Meya sprinted at full speed through the forest, dashing around and between trees. Her breath was ragged, and her face looked pained. She had expended too much energy today. Her essence reserves were running too low, and the food she brought could barely last her one day. She cursed the Detection Crystal under her breath again and again.

If only that fucker didn’t have that piece of trash! I wouldn’t be out here running for my life, but enjoying a PEACEFUL nap with a stomach full of essence! FUCK!

Meya’s visions became more and more clouded as she felt her consciousness slowly fade. She tripped over a root and crashed through a thicket and into a small clearing. Meya lied on the ground, gasping for air. Her ability to reason was slowly escaping her as her primal instincts took over the control of her body.

Meya pushed herself up and slammed her head against a nearby tree. Pain exploded through her, clearing her mind as wood chips flew around her. She took a step back, hand on her bleeding forehead as she regained her composure. At least for the moment. Meya reached a hand into her bag and took out a few pieces of dried meat. She stuffed them into her mouth and chewed angrily as she continued running.

- - -

Meya leaned her right shoulder against the stone wall. Slumping down, she let out a loud sigh as she finally relaxed her body and mind.

Finally… A new home…

Meya had arrived at the mercantile city Vakran around half an hour ago. She had been running through the night, and by the time she saw the walls of this great city, the sky had already started lighting up as dawn neared. Sneaking past the guards was easy enough for the arachne. Sneaking past the guards without jumping on and sucking out the essence of one of them? Not so much. The urge was so bad that whenever a guard would pass her, she’d bite down on her arm to force herself to stay focused. By the time she was in the clear, there were about a dozen bloody bite marks lining her arms.

With the first challenge overcome, she now face the second: essence. It was almost morning, and it would be extremely hard to feed unnoticed during daytime. At this point Meya was on the verge of snapping. She could sense the essence moving around and bundled inside all of the buildings around her. She could barely keep herself from breaking into the nearest one and just suck all of the essence from the people inside.

As she hobbled along, trying to find some lone straggler, she like someone was watching her. Whipping her head around, she saw a drunken man slumped on the ground eyeing her. It seems as though the man was too drunk to realize that Meya was in fact a human-spider chimera, and was instead having lewd thoughts about her.

Meya shakily approached the man, who didn’t move and instead continued to stare intently at Meya’s chest, and looked around. Not a single soul was in sight. It’s time.

Meya let loose lunged at the man, landing on top of him. The man barely even grunted, and instead reached out his hands in an attempt to grope Meya’s chest. Meya ignored this and glued her face to the man’s. The man’s eyes lit up in shock before his cheeks grew redder and his eyes rolled back into head. For a whole minute, nothing changed. All of a sudden, the man started convulsing. His skin started wrinkling, and his thickset body started thinning. Meya’s wounds, on the other hand, began closing rapidly. A look of sheer ecstasy could be seen on Meya’s face, contrasting the man’s expression of pain as his face grew more and more skeletal.

Meya suddenly snapped her eyes open. She took the man’s head and forcefully pulled it apart from her own. A trail of saliva was all that was left connecting the man to her as she looked down at the man worriedly and checked his pulse.

Oh thank the gods it’s still there…

She did not want the man to die, both because she really didn’t need the city guards to be on high alert, and because she wanted to train herself to be able to feed without killing. Before in Ulstaza she could kill her victims mainly because the part of the town she was in was very violent, and murders were a common occurrence. Meya was, and still is, extremely thankful to the gods for having found that place and not some city or town in which public order was good. The first few times she fed she was not able to stop herself from sucking the victims dry, but as time progressed, she was able to regain control earlier and earlier during the feeding. She had only successfully stopped herself from killing the victim once before, and so her not killing the victim in her current deprived state was a godsend.

Meya picked up the now very thin man and carefully placed him down in an alleyway out of view. After wiping her mouth clean, she said a short prayer for him, and quickly ran off in search of shelter.

She managed to find a small stone shack in the slums that seemed to be unoccupied. She quickly set up a few of her poison traps around the entrance and the window before she slumped down against the wall.

Closing her eyes, Meya drifted off into a deep and dreamless sleep.

- - -

“Huh, what the hell is this? Why’s that guy so popular, eh? Ain’t he just some goddamn greenie?”

“I heard he survived an attack from that new S rank monster. The lucky bastard somehow held on to his life until some other group of Hunters found him. Seems like he almost got turned into monster food, heh.”

Two senior Hunters chatted. The Hunter’s Association’s headquarter was chock full of Hunters that day. News had spread to nearby towns and cities that a new S rank monster had appeared, and that a Hunter had survived an attack from said monster. This rarely happened, especially for S rank monsters, and any information about the monster was priceless. A huge group of Hunters surrounded Chad as he told his encounter with the beast for what felt like the 100th time.

“Seriously, everyone, I really don’t know how the monster normally fights. All that I remembered was that it was extremely fast and was able to get behind me in the blink of an eye and strangle me till I became unconscious. Everything else is on the monster’s poster.”

The audience listened intently. The only other Hunter who fought the monster was Captain Joshua, but he was sent to a far-away city for his next assignment, and thus was unavailable. Although Captain Joshua wrote down all of the key characteristics of the monster, it was always better to learn from someone with first-hand experience.

“Hey, Chad! The Head wants to see you!” one of the receptionists at the desk called out.

“Me? Why?” Chad asked.

“I don’t know. All he told me was to tell you to meet him in his office.” the receptionist replied.

Chad stepped away from the crowd and walked up a set of wooden stairs. After climbing two flights of stairs, Chad entered an elegant hallway decorated with various painting and exotic plants. Walking down the red and gold colored carpet, he reached a large door with the words “Head of the Hunter’s Association” written in a sharp and neat print on a sign nailed above it.

Chad knocked on the door.

“Come in.” said a deep voice from beyond the door.

Chad opened the door slowly and walked in.

The Hunter’s Association’s Head was a large man. Easily reaching 6’3’’, the man, Aron Ithiel Strudwick, was equally robust as he was tall. He was a beast of a man, literally. Aron was part of the Naeribis tigermen clan. They were one of the largest beastmen race of them all. Aron was actually one of the smallest Naeribis tigerman ever found, but he made up for his size with skill and power unparalleled.

Aron was wearing a pair of reading glasses and was in the middle of reading over and signing forms. The stacks and stacks of paper on his desk gave off the feeling of a very busy politician or accountant. Without looking up, he gestured at a chair in front of his desk.

“Please, have a seat Junior Hunter Chad.” Aron’s voice was deep, but also surprisingly calming.

Chad pulled out the chair and sat down.

“Do you know why I have called you here?” Aron asked, still doing his paperwork.

“No, Sir Strudwick, but I have a feeling it’s going to be about that spider monster, right?” Chad replied.

“Yes, indeed you are correct. This will be about the S rank arachne.” Aron put down his pen and looked at Chad straight in the eye. “First, I will be promoting you from a Junior Hunter to a fully fledged Hunter. Next, I will have you transfer into the S-Hunters Team specifically for the hunt for the arachne “Black Widower”, whom you have encountered three days ago.”

“W-What?!” Chad nearly jumped up from his seat in shock. “Promotion to a full Hunter and joining the S-Hunters? W-Why? Why me? Shouldn’t you have given this job to Captain Joshua instead?”

“I have considered this, but I had to send him off to the far North for a separate, more important mission. You, he, and the Shadow division are the only ones who have officially encountered this arachne, but only you and he have actually fought, or at least come in contact with it. With Joshua gone, you” Aron got up from his chair and placed a hand on Chad’s shoulder “are the only one left who has some idea what the arachne is like. This is not an offer. This is an order.”

Aron sat back down at his desk and resumed his work, leaving Chad there, thinking.

“I…I understand, Sir, Strudwick.” he muttered.

“Good. I have already finished filling out the forms for your transfer. Please go down to room 204. Your new teammates are there waiting for you. You are now dismissed.” Aron said, placing the now completed sheet of paper on one of the piles before grabbing another sheet from a separate pile.

Chad got up and left, closing the door behind him. He let out an exasperated sigh as he made his way down to the second floor.

Oh boy. Just after I survived a monster attack, I get thrown right back into tracks of that same monster.

Walking through the second floor’s hallway, Chad stopped in front of the room labeled “204”. He could hear people chatting and laughing from within. Taking a deep breath, Chad collected himself before he grabbed the doorknob and turned it. He took one more deep breath before stepping into the room.