CHAPTER 82: BAD HUMAN

Moments passed in silence as Timothy waited anxiously, and then a voice finally echoed through the strained mental link.

"Three."

The spider’s voice was faint but clear.

"Three?" Timothy narrowed his eyes.

"What do you mean, three? If you’re trying to reserve strength for something else, I’d advise you not to joke with me." His voice was calm, but annoyance bled into his tone.

"I intend to ask more than just three questions."

There was no immediate reply.

When it came, it was even more broken than before.

"Food... not strong... low strength... communication hard... high strength... more food, more talk."

Despite the spider’s struggle to communicate, the message was at least somewhat understandable.

Timothy wasn’t eager to toss another cocoon its way.

He wasn’t about to risk strengthening the creature just so it could "talk."

For now, he’d take her words at face value and proceed with caution.

There were two more questions he had to ask at least.

"Earlier, you said you cannot spit him out," he said, voice steady.

"Don’t lie. I know he’s still alive. So what exactly do you mean by ’you cannot’? Why can’t you let him go?"

Another pause followed.

A long, painful moment before the voice returned.

"Food inside... not food... I don’t want food... food wants me..."

The spider sounded weaker now, the words laced with strain.

Timothy furrowed his brows.

He stood still, trying to make sense of the bizarre statement.

Was she saying Gray chose to remain inside her? That he wanted to be there?

That made no sense.

And yet... he had seen the system timer, Gray’s evolution countdown.

A month.

That information only popped up after Gray was consumed.

So... was this all intentional? Could Gray be evolving by choice?

Timothy didn’t want to believe it, but the pieces were starting to fit.

He glanced at the fallen cocoons nearby.

If she really needed more energy to keep communicating, he could feed her, but not yet.

First, one more question.

"Why?" he asked simply.

This time, the spider answered almost immediately.

"Food... is a child. Food to grow. Food must feed."

That froze Timothy in place.

Child?

Suddenly, it clicked.

Maybe the system displayed the evolution timer only after Gray entered the spider because her body, by some strange mechanism had become part of the process.

A biological incubator.

Why hadn’t he thought of this

So Gray needed her to evolve because, regardless, the termite was still young.

It also explained why Gray previously refused to evolve when Timothy asked him to.

Had he known this was going to happen? That he’d be eaten to begin the process?

No.

That was too much.

Gray couldn’t have predicted this especially not when the spider was well within his strength range to kill.

Timothy had originally assumed that something Gray consumed inside the spider cocoon earlier had triggered his evolution.

But now, that felt like wishful thinking.

Instead, it was beginning to look like the evolution process demanded more than just absorbing energy, it needed a host, a biological vessel.

And this spider? She had unwittingly become that vessel.

It was brutal.

And bizarre.

And yet... believable.

Still, it was all just an assumption.

For all Timothy knew, the spider was lying, trying to buy time, trying to survive.

He had two options:

Firstly, to Kill the Spider, if Gray was truly evolving, maybe the system timer would continue regardless.

Or maybe it would stop altogether.

Then he’d have to find a way to carry Gray’s cocoon or whatever remained on his own.

Secondly is to Let her live and feed her, help sustain her as an incubation vessel for Gray’s growth.

That second option made more sense.

After all, even in human biology, a child needs nourishment from the mother’s body.

Maybe this was a monstrous parallel.

...Except this wasn’t a womb.

This was a stomach.

Still, the logic held.

He could also try feeding Gray himself, but without a proper chamber or environment for incubation, it would be reckless.

The spider had a point maybe she was the best chance Gray had.

Even so, everything still hinged on assumptions.

The best-case scenario? He waited the full month and Gray completed his evolution safely.

Worst-case? He fed the enemy, risked everything, and got nothing in return.

"Sometimes it’s good to be optimistic," Timothy muttered aloud.

But even he knew that was naive.

Optimism, to him, was ignoring the process in favor of the result.

Pessimism meant bracing for the worst but being prepared to survive it.

Either way, both paths aimed for the same end.

He made his decision.

Timothy walked over to the scattered cocoons and began dragging them closer to the spider.

It took time without the scarf, but he managed.

He didn’t feed her yet, though.

Looking up, he noticed the moon had vanished from the sky.

If this world aligned with Earth’s time, then dawn was already breaking.

Timothy had reason to believe it was morning.

They had entered the dungeon in the dead of night, and after all the chaos, running, and fighting, the moon had been high in the sky when they reached this point.

It might’ve meant they hadn’t spent much time here, or maybe they simply weren’t paying attention to time.

There was also the odd possibility that the terrain of this place was perpetually nocturnal.

But that theory was now debunked as the moon was gone.

He needed to move faster.

Anonymity was essential in their line of work, and time was no longer on their side.

With that in mind, he glanced at the others who had been silently watching him the whole time and said,

"A little help here?"

They were probably expecting him to just kill the spider.

What help would he need, after all? But they came forward anyway, all except for Prisca, who was still asleep.

Timothy walked over and began cutting down the remaining cocoons with his machete skill, Kinetic Pounce, bringing them to the ground.

He pointed to the scattered cocoons now lying around the base of the great tree.

"That’s your job," he said.

The others didn’t complain.

They simply helped drag the cocoons closer without any questions.

Timothy had half-expected Miebaka to barrage him with them, but the guy remained oddly silent, just observing.

Timothy briefly considered summoning more of his termites to devour some carcasses lying around.

But after thinking it through, he realized it wasn’t necessary.

His summons didn’t need to eat unless active, and their strength scaled with his level-ups anyway.

He could simply level them up when needed by leveling himself up

Turning back to the spider, he said in a calm, measured voice,

"The good news is, I’m not going to kill you. Not because I suddenly care, but because I don’t have a replacement to feed him. But that doesn’t mean I’ll leave him with you either. We were sent to sever the connection between this world and ours, and whether you understand that or not, it means nothing in this place survives especially not you. Don’t take it personally. If you’d spit him out earlier, we’d have left you alone. But now... now you’ll have to come with me."

That last part was a lie.

No one had tasked them with closing the dungeon, it was just a cover for what he was about to say next.

"You’ll follow me home," Timothy said reluctantly as he slit open a cocoon and poured its contents into her mouth.

A moment later, a single word echoed into his mind

"No"

He ignored the response.

He had his terms, after all.

"You don’t have a choice," he said.

"I’m not doing this for you. And I’ll feed you for the duration of your stay, but you are not allowed to heal your legs. My place is small. If you show up in public acting anything but tame, you’ll be killed on sight. And while that wouldn’t bother me much, I’d get reprimanded. Worse, if he dies with you, that would be a real problem."

As he spoke, he kept feeding her cocoon after cocoon.

He was talking quite comfortably with her though.

Most of the creatures inside the cocoon were unfamiliar, but he barely paid attention.

Then came the reply that made his hand pause mid-motion.

"Beg me." She said

Timothy’s hand trembled slightly.

Did this overgrown spider really just ask him to beg?

She was feeling bold.

Too bold.

He struggled to make sense of her.

Understanding women in the human world was hard enough.

Applying that limited understanding to monster females in a fantasy world? Impossible.

His IQ was rapidly depleting.

He glanced at her mouth as he poured another cocoon’s contents in.

Then he caught her gaze... what remained of it.

The two intact eyes were locked onto him with an unsettling intensity.

With a deep sigh, he gave in.

"Please come with me under my conditions, Lady Spider."

"No"

The reply was immediate.

But this time, he watched in surprise as one of her damaged eyes healed.

Then another.

Before the last one could follow, Timothy cut in coldly,

"What are you doing?"

She answered without hesitation.

"You said no legs, I’m too big?... No eyes Too? bad human?"