The General frowned.

Emperor class vampire spiders! Even one was considered a calamity, not to mention that their number exceeded fifteen!

These creatures were bloodthirsty, with a sadistic streak. Not only would they drain the blood out of their victim, if they became full before they had fully drained the victim, they would forcefully expel the blood within them in order to drain every last drop from their victims.

Not to mention the fact that they were extremely territorial. Without a beast tamer, it would be impossible for so many of these things to tolerate living close to each other.

On a side note, the name was also the off-the-books title of a certain *cough* kingdom’s tax collector.

But, seeing that they attacked and drained every warm-blooded creature they found without question, it was near impossible to tame an emperor-class vampire spider.

If one could tame even one of these creatures, then that person would become known as a master tamer. The General knew this.

“Ho?…you’re saying that my man has somehow tamed and commanded an army of untamable beasts, and is using that to massacre entire villages?” The General asked.

“Pretty much, yeah.” She replied.

Darwin smiled. “You do realize how ridiculous you sound right now, don’t you? If I was able to tame an army of such things, why am I still here at my post? Why wouldn’t I be at the top rung, showing people my amazing abilities, and receiving my rewards?”

“Because it’s convenient for you.” She said. “No one else has a chance of arriving on the scene first, and getting rid of any evidence that would point to your pets, like discarded skins, or poison hairs. And also, you have no desire for rewards...” She stared pointedly at him. "You pride yourself in your bloody work, you sick monster!"

Darwin’s nose twitched, betraying his annoyance under Thera's gaze.

Thera raised an eyebrow. “Moreover, these puppets that I just defeated a few minutes ago were all suspended upon one great big spiders web, and I just burned it down. Do you know what that means?”

The General’s eyes widened. Emperor Spiders were very proud of their webs. Anyone who dared to burn them would incite the wrath of every last one into a veritable frenzy without fail.

“They are coming here, where the fire came from. If you want proof that this man is guilty, you need not do anything more than wait here until they arrive.” She said.

A wind blew dust clouds by, as this realization sank in. Hissing cries of rage sounded in the distance.

Darwin realized at that moment, that he had made a terrible mistake. He should have run when the General jumped off the second story. He should have sought to leave with every bit of strength he had. This girl -who had seemed such a simple, innocent young creature- was actually such a meticulous mastermind!

For a moment, everyone was as still as a statue.

A vein bulged in Darwin’s head. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move his legs. Looking down, Thera's elongated shadow seemed to loom over him. But, there was something wrong about that shadow...

The moon! It was in the wrong place in the sky! In order for such a shadow to be cast, the moon should have been low on the horizon behind her. Instead, it illumined her face from her right, creating a second shadow, which stretched away to her left.

"Oh? Just where do you think you're going?" Thera grinned at him. It was this girl who had done something! He was certain of it! Darrin finally realized that even if he wanted to leave, he was now unable to. Thera’s immobilization spell had been discovered.

“Enough of this foolishness!” He snapped. “Even if what you say is true, and there are really emperor spiders in the surroundings, you have no proof that I have ever been in control of them! Release me! The true culprit could be laughing in the shadows as we speak!” His eyes jumped around here and there as he began to panic.

"Don't make the mistake of convicting an innocent man for a villain's crimes!" He cried.

"Oh? but I'm sure that if we examine these puppets we'll be able to find traces of your mana upon them. These puppets were suspended from the web above us, and spiders have no need for such things. They also don't naturally dislike placing useless things upon their webs. So, how did these puppets get up there?" Thera searched Darrin's expression. Ah, he winced. Guilty.

"That doesn't mean anything! I've been fighting these things for five days and nights, so of course there'd be traces of my mana on there!" Darrin retorted.

"...But...on every single one? While you may have fought them, would you be able to place mana traces in the individual pieces of the puppets themselves? There is such thing as a craftman's mana record. If examined, I'm sure that every single one of these will come up as your possessions and creations." Thera pointed out.

Darrin became silent. "E-even so, I am a soldier of the king! By rights I should have a fair and just trial in court! You can't just accuse me without due proccess of law!" Hopefully a rich noble would be interested in his unique talents and pay his bail, allowing him to walk away free.

Thera remained sitting on the black stone. By this point, Thera had released the binding onf the General. He had already been proven innocent.

“If you mean to take you to the court of bribery and corruption, then I'll have to disappoint you. Not interested.” Thera replied airily.

Darwin swore at Thera in extremely colorful language.

Thera simply stuck her fingers in her ears, which caused him to swear all the more.

The General now saw Darwin in a new light. No longer did he appear to be a sane, upright man.

The Darwin before him was quickly revealing his true face: the face of a monster who had long tossed away his humanity.

Every point which Darwin brought up to prove his innocence, Thera shot him down with more and more proof. Everything he used to prove his innocence was only helping to confirm his guilt. Thera was merciless.

The General was also concerned, though. He approached Thera.

“I admire your courage, Thera, but do you not realize that if we stay here, we’ll be surrounded by an army of Emperor level vampire spiders? Against one or two, perhaps, I could hold my own, but even an army would have trouble dealing with such a crowd, underneath brown-class practitioners.”

Thera grinned. “Oh they may try to kill me, but it won’t work.” She tapped the black stone she was sitting on. “They can’t get within three yards of this.”

“And what is that?” The General asked.

Thera’s face fell. “What? You don’t recognize it? This is a ward stone. Moreover, it’s made out of blessed silver, although the outer covering has oxidized a bit, I’ll admit. I was surprised that you would put something so useful as a marker for the transportation spell, though.” She said turning to Darwin.

“Transportation spell?” The General asked, moving within the three yard protected area. Strangely, the ward stone for some reason did not reject his drawing near. He assumed Thera had something to do with it- a token of her trust.

“Yep. Although you can’t really see it very well down here, this whole town is surrounded by a huuuge transportation array.”

She tapped the black stone. “With this for the center stone of the array. As expected of a beast tamer. Instead of you yourself providing the enormous amount of power needed, you substituted this ward stone as a sort of temporary battery. If I move it out of its spot, the whole spell should collapse and bring everyone back to the town.”

The General raised his eyebrow at this.

"And why didn't we see this stone beforehand?"

"Ward stones are enchanted to be hard to find. Unless you knew the exact location, and touched the stone, it would remain hidden from sight." She replied.

“And what if you’re actually the one who's the beast tamer, little girl?” He asked. “You could be waiting for the best chance to kill me, you know.”

Thera raised an eyebrow in response.

“Well, first off, if I’d have wanted to kill you two, I’d have done it in a much simpler way. Putting poison in the food I made, or throwing poison down the well would have been much simpler and effective. Or I could have created magic traps in town which only activated upon reaching a certain weight threshold. No need to beat around the bush and waste my vast amount of puppets and resources; and no need to anger my own emperor-class vampire spiders. That’s just stupid.” She scoffed.

“No, rather, you’re altogether too clever for a young lady of eleven years, so, even though it doesn't make any sense, it could also have been a possibility for you.” The General said honestly, chuckling. She was right. She had had many opportunities to kill them before this. Purposefully injuring her advantage did not make any sense.

Thera crossed her arms. “Anyone who has ANY proficiency in magic is bound to be intelligent. Be it an old doddering codger or a mere eleven year old girl. The only difference between the two is wisdom gained through experience. You can’t become a wizard if you’re stupid. But, for arguments sake, if I were the murderer, then you'd already be sleeping with the fishes at this point.”

“Point taken.” He replied. “Now, what are you intending to do with Darwin, here?” Darwin himself was just outside of the 3-yard ward protection.

“What? You don’t want to take him back to the king and have him tried for the destruction of many towns, and the murder of thousands of innocent people?” Thera asked. “I certainly have no desire to possess him, either dead, or alive.”

The General frowned. “Well, I’d certainly LIKE to, but taking into account that he is far too dangerous to the kingdom, should he escape with his peculiar talents, it would be best to just kill him and investigate afterwards, wouldn’t it?”

Darwin’s face drained of color. “General, you wouldn’t do that, would you? You couldn’t murder one of your own men in cold blood!” He sniveled.

“Says the cold-blooded man who planned the massacre of thousands with what could only be described as the worst of deaths.”

Thera pointed out. “But there’s really no need to do anything, General. Emperor-level beasts have a peculiar habit when enraged: they recognize no one, either stronger or more powerful than they-including their tamers.”

If Darwin’s face looked pale, beforehand, now it was as white as a sheet.

As the spiders began to get closer and closer, Darwin began to threaten, then to beg, then to shriek, then to cry for mercy, out of growing fear. But he could do nothing. He was bound to the ground, and no amount of effort could release him from it.

Thera acted like he wasn’t there. She had no mercy for a murderer.

Every time he begged, Thera thought of the countless corpses that she had witnessed in the village that she had examined. She thought of her parents and sister sharing the same fate, coupled with his expression of joy when he remembered the moments of slaughter, and felt horrified and violently ill. But even more so, she felt a nauseating disgust, a cold rage, as she observed this wretched being.

This kind of scum did not deserve to live not even a moment more!

In her previous world, she had been a hair’s breadth away from becoming her master’s successor. But she had been missing one thing: sakki, bloodlust, the materialized desire for blood. He had sent her out into the world to travel and learn from other masters how to materialize sakki.

Thera had never before felt such an anger, such an overwhelming desire to kill. She had always been level-headed and logical, but exacting. You could say that, in her past life, she had hated no one but herself, mistaking the failures of others for her own self-weakness.

Having been reborn, she clearly felt for the first time an anger that could not be quenched by anything other than that man's death. But, this execution was not revenge, nor was it self-defense, but an exacting and just retribution for the lives that had fallen under him. Anything less simply would not do.

Unbeknownst to her, her tiny frame was radiating an insane amount of bloodlust at that time. To the point where the General was observing her carefully, in case her rationality snapped and she lost her right mind.

Soon enough, the spiders became visible at the outskirts of the village. Darrin shivered and turned around. When he saw their red-enraged eyes he shrieked, but that only caused them to rush all the more quickly, as the sound of new prey easily reached theor location.

Thera finally looked at him, her expression as cold as the cold rage that burned within her.

“You know, you’re extremely unlucky. You could have chosen a different village, but you didn’t. In your arrogance, you chose MY village to take hostage, with MY family in it. With no previous enmities between us, do you think I would simply let you kill my family? We may have never even crossed paths in our lifetimes. But your arrogance decided your fate. Die in the same way that all those innocents died.”

With these words, she gazed unfalteringly at the nightmarish execution taking place before her. Thirty enraged spiders pounced on him at once, their abdomens becoming larger as they immediately emptied quarts out of him, while he was still alive.

As the light from Darrin's eyes dimmed, his face twisted into a wrinkled visage filled with regret. But there was no medicine for regret. The light in his eyes went out, and his body slumped over. When he finally looked no more than a skin-covered mummy, they separated, dropping Darwin’s drained corpse to the ground.

Having witnessed his execution, Thera nodded. Then promptly turned to the side and emptied her stomach of its dinner.

Even in her previous life, she had only killed that sword-wielding madman, and had been killed in return. But, even so, the gruesome scene before her was enough to empty any soldier’s stomach.

“Why didn’t you turn away?” The General said, observing Thera.

Thera wiped the side of her mouth with her sleeve. “Turning away meant that I admitted I was doing something wrong. I was not wrong, therefore, even should I not desire to see such a thing, why should I turn away?”

He nodded. "Good answer, girl."

The cold flame went out as Thera sighed. "But...Those villages with the victims corpses....they should have a proper burial now that the villain is dealt with."

While I'd love to be able to bring about such a thing, I can do nothing if we can't get out. I don't suppose you have a plan for dealing with this current situation?” The General asked, eyeing the spiders that were as tall as ponies.

Thera nodded in return. “Yes, but you’re not going to like it.” Wisps of the mist were still floating about in the area, carrying a sweet scent upon them.

The General frowned as his eyes began to blurr. He suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to sleep and fell on his knees. “What- what. Have. You. Done?” He asked, he voice slurring as he fought the sweet-smelling sleeping powder I had scattered in the air before he had even arrived.

“Take a nap. I’ll handle everything.” She replied.

“That’s…No….fair.” And with that, the big man toppled over, fast asleep.

Thera took a deep breath and spoke to the spiders. “Hey, spiders! I know you can understand me!” With that, 240 eyes stared at her. “I feel pretty bad for burning your webs, so I’ll make it up to you: the strongest one amongst you, I will allow to kill me.”

The spiders mandibles clacked together as the thought agreed with them.

“There’s just one question I have to ask.” Thera continued. “Who among you is the strongest?”

At once each spider straightened out and clacked loudly, each claiming to be the strongest. They then began attacking each other in fury for seeing other spiders claim they were strongest.

It was as Thera suspected. Once their tamer was gone, they basically went back to their original territorial, solitary way of living. Within minutes, the bodies of the spiders were riddled with wounds.

“Aw. Such strength! But I still can’t tell who’s the strongest. Well, no other choice but to heal you all up and start again.” Thera said. Extending her hand, she invoked [Heal].

Holy light lit up the area. But, instead of closing up the wounds of the spiders, it had the reverse effect. The spiders shrieked as smoke came out of their wounds, their bodies quickly corroding in the holy light.

Within minutes, The army of spiders had become mere piles of dust, blown away in a slight breeze. The early morning twilight warned of the coming dawn.

Spending their entire time trying to destroy the damnable beasts, hundreds of years of fighters would have never even had an inkling of a thought of healing the pests, which is why they were so hard to kill off.

In fact, Emperor-level Vampire Spiders were considered to be more dangerous than Dragons.

Sure, a Brown-class Practitioner could have easily dealt with them. But, for a little eleven-year-old girl to actually one-hit KO a group of thirty of these beasts, it was no minor occurrence. This event was first in the future book of her legendary feats.

------------------------------

Thera meditated to regain the large amount of MP she had expended. She had shortened Mana Power to MP and Martial Spirit Power to SP in her head, since it was easy to associate such things to gaming terminology.

Then, she stood up, and dusted off her skirt. Time to release everyone from the spell.

In actuality, this was an ancient livestock transportation spell that not many would know about. It was only because of Thera’s access to Madame Rothema’s library that she knew about it at all.

Originally, it was painted onto a large canvas, placed on the ground. Then the livestock would be placed upon it, and the spell would store them in a pocket space, in suspended animation.

Upon secondary invocation, the livestock would then be released in the same state that they had been right before being stored.

This method had saved on fodder expenses, and kept the traffic down. After all, it was easier to transport a cartful of canvases, than it was to escort a herd of cattle down the busy streets.

But after the loss of many wizards in the great wars, this method had become lost to the world. Thera had recently run across it in passing in an ancient book that Madame Rothema had added to her collection.

All that she needed to do now was to remove the ward stone. She pushed upon the ward stone...

It remained in its spot.

Thera frowned and threw her whole weight against it.

The stone did not budge.

She stamped her foot, and used the earth spell, [Tremor].

It remained unaffected.

Finally, Thera gave up using physical force, and concentrated, remembering the back door way to reverse the spell.

Since Thera had not practiced this spell very well, she had no choice but to draw a complicated sigil in the air, and speak the return incantation: “Across space and time, give back what is mine!”

And, with that, a bright light covered the entire town of Dulce as the sun simultaneously broke over the horizon, shining upon the town iluminated with silver lights reaching to the heavens.