Chapter 9: Spider Hunt
(Shiki POV)
The next morning, while I was making breakfast for Yue, Alice, and myself, I noticed a strange atmosphere in the room. Yue was clinging to me, as was usual, but instead of looking at me or having an appetizer of my blood like she normally did, she was glaring at Alice. Alice, on the other hand, was starring at me while smiling.
'What happened between the two of them?' I thought as I laid out the English breakfast I had wiped up.
"Bon appetite," I said as I sat down.
Yue moved her plate over next to mine then glared at Alice while sitting in my lap. "Shiki, feed me." She said.
'Huh? She wants me to spoil her? Is... is she jealous?' I think while scooping up some beans and bringing them up to her face.
She smiles and takes a big bite before I scoop another scoop and go to take a bite myself. I look over to Yue again as she is slowly enjoying the food before I hear a "Nom!" I turn my head to see Alice has taken a bite of my beans that I was holding up.
"Eh...?" I say with a bit of confusion.
"Your food is always the best but Yue is right. It's better when you're fed it by someone." She says giving Yue a teasing smile. Yue is steaming a bit while I am finally putting a few of the pieces together.
'Oh... I see how it is...' I think before sighing to myself and deciding to change the topic.
"So, if this is anything to go by, then I assume you want me to restore your youth?" I asked.
"That's my student. Yes, I would like to become younger again. Perhaps my late twenties or early thirties. That's when I was in my prime." She says.
"Alright then... when do we leave?" I say as prick my finger and shove it into Yue's mouth as she became more grumpy and was mumbling something to herself. I'm not about to deny having a MILF join our adventures.
"Well, no offense or anything but we need new clothes and weapons. I had to give back my old sword when I retired and your weapon is on its last legs. Furthermore, there are a few things I need to have done before we hunt that Vampire." Alice says.
"I agree. We don't need armor, since I can enchant us all some good equipment, but we will need some high-quality fabrics to get the most out of our gear. For accessories, I think using golden or silver jewelry will suffice, and having our weapons made out of Magisteel would be ideal." I say as I sink into my own little world.
My hobby, whenever I wasn't training, was to enchant things with [Creation Magic]. I had already discovered a number of enchantments and powers that could be useful but now I was spiraling into self-muttering like Deku does when analyzing quirks. Thankfully Alice was able to knock me out of my daze and mentioned something that intrigued me.
"If it's materials you want, then we could always steal some from the Treasure Spider. Its nest is nearby and the silk made from it is said to be even better than the famous Hell Moth Silk from Jura." She said.
"Hu? Treasure Spider?" I asked.
"The Treasure Spider is a powerful monster spider that gathers and consumes various precious metals for sustenance. It's a Unique Monster variant of the Black Spider, so it's stronger than it. If I were to take a guess, it's probably got about the same magicule capacity as you do." Yue said. This shocked me a bit since that would make it around A-Rank.
"If that's the case then why haven't the knights or the Luminaries tried killing it?" I asked.
"Who said they didn't?" Yue said with a snark. "That thing's got high-speed regeneration and its powerful armor is equivalent to a dragon's scales. It's hard to do any meaningful damage to it. Additionally, since so many attempts to kill it have failed, it gained an enormous amount of resistance skills. Fire, Ice, and Water magic, which are normally useful against insectoid monsters, are completely worthless against it since it survived dozens of assaults by mages and gained resistance to those magic types."
"I see, so in addition to its nest having a lot of treasures, it produces silk that can be used for our new gear. It's also quite powerful and immune to most elemental magic that its species would normally be weak to." I repeated to myself before smiling. "Alright then, let's go Spider hunting!"
...
After breakfast, I revert Alice back to her mid-thirties using [Restoration Magic] and... hot damn! She's a babe. Her white and grey hair reverted into long pale blonde hair. Her pale blue eyes became sharper while she grew a few more centimeters. She had long legs with thicc thighs and a full bosom.
(Image in the Harem Aux Chapter)
I had to stop myself from drooling while staring at her when Yue gave me a glare and whispered something about a 'rival'. I smiled and pat her head in response which calmed her down.
"It's so nice to feel young again... you don't realize just how much energy you lose as you get older." She says, to which I can only nod. I've never been super old since I was in my twenties when I died and now I'm in my mid-teens in this body.
"Hey, Shiki. Let's spar." She says as she walks over to her rapier on the shelf and equips it.
I stop petting Yue and smile menacingly. I've always wondered how much more powerful Alice was when she was in her prime since even as an old woman, she was giving me trouble and I was stronger than all but the top Lieutenants of True Demon Lords and could even give Demon Lord Seeds a run for their money, though I would probably lose in the end to a Demon Lord Seed due to my human stamina.
I pick up old reliable and we both make our way out of the home to the training field in silence. Yue follows us a few steps behind while preparing to watch the battle. Once we enter the center of the field Alice and I stand at a distance of ten paces apart as we both unsheath our weapons and get into a stance.
I pull out a small coin from my storage and flick it into the air. Once it hits the ground we begin. Alice and I have a tradition of doing this when we spar. Normally, I would be the one to attack first, since my youth gave me greater stamina, but now that wasn't the case. I immediately felt my instincts screaming at me and I dodged to the side by twisting my body just as Alice's weapon soared past me, aiming right where my head would normally be. I was even cut slightly on my cheek.
I could see her movements just fine, but her thrusts were so fast that even my [Thought Acceleration] was having a hard time keeping up. I jumped to the side before straightening up again, only to duck under another thrust before I began parrying some of the strikes she began to rapidly dish out. She was relentlessly fast and she kept carrying her attack patterns but all of them were aimed at either my joints or vital organs, so I couldn't even afford to get hit once.
as we clashed I remained completely silent, focusing hard on determining her attack pattern. Normally I would have said something along the lines of 'Oy! Are you trying to kill me?' But I know for a fact she is just enjoying having her new and younger body. If I had to guess, then Alice probably was about as strong as Hinata was when she fought Rimuru for the first time.
I quickly decided that continuing this would be pointless so I leaped forward a bit, throwing her off, and swung my blade down towards her. I would stop her offense with an offense of my own. as our weapons met, my sword slipped off hers due to the angle and I rolled to her left and ducked under a swipe from her sword on pure instinct alone.
I twisted back around and was met with the tip of her sword to my neck. "It's my win, apprentice." She said.
"So it would seem. You're way too strong teach... how did you ever lose?" I said jokingly as she held out her hand to help me up.
"Swordsmen and Swordswomen are at a disadvantage in the air against opponents who use magic. Not to mention both you and I are only human, so I eventually ran out of stamina." She said while looking away.
"I see... that's really the only way you could have lost," I reply with a sweatdrop. This woman is an absolute monster with the blade. It seems my days of an easy victory over her are long over.
"Now rest up! We're going on a spider hunt. It was about a day's journey on foot when I was old and weak but I'm so fired up right now we're going to run the whole way." She says with a huge smile on her face. She doesn't even look winded while I am panting hard.
I look at Yue who sighs and shrugs. "Good luck. I'll be in your shadow." She says as she jumps into my shadow.
"Oy!"
...
After a bit of convincing, we ended up at the cave entrance to the Tressure Spider's lair. In typical fantasy cave fashion, the entrance was wide and large with long spiderwebs and a low amount of mist hanging over the area. Of course, there were a few skeletons dressed in garbs by the entrance and plenty of skulls.
"This is the place," Alice says with a bit of excitement. It seems as though she can't wait to get started but at the same time, due to her experiences, she knows not to rush in.
"Alright here is the plan. Alice and I will fight the spide while Yue uses her storage ring to gather a bunch of the Treasure and the silk from the threads. Once we either beat it or Yue collects enough stuff for us to make our gear, we will use my [Spatial Magic] to teleport home." I say
"Alright," Yue says as she emerges from my shadow while Alice nods. She looks a bit too jittery for my liking but its nothing a little combat won't help her with.
As we enter the damp cave, Yue casts several {Magelight} spells that illuminate our path. I can sense a HUGE amount of lifeforce in a cavern a little ways ahead and I give the both of them a signal. We descend deeper and deeper into the earth as a faint smell of blood wafts around us. It's very metallic and overpowering, so I know it's recent. After another few minutes of walking, we enter the main chamber. The Place is HUGE, like the size of Blackreach huge, with the roof being several hundred feet tall. Two canyon-like Skylights, probably created from sinkholes, illuminate the entire thing, casting long shadows and giving off god rays.
For a brief moment, I am stunned by the beauty of this place before I realize that despite the fact that I sense the spider, I can't see it. "Be careful. It's here and it knows we are here, but I can't see it." I whisper to Alice and Yue.
They both nod and Yue sinks into the ground to stay out of sight and out of the way of our fight. Just then, we all hear a scream and watch as a middle-aged man with pale skin, black hair, and bright red eyes runs out from behind a small mound in the center of the room.
He is bleeding profusely and is in a clear state of panic as he yells and screams while running rather than copying what Yue did and slipping into the shadows to be unnoticed. He's a very dumb vampire.
"Change of plans, Yue capture him." I say as I unsheath my blade. Alice does the same as we watch the man run past us. After a minute the scurrying of less can be heard. Its loud and it crackles and pops every time it moves. It almost sounds like a Frostbite Spider from Skyrim as it moves.
(A/N: Can you tell I've recently been playing Skyrim again?)
Suddenly the sound stops and Alice and I look up in horror before leaping to our sides.
*BAM!*
A HUGE spider lands behind us as we jump to the side. Its the size of a two-story building but despite that fact, it was remarkably nimble, as it immediately lunges at us at incredible speed. I draw my blade and quickly pass magicules into it using [Magic Aura] along with a bit of [Spatial Magic] to sever several of the limbs of the spider as it passed by me.
The creature screeched in pain before it regenerated its lost limbs in only a second. Of course, I wasn't going to give it that time, as I immediately used one of my new spells {Magic Shot}. It's similar to a {Magic Missile} but I used [Evolution Magic] on it to increase its power. Now it's similar to a ki blast from Dragonball where it explodes violently on impact.
*Bam!*
The creature is covered by smoke and dust that was kicked up from the sudden explosion but I know that wasn't enough to kill it. After a second, transparent webbing is fired directly at me at a high speed. I jump to the side to dodge while the Stalagmite behind me is shredded like paper after being wrapped in the thread.
The spide emerges and begins firing what can only be described as 'Thread Bolts' which unfurl into a net of sticky web whenever they hit something. I begin to dodge around it while being pushed back by the creature's ferocious assault. Under normal circumstances, with my newly acquired [Ultraspeed Regeneration], which I got as a result of healing myself all the time with [Restoration Magic], I could just tank the hits, but this enemy's attacks are tricky, since getting hit once would mean getting effectively glued in place.
As I was busy thinking of a way to counter the creature, Alice jumped onto another bolder and bounced off of it at a lightning speed. In an instant, she arrived in front of the spider's head where she lunged forward and placed her sword in the spider's eye. It screeched in pain while reeling its head backward. Alice was unable to retrieve her rapier though since the spider's eye-flesh had regrown around it due to its regeneration, making pulling it out difficult, especially considering it was now twisting and shaking its head back and forth in an effort to throw Alice off.
'Not so fast!" Alice yelled as she raised her fist into the air and used <Battlewill> to strengthen her body before Tsunade punching the things head into the ground. The stone shattered and the form of the mighty spider seemed to implode in on itself as its entire head was crushed.
Alice was able to use the pause caused by it to forcefully pull out what was left of her rapier only to see that half of it was melted away. "Wha-" But before she could even finish her statement her instincts flared and she jumped backward as the spider rolled over, attempting to crush her under its mass.
The huge creature regenerated again while it stood up and glared at the two of us. then, somehow, a large amount of moisture in the air began to condense around the creature. A shell of water encased it before settling onto its skin like armor. The water then gained a sickly green shade and began to get thicker.
"What is it doing?" I asked as I ran over to Alice.
"I have no idea. I don't think its poisonous but its a Unique monster that has been alive for hundreds of years so it's possible it evolved," She said as she looked at the thing in wonder.
Just then, the fluid expanded out and away from the spider's body before condensing into dozens of large car-sized orbs. It then fired one of them at us at extreme speed. it was so fast in fact, that we were unable to dodge it completely due to its size, so I quickly grabbed Alice in a princess carry and used [Spatial Motion], which I got as a result of teleporting with [Spatial Magic] all the time, to appear in a different spot all in one quick step.
I looked over towards the spot we were at before and saw that the stone was melting and becoming a slurry of minerals. 'It's an acid-based attack.' I thought.
[Notice. Analysis of the Acidic substance concluded. The Treasure Spider is confirmed to have the Extra Skill [Acid Manipulation]]
[Incorperating [Acid Resistance] into Unique Skill Aegis. Time until completion; 60 minutes]
'Like I can wait an hour for that. Is there anything I can do about it NOW? It's way too fast and I don't like our odds of dodging literally every shot for almost an hour.' I think.
[Calculating...]
I dodged another acid blast while still carrying Alice around. I ran on the walls of the cave as it continued to spew more and more attacks before I eventually took cover in a small trench behind a bolder. I put down Alice and used [Creation Magic] to give the bolder a quick Acid Resistance enchantment to buy is some more time. I listened and saw the greenish liquid splashing against the bolder and slowly forming cracks in it.
I looked at the spider briefly and saw that it had reformed its acid armor around itself so that we couldn't get any more physical damage in on it.
"Damn. Its god an acidic shield." I said as I looked over at Alice who, despite still having a serious face, was blushing a bit. 'Really? Were in combat...' I thought as I looked at her.
"If I had another shot to hit it physically then I could take it down..." She said.
"Really? That'll be difficult. Are you sure?" I asked.
"Yeah but I'd rather not melt so..." Alice replied while looking at me in the eye.
[Calculation Complete]
[Through the use of [Creation Magic] and [Spatial magic] it is possible to temporarily cloak an individual in a barrier of space similar to the effects of Unique Skill [Unlimited Imprisonment]]
I widened my eyes before smirking. "Alice, I've got an idea, but you'll have to trust me." I said.
"With my life." She replied.
"Good," I said as I handed her my weapon.
"{Spatial Barrier}" I chanted as I folded and severed space between her and the rest of the world. Of course, since the effect was created by magic, this didn't cause her to be unable to see anything or slip through the floor due to light not passing through the barrier or having her slipping through the stone, but it did make her temporarily able to withstand practically all forms of attack.
Alice nodded and ran out from behind cover and directly through a wave of acid. It didn't seem to slow her down at all as she quickly ran towards her target.
Her speed was hard to see without the use of [Thought Acceleration] since I had it, I could see her clearly as she quickly closed the distance. She had sprinted between 50 and 60 meters in under a second as she drew back my sword and began to gather water behind it.
"<Water Streaming Piercing Dance>" She yells as water condenses and forms around the blade.
Just as she reaches directly in front of it, she stops and thrusts forwards at an unbelievable speed, so fast I can't even keep track of it. There is a bright white light as a vortex of icy-blue water erupts from the weapon, travels directly through the spider's body, destroying its entire head and mid-section, continuing on until it hits the wall behind the spider several dozen meters away.
I look over at Alice as she starts breathing hard. My sword is now completely cracked. It looks like broken glass but it stubbornly refused to shatter completely and fall apart. I walk over to her and put my hand on her shoulder
"Nice one Sensei! You'll have to teach that move to me." I say with a bit of a tease.
"No way. This one is my baby, plus I'm young again, so there isn't any need to pass on all my Water Style arts anymore." She replies with a smirk.
"Stingy," I said as I took back my sword and sheathed it. I'll have to find a proper resting place for it.
A few moments later I see Yue walking towards us. Seeing as the vampire from earlier isn't around, I guess she got everything she needed from him before killing him off.
"I got everything. The treasure was mostly stolen over the last few years by this Vampire. He works for Julius. Julius was using this treasure to pay his rebel faction in and had this guy acting as the treasure's collector, but he got unlucky and was spotted because he got too overconfident." Yue said.
"I'm surprised. Normally you wouldn't bother wasting your time interrogating someone. I only asked you to catch him" I said.
'It appears fate is leading me on a collision course with Julius far quicker than I thought.' I think to myself as I pat her head.
"Hm!" Yue nodded as she smiled at me. "I want a reward."
"Hu?" Alice says with mild annoyance.
"Carry me!" Yue said with a straight face.
I sighed to myself. She probably saw me carry Alice in a princess carry earlier, so now she wants me to carry her like that. "Ok, but only for a bit," I say as I scoop her up with a smirk.
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A/N: Hey yall! I have a question. Should I turn the spider into Mio from TSUKIMICHI? If I do that then I'm definitely adding Tomoe as well and that will be the 'harem' for the time being.
I thought about it a lot when I was writing this chapter, but I didn't want to bring any more waifus in from outside the canon. Even Alice was a stretch and I was thinking about re-naming her since I don't want people to associate her with Alice Zuberg.
If not then I was thinking of keeping the size of the harem at just two for now until closer to canon, which wouldn't be for a while.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Golden_Slime
Golden_Slime This Chapter is a long boi but it's also the last one where the MC will be staying here. Starting next chapter will be the gearing up of the MC's party and the move to find and kill Julius Alucard.
Stay tuned.
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