"It's all about the journey, not just the destination."

No matter how much Elaine wanted to deny it, reality was often unforgiving.

They – the three of them, sat around a small campfire by the mountain. Ss’zsl had suggested they take a break for her to get an hour’s rest in. Obviously that wouldn’t be enough, but it was something.

She was spurred awake an hour later by the smell of food. Elaine was nervous about the prospect of what was essentially a spider making dinner, but considering Ss’zsl knew how to make one that fit the human palate, she kept an open mind about the idea. In fact, the smell the rather large pot gave off was actually appetizing.

“It’ll be ready soon, my dear. Don’t fret.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Huhuhu. I’ll make this a great meal just for you.”

“...”

Ss’zsl was still asleep, leaving Elaine to entertain the whimsical arachne alone. The zombie, on the other hand...

“Are you sure she won’t suddenly bite?”

“Hmm? That little thing? Don’t worry. There’s actually a higher chance it’ll attack me instead of you.”

“Why is that?”

“I told you it’s Tehr’s gift, right? Well, it’s his gift for you. Remember the strand of hair you gave him? He used it to imprint you to it. If you’re looking for a weapon to defend yourself with, that’s it.”

It was like the most natural thing for her to say. She didn’t even flinch.

“HUH??”

What was with that kind of development?! Elaine wanted to cry out, but was barely able to contain herself. Her? The master of an undead? How? Why?

She looked back towards the edge of the camp. The zombie was curled into a ball, motionless. She had long, unkempt auburn hair, and had a decently curvy body; probably a village beauty back when it was alive. Though all the appeal had gone as her body lacked a few chunks of flesh here and there, like an entire section of her waist and thighs. Her face was also a ruined mess, with her jawbones showing through her mangled cheeks. There was also a disturbingly large hole right in the middle of her forehead. The body itself was mostly covered in bandages, which reminded Elaine of her horrible attempt at patching Ss’zsl back in the den.

That was hers?

“What the fuck, why?”

Blanc giggled. She looked as if there was nothing surprising about it.

“You’re special, that’s why, dear one. At the very least, whoever gave you that Heart thought of you that way? Tehr simply made an investment. Do survive long enough to pay him back, understand?”

Great. Just what she needed. More weight on her shoulders. But at least she had a... weapon? Could she bring herself to treat it as such? It used to be a human, right?

She exhaled gravely, letting her gripes exit her body through her lungs. All she could do was to make the most of it.

“... How is it the ‘solution’ to our ‘problems’ anyway?”

“You’ll see when and if the time comes, dear. I won’t spoil the fun.”

Was it just her or did the spider itself winked at her instead of the human half?

“Why don’t you try giving it orders? It’ll follow anything you say, dearie.”

“Orders? Like?”

“Anything.”

“Uhh... sit?”

The zombie obediently, shakily sat in a sieza. It was sort of satisfying in a way.

“... what are you telling it to do?”

“You said I could order it anything!”

“I didn’t expect you to treat it like a dog, dear.”

“Well who was it—wait there are dogs in this world?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing...”

She spent some more time trying to familiarize herself with how she could order it around while Blanc continued cooking. In the short span of fifteen minutes she learned that the zombie could only recognize very basic, one word commands. It could do things like ‘sit’, ‘stand’, ‘jump’, ‘walk’ but not ‘pick up that branch’ or ‘look down’.

... Blanc was right. She really did order it like a dog.

Anyway, it was possible to compress longer orders into one-word varieties but a lot of information was lost that way. Instead of saying ‘look down’ for example, the zombie would understand if the order was just ‘look’ and have her finger point towards a direction. She wanted to try other things; it was her ‘weapon’, right? If so, then it should be able to ‘attack’. But she didn’t do so in fear of an accident.

“Here you go, dear.”

Before she knew it, Blanc had already finished cooking. The arachne handed over a small bowl filled with stew to her.

There was no spoon.

Just because it smelled really good didn’t mean it was safe to eat. It was hard for her to focus when her right eye was gone, but from the sparse light available to her she could see that the bowl contained a few pieces of meat, something that looked like herbs and... seeds?

It looked normal. But she couldn’t help but remain sceptical. It was only until her stomach loudly protested that she managed to shove caution aside. She blew on the surface of the soup before she cautiously had a taste.

“?!”

“How do you like it, dear?”

“It’s delicious!”

It was really spicy, but the meat was tender and the soup was rich and tickled her tongue very nicely. It was also invigorating; Elaine felt her body become light and energy seemed to rise from her belly. The drowsiness from earlier had gone and she thought she could go for an entire day without sleeping. Was some sort of medicine mixed in it? Despite not being very picky with food, she thought that stew could definitely be placed on a classy restaurant. Probably.

“I’m delighted! Going through the trouble of looking for a lay beast was worth it.”

“... What?”

“Mmm. Lay beasts have very flavorful meat, you know?”

She can’t be real. But then something caught Elaine’s eye. There, on the large pot, a five floating eyes were pointed in her general direction, staring.

Good thing Blanc was quick enough to catch her falling body.

“What about... that?”

“The undead, dear? No need to feed it, it can’t die from hunger.”

That didn’t stop her from feeling bad about not feeding it.

After dinner they immediately prepared to set out once again. Ss’zsl had awakened during the middle of the little fainting fiasco and had eaten his small share as well. Despite the questionable choice of meat, Elaine ended up eating three servings regardless.

What? It was delicious.

They travelled on the arachne’s back again, and that time they only brought the bare essentials they needed. They left most of the cooking tools back in the wagon, hidden underneath a pile of debris and foliage. Their pace had to be deliberately adjusted to match that of Elaine’s zombie, who could only shamble shakily onwards. It annoyed Blanc, but they had no choice; she didn’t want to carry it on herself. So despite the proximity of the mountain to their camp, it took them quite a lot of time to arrive where they needed to be.

Maybe they should have kept her in the coffin until they arrived? Just a thought.

“Oh dear, you mean we have to start at the top of the mountain?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I don’t know how I got out from there, but I do remember how I got in. I think.”

There wasn’t much confidence in her voice but nobody had any better ideas.

She was quite confident about finding the chamber. After all she marked the paths she took with rocks. And even if those rocks were somehow gone, she followed a very specific set of rules to select paths to take. The memories were also still vivid in her head, it being her first spelunking adventure essentially. There were times where she had to flip her coin to decide, but the correct paths were marked anyway.

What could go wrong?

“So this was your temporary home, Miss Elaine?”

“Yeah. It was.”

Of course there was no way they wouldn’t notice that place upon entering first. It was a lit location right at the entrance of a dark cave after all. The hot, dry air in the chamber was a rush of unwanted nostalgia for Elaine. But while Ss’zsl was interested in the place in general, Blanc’s attention had a more specific target.

“You were alone this whole time, sweetie?”

“Yeah. Well some small critters here and there accompanied me, but this became a private place in a sense.”

“Oh? Are you sure...?”

Blanc seemed unconvinced and curious. What was up with that? But then she just shook her head and turned her attention towards a different subject.

“This is... blood?”

“...”

The giant spider tilted its body forward to an almost sixty degree angle just to allow the human body attached to it to be able to reach the ground with her hands. That was probably one of the many disadvantages to having such a lower body. By the looks of it, the junction where the human part, the hips and the spider part, the thorax joined couldn’t move independent to each other, as if they shared the same bone or something.

Blanc ran her hand over the dried bloodstains on the ground and took a whiff. It was strange how doing such an unhygienic thing could look so graceful.

“... This is your blood.”

“Yes it is.”

“When you lost your eye?”

Elaine could only nod.

The arachne looked at her with narrow, sad eyes. It didn’t look like she was faking, though for some reason Elaine couldn’t appreciate the sentiment. Her missing eye was something she tried her best to ignore.

“Miss Elaine, is there anything you need from here?”

Thankfully Ss’zsl was there to break the awkward air between them.

“No, I don’t. What about that stone there? Could we bring it with us?”

Having a source of light would be great in most scenarios.

“Agreed, it would make things quite convenient.”

“Yeah, but it’s burning hot isn’t it?”

But then they noticed that the lights in the room shifted. They turned back to a sight that shocked Elaine... somewhat.

“I’ll bring it along with us, then.”

Blanc was holding onto the stone using her bare hands! Black smoke rose from the parts where her white hands touched the stone, but she didn’t seem to mind at all. Instead, her face basically had a sign that said ‘nothing special here’.

“Sister Blanc, your hands—“

“Oh, this? Don’t worry, dear, this is nothing.”

She played with the stone, tossing it up and catching it with alternating hands. It really didn’t seem like the heat bothered her at all. In fact, despite the smoke from earlier her hands still appeared pure white and speckless. What was up with that?

“Captain, please.”

Ss’zsl had a tinge of impatience in his voice. Blanc glared at him for a moment before Elaine caught her eye again. She sighed and raised her hands resignedly.

“Alright fine, I get it.”

She held the glowstone on her palm and gripped it tight. The sound of stone cracking could be heard clearly within the hollow chamber. Elaine thought she wanted to break the rock, but instead the light it emitted grew dimmer instead. After a moment it had completely disappeared, and the chamber soon became frigid.

“Soldier, you mind?”

“Yes, Captain.”

Suddenly, Blanc threw the stone toward Elaine’s general direction, causing her to panic. The light that came from the small hole on the wall was just enough to let her see the stone head towards her face. But right before it hit her, Ss’zsl caught it in midair with his mouth.

He dropped down to the floor and coiled around the glowstone, completely enveloping it. Elaine wondered what he was doing with it; was he eating it, perhaps? Likely not. But she worried about him handling such a hot object with his mouth regardless. He still had bandages on him, for God’s sake. She got her answer not ten seconds later when his body uncoiled, revealing a brightly-glowing object hidden underneath.

“No way, it can become that bright? It’s as bright as high-powered headlights...”

“Catch, Miss Elaine.”

Whether it was meant as a prank or not, Ss’zsl lobbed the stone at her again. In her panic, she forgot to think about it and caught the stone with her face.

Strange.

“Ow... Huh? It’s not hot?”

In fact it was rather cold to the touch, like chilled fruit. Was that one of the stone’s properties? How curious.

“Fascinating, isn’t it? Unfortunately, using it as a source of light uses a lot of the stone’s stored energy, so it’s very inefficient compared to torches. It’s much better to use them as substitute for fires. Now, excuse me.”

He crawled up her legs and onto her shoulders again, causing quite a lot of unpleasant sensations to run through her body. He took the stone in his mouth and lobbed it towards Blanc, who extinguished the light once again.

“We brought quite a few glowstones with us, anyway. Having more is still better though, so let’s avoid waste.”

“Oh? Huh...”

“Anyway, so we’re off?”

She had thought the stones were a rarity, but apparently that wasn’t the case.

Completely ignoring her baffled expression, Blanc turned around to leave as if eager to get out of the chamber. Elaine stayed for a moment longer to pay her final respects to the place that sheltered her for a brief time. She didn’t know if she’ll ever return to it; she had a feeling that she would, but that might be a long time in the future. The need to at least acknowledge the safety it provided her somehow made sense. Ss’zsl kept silent as she did, almost as if he understood what she was doing.

“Oh? What do you have there?”

Words like those had the power to attract the attention of those who heard it. Elaine was no exception. She looked back to see what was up and saw her zombie holding something green between its hands. The undead stared at it with blank eyes, while the object she was holding looked as if it was terror-stricken, and thrashed around to get out of her dead hands.

Elaine immediately recognized what it was.

“Inconsequential.”

One of Blanc’s forelegs reached out to it, claw first, likely intending to pierce the poor creature. Elaine quickly reached and called out to them:

“Stop!”

“Miss Elaine, what—“

Without thinking, she dove into the fray to pluck the unfortunate thing off of the zombie’s hands. She only realized the amount of hurt she had risked taking what was essentially a sentient ball of acid without any protection. But still, no harm done.

The emerald slime quickly slipped off her hand and stuffed itself onto her bosom, ignoring Ss’zsl. It was shaking from fear. On the other hand, the three non-humans stared at her with question marks firing off the top of their ears.

“This guy’s harmless, I swear!”

“Is that the slime you mentioned this morning, Miss Elaine?”

“Yes. I think so.”

It certainly seemed like it.

“Huhn... you made friends with a slime of all things, dear? And an acid slime at that. Very strange in many ways.”

Elaine could only smile awkwardly in response. Without waiting for any more feedback, she tended to the slime that seemed like it was trying to hide itself underneath her clothes.

“What are you doing here, little guy? How did you find this place? Did you follow my scent or something?”

That would have been strange and creepy.

“It can’t respond you know, Miss Elaine?”

“... Of course.”

Hallucination would have returned to the top of the list of faults in her life if it suddenly replied to her. Surely enough it didn’t. After a short while it calmed down and became lively again, like it forgot all about what happened earlier. Was it some sort of short-term memory loss? It didn’t have a brain after all. But then how was it that it could remember her?

“What are you going to do with that, dear?”

Blanc stared at them like a mother watching her daughter play with her pet. Elaine remembered Ss’zsl’s words from earlier, that slimes didn’t have the mental capacity to be tamed. But looking at the way the slime rolled around between her arms, it looked as tame as a simple creature could be.

That wasn’t the point of Blanc’s question, though. She knew exactly what she meant. Regardless of her feelings, she knew the ten-foot arachne had a point.

“I know. I’ll leave it here...”

They were about to head somewhere potentially dangerous, so there was no way Elaine wanted to be bothered with looking after more than one... thing at the same time.

She grabbed the slime on its sides, careful not to let her long fingernails graze it, and placed it gently on the ground. Then she knelt before it and, like talking to a puppy, tried to explain the situation to it.

“You should go, okay? You can’t follow where we’re going. It’s going to be dark and dangerous and I can’t look after you. Sorry but we’ll play if we meet again, alright?”

Ss’zsl had also mentioned that the life expectancy of slimes were... not that great. But still she felt like if she talked to it like that then the chances of them meeting again would be better. If that didn’t work then she’d have to scare it away.

Fortunately it was easy to persuade – a simple creature with a simple mind. It bounced once as if in acknowledgement and took off. It went faster than she thought was possible, and soon enough it was gone.

Elaine thought that would be the last incident she’ll witness inside the familiar chamber until the loud, heavy sound of metal shook everyone’s nerves. Ahead, she saw Blanc had impaled part of the wall with her scythe. She stared at the broken surface with a dire look on her face. Not one of them dared to utter a word until the large arachne shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

“Shall we?”

Did she see a cockroach on the wall or something?

.

Very quickly the sparse light that remained within the chamber had lost all relevance as they walked away from it. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Elaine was once again riding behind the arachne. She wondered what they were going to use to light up their path, but then quickly had second thoughts. She remembered the command tent; it was unlit, yet nobody seemed bothered by it. Did all monsters have night vision? Actually, did they take her into account at all when they were preparing for the mission?

Blanc realized their oversight and apologized playfully. A short while after, light illuminated their surroundings. She held a rod with a burning ball of web at the tip to act as their torch. According to her, though torches were essential to any form of exploration she never had any use for them herself; she had night vision, after all. So, yes, Elaine actually had not been taken into consideration. Fortunately her web was flammable.

They delegated the unwitting zombie to carry the torch and lead the way. After all the best meat shields are those that can’t die, right? Poor thing. Judging by its facial expression, it didn’t seem to mind at all, so it should be fine. It was one of the benefits of having someone who couldn’t refuse.

The trip towards the chamber was mostly as uneventful as her first experience with it. Mostly. All they encountered were ‘basic’ undead, which were quickly done away with Blanc merely stepping on them. Understandably, they ignored Elaine’s own zombie. There weren’t that many as well, since most of the corpses they encountered had been devoured so thoroughly that they couldn’t turn. Elaine wanted to test how her zombie would fare in combat, but Blanc convinced her that they didn’t need it yet.

It was kind of boring for most of them, really; they had to set a careful pace both for caution and for their slow-moving undead vanguard with nothing to show for. At least Elaine was kept busy trying to remember the paths she’d taken. It was mostly simple, but again there were times where she had to decide by coin flip back then, and that threw her off. Sometimes she flipped her coin to judge, and sometimes she guessed when the paths were more familiar. Either way she sometimes made mistakes on their pathing, and the backtracking made things even more confusing for her.

Despite the hiccups, they still managed to arrive in the chamber quickly and without a scratch. Unlike when she first went there, the grotto appeared dismal, abandoned – lonely. There was a moment where everybody grew quiet and the only sound they could hear was water dropping from the ceiling. Immediately Blanc noticed the choice of decor in the room.

“Human skulls, hmm? And...”

That was the first thing Elaine had seen as well. She remembered how shocked she had been at first, and then completely forgot that it existed later on.

Blanc took a glowstone from the pack on her abdomen and lit it bright enough to reveal half the grotto. As light flooded the room, the myriad of ponds came into view. They were all pitch-black, lifeless as the chamber had become. The arachne approached one of them and dipped the tip of her scythe in it. As she pulled it out, Elaine saw that the water had turned into something with the consistency of tar. Goosebumps ran up her arms and spine. What happened to it? It was just water, right? She remembered dipping her feet in its comforting waters the night before. Obviously, it no longer was. Blanc held her weapon up for everyone to see. She was too far for Elaine to make out any details on whatever it was there, though.

“What is that?”

Instead of answering, Blanc swung her weapon down, embedding the white blade deep into the ground. She then scanned their surroundings once again and said:

“There’s nothing here, dear. But... something definitely was.”

Elaine followed her eyes and stared at the crystal. She saw nothing interesting there, which wasn’t a surprise, but the arachne certainly found it interesting.

Everything went quiet. They expected their large companion to start a topic, but after a while that hope died together with any hope for a conversation to happen. Blanc certainly seemed very interested in the crystal for some reason. Then, she moved towards the crystal, stepping on the dark pools of miasma along the way. She didn’t look at all bothered by the gunk that stuck to her legs. She then beheld the crystal up close and touched it gently with her hand. Despite the black, intimidating, evil-looking form of it, Blanc appeared reverent. It was a mysteriously enchanting sight to behold.

Ss’zsl looked equally entranced by the scene. The zombie, well...

“What is her name anyway?”

“... Ah. Who?”

“The zombie.”

“Oh. She likely doesn’t have any.”

Elaine tilted her head.

“But don’t all of you have names?”

“Names are special for us monsters. Obtaining one means we achieve ‘individuality’. Now, it’s mandatory for all citizens of our country to receive names during the Founding Festival.”

“Huh? It’s not your parents that give you names?”

Ss’zsl laughed tenderly. He slithered down Elaine’s arms and erected himself to her knee level.

“It depends on the monster, Miss Elaine. In my case our names are decided by our clan mother. Captain Blanc obtained her name from someone else before the country was founded. Kog’s name was decided upon by the King himself. I may envy him for that, but at least we were both named by him.”

“Ohh... so this zombie...”

“--Isn’t a citizen. Hence, it doesn’t have a name. Captain Tehr probably didn’t have it named as well.”

Monster tradition was strange stuff. By that time Blanc had already finished memorizing every nook and cranny of the crystal, probably, and walked back to the group.

She pointed towards the large, broken crystal in the middle of the grotto and asked;

“Do you know what that is, my dear?”

Elaine shook her head. All she knew was that it looked like a beautiful giant jewel back when she had first seen it. But the way it looked now – it had become something closer to coal than a gem.

“We call it a ‘Nexus’. It is incredibly rare. I, myself, have only seen one in my hundred-twenty-two years of living. According to more knowledgeable people, like Fyrn as much as I dislike to admit, a Nexus is made from a large Fairy Heart infested by miasma. Details aside, dear, that thing is bad news. At least, in the near future.”

“So... can’t we destroy it?”

“Trust me. We don’t want to do that. Not now.”

“Oh.”

She was speechless. It wasn’t because of shock, but because she didn’t know what to say. Questions popped up one after another in her head. That giant crystal was a Fairy Heart? For who? Alice? But wasn’t the one she held hers? And why can’t they just break it? Also, Blanc was how many years old?

The arachne went silent for a moment. She sat beside Elaine to her right and stared at the locket on her chest intently. There was a conflicted look on her face, with clear hesitation.

After a while of contemplation, Blanc resignedly sighed.

“Regardless, that’s nothing compared to what this all boils down to, dear. To tell the truth I never really believed Fyrn... nor you at the beginning. I just wanted an excuse to get away from my post. If I had found out that you were lying I planned to leave you here, or maybe eat you, depending on my mood. But seeing all this—“

She gestured at the entire grotto and finally at the crystal.

“Your story matches. It’s incredible. The paths we’ve taken, the things we passed through, your marble, this chamber... that crystal... A real Fairy Heart, at this day and age – two of them, even. Only thing missing is for me to meet your friend.”

There was real emotion in Blanc’s words despite her gentle smile. At the same time she looked utterly relieved even with the evil-looking thing behind her; like a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

Elaine could only keep silent. She did not know the lore of that world. It helped that Blanc was explaining a facet of their world to her, but without any background knowledge she could only sit and listen.

“There’s hope after all.”

Even Ss’zsl looked amazed. He stared at Elaine with slack jaws. The zombie, however, didn’t budge an inch. She probably didn’t understand anything, which was understandable. And Elaine was slightly thankful for that.

But what did it all mean?

Elaine never obtained any of those cheat abilities when she crossed over. She met Alice on a stupid decision she made that could very well have killed her. It was a coincidence. Right?

... Now that she thought about it that attempt was indeed quite suicidal of her. The first coin flip already told her to do so otherwise, so why did she go back?

Huh?

“I... what?”

That was really baffling. It only happened the day before. How could she forget something that quickly? Perhaps—

“Elaine? Dear?”

Blanc’s hand brought her out of her stupor. That was the first time she used her name directly. She stared at Elaine worriedly.

“What’s wrong?”

She couldn’t answer. Or rather, there was no answer. She could only shake her head and tell her that it was nothing; lie.

“... If you say so. Anyway, I’m sorry to say but we’re not going to go and make camp here. We need to go.”

“Huh? Go where?”

“Back to camp. It’s not safe here. Who knows if what you hold is the last of its kind? We can’t take any chances.”

Hopeful words that were not meant to be. As soon as they stood up to leave, the earth shook violently. It was an eerily familiar sensation, down to the feeling of getting knocked down to the ground. Her zombie hadn’t even stood up yet, so she didn’t look disturbed at all. Blanc, on the other hand, had a much easier time balancing herself with her wide base.

There was no need to check on Ss’zsl, who was obviously unperturbed by the shaking.

But then it got stronger. And stronger. Eventually, it became something more than just an earthquake. It felt as if someone had taken the planet and tossed it into a cocktail shaker.

Eventually she screamed as pieces of the ceiling fell, scattering the black gunk around them. Blanc rushed in and placed Elaine under the protection of her lower body.

It continued for over thirty agonizing minutes. Darkness enveloped them, somewhere along the way as one of the falling debris crushed the glowstone they were using. The only thing that occupied her mind was her safety, so she didn’t even notice the time when everything calmed down.

“Are you alright, dear?”

She couldn’t see Blanc, but the warmth behind her made it obvious where she was. Well the hairy feeling near her elbows also kind of made it obvious. Moments after, dim light from a freshly-lit glowstone graced Elaine’s eyes, allowing her to see Blanc upside down, bent over to look at her. Rocks and boulders were piled on top of her, making the situation clear.

“Hold on.”

Without so much as heaving, Blanc raised her body along with the debris she carried on her shoulders. The fact that there were still rocks piled on top of them even when the arachne had managed to stand up straight made a pretty good argument against moving away from the protective canopy that was a giant spider.

“Hunker down, honey.”

She curled up once again right before multiple explosive sounds of what seemed like wrecking balls hitting concrete resounded above her.

“Captain, we have a problem!”

Ss’zsl appeared unhurt, which was good. And her zombie was...

“Oh...”

A hand popped out from the rubble, eerily similar to zombie flicks in her world. Soon a head appeared, then a body, as she unsteadily pushed herself out from the mass of debris that had piled on top of her. Elaine almost ran out to check on her undead when she remembered that it was, in fact, an undead. It looked fine, anyway, despite all the bruises.

“Report, soldier.”

“The camp! It’s... gone!”

“... Hmm, I guess I must have had something stuck in my ears. Could you repeat that?”

“I saw it – with my other bodies. Giant tendrils and tentacles suddenly burst from the ground and from the air. Then a giant chasm opened from below. Everyone fell down. Even the ones that were able to fly were pulled into it.”

“--! Ah!”

Her gaze took in the sight of the forest at night. Above her, two moons, different in color and shattered where they met, produced an otherworldly light that still somehow felt like home. But what it illuminated caused the girl no shortage of fear and wonder.

— barely twenty kilometers away from where she was, a mountain-sized mass of tentacles writhed in the air, reaching for the sky.

— barely thirty kilometers from where she was, a mountain-sized jellyfish-looking monster floated at the sky, its tendrils dropping down to the ground.

“So that was it—“

Fuck, so that was what she struggled so hard to remember. That was why she felt a growing sense of dread when Kog escorted her there. But how? It had only been a couple of nights since then. How could she have forgotten it already?!

Just when the memory of those colossal monsters returned, so did the reason why she felt like exploring the cave as well along with a massive headache. Before even that, how could she even think that exploring the cave had the same dangers as going to the forest? It was absurd. It felt like her thoughts were somehow pulled towards going into the cave regardless of what her coin flip resulted in.

There wasn’t anything that held her back from running with the other choice afterwards? Bullshit. If she had that kind of mentality, then maybe she’d have had a better social life.

Through the throbbing pain on her temples, she felt genuine anger.

Was it Alice? Was she that lonely? Did she somehow influence her thoughts? Or was it someone else – someone... Blanc had sensed when they were back in her own chamber...?

“ELAINE!”

Her thoughts were disrupted by the arachne, who had already dug up her weapon and brandished it towards the chamber entrance. Ss’zsl stared warily at the darkness beyond it.

“We don’t have time to worry about them now; some guests have arrived.”

Scuttling noises – the same exact sounds that were able to induce pain on the right side of her face. The closed setting caused the noise to echo, as if there were a million of them in hiding.

Elaine slowly backed away until she stumbled from the rocks underneath her feet. Neither Blanc nor Ss’zsl went to her to help her up. They were too focused on the mouth of the chamber.

“Talk to me, soldier. You’re the dungeon monster. Is that a third upheaval?”

“... It seems so, Captain.”

“Impossible.”

“... It happened a hundred years ago, Captain.”

“I’d still be shocked even if the last one happened yesterday. This is bad.”

White mist started to come out of Blanc’s scythe. Elaine wondered what it was until she saw a layer of frost form at the rocks beneath the arachne’s eight feet. The temperature steadily dropped the longer it continued, but the adrenaline in her veins allowed her to keep her body warm. But that didn’t stop her from shaking.

“Elaine; dear. You need to get ready.”

“Eh...?”

“Your zombie.”

Right, her undead was a weapon; a gift to her by a talking skeleton with manners.

The noise grew progressively louder. It rattled on her nerves, but she tried to keep calm. It wasn’t the first time she was in that kind of situation. And she wasn’t alone anymore.

“What should I do?”

Blanc looked at her, eyes sharp but lips in a smile. Despite the emergency, she looked calm and confident. It gave Elaine much-needed assurance. Her gaze held some meaning that stopped the fear from gripping her heart.

Though her words were the first of many that would ask the unreasonable out of her.

“Tell it to eat.”

“Huh?”