“What the hell happened?!” Nari shouted. “How did we even get here?”

  Though it caught her by surprise, Lily wasn’t distraught, only confused, and very much so. The same hallway that had brought them to the treasure chest was now somehow connected to another room, and not to the balcony as it should have been.

  “Wait a minute…” The spider’s eyes sparkled up in an instant. “It’s almost like that movie about a wizard!”

  “You still haven’t explained to me what a movie is,” Nari replied, tapping her chin as she spoke. “Anyway, is it just me, or is the air, uhhh… kinda different in here?” She scanned the room for clues about their whereabouts.

  The little spider took the lead, moving forward and listening to the vibrations as carefully as possible. What’s going on here? Lily wondered. They walked for what felt like an eternity, and every time she felt a shock wave expand, it only bounced back on the sidewalls, yet nothing from ahead, almost as if the room just continued for kilometers. “I can’t see the end of this room…”

  “I told you to get ready for the impossible,” the girl reminded her. “We’re in a legendary dungeon, who knows what could—”

  “Hold on.” Lily cut her off on the spot, nudging her to stand back in silence. “What’s this noise?” she mumbled under her breath, focusing all her attention on feeling the Detection passive.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Nari shrugged, squinting and looking ahead in the darkness. “Are you sure you’re not just imagi—”

  “Shhh!” Lily exclaimed, interrupting her friend again. “I think there’s someone ahead.”

  The human girl froze on the spot, lip quivering as she looked toward the darkness, pointing a finger right at it. “You mean… from there?”

  Lily just nodded and told her to retreat a bit, just in case anything happened. “I’ll be right back.” And she promptly went ahead to check out the situation, wondering what weird trick the dungeon had reserved for them next.

  With every step she took, her heart raced just a little bit faster, but she only had one question: was it going to be some sort of weird marble monster, or did actual living creatures inhabit the place as well?

  To be fair, she hoped to find another living creature only because she was pretty hungry, and a juicy monster would have been a nice reward right in that moment. “Ugh, how much further away do I have to go?” Her stomach growled louder and louder each time, up until it became the only sound she could focus on, so much so that she forcefully slammed the ground, hoping to locate the target. “HELLOOO?!”

  For a moment, she had finally received back a feeling similar to the monsters she was used to fighting outside the dungeon, but then, one after one, she felt more and more vibrations returning her way, maybe in the tens, or even the hundreds.

  “Oh, CRAP.” Without missing a beat, she sped right in the opposite direction, headed directly for Nari, who just sat there, waiting patiently for the spider to come back with—hopefully—some good news. “NARIII!” Lily yelled to the maximum of her abilities.

  “Huh? What is she doing?” the girl mumbled under her breath. She stared into the darkness, trying to find her friend, but nothing was visible. “Lily?” she yelled back. “Are you okay?”

  It’s like she can’t hear me, Lily thought, wondering if maybe the weird shadows had anything to do with it. “RUN!!!” she tried to yell again, but even as she heard herself, her voice grew weaker and weaker the farther the sound waves travelled into the darkness.

  “I can’t hear you!” the girl shouted, utterly unaware of the incoming danger; in fact, she even proceeded to walk toward her friend’s direction. “Talk louder—”

  Before Nari could finish the sentence, the spider finally appeared out of the shadows, running as fast as she could, yet slower than usual. “RUN!”

  Seeing her friend in such a distraught state, Nari immediately understood the gravity of the situation. She instinctively took a step back, then turned and sprinted toward the strange entrance that had brought them there. “What the hell’s going ON?!”

  “You know, earlier when I thought I felt someone?” she said, panting harder by the second, feeling out of breath for the first time since having reincarnated into an arachnid. “Well, turns out there’s a lot more than one, and they’re coming toward us, and I don’t know what the hell they are, I couldn’t see a damn thing in that darkness,” Lily said in a single breath, making herself feel lightheaded for a second.

  The girls ran to the limit of their abilities toward the door, and somehow—even though Lily had always moved so fast that Nari couldn’t even see her—they now moved at a similar pace, with the human girl even running slightly quicker.

  “What happened to you?” the human wondered, quite surprised to see her friend struggle to keep up, but just as she was about to speak again, loud hissing sounds—much different from Lily’s usual ones—caught her attention. “What the—” The girl only slightly turned her head to check it out, squealing the moment she saw tens, maybe hundreds of figures rapidly gaining on them. “Kyaaa!!!”

  Damn, I’m so tired I can’t even make webs, Lily thought to herself, wondering what to do, only to catch a glimpse of hope. “Look!!! The light, we’re almost there!” she exclaimed.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Come on!” Nari ran ahead and grabbed her to help her run faster, gasping the moment they touched. “Shit…” she mumbled under her breath, gently squeezing the spider’s limb. “Hang on just a bit longer, it’s gonna be fine.” Though she didn’t come across as convincing as she hoped, her next move only confused Lily even further. “Trust me! Run ahead and get through the door. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Lily had no intention of listening to her, but at least this time the girl was one step ahead and, using the momentum of their sprint, launched the relatively light spider as if she were a ball, aiming directly at the center of the bright light, hoping it would lead to an escape instead of another dangerous room.

  “Nari!” the spider whined, unable to resist being thrown away, watching as her friend summoned a round item from her inventory right as she passed through the light, losing all traces of her. “Crap…” Though Lily struggled to stand back up on her feet, not to mention keeping all eight of her eyes open, she still managed to drag herself back toward the bright opening, albeit slowly.

  Before she could reach through the bright light, hoping it would lead her back to Nari, something came out from the other side, slamming into her at full speed and almost knocking her out on the spot.

  The little spider needed a moment to ground herself because when she opened her eyes, everything spun around like crazy, causing her to feel quite dizzy, even more so now that she had eight of them; it almost felt like watching eight different monitors at the same time, making it impossible to focus and make out the image in front of her.

  But something stood upright in front of her, that much she was sure of.

  “Kyaaa! That was so scary!!!” the girl squealed, jumping on Lily and tightly hugging her. “I thought I was a goner for a second there,” she added, sniffling as she spoke.

  “Y-you scared the hell out of m-me,” Lily mumbled under her breath, feeling worse by the second. “I’m feeling s-so tired…” Suddenly, an intense pink light shone in front of her.

  “This should make you feel better.” The girl lifted her hands and put them up by the spider’s head. “Dispel,” she chanted, causing the light to spread and wholly envelop the monster as if it were a blanket.

  In the beginning, it brought relief like standing near a heater on a cold winter night; as time passed, Lily’s stamina began to replenish. Her vision was the first to come back fully, then came the rest, until she could feel like herself again.

  As it turned out, Nari told her that the moment they touched back when they were running, she immediately felt the effects of a powerful curse slowly taking over Lily’s body, which would have probably ended in her death had she not intervened.

  Typically, Dispel had almost an instant effect when cast, but the curse was powerful, maybe the strongest one she had ever seen. “This has to be the work of a much higher rank monster…” Nari sighed, biting her lower lip.

  “Yeah…” Lily gulped. “But I feel already much better,” she smiled, “thank you.”

  “All done!” Nari gave her a cheeky wink, but the light-hearted moment was abruptly interrupted when she finally looked around the room, realizing that the hallway had yet again brought them to another room. “Ugh, I’m sooo over this place!” she exclaimed, rolling her eyes while getting back up. “Let’s find a way to leave this stupid dungeon and get to Dunkel.”

  “Agreed,” Lily replied, standing up and following Nari’s lead, who didn’t want to waste one more second staying still.

  In a matter of a couple of steps around the corner, their exploration immediately came to a halt because not only was the new room they found themselves in much smaller than the others they had visited, but it was also a dead end.

  “I can’t believe this,” the spider sighed, “it’s like the dungeon’s toying with us.”

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid place!” Nari banged her fists on the wall. “I just wanted to escape that room safely… now we’re stuck again and forced to go back through that hallway.”

  “Wait, is this what I think it is?” Lily mumbled under her breath, unsure if she was just imagining things. It can’t be, she thought.

  “Huh? What?” The girl followed the sound of her voice and walked toward the spider, trying not to stumble since the room was quite dark, with no other light sources other than the bright hallway right around the corner.

  “Look around, what do you see?” Lily asked.

  “Ugh… darkness, nothing really?” Nari giggled, waving a hand in front of her.

  “Right, sorry, sometimes I forget humans can’t really see in the dark,” she replied, laughing harder. “Here, let me help.” She guided her friend’s hand toward a strangely comfortable and squishy surface.

  “Huuuh? What’s this?” the human girl squealed. “It almost feels like…” She furrowed her brows, “like a bed.”

  “Bingo!” Lily cheered.

  “Oh, so it’s not a bed?” Nari replied.

  “What are you talking about? Yes, it’s a bed,” the spider rebutted, giggling as she spoke.

  “But you said bingo, so I thought, ughhh… what the hell’s a bingo anyway?” she asked, her tone more confused by the second. “I don’t understand.”

  “Right, yeah, it makes sense,” Lily giggled again. “I’ll explain it to you later, right now I’d like to find a way to make some light in here,” she added, scanning the room.

  “Wait, I forgot!” Nari gasped. “I still have matchsticks and wood in my inventory; we could have had light this whole time!!!” In the heat of the moment, she had totally forgotten, but the spider had another idea.

  “Maybe that chandelier lights up,” she said, pointing toward the middle of the ceiling.

  Nari gasped again, louder. “There’s a chandelier in here?! Do you see a button by any chance?!”

  The little spider promptly looked around, and just as Nari wondered, there it was, a single button that seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever. “Actually… yeah.” She slowly drew closer, but hesitated the moment she noticed runes in a language similar to the one the basilisk had used, adorning it.

  “Tap it,” the girl suggested.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. There are weird signs around it,” Lily replied.

  “That’s even better! With a bit of luck, it’s just what we need,” she rebutted, nudging her friend to trust her.

  Truthfully, Lily herself wanted to click the button and see what would happen, so not much convincing was required. “Okay, if you say so…”