So even though they were moving in the same area, it seemed to change on him every time he took his eyes off of it.

“Who are you anyway and why are you here?!” the girl said again.

Seriously, did she not know that they were in danger. They didn’t have time for this.

“Look, we need to find some cover. We can’t keep running like this forever. And also, I need time to think!” He shot a dirty glare of his own back at the girl who seemed to be futilely trying to pull away from his grip. This seemed to lessen her struggles against him a little bit. “How about this, keep an eye out for a good hiding spot. Then I’ll distract it while you run.”

He couldn’t believe what he was saying. Distract it? The most he could do right now is walk it around a corner or something. He couldn’t outrun the beast completely. He didn’t even have any weapons. And even if he did, that thing’s vital spots were probably so high up in the air, he wouldn’t be able to reach it.

He led them underneath the archway of a particularly large wall, forcing the spider to make a detour. Enraged the spider let out a horrible, piercing scream.

A moment later, the spider's legs smashed into the ground a distance away, and the hulk of the monster peered out from behind the wall, spotting them immediately.

Damn it.

If only he had something powerful that could hit the spider way up there. Preferably a gun or something strong that would puncture it’s exoskeleton-- wait.

Didn’t he already have that in his arsenal? He summoned a rock from his inventory and held it in his free hand. Of course! He could also use his windows here!

The girl running behind him saw the rock shimmer into existence and her eyes widened. “How did you do that? No, wait. What are you planning on doing with that?”

He simply smiled innocently. “Once we find that hiding space, I’m going to throw some rocks, then we can hide.”

The girl looked at him incredulously. Hey. Sometimes simple plans worked out too.

“That’s never gonna work. It’s too high up in the air and besides, you're not going to damage that exoskeleton with a few pebbles.”

This girl was getting on his nerves but he could see her point. He could hardly believe the destructive power of his throwing arm himself. What would she expect if she didn’t see it in action.

“Just trust me.” He said after a while. “Look for a hiding place, and just trust me.”

The girl seemed to stop struggling after that. That was a relief. He was just about to leave the girl to her fate if she kept protesting. Miraculously, the ruinous terrain also seemed to turn more in our favor. And soon after, Zach spotted it.

There! A section of stone stairs led up to an elevated platform of wood which hadn’t quite deteriorated. Even from here, he could tell there was a space underneath that would allow for some decent coverage. That would have to be good enough. He pointed at an opening under the rocks.

“Go! I’ll distract it.”

The girl shot him an annoyed glare, as if daring him to order her again, but nonetheless dashed toward the covering.

Ok. He turned and faced the monstrous house spider, lining up his first shot very carefully. He ambitiously assumed that it would take one carefully placed shot to kill the spider outright. Instead, he missed the head by a couple feet, the projectile instead smashing into the spider’s fangs and doing no more damage than showering it with a sprinkle of debris.

Right. This was a nightmare. You weren’t supposed to be able to fight or win against monsters inside one. Kind of like a bad horror movie.

The spider, to its credit, didn’t immediately follow him, instead choosing to pursue the girl in the bright white dress. Actually, it was a nightgown now that he had a chance to look at it closer. But no matter. He sent another rock toward its face.

A direct hit! But even though he was level 12, it still wasn’t enough to kill it.

It let out an enraged screech and brought one of its massive legs down on the space he was just standing in. It swiveled its head in his direction, focussing all of its attention on him. To his delight, he noticed that his attack had wounded one of its smaller eyes.

Since it seemed to be focused solely on him now, he decided to try leading it toward a particularly dense patch of the taller walls.

…

Run. Faster.

He focussed on his running form, trying to move his legs as fast as possible even though they felt like they were made of lead. Slowly, he could feel the difference. His legs moved faster and now he himself moved faster. His vision of the world also sharpened to a manageable degree, allowing him to make out more details of the ruins.

No skill increases or system messages though. Maybe it was purely a mental thing.

Finally he was faster than the spider. As for his plan, he was just trying to ditch the stupid arachnid in the castle ruins. This newfound speed would help him quite a bit.

Zach ran up on the dense patch of walls he had identified as a good place to maneuver around. Now that he didn’t have to worry about the girl, he could lead it in circles around the patch.

To his delight, it was working! He led the giant spider around the tall walls several times. Since the walls were too tall for the spider to see over, much less climb over, he could slip away when it couldn’t see him. For good measure, he even launched a few more rocks, taking out the largest of its eyes and keeping it thoroughly enraged.

It actually reminded him a lot like his fight with the werewolf.

Slam.

A hairy leg smashed into the ground behind him. The next one hit even farther behind.

Now was his chance. The spider peeked out from behind the tall wall, spotting him immediately, even with several of its eyes damaged. Too late, he dashed around the corner out of sight.

But this time, instead of running in the same circle he had been leading the spider in, he made a beeline toward a different patch of walls. Before the spider peeked around the corner to find him, he ducked behind and hid himself from sight.

He could hear the spider let out a frustrated scream, then its heavy steps got quieter. Most likely, the stupid spider thought he had continued to go around that same patch of walls like he had been doing for the past five minutes.

He would have liked to have killed the beast on his own, but the power of his [Stones Throw] just wasn’t good enough to do more damage than take out his eyes. He would have to level that up when he got out of here.

Keeping his head low, Zach snuck back toward the hiding place the girl had run to. It must’ve been good luck that the ruins stopped changing on him because it was remarkably easy to find the hiding spot.

He crawled through the small whole to find the girl hugging her knees and glaring at him.

“What?” He asked.

“Nothing.” She said and looked away. “How did you do that? How did you lead it away?”

The hiding space was actually smaller than he expected. As such, when he entered, he had to pull his legs under him. And even then, the two of them were very close to each other.

“You mean the little house spider.” He chuckled at his clever wording. “Yeah. I led it in circles for several minutes, took out a few of its eyes, then gave it the slip. It’s probably still looking for me over there.”

The girl must’ve seemed uncomfortable with the distance between them, because she was trying very hard to look anywhere except at him. Now that he got a good look at her, she was very pretty and was currently wearing what looked like a nightgown. It was white everywhere except for some purple on the sleeves. It was long enough to cover her legs completely. Her long golden hair nearly touched the ground as she sat.

Suddenly, Zach fell backwards. The wall he had just been leaning on, seemed to have vanished. No, it got bigger. What was once a small hiding space was now triple in size!

“What the! Did you do that?”

“Go sit over there.” She said while practically pushing him away.

Zach scooted backward until his back was, once again, against the wall. And now that he was more comfortable, the wheels in his head turned. He was sure that the sudden changes to the strange space outside, when they were running around, as well as the sudden change just now was caused by the girl. But how? Was it because this was a nightmare in the literal sense.

“Hey, seriously. How did you do that?”

“Do what?” She asked in a pout, her eyes flashing between him and the exit.

“Make the space bigger suddenly.”

The girl looked at him for a while, trying to determine if he was serious. He pointed toward the walls and ceiling around them, but not a hint of recognition appeared on her face.

“Do you not realize what I’m talking about?”

“No. I have no idea what youre talking about. Now why don’t you explain to me how you ‘gave it the slip’.”

Hmm. So the girl was unaware that the scenery was shifting, even right in front of her own eyes. What did that mean?

“I let it chase me around for a while, then I hid behind a wall. It wasn’t really that hard.” Zach waved his hand in the air, indicating like it was no big deal. “Truthfully, the hardest part about the whole thing was that it is really hard to run in here. This is some kind of strange space that limits my movement.”

“Strange space?”

“Yeah. Like for example, if I were to stand up, it feels like I’m not touching the ground. On top of that, when I try to run it feels like I’m wading through water or honey even.”

The girl looked thoughtful for a moment. “I see… that would be a problem. But then how did you not get lost in the castle? It’s as maze-like as one of the divine towers.”

Uh. He gave the girl a flat look.

“Umm. I don’t know what the divine towers are. But the ruins did stop shifting the moment you took cover. So maybe you didn’t see.”

The girl looked at him incredulously. “You don’t know what the divine towers are?”

Zach just shrugged.

The girl narrowed her eyes at him, just for a moment. “Well, you must either be lying, though, I don’t see why you would lie about that, everyone knows what the towers are, or you live in a cave and have no life.”

Hey. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Do you live on Vera?”

He figured now was as good a time as any to reveal his otherworldly origins. Screw the prime-directive.

“Yes. Why--”

“Because I’m not from Vera.” He said simply. “I’m from a planet called Earth. We don’t have divine towers there.”

The girl shifted from hugging her knees so that she could sit in a more comfortable position, the nightgown covering her legs and making them look like she was sitting on a pillow. Then she crossed her arms.

“Blanchefleur Tulipalo. Normally I wouldn’t give out my name to ignorant, lying peasants like you.”

“Well, it’s good to see someone is finally warming up to me.” He grumbled. “Though, Blanchefleur Tulipalo is a bit much. Do you have a nickname?”

“A w-what?” She stammered.

“A nick-name. Where I come from, friends give each other nicknames or make them up themselves so that their friends can address them easier.”

“Friends…” She looked lost in thought for a moment. “I don’t really have any ‘nickname’ like you say.”

“Hmm. Ok.” Zach shrugged. “Do you have a middle name?”

“Karin.”

No. He was not going to call her Karin either.

“How about this.” He said after a little while. “Your first name literally means ‘white flower’, how about Snowy? Since snow is white and your name means ‘white’. And also because you are wearing white.”

The girl blushed and fidgeted with her nightgown.

“Very well, then. Let’s go with that.” She said quietly with the hint of a smile.

“Ok, well my name’s Zachary Trenner. You can just call me Zach for short.”

The girl, Snowy, nodded to him.

Zach clapped his hands together. Now it was time to get down to business. “Good! Now that we have gotten introductions out of the way. I have a plan.” An ear splitting screech reverberated in the space outside of the hideout. It seems that the spider had given up on finding Zach and was going to search for him elsewhere. “And it looks like we are going to need it fast.”

Zach shuffled around the hideout, positioning himself to get a better view of the ruins without being spotted. Snowy went back to hugging her knees. She was clearly not looking forward to going out again. Zach peeked out at the surrounding ruins, gauging the situation. The spider hadn’t found them yet, thank God, but it was also very tall and therefore had a good vantage point. If either of them went out now, they would immediately be spotted. Before that, he needed to explain his plan.

“See the tall walls over there.”

Snowy nodded.

“Ok. Well, the spider, as big as it is, can’t see over them. Nor can it climb over. This is good for us since they make a pretty solid defence. But actually, I think that they are tall enough for attacking the thing as well.”

“Attacking it? What do you mean.”

Zach scratched the back of his head, unsure of how to explain it. “Well, in biology class we learned about several limitations that bugs, insects, arachnids and the like, have. Those limitations, being weight.”

Snowy tilted her head. “What is biology class?”

He groaned. “It doesn’t matter right now. But it’s a fairly common thing in my world.”

“You know, I still don’t really believe you about that. I’m just following you because you might make good bait.” She said dryly.

“The point is…” he continued, trying to ignore her banter. “Insects and arachnids are supposed to be limited by the weight of their exoskeleton. Normally something as big as the house spider in front of us would be crushed by its own body. But that isn’t happening.” It probably had something to do with the nature of the nightmare dungeon. But he didn’t say that out loud. “I assume if we give it a little bit of pressure, that sturdy looking carapace of his might just crack.”

“So how does that relate to the attack power of the wall you were pointing at?”

Zach frowned. “When you say it like that, it makes me sound crazy.”

A hairy leg slammed down in front of the entrance, prompting them to duck inside and hold their breaths. Thankfully, the spider moved away, not noticing them or their rather loud talking.

“I want to knock over a wall on top of it’s head.” He whispered when he was sure the spider had left.

Understanding crossed Snowy’s face. Then she frowned.

“What?” He asked.

“How are you going to do that? I mean, I didn’t bring any tools that could fell a stone wall. Nor do I have any ground magic.”

“I was just thinking we would lead the spider around the wall until it knocked the wall over on itself. Or we could scour the ruins for some tools. I did see some tools at one point, although they were rotting. Maybe if we could navigate the ever changing ruins then we could-- wait.” He narrowed his eyes and turned to look at her, taken aback. “What did you say about magic?”

She gave him a questioning look. “Ground magic?”

He nodded.

“I just said I do not have any in my arsenal of skills.”

Zach retreated fully into the hideout. “Okay. Time out. We need to talk for a moment.”

Snowy looked a little relieved. She clearly did not want to leave the safety of the shelter. Besides, he could spare a few moments for this.

“What kind of magic do you have?” He asked. “No. Scratch that. Tell me about magic in general.”

She gave him yet another questioning look, this one with a hint of outrage. “It’s very rude to just ask about another’s magical abilities. And you are asking me about something you should already know about. Surely you live in a cave if you don’t know this much.”

Zach sighed. It seemed he needed to be more straightforward. He had already told her about being from Earth, so he might as well explain things to her so that she wouldn’t leave anything out of her explanations.

“Just because it’s common knowledge on Vera, doesn’t mean I know about it.” He calmly explained. “Like I said, I’m from a different planet than you. And the world I come from, it doesn’t have any magic, knights, or the so-called divine towers that you keep comparing the ruins to.”

She didn’t react any more than with a nod and a sceptical frown. As far as he was concerned, this was a major improvement from the girl that didn’t want to be saved by him earlier.

“I mean, not that I believe you or anything... Your world doesn’t have magic?”

He nodded.

“Your world is weird.”

“And I’d have to agree with you.” He nodded sagely. “Now, will you teach me magic, oh wise Snowy?”

She blushed a little at that but agreed.

“Very well. While I’m not going to tell you everything I know about magic, such would be a security risk to my family, I can explain the basics that everyone should already know.” She sighed, muttered something under her breath about him not having proper parenting then started.

“There are five official types of magic. Those being fire, ground, water, air, and light.” Snowy elaborated on her explanation by drawing a five pointed star on the ground in front of them. By now, Zach was getting used to the strange trickery on his eyesight and could actually make out what she was drawing. Surprisingly, the ‘magical diagram’ as she explained it was fairly reminiscent of religious symbols from Earth. He didn’t say anything though, and let her continue.

“Mages… in this world… are born with an affinity to one or more of the elements. I would say, for every five people born, only one is born with an affinity to at least one element. Though the strengths of those people, as well as how many affinities they are born with, may vary.”

Zach listened very carefully. It honestly sounded very familiar to him from somewhere. Where did he, oh. Right. The system window said his stats correlated to certain elements, didn’t it.

“And you are one of those people. You are a mage.” Zach realized out loud. “What kind of affinities do you have?”

“Affinity. Singular. I was only born with an affinity for air magic.” She said, a hint of pride seeping into her voice. “Though I am more adept than most people.”

“I see… How do you tell what affinity someone has?” He had a sneaking suspicion he already knew what his own affinity was. Fire. Because it came so easy to him the first time.

She looked up from the star drawn on the ground. “An affinity usually manifests itself purely by instinct, and usually at a very young age. For example, a person with an air affinity would naturally be good with sails in a boat preceding the discovery of their magic. Someone with affinity for water might be an exceptional swimmer just before they feel the magic at their fingertips. Or a mage with fire affinity would feel drawn to a piece of dry wood just before the magic extends from their hands.”

A chill ran up Zach’s spine. That sounded exactly like the first time he had used [Candle] to start his campfire. “The last one.” He said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m a fire mage.” He quickly activated [Candle] to prove it to her. An orange glow softly illuminated the space originating from the tip of his pointer finger. Then he quickly canceled the magic so that it wouldn’t drain his mana.

Snowy blinked, her mouth moving like she wanted to say something. Eventually she said, “I thought your world is devoid of magic?”

“It is. Why?”

“You just casually flaunted that ability in front of me without any visible strain or effort. Someone of your… inexperience shouldn’t be able to do such a thing.”

Huh. He wondered if that was because of the game-like system helping him. He just had to ‘desire’ for the spell to turn on or off and it did. So of course there was no effort.

“It’s true that I don’t have any experience. I only learned this a couple days ago.” Actually yesterday if he accounted for the no-time-loss-ness of his world switching. “But I don’t see why that matters right now. I also have one other spell on top of that. But that is it. That is the extent of my arsenal. How do you cast new spells.”

Snowy held up a hand. “Sorry. I can’t tell you any more. Magic is too complex to teach in so little time, and some spells are trade secrets. If you want to learn how to hone your skills, you would have to enter an apprenticeship with someone who knows what they are doing.”

“Alright.” Seeing as Snowy was quite content to just sit there and did not offer any more information, he figured he was done planning. “One more thing,” he added. “This is a yes-no type question. So you don’t have to reveal any big secrets if you don’t want to.” He looked out at the ruins and pointed at the tallest wall. “Can your wind magic blow that wall over?”

“No.” She stated without hesitation. “I’m strong, but not that strong.”

He smirked. “And what if I weakened one side by blowing holes in its base?”

She seemed to think it over for a bit. “That might actually work. Though, I won’t be able to help you in any other way. May I ask, how are you going to weaken the wall for me.”

“I told you already. I have two spells available to me. I’ll just use the other spell I know.”

Zach walked toward the house spider. In his opinion, it was just as fast as trying to run.

Upon seeing Zach, the house spider let out an enraged screech. Perhaps it recognised him? Anyway, it’s anger didn’t seem to have any impact on the spider’s speed, if anything, it seemed slower now. Zach just turned and started walking toward the tallest wall in the castle’s ruins, which he now figured used to be some part of an ancient lookout tower or something.

The rest played out at a laughable speed. It wasn’t adrenaline pumping any more, like the first time he had ‘ran’ from the spider. Anyone watching would surely underrate their performances. It was like a ten minute action scene paying out in slow motion… for the entire ten minutes. It wasn’t glorious, or exciting but it did give Snowy enough time to sneak around to the prearranged location. Zach was just leading the dumb spider to its death on the opposite end of the wall.

He panicked a little when he realized the spider was actually gaining on him. But the amount was so minimal that it wouldn’t even matter in the end, and he relaxed. The only reason it was slightly faster than he was, was because it didn’t have to deal with all the minor obstacles that Zach did. Eventually, Snowy was in position.

Zach walked to the edge of the wall, the spider trailing after him stupidly. Seriously, looking at it now inspired far different feelings in him than the first time he saw it.

Eventually he was next to the wall in question. He gave her a nod then walked around the opposite wall, disappearing from her sight. Above him, the sheer face of the wall loomed like an executioner’s axe, ready to strike. He only hoped it was tall enough to catch the spider.

Summoning his flint dagger from his inventory, he began making holes in the base. He imbued the dagger with fire, just like in his first fight against the Werewolf, then started slashing at the wall, the blade passing through stone like it was cottage cheese. When the charge on the dagger ran out, he imbued it again. He didn’t use his dagger skills though. That would have been a waste of mana. He was level 12 and had a lot of mana to spare, but he also needed every single drop of that power to go into breaking this wall.

He continued walking and cutting. The spider followed, maneuvering its massive bulk around the wall and directly into the target zone!

Perfect. Hopefully it would be enough to knock it over onto their oversized victim.

[Input Fire]

Zach poured the rest of his reserves into the skill, strengthening his dagger, then using it to carve massive chunks out of the wall. His mana hit rock bottom by the time he reached the end of the stretch. The charge on his dagger was spent. With everything set, now all he had to do was wave to Snowy, signalling to her to blow down the wall.

He couldn’t see her! A wall which wasn’t there before was blocking the way! The giant spider continued towards him menacingly.

What could he do!?

Zach called Snowy, but she didn’t seem to hear him.

He looked around him for some kind of answer when it came to him. He simultaneously stashed his dagger while pulling out the largest stone he could realistically throw from his inventory. Then launched the rock straight upward from his position on the edge of the wall using his famous [Stones Throw]. It curved in an arch similar to a signal flare.

A massive wave of force pounded the wall not a second later. Dust kicked up in all directions and the gusts literally blew him off of his feet. He rolled on the ground, deciding not to get up just yet. For now, he watched the scene unfold, absentmindedly noting the slight glow embedded in the wind.

The wall started to tilt.

Realizing what was happening, the spider started to move away from the wall.

‘Huh. It’s not as dumb as it looks.’

But it was too late. The spider was too close, and the wall was too tall.

The spider screeched its last, before a crunch cut it off prematurely. The wall collapsed around the spider, burying all except the legs farthest from it. Zach ducked his head as huge pieces of the wall rolled away from the scene in all directions.

Crumble, crumble, crumble...

[Defeated: Giant Trunk Spider (level 1)]

The arrival of the system message comforted Zach. It was a definite confirmation that the spider was dead after all.

‘So it was actually called a Trunk Spider. Huh,’ he thought.

It was strange he didn’t level up, though.

He tried to stand up, already thinking about what he would say to Snowy, only for a jolt of pain to rock up his left leg.

The feeling was excruciating, like someone had decided to drill into his shin from every direction.

He looked down to see what was wrong.

The sight sickened him. His left leg was twisted at the wrong angle. A large portion of it was turning purple. A stray boulder from the violently crumbling wall must’ve hit him.

Zach just decided to stay down and work on his breathing. Yeah. Breathing was a good thing to do in a situation like this.

*ping

[Nightmare Dungeon Conquered]

[Exit The Special Dungeon: y/n]

‘Ugh. Well, sorry Snowy.’

Zach was in too much pain. Besides, Zach figured they would likely never see each other again, anyway. After all, he was a prisoner.

‘Yes. Let me out of here.’

[Exiting the Special Dungeon]

[End Chapter 9]