Chapter 749: Cute Spiders [Bonus - ]

Chapter 749: Cute Spiders [Bonus Chapter]

Silas’s brow furrowed. "I missed it? Wait, how did you handle them? I thought you’d be terrified of them!"

Beside him Lupina had pressed herself very close against his arm, her eyes darting around the dim rafters of the pavilion roof as if expecting a nightmare with too many knees to come scuttling down the walls at any moment.

’Please be small,’ she thought. ’Please be small... Please be small...’

Silas felt her fingers find the edge of his sleeve and close around it.

He didn’t say anything... He just let her hold on, and shifted half a step so that his shoulder was between her and the darkest corner of the rafters.

Pffft-thump!

A tiny, remarkably soft sound broke the quiet right above them.

Before Silas could react, a small round impossibly fluffy white ball dropped from the cedar rafters and landed with a soft weightless plop right in the middle of Reina’s messy blonde bun.

Beside Silas, Lupina flinched violently.

"Eep!"

The wolf-girl stumbled half a step sideways with her hands flying up into a fighting stance and her ears pinned flat against her skull.

Valkyrie’s head snapped up as the two young wolves raised their muzzles from the sawdust and for a heartbeat the whole yard held still but Reina didn’t scream.

Instead a fond adoring smile spread across her face.

She reached up with both hands, cupped the little white bundle gently between her palms and lifted it down from her head with extreme delicate care then she turned her cupped hands outward and held them out to Silas over the top of the fence.

"Mhm~"

Silas leaned forward and squinted into her palms in complete bewilderment.

Sitting peacefully in the middle of Reina’s hands was not some armored horror crawling out of the depths of a dungeon.

It was a creature about the size of a large teacup, covered in a dense cloud of impossibly soft snow-white fluff that made it look like a living ball of cotton.

Poking out from under the fluff were eight tiny plump stubby legs that moved in slow curious clumsy little steps... In the middle of its round little face sat two large glassy eyes of deep shimmering purple that blinked up at Silas with innocent wide-eyed curiosity.

The little creature tilted its fluffy white head to the left, let out a tiny squeak and rubbed its two front legs together in a slow charming motion, exactly like a kitten washing its whiskers.

Silas stood completely frozen with his mouth slightly open as he stared at the little fluffball.

’That came out of the Spider Queen’s bloodline?’ he thought, his mind blank. ’That thing? That’s what I fought a whole nest of monsters for?’

Slowly he reached out and held one finger over Reina’s palm.

The little spider looked at it. It leaned forward and sniffed the tip of his finger with enormous seriousness then it reached out with both stubby front legs, wrapped them around his fingertip and hugged it, pressing its whole fluffy face against his skin.

It was warm, and so light he could barely feel it... it also smelled faintly of clean straw and something sweet like honey.

Over by the fence Valkyrie lowered her huge golden head to sniff it too.

The fluffball squeaked, let go of his finger and burrowed deep into Reina’s palm until only its two purple eyes peeked out of the fluff, and Valkyrie sneezed in offense and backed away.

Lupina slowly lowered her fists.

Her ears crept back up one at a time, and her tail, which had been tucked tight between her legs, gave one small uncertain wag.

’That’s... that’s a spider?’ she thought, staring at it. ’It doesn’t have any knees at all. It’s just... fluff.’

Little by little the spider worked up its courage again.

It wriggled out of the fluff and scooted forward until two of its tiny front legs rested on the very tip of Reina’s thumb, and it peered at Silas over the edge of her hand like a child peeking over a windowsill.

Reina lifted her hands a few inches higher, her gray eyes sparkling with pure adoration as she looked up at him.

"Aren’t you seeing them, Lord Silas...?" she asked softly, her voice practically melting with motherly pride. "They’re cute, aren’t they?"

Silas scratched the stubble along his jaw as a wide incredulous grin spread across his face.

"They really are cute," he admitted, letting out an amazed whistle through his teeth. "I have to say, though, they don’t look anything like their mother... Not even a little... The Broodmother was a Tier 3 boss covered in stone-hard carapace. If you’d told me this little cotton puff hatched from one of her sapphire eggs, I’d have thought you were pulling a prank on me."

Reina beamed, her gray eyes sparkling with motherly fondness as she stroked the top of the spider’s fluffy head with the tip of one finger.

The creature let out a tiny high-pitched chirp and leaned into the touch, rolling slightly onto its side like a pampered barn kitten.

"I know, right?" Reina laughed softly, her voice bubbling with joy. "When the shells first started cracking on the pedestals, I had my iron shears ready and my heart was beating so hard I thought my ribs would snap but then this little lady poked her nose out, sneezed and crawled straight onto my wrist... Here, Lord Silas, pet her. Don’t just stand there looking at her. Put your hand down and say hello to Mochi."

"Mochi, huh?" Silas chuckled. "You already gave them names?"

"Of course I did," Reina said proudly, lifting her hands a few inches higher over the rail. "An artisan names her masterworks, and a Beast Tamer names her partners... Go on, she won’t bite, Her little mandibles are softer than fresh clover."

Silas reached out and extended one finger toward the tiny mound of white fluff.

The moment his skin brushed the downy coat, he blinked in surprise.

The fur was warm and silky and impossibly dense, softer than the finest wool he’d felt in the luxury markets of Central City.

Mochi’s big purple eyes blinked with an inquisitive glassy sheen.

She tilted her round head, sniffed at his knuckle with two tiny feelers and then let out an excited squeaky pip.

Before Silas could pull his hand back, all eight of Mochi’s stubby legs scrambled forward.

She tumbled right off Reina’s palms and threw her fuzzy little limbs around his finger in an enthusiastic full-body hug... Mochi clung to his knuckle like a barnacle to a pier with her round white belly pressed flat against his skin and her tiny legs wiggling happily in the evening breeze.

"Whoa there, little one," Silas chuckled, lifting his hand up to eye level.

Mochi didn’t let go.

She buried her tiny face against his palm and let out a vibrating hum that felt remarkably like a purr running through his skin.

Reina burst into a bright musical laugh and clapped her hands against her waterproof leather apron.

"Look at that! She remembers your mana from when we powered the pedestals together! She likes you already, Lord Silas! She thinks you’re a giant warm perch!"

Silas gave his hand a gentle shake, but Mochi only tightened her stubby grip, her little purple eyes squinting in stubborn cozy contentment.

Both of them laughed at the same time.

"She’s got quite a grip for something that looks like a ball of lint," Silas said. "I guess the royal bloodline didn’t skip the strength, even if she forgot to inherit the scary armor..."

Behind him, Lupina took another nervous step backward into the damp grass with her boots crunching on loose pine needles.

The wolf-girl’s silver tail was clamped tight between her knees and her triangular wolf ears were pressed flat against her messy silver bangs.

Her eyes darted between Silas’s finger and the creature clinging to it, and her upper lip twitched with the faintest instinctive curl.

’Why is he letting it touch him...?’ Lupina’s mind raced in frantic loops as her fingers dug into the hem of her frayed denim shorts. ’It has eight legs! Eight! That’s four too many for any reasonable creature! What if it spits sticky threads into his eyes?! What if it crawls up his sleeve and lays eggs in his armpit?! He’s treating it like a puppy, but it’s an eight-legged demon of the dark caves!’

Silas noticed her stiff posture and turned his head with a teasing lopsided smirk.

"Come on, Lupina," he urged, stepping aside so she could get a clear look at the little ball of fluff. "Look at her... There isn’t a single drop of malice in that tiny body... Reach out and touch her. You raided a whole hive of monsters, you’re not going to let a three-inch cotton ball scare you, are you?"

Lupina’s ears gave a sharp defensive twitch as her face flushed with a mix of shame and stubborn terror.

She held both hands up in front of her chest with her palms out and backed away another half step, until her shoulders bumped against the post of a shelter.

"N-No, thank you, Lord Silas!" she stammered, her voice high and breathless. "I... I’ll politely pass! My reflexes are made for big toothy carnivores, not for things that scuttle across ceilings! I really can’t—"

PLOP! PLOP!

Before the sentence could leave her mouth, two soft little impacts landed right on her shoulders.

Lupina’s voice died instantly.

Her jaw locked open and her eyes crossed in pure horror as two fluffy white balls that had dropped from the rafters overhead settled squarely on her collarbones.

One of them gave a cheerful squeak and immediately waddled up the curve of her neck to nestle right behind her left wolf ear.

The second scrambled down the front of her top and planted itself dead center on her chest, its eight tiny legs digging affectionately into the fabric as its purple eyes blinked up into her frozen terrified face.

"E-E-E-E-E..." Lupina whimpered.

She was completely paralyzed from the neck down with her breath coming in shallow wheezing gasps as she stared down at her own chest.

Dumpling stared back up at her.

It blinked its huge purple eyes once and then it lowered itself onto its fluffy belly right over her heart and settled in like it had found the warmest bed in the whole world.

’It’s getting comfortable,’ Lupina thought in rising horror. ’Why is it getting comfortable?! Don’t get comfortable! I’m not a bed! I’m a Hero!’

Behind her ear, Cotton had found her hair and was happily burrowing into it, and every tiny tickle of its eight little feet sent a full-body shudder racing down her spine to the tip of her clamped tail.

Reina leaned over the fence with her hands cupped around her mouth and giggled in pure delight.

"Oh, look who decided to join the welcoming party!" she cheered. "That’s Cotton behind your ear, Lupina, and the one on your chest is Dumpling! Don’t move too fast, they love warm skin!"

"G-G-Get them o-off..." Lupina squeaked, her knees trembling so hard that the frayed hems of her shorts shook like leaves in an autumn gale. "Lord Silas... have mercy... they’re crawling on my throat... they’re after my blood..."

"They’re not after your blood, you big baby," Silas laughed, shaking his head at the spectacle. "They’re just saying hello... You’re warm and fluffy and you’re prime real estate for a baby spider."

He turned back toward Reina, stroking Mochi’s back with his thumb as she kept clinging happily to his finger.

"Seriously though, Reina," he said, his tone turning curious as he looked over the snow-white bundles. "How did they turn out like this...? The eggs were dark sapphire blue and hard as granite, and their mother looked like something out of a nightmare but these things look like plush toys."

Reina smiled warmly and rested her forearms back on the cedar rail as she watched Dumpling try to climb Lupina’s collarbone with clumsy frantic leg movements.

"I’ve been thinking about that all morning, Lord Silas," she explained, her gray eyes softening with real fascination. "When we put the six eggs on the pedestals, we didn’t just keep them warm... We poured our own mana straight into them. Yours and mine, together... It’s like the combination of both of our mana changed them while they were still growing inside the shells."

She nodded toward the little white balls, her face full of professional pride.

"Instead of feeding on the dark poisonous miasma that usually raises dungeon broods, they soaked up clean mana from the very beginning..." She went on, her voice rich with enthusiasm. "It stripped away the jagged armor and gave them this thick down for cold surroundings... They mutated into something completely new and honestly? I like them a lot... I was terrified of spiders before they hatched, but these little girls are the sweetest creatures in the whole paddock, I can’t even look at them without smiling."

Silas let out a long relieved breath.

"Well, I guess I’ve been worried for nothing, then," he said with a relaxed chuckle. "I spent the whole walk down here bracing myself to find you backed into a corner with a broom, fighting off eight-legged monsters... It’s a huge relief."