“How long have you been here?!” I exclaim to Lili.

“Let’s see … I think I came in after you yelled and made that speech to Ren here. I thought things were getting interesting, so I just hung out above you and listened in. Still, I had no idea the Chaos Barrage was after her and that Erizora would actually be half-Human.”

Oh, god, she heard pretty much everything, did she?

Nyra comments.

“N-Never mind that. Were you seeking Master for something? Is it about that matter he mentioned?” Ren asks.

“Yes, I was curious how he was doing in his recovery, so I was on my way over from home when I heard him yelling. Seems like you’re looking well, Jinma.”

“I … couldn’t be more exhausted, honestly. I had a lot going on this morning, so can we take this talk to a more private place and we can get it over with?”

“Mom’s out back in my place, but it’s quite a long way from here.”

“That won’t be a problem. Can Ren and Erizora come, too?”

“They’d have to wait in a separate room.”

“That’s fine.”

The three of us get up and properly disposed of the skewers. I look around for any witnesses before I cast [Portal] behind the tree that has the least visibility. Lili shows shock when she sees me cast it.

“All right, let’s go quickly, everyone.”

““Yes, Master.””

“… Haa. With how many surprises you’ve shown, I don’t even care anymore,” Lili sighs before we get through the hole.

Instantly at Lili’s home, she leads us inside and asks Ren and Erizora to wait in the living room. I then follow Lili along to a cellar leading from the back of the house. Inside, once Lili uses some kind of crystal to light up the room, I instantly see a few mannequins of different body shapes made of stuffed, stitched spider webs. Many outfits are spread along the walls. Unlike the rest of the house, this whole floor was totally clean of cobwebs. At a corner of the room, I see my MIB sitting there.

“Now, the first order of business: strip down and change into these,” Lili says as she walks over to a table and picks up a set of folded clothes.”

“Wait, what?”

“Come on, come on, we don’t have all day, and toss me those destroyed trousers. We can talk and work.”

“All right, all right, jeez.” I set Nyra aside, slip out of my clothes and trade with Lili, who stares at me wide-eyed. “So, about our original plan …” I trail off as I put on the new clothes.

“Original plan?”

“Uh, where you hand me to the Demon King in exchange for money since I’m a you-know-what?”

“Ooohhh, that. Yeah, I’m not into that anymore.”

“What?”

“You think I’d seriously turn you in after everything you did to save my mom and hometown? The money might be good, but I’m not that desperate for it. I’d have stolen you away from Lady Tephalia’s manor by now if I was. Plus … I took your advice while we were cleaning up overnight.”

“Advice … oh, you mean with talking to your mom about butting in your romantic life.”

“Yeah, that,” Lili says as she checks my new clothes to see how they fit on me. “She told me what she was trying to do when I asked seriously and we talked things out. She’ll still worry, but she said she’ll try not to press into my love life as much anymore. I’m free to go about finding my own mate at my own pace.”

“Good for you. I’m glad things worked out.”

“Well, seeing how you did all of that for us last night, I figured why not? All right, looks like these fit well, how do they feel?”

“Really great, actually. Is this really made out of your own silk?”

“Impressed? Arachne Silk can be very durable, you know, especially if we make it really tight when interwoven in density. I heard humans would pay a handful of gold coins for something of even the lowest of quality.”

“Really? How much do I owe you, then?”

“Nothing. Consider these sets as my thanks for saving my mom as well as an apology for getting you caught up in this mess … I’ll cut you with my claws if I hear a word of you selling these though.”

“I’d never do that with such a nice gift, but with how prone I am getting into fights, I can’t guarantee I’ll keep these from getting damaged for long.”

“Well, that’s inevitable for clothes on fighters, which is why I had these clothes enchanted to be self-repairable.”

“You could do that?” I ask with amazement.

“It’s a special kind of spell granted to us tailors when we’re skilled enough in the trade, which usually takes a lot of work to get to. Same goes when making clothes that adjusts themselves to a comfortable fit for the wearer, but I didn’t do that with these. If these get cut or torn, they’ll slowly repair themselves over time, but it will take even longer if they get burned. You can speed up the process of both if you apply your mana into it.”

Man, magic is seriously something around these parts. “Right … hey, I know we got off in a complicated beginning, but since your plans on what to do with me have changed, I was wondering if we could have a sort of fresh start.”

“Uh, I think I’m the one who should be asking all of that? I’m the one with the freakish monster-sized spider body who held you captive in the beginning, after all. And don’t you humans hate spiders?” she asks while crossing her arms and quirking her brows.

“They may bother us to an extent, and I admit you might’ve startled me at first, but you’re not a spider to me. You’re Lili.”

“… And you’re really strange, Jinma.”

I shrug “It’s helped me get to this point, so I don’t see a reason why I should change it now.”

“Have other Humans called you strange, too?”

I spot a suit jacket that’s similar to the one I wore yesterday folded and off to the side. Getting the okay from Lili, I try it on as well. “I wouldn’t know. Other then the few friends I had and my family, everyone else either avoided me like the plague or tried to kill me for even looking like a threat. I try to defend myself from the latter, and my rep gets worse. With how I tried to handle it so they wouldn’t bother me anymore, there’s a reason why I was dubbed the ‘Merciless Demon’ back home.” Lili holds my arms out to the sides so she could see how the suit jacket fits me as well.

“And I assume this rep has not got you so lucky with the Human females?”

“Not in the slightest.”

Nyra quips.

“…”

“?!”

<“Whoa, where’s this going, I wonder.”>

I was suddenly ambushed from behind as two large, soft mounds pressed against the back of my head while Lili’s claw-like hands wrap around my shoulders. Her front-most legs (?) also wrap around my waist and traps me.

“You know, I thought you were cute yesterday when I first met you. You really surprised me when I saw how you fought and saved Dondegarm. Now … seeing you opening up to me like this, it makes me want to do the same thing. Can you keep a secret?”

“All the way to my grave.”

“I guess, in a way, I’ve been curious about Human men for some time now. While I did find a passion for tailoring clothes, a part of me wanted to take advantage of it to see how different they are from me. Sure, my business is booming in Korangar, but I rarely ever see Humans in the city, and while there are more here in Dondegarm, they keep their distance from us Arachne as much as possible while doing business. I really don’t mean any harm, I just want to see what a Human man is like in their barest form. Does that make me strange?”

“I … don’t think so? I mean, I assume most guys would want to see girls naked, I don’t see why the reverse can’t be true. I think being curious about how another’s body looks when naked is pretty normal to me, if they’re good-looking enough, anyway.”

“I don’t know why it isn’t so with female Humans, but … I’m positive you’ll see more females around these parts who find you far more than ‘good-looking enough.’ I know I do, especially with how you look in this.”

“…”

“Hey, Jinma, did you know you became the first human man I’ve seen down to his underwear?”

“I did not … wait, what about that one guy when I burned the majority of his robe off?”

“You were the first I saw of a Human man’s bare upper torso last night when that same cultist burned some of your clothes off. Honestly, I was so fixated on you that I didn’t even take a glimpse of his body.”

I turn my shoulder to look up to her with a quirked brow.

“Okay, I might’ve taken a small peek, but his figure wasn’t very appealing enough for me to stare, so I just kept my eyes on you instead. I hardly remember any details from the guy. Anyway, I caught myself staring at you multiple times over the infiltration last night, and each time I found myself … excited, if I had to put it simply. In fact, I had to hold myself back briefly when you suddenly stripped down to your underwear.

“Please, be honest with me, Jinma. Am I a bad, perverted girl for getting so excited over your body?” she asks. The way she tenses her hold on me gives me an idea of how nervous she is of my opinion.

“I don’t think it’s bad, per se. From what I’ve been told, I think that’s normal when you see someone who interests you that much. Even though you held me captive from the beginning, you were pretty good to me, so I don’t think of you as a bad person. Whether it’s perverted or not is a different matter and can be up to interpretation.”

“Would you be with a girl who’s perverted?”

“Honestly, I’d be really happy if a cute girl sees me as someone who can be open about their desires.” I’ve met my fair share of ‘strange people’ during my previous line of work back home.

Let’s just say there are things in that world you’re better off not knowing about, and you have no idea the weird things people back in Ikebukuro and Shinjuku have that get them off. I could never look at a pair of diapers the same way again because of it.

“And … that goes for me, too?”

“Well, sure.”

“Does it bother you if I’m staring at you like that?”

“… I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t, but I was pretty much always stared at with wariness, fear, and/or contempt by other Humans. Being stared as an object of one’s interest … it’s completely new to me, but it’s not really bad, I don’t think.”

I hear her sigh behind me while her grip on me loosens. Looks like I was able to calm her down. That’s good.

“Still, a part of me feels guilty having all the fun with exhibition play by myself. Do you want to see what I’m like?”

“Yes.” I didn’t even hesitate in answering.

I’ll be honest, I find the clothes Lili’s wearing right now to be quite risqué. Compared to last night, what she’s wearing now is not only skimpy, but quite dangerous. Her top incredibly keeps her breasts supported while still managing to pull off the seemingly impossible ‘under boob’ look without gravity pulling them down and jiggle for everyone to see.

Actually, now that I think about it, a lot of the female locals wear pretty loose and eye-catching clothes. I think only the Centaurs are the most modest in appearance around these parts. I wonder if being this open on the topic of sex is part of demon culture.

Suddenly, I feel Lili removing herself from me, but just as I’m slightly saddened at her letting me go, her front-most legs spin me around and my face meets with a pair of fleshy, soft, warm cushions that is Lili’s bare breasts while I feel them thumping from the racing heartbeat. Not just my face, but my whole body gets lifted and pressed against the rest of her body in front of me with a few more legs pulling up my back for good measure.

I hear a shallow gasp as my face gets pulled into her chest further. I might be mistaken, but I think I even feel something warm and damp somewhere around Lili’s stomach area.

“I feel bad for being able to see nearly your whole body when you weren’t ashamed of doing that much, but … if you’re fine with someone like me, I think we can fulfill each other’s fullest curiosities … and maybe then some, if you’re interested.”

“?!”

I was then gently set down on the floor while my eyes are widened as I see some of Lili’s bare form, shadowed due to the lighting, but I could still make out the contours of her breasts dangling above me, even the nipples, as if they were udders that tempted me to milk them of their fluids with my mouth. It’s the darkness that hides what’s further down below her presumably naked form that I’m slightly bummed of not having something like a night vision skill yet, if not ever existing, to see through it. It’s the first of a girl I’ve ever seen not just in this world, but in my life that isn’t Mom’s from the times we bathed together when I was younger … along with some other strange occasions as I got older. My reaction seems to have amused her from how she’s giggling.

“We can continue this in further detail later. For now, let’s regroup with your slaves in the living room and discuss what our next moves will be. I have a few more sets of clothes, pairs of socks, and underwear in the same sizes stored in your MIB for you to keep. They should fit you the same as the ones you’re wearing right now.”

“Th-Thanks.”

“I’ll go on ahead and prepare some drinks. Take your time getting back.”

“Okay …”

Without looking behind, I hear her slipping her top and whatever covers her sex back on before sounds of spider trills going up the stairs and out of the basement follow, leaving me alone with Nyra still on the work table.

“… I don’t know, Nyra. I’m finding myself asking the same thing lately.”

~~

Meanwhile, just outside of the door to the cellar, under visible daylight, Lili is seen very flushed as she covers her face.

What the hell did I just doooooooo?! I was so tempted to just take him there, too! Dammit, Mom, I know we’re ‘predators,’ but I don’t think this appliiiiiiiies!

Yes, not even she herself knows what had gotten into her to make such a bold and aggressive move. It was as if her instincts drew her to take Jinma right there, kicking in the moment her eyes first laid on his partially nude form earlier. It only escalated as she made physical contact with him. She was about to lose it from excitement when she loomed over him, just as a spider would when it was about to feed on its prey, until a moment of clarity hits when the possibility of Jinma hating her from assaulting him came to mind, and that terrified her more than anything. She didn’t have such a reaction last night when she was staring at his bare upper body. Hell, when she took his measurements for his new clothes while he was unconscious after the infiltration, she didn’t have the slightest urge to take him then. Lili could’ve passed it off as her being too occupied into her work as a tailoress, but something in the back of her mind told her it wouldn’t be as fun if Jinma wasn’t awake to fight back. Whatever happened between last night to today, Jinma seems to have become far more delectable to her as one of the opposite sex than he was when she first met him caught dangling in her trap. She found it cute how he tried not to let his weakness, his great fear of heights, get to him.

As Lili had said earlier, Jinma will certainly come to meet girls in the Demon-Kin’s Territory who’ll find him far more than ‘good-looking enough.’ Whether it’s considered a blessing or a curse can still be debated on his part.