8th - The Teachings of an Arachne

Seven days.

Seven long, hard days in hell, under the watch of the dreaded spider demon that is Clare - Sandy's arachne mother.

As an arachne, Clare was clearly not equiped with the same morale and sympathy equal to the human's. She was born and raised in the harsh environment of the wild where hundreds of her siblings died upon birth, much less surviving the initial period that is 'childhood'. Her knowledge was earned through experience and her mindset was 'only the strong will survive and the weak will die.' This was the demon that taught Sandy and the most intelligent of her siblings physical combat, and now human knowledge.

Each day was a sin to be represented and the spiderlings under her iron-fist tutoring could not escape the torturous lessons at all. Only the hundreds of ignorant spiderlings who are not intelligent and wise enough to think and reason were spared. Truly, ignorance is bliss.

This wasn't the first time they felt being intelligent was a curse, but it would be the beginning of when they felt being intelligent was despairing.

...

The first day.

For the first time in her life to teach her dear children about common knowledge, Clare was prepared; she was too prepared for the spiderlings however. Her mass information dumping was classified as expert-level and her confidence in her children began to overwhelm their tiny, young brains.

"And this is... For this... You can not do..."

The lesson continued through lunch without pause. Several spiderlings had already fainted and more were to collapse later on. Even Sandy who had inherited past human knowledge was beginning to feel sick. It was like being mentally hosed down by a torrent of highly pressured water; the force were simply too much to handle.

As the lesson was about to approach dinner, the ones still left standing were given food for the day as Clare organised her notes for the lectures. Looking around the make-shift classroom of stone tables, although the fainted spiderlings were already carried to the nest to rest, Clare counted the remaining group after the rapid succession of knowledge crammed into the spiderlings head.

"...Hmm? There's still half of you left. I guess we'll keep going then."

("Wait, half of us are actually suppose to drop out?!")

With regret for surviving so long just to have more knowledge crammed into their heads, the lesson continues into the night. This was only the beginning of the seven days in hell.

...

The second day.

The lesson today were languages.

As the group had already experienced the horror that was yesterday, many were reluctant to get up in the morning. However, with the bloody smell of freshly killed reptile flesh out in the open, everyone approached their breakfast with glee, completely disregarding the previous day's events, Sandy included.

Although Sandy knew, she still cannot resist the taste from her new spider palate. The fresh taste completely captured her as she would willingly walk right into the hands of the demon for food.

The demon who was surveilling right beside everyone knew they cannot resist the delicious temptations. It's in their nature. Her past experiences tells her that natural instincts trumps reasoning during the younger periods of beasts and this proves it further. She watched on with squint eyes, her smile hinting at something sinister.

Sandy who caught a glimps of her mother froze for a second, before she brought another piece of reptile into her mouth. Since it's just the mental pressure from the massive info dump, the rest of the week's not going to be that bad for her, right?

Right?

("AHHHHH!!!")

Sandy regreted thinking that earlier during the morning. She ran around the large cave system like a fleeing rat. A group of larger-than-normal bats chased after her siblings and her in anger, the reason being Clare's nice gestures of waking them up much earlier than needed, or should've.

("What does this have to do with languages?!")

Sandy questioned her mother's seemingly insane and inane actions before Clare sensed what her children were thinking.

"Ah, the clicking sound from the bloodrock bats are actually them cursing at you. Remeber this sound because you'll hear it a lot more in life than you think."

("What the hell?!")

And so, the spiderlings were closely chased by the swarm of bloodrock bats until it was close to night. The bats were killed by Clare and later became their dinner. They were delicious and no one had any objections afterwards, again.

...

The third day.

A brilliant plan was forming in the devilish minds of the mother arachne - a plan to encourage her children to improve. A point system, based on the merit system from the immortal beings, to improve her smart children in pursuing knowledge instead of seeking strength. A system for them to compete aganst each other for the most intelligent of them all to raise. It will be great!

...Was what she explained to the spiderlings as she began her lesson on mathematics.

The first spider to solve a problem will be awarded a point, while the rest gets nothing for second or worse. This was to teach them that the first one to strike gets the loot. She were to allow spiderlings with high amount of points to eat, with the highest having extra.

The spiderlings, itching for food again, roared with cheer. They are not going to suffer after all! If they could answer some questions, they can eat, simple as that! It was going to be an easy lesson this time, was what they thought.

Until they realised the anomoly in their group: Sandy.

("Ha, this is so easy.")

Sandy didn't realise she gainning something else along with points for dinner. The stares of her siblings could kill a man if physical (or perhaps if they were basilisks), yet she didn't notice them at all and only kept answering her mother's basic maths questions. She was too relaxed due to how easy the questions were.

With more than twenty point under her name, she was beginning to anticipate the feast that she was going to get.

In the end, she never noticed the looks that were exchanged between her siblings behind her back. She only blindly gathered points for her feast, unknown to her the fate that was about to come.

And so, as Clare went out to catch more food for the rest of the spiderlings, Sandy was beaten unconscious, completely missing out on her feast, which were divided by everyone else instead.

Clare pretended that she didn't saw a thing - a personal lesson to Sandy for being careless with her actions.

...

The fourth day.

As condolences for being beaten by her siblings, Sandy was given extra breakfast and allowed rest for her injuries.

although Sandy was internally weeping in her mind when she woke up and found out about it, she was glad that she doesn't have to put up with her mother's lesson for the day. She was free! Even if it was just for the day, she was able to relax properly.

She went back to sleep and slept through the morning.

When she woke up however, she was about to be eat alive my her siblings. Thinking she was dead, the smaller spiderlings crawled all over her body and started biting everywhere, each clambering for a part. Sandy didn't think of anything at the start, thinking she was just itchy. Soon, the itch spread throughout her body and she could only wake up to see the hundreds of tiny spiders covering her body.

("Damn it you idiots! I'm not food")

As she tried to shake everyone off of her, her mother saw how energetic she was and called her over. Break time's over.

However, when she arrived, she saw everyone fainted on the floor. 'What in the world happened here?' She could only imagine.

"Ah, well, I guess everyone's tired from these lessons. They were doing so well too. Too bad."

("What does that mean? Why does it sounds like something bad's going to happen to them if they continued?")

"Okay then, how about you? You've had a nice rest, haven't you? It's time for a one-on-one lesson, my dear girl."

Clare looked at her daughter with intense passion, as a teacher of course. Though some would consider this as a positive experience, Sandy felt like she has been targeted by the worst demon in hell. She can't even move due to her mother's glare, as if petrified, the turning-to-stone kind.

("!!")

"Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you too hard. It's only biology."

And so, she was back in hell once again, this time with an itching body due to the bites.

...

The fifth day.

After collapsing, everyone was back to Clare's lessons together with a clear conscience, except for Sandy who stayed up late with her mother's extracurricular lessons.

After four days of knowledge, Clare decided to return back to physical training. One must keep their fangs and instincts sharp after all, even if they're spiders.

Guiding the class of spiderlings to the usual field where they perform mock battles with her, Clare secretly attracted the surrounding monsters towards their group through her own means. No one knew what was coming, and it wan't until the monster swarm surrounded Sandy and the rest that they realised the training has begun and there's nowhere to run.

With her natural skills, Clare had already left to hide behind the swarm, looking over the group's torment that was their physical training. From the way the monsters enclosed on the group, she had even timed her attraction so as to leave no room for them to escape from, forcing them to survive only by fighting back.

Sandy was terrified at first. Yet, after killing off a couple of the monsters, she realised they were too hard to beat, only too exhausting with the amount they had to fight with. She tried to pick out from the crowd the weakest to beat so the swarm can decrease in numbers for the time being, and while she scanned around, she stopped at a particular spot past the monsters.

She saw a figure lazily hanging back, watching her group suffering the attack - her mother.

Getting agitated from this scene, she complained in her mind how unfair this is just like every other day of physical training.

("How come she gets to relax while we are in a life and dead situation? She's just taking today's training as an excuse to take a break from the usual lessons!")

Getting angrier at her mother, she went berserk with the monsters and gained a new skill: "anger burst[I]".

She wailed and slashed wildly towards her mother's direction, killing any monsters in her way. With her actions, the other spiders followed with a cautious distance to escape encirclement. Soon, they all got out of the circle.

"Hoh, not bad."

Clare, impressed in Sandy's new skill watched on casually. She was definitely taking the physical training as a break from the usual lessons in class - for herself - and leaned back on a self-made web hammock. Sandy's outcry turned her head, but she soon went back to her relaxed position, as if her daughter's anger didn't concern her.

As Sandy was about to strike Clare, her vision suddenly turned dark.

She later woke up with a sore bruise on her head, and more monsters to occupy her senses. Clare decided the amount was not enough and attracted more to the scene then went back on her hammock.

("What the heck! That's not fair!")

This time, Sandy could only fight back the horde with an exhausted body. She even thought the lessons conducted were easier than this, but her stubbornness won't let her agree.

And so, she and the rest of the spiderlings spent the day holding back a swarm of monsters, while they (which is really only Sandy) briefly glanced at Clare occasionally in envy.

...

The sixth day.

It was a lesson on health education.

Sandy was especially flustered due to obvious reasons, despite others being nonchalant. It was an intense day for Sandy to handle, even though Clare was actually teaching them normally on this particular day. Clare just couldn't think of anything to excite her children about since this was a pretty boring topic to teach from her point of view. Even she herself doesn't want to continue the lesson.

Sandy on the other hand was think of many different things. She may be reincarnated, but she's still, let's say, 'new' to this. She doesn't know if she is embarrassed, confused, or simply fearful of mating with another spider and... Eh... Let's not talk about this, for various reasons.

And so, as they stop at lunch this time, Sandy was at the point of almost passing out again, for an entirely different reason this time.

However, then came the last day.

"He should be back by about now."

Clare was unsure if she needed to teach for another day. Alexander promised to come back in a week, yet he never specified on the last day or the day after.

With Clare contemplating how to go about with the rest of the day, Sandy and the others were celebrating because they could finally rest. With everything that happened within the week, it'll take some time before they could all process the information they learned.

The day seemed so uneventful, until noon.

A presence was sensed by Clare. Someone was coming.

"Hmm? Alex? Is that you-"

Before she would finish her words, what appeared was a group of humans carried an unconscious Alexander home, covered with bandages over heavy injuries. They said nothing as they stopped before her. Their face were masked but definitely not happy. Kneeling down, the vice leader of the group apologises.

"I'm sorry."