Shin opened his eyes in the middle of the night, hearing screams outside. "We're getting attacked?" He sat up and Ase sat beside him, her claws extending her ears bent backward, "I'll go see."
"No, wait here. Arachne should be able to deal with them." He held her in place. "The bandits will think that Arachne is a monster and that she killed us. Let her deal with them and even if some of them escaped they are more likely to avoid this place in the future."
"What?" Ase stared at him with a confused face and tried to stand up.
"He means they'll not be able to bother us again on this trip." Mary opened her eyes and pulled the standing Ase down. "Sit down."
"What about her?" Ase growled, "They'll kill that woman, we need her, right?"
"Arachne will make sure she isn't harmed. As long as she doesn't call us we must assume things are fine." Shin remained sitting and watched the shadows dancing on the outside of the tent.
"Won't she be too busy fighting to call for help?" Ase growled but Shin shook his head. "I have Char tamed. I just asked her and she said that most of the bandits are already dead, the only ones remaining are a large man and the wizard woman. Arachne is just playing with her food now."
"Her food?" Mary looked at him, "She eats people?"
"What did you expect from a large spider? That she eats biscuits and drinks milk? Well…Arachne loves sweets, but she can't get enough of raw flesh, especially those of intelligent beings like humans, beasts, and devils."
Just because Arachne had a humanoid body the two girls were starting to see her as a person and forget that she's a demon spider, a monster disguised in human clothes. Mary remembered the story about a wolf that disguised himself in a sheep's costume to eat the little sheep.
"I see…" Mary looked down. When she first heard that story she thought it was stupid, how could those little sheep not notice that it was a wolf wearing a costume, it's too obvious. But now even though she saw Arachne's true form and heard countless times from Shin that she was a monster, Mary still kept seeing her as a human in her head.
Humanoids and animals are the first layers of creatures. Humanoids, including elves, humans, dwarves, and all else are intelligent, while animals aren't.
Then there are beasts and monsters. Beasts like Ase are intelligent while monsters aren't.
Lastly, there are devils and demons. Devils are intelligent while demons aren't, which bears the question, why is Arachne who is a demon spider intelligent? She should be a mindless monster like all other demons.
The answer came naturally to Mary. What about Char? She's a bug, an animal but she's now intelligent. "Was Arachne a mindless demon until you tamed her?"
Shin smiled, "As smart as a spiders get." He smiled, "I hate to train her like you train a hound, but she quickly evolved and grew smarter the more she stayed tamed until she managed to get a humanoid body, at which she finally started acting like a newborn baby."
Shin had to teach Arachne how to walk, how to dress, how to write, read and speak.
To Arachne, Shin is her…
Outside, the large bandit swung his club, smacking Arachne on the head and sending her flying. While slashing weapons almost bore no effect on her hard exoskeleton, bludgeoning weapons were quite deadly, and this large man could swing his massive club like it was nothing.
Arachne would've killed him already if not for the wizard woman supporting him from the back. Each time she tried to get a kill the wizard would zap her with a lightning or an ice spell, making it nearly impossible to get a clean hit on the large man.
Of course, she tried to attack the wizard woman first but the large man was determined to protect her. Only the two of them were left on the battlefield and they knew that if one of them died, it was over for the other one.
'Say, should we call Shin?' Char asked inside Arachne's mind. 'We'll need someone to distract them.'
'No, I can deal with them on my own. I never once called for help in a battle and I won't start now.' Arachne lunged forward and swung her thread at the large man, trying to catch his club and pull it away.
The man lifted his club up so the thread would wind around it just like how Arachne wanted it. He knew that with how large and heavy he was, she wouldn't be able to pull him back no matter how strong she was.
Just like the man predicted, when Arachne tried to pull him toward her she was the one to get pulled. She was fighting while still expecting that she was heavier, but this wasn't her massive true body nor a weakened one, her heaviest form was her humanoid body which didn't even match half the large man's weight.
The large smacked her with his club and sent her rolling on the ground. She coughed blood as the wizard pointed her staff, charging a massive lightning bolt. "I'll burn her to ash!" She yelled for the man to dodge her spell.
He nodded, he'll wait until the last moment before the spell launched to dodge as he was sure the spider would kill the woman if she got a chance. He'll make sure to protect her with his life until the very end as if he doesn't, both of them will end a meal for the spider.
Arachne looked behind her, Shin's tent was there. If the wizard released her spell she'll burn them as well. 'If she fires that, Shin would die…again…' Shin's wife's image flashed through her head, 'Since I wasn't able to kill that…woman…' Blood rushed to her head as she glared at the wizard, seeing her as Shin's ex-wife.
"You whore!" Arachne growled and the two froze…that thing could speak?! None of them expected that, but what came next was even scarier.
Arachne immediately lunged toward the large man, "Get out of my way!" She growled but he swung his club at her, "Die! Monster!"
Arachne flew right past the man, landing in the form of a naked woman with countless strings dancing out of her fingers. The large man's body fell to the ground in pieces. He never expected such a reckless charge and never expected the spider to take the form of a woman and slide between his legs like that, and he could have never expected that the treads coming from her fingers are going to be that razor sharp.
As the woman cried seeing the large man fall to the ground in chunks marinated in his own blood and guts, Arachne reached and grabbed her by the neck, lifting her up.
"Human!" Arachne growled and the wizard woman couldn't even see her face, all she could see if flashing waves of demonic magic ripping through her body like countless swords, "Where do you think you're pointing that staff at?"
Before Arachne could kill the wizard woman, the poor woman died on her own as her magic short-circuited inside her body thanks to Arachne's demonic magic. But that didn't stop Arachne from biting the woman's face off and hanging her up in a cocoon to eat later.
To Arachne, Shin was her father figure, the man who pulled her out of the darkness of being a mindless demon. He's the one who taught her how to speak, how to walk, and how to feel alive.
After quickly cleaning everything up and wrapping all of the corpses for later, Arachne returned back to the tent with a happy smile. Today she managed to stop a threat to Shin's life.