Chapter 278

278 – The Spiderlings’ Evolution

The spiderlings move back and forth in the same spot without settling down, each of them fidgeting suspiciously. One of them unsteadily staggers towards me.

My partner lowers her head and it comes closer to her. Rather than me, she’s its objective. She’s the one who picked them up at the start, and she’s the first one they saw when they hatched, so I wonder if it knows that. But it’s not like it does anything, it just clings to her head.

『What’s the matter with these guys?』

She looks at me in concern. They’re fine. It’s probably just their evolution. With this timing, that’s all it could be.

I convey with my thoughts, and she tilts her head to the side as she looks over them… Can she not see their statuses? I could teach her… No, it’s a skill, so her body should know how to use it instinctively. It might be like how I can’t use [Soul Appendment] or [Death].

While I’m watching them, the spiderlings all stop moving in unison. Their heads and abdomens shiver, and then their legs start shivering too.

“Gaa…”

My partner lets out a cry of worry. She casts [High Rest] on the nearest one… No, I don’t think that’d help.

Though saying that, I also have no idea what’s going to happen. I continue to watch over them in worry until the shivering of one of them subsides. Naturally, I focus my gaze on that one.

The spiderling’s body starts swelling up. It was smaller than two human hands pressed together, grows to be as large as a medium-sized dog. Unable to bear the strain, a tear opens up in the skin of its head. Its body surface peels away from its head, exposing its body.

The skin exposed on its head is tender like a newborn’s. Exposed to the air, it expands and contracts sensitively. By squinting my eyes, I can make out a thin fuzz of hair.

Th-this must be that moulting thing. I was wondering what was happening.

Stretching its body, the skin covering its abdomen separates too, almost as if it’s getting out of a costume. Finally it falls over while wriggling its legs to complete its escape from its old skin.

It gets up and shakes its body again. Exposed to the air, its skin slowly hardens.

Starting with first’s escape from its skin, the remaining seven shed theirs one after the other, each of them falling to the side as they kick off their old skin. Once they’re fully escaped, their bodies shake as they grow accustomed to the outside air, then as though it’s a matter of course, they turn and start eating away at their own cast-off skins.

…S-somehow it feels like I’ve witnessed something precious. Though if you were to ask me if I’d like to see it again, I’d have to decline by saying I’ve already seen a lifetime’s worth.

These kids, aren’t they a little too greedy for food? Now that I think about it, both the ball rabbit and my partner are gluttons. For that matter, the whole reason things got complicated with the orange monkeys in the first place was because they were stealing my dried meat, not to mention the time the black lizard’s head got stuck in a jar of poison, legs wriggling desperately.

I’m a human inside, so even when I was weak, I had the knowledge to create preserved foods, so I might be a bit naive about matters of starvation. I need to be grateful for never being troubled for food.

None of their designs have changed, all of them having a vivid green body surface. They’re continuing down the araenie line, I think. Araenie are meant to have a peaceful disposition, though…

Their parent araenie was bigger than a human. As they are now, they’re only as big as a medium-sized dog at best. To reach their parent’s form, probably one more evolution is needed. Once they’re fully evolved, they might calm down a bit, so I’ll look forward to that.

As a test, I check the status of one of them.

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Species: Kid Araenie[1]

Condition: Normal

Lv: 1/30

HP: 5/25

MP: 2/30

Attack: 33

Defence: 18

Magic: 24

Speed: 36

Rank: D

Characteristic Skills:

[Automatic HP Recovery: Lv 1]

Resistance Skills:

[Physical Resistance: Lv 1]

Normal Skills:

[Bite: Lv 2] [Spider Thread: Lv 2] [Thread Daruma:[2] Lv 1] [Numbing Thread: Lv 1]

Title Skills:

[Simple Innocence: Lv: -] [Pet of the Evil Dragon: Lv -] [Thread Expert: Lv 1] [Combination: Lv 3] [Abyss Eater:[3] Lv 1]

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Uh-huh, a kid araenie. Now that I think about it, I get the feeling there was a kid system in my previous evolutions. It gives me a nostalgic feeling somehow. I wonder if when I was a plague kid dragon, I was also in the kid system.

Their evolution probably goes [Baby Araenie] → [Kid Araenie] → [Araenie].

For now, please restore their HP, partner… When I lower my gaze, I see my partner with her chin on the ground, confronting a black something. The black something squirms with a rustling sound, closing the distance to her. Startled, she bends backwards, but a black thread is stuck to her scales and stretches out.

“Gaah! Gaah!”

Surprised, she shakes her head.

Wh-what is that… That’s a spider, right? I count the kid araenie and find there’s only seven. One’s missing. Probably, it’s the spiderling that was close to my partner before it evolved.

Only one of them evolved strangely…? I look at it in doubt, and a pure white human face glares back at me.

“Guoh!?”

I let out a cry of surprise. When I look more closely, I realise the black spider only has a white face-like thing on it. Below the face is a mouth, and above it are eight crimson eyes.

Rather than a face, is it more like a shell…? The white-coated mask has a thin, crescent moon mouth, giving it the appearance of a creepy smile. Wh-what is this spider…

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Species: Petit Nightmare

Condition: Normal

Lv: 1/45

HP: 58/58

MP: 2/60

Attack: 60

Defence: 48

Magic: 65

Speed: 45

Rank: D+

Characteristic Skills:

[Dark Attribute: Lv -] [Automatic HP Recovery: Lv 1] [Poison Band: Lv 2]

Resistance Skills:

[Physical Resistance: Lv 1] [Magic Resistance: Lv 2] [Poison Resistance: Lv 4] [Curse Resistance: Lv 2]

Normal Skills:

[Poison Fang: Lv 2] [Spider Thread: Lv 2] [Ally Call[4]: Lv 1] [Thread Daruma: Lv 1] [Poison Thread: Lv 2]

Title Skills:

[Pet of the Evil Dragon: Lv -] [Thread Master: Lv 4] [Malicious: Lv -] [Mutation: Lv -] [Obsession: Lv 5] [Cunning: Lv 4] [Abyss Eater: Lv 2]

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Eh… What is this…? It’s status is totally different. Why’s it got so many skills?

[1] The “kid” here is written in english, rather than the 子 (ko) used in plague kid dragon.

[2] Daruma – those little red dolls of good luck.

[3] Abyss here is written with the Japanese word 深淵 (shinen), rather than the english used in the name of the monsters.

[4] This is the same skill that the dark worms had all the way back in chapter 2.