Gong suddenly appears from the upper portion of the buildings. Ai and Lin are completely floored by how silent and undetectably, she appeared.

In fact, if I didn’t have my scan, I might not have been able to tell what was going on either. Too bad my head is killing me too much to feel overly good about it.

She quickly speaks, “So, did you manage to get everything we needed?”

Ai responds, “Yeah and it didn’t cost us much, because of some fortuitous events.”

Gong laughs, almost in a bark, “Yeah, if you can call an idiot getting his butt kicked by his father ‘fortuitous’. The best part about it, was that he totally didn’t see it coming. Hahaha, that guy never learns…”

She has a good laugh at that, but then continues on. “Well, enough about that. We should get going.”

Leaning in close, her tone and demeanor completely shifts. It is similar to the air she gave off, when she was trying to explain the dangers of my powers, in the cavern.

She whispers, almost to the point where I couldn’t hear her… and I have improved hearing.

“We are likely to be followed, so we’ll be taking a much different route than you’ll be used to. Follow me exactly and don’t always listen to what I have to say. When I put my finger to my lips, follow the spiders instead.”

Ai and Lin appear to have heard her, so we all pretty much know the plan. Following closely behind her, I extend out the radius of my scan, as far as I can, at this time.

I manage to see at least three people trailing our path.

One is a woman in the open, tracking the pattern of our footsteps. She’s wearing a tightened yellow sash across her hips, almost like a belt.

Another, is moving along the top of the buildings sneakily, wearing a blue armband on the inside of their clothes.

The last one appears to be similar to the ‘bush’ person at the older wom- I mean big sister Crane’s place. This person is just moving normally, following the others. However, the other two don’t seem to see them at all.

With my low-tier scan, I can’t fully perceive their shape either… just that it is a person.

Unfortunately, this appears to be too much for me.

I’ve finally overstepped my limit.

Since, I’ve been overstretching my scan for a significant part of the day… What was just a horrible, but manageable headache, has now escalated into a full-blown migraine.

What makes this worse, is that I know that this isn’t just pain, but literally my brain being damaged from overuse. I can even feel my mind feel slower to catch onto certain things. I direct healing at it, but it proves useless in every regard. I should have realized that.

As Gong asks us to turn a corner, I respond to it a bit slower than the others.

Before, with my increased reflexes, I could move quicker and react quicker than them.

Almost as if noticing this, Lin comes closer and holds onto my arm. The three of them look at each other, but keep moving.

Ugh, this migraine is intense. I can barely even think straight. Did Gong just say to hop over that series of stones? Oh, Lin helped me get over them. I’m just going to have to rely on them at this point. I’m turning off the scan. I can’t risk over doing this, especially if we are being followed.

I’m forgetting something… Oh, right. I should let them know that we are definitely being followed.

“Gon-g.” My voice comes out slurred and heavy.

Oh my God, is that my voice? This may actually be worse than I thought.

Gong looks back in shock, almost stumbling over her own spider feet. Lin grips me a little tighter, while Ai also moves to support.

Gong actually stops and turns around, to talk to me. “James… are you alright? Something seems seriously wrong with you; do you need me to carry you?”

I struggle to swallow, to speak as quick as I can. “W-e. Are Be-ing. Fol-lowed. Three people: Hidden Crane person; Blue band; Yellow belt.” Her eyes squint in confusion and then understanding, as she looks behind us for any movement. She looks to Lin, who helps lift me into Gong’s arms.

She looks down at me, cradled in her lap, held in her arms. “You’ve done well, thus far. Just rest. We have it from here.”

Okay, this is a lot worse than I thought it was. I’m feeling a miniscule amount better, every minute or so, but it wasn’t joking when it said this would reverse over time.

It’s hard to even think about anything other than what’s in front of me.

As my eyes close, I can hear Gong say, “Change of plans. It looks like we will need to take a more hidden and longer route. I’ll be using the spiders for interference, so make sure to follow me as closely as possible. When we get to the big ones, climb on quickly. We’re about a kilometer away from my territory.”

While barely dipping into unconsciousness, I can still just hear the three of them moving through the alley and feeling them duck, with the sounds of moving earth, spiders, and web spinning. We come to a pause, sometime later, in a cool location. Opening my eyes, all I can see is darkness. We must be hiding in a hole.

Gong whispers, “They’ll be moving past us… following the false leads.”

Somewhere in the distance outside, I can hear a “ACKK! Why are there so many of them!” before that voice seemingly flees away.

Another voice, this one even farther away, “No need to get antsy, big guys! I’ll back off and stop following them.”

After some time waiting, Gong prepares us to move again.

At this point, I can feel that things are a little easier now. With a quick pulse, that doesn’t increase the pain too much, I can see that the invisible ‘bush’ person appears to have left with the others.

We’re safe.

With this in mind, I relax and lay back into her arms. I can feel the tension leave my back, that I didn’t even know was there. The migraine is still there, though.

Gong also appears to relax, most likely having used her spiders to keep an eye on them. “Okay, we’re good.” I can practically feel the sighs come from Lin and Ai.

From there, we travel. I can here Ai comment upon some features of the route back to the caves.

“So, you are saying all of these… tripwires and traps, are meant to protect the caves?”

“Yes, in a sense. There are many people who want to control more and more area, so there needed to be some form of passive defense to hold this area. Covering my territory with so many ‘inconveniences’ and traps, made it not worth it to claim.

“Especially since there wasn’t much here in terms of a market or resources, anyway.

“Even for those looking to just scout the area… Going through and determining which caves actually are supposed to be used takes too much time and are much too hidden to have a big effect. Not only that, but when I find out a cave has been discovered, I collapse it in on itself and cover the inside with webs.”

She gives a wry smile. “You’ve already seen it, but even for the cavern areas that I don’t go into, I’ve had the spiders cover it in traps. Most don’t want to deal with that, for a single demi-human woman.”

She continues, “Though my greatest ally has always been Big Sister Crane. She has always been there for me and covered for me. I will always be grateful to her.”

She looks a little wistful after this. Ai and Lin say nothing, choosing to stay silent but supportive.

Gong changes gears after we get closer to heavily webbed areas. As always, she is lifting and changing the levels of the webs around us, allowing us to walk normally.

“Well, we are here now.”