The Strongest Gun Magus: I Cast Bullet!-Chapter 23: The Spider’s Song
Reynard looked around, but didn’t see more webs. He shook his head.
"No... We are searching for burrows, not beasts, remember! Magical spiders are usually sought for their silk and poison, and they provide very little of it dead. Let’s keep searching for water."
The party advanced, but Reynard spent more time looking around than before. Terence was also on edge, and he was the one who first noticed the second carcass.
This one belonged to a wolf. Like the first one, it was stuck to a tree with haphazard spiderweb, but it looked fresher than the deer.
"I don’t like this," Reynard muttered. "Terence, carry Chili for me. I want it safe and my hands free."
"S-sure!"
The trail of corpses continued with the corpse of a Dreadfox. The magical beast, which was once only slightly weaker than a Forge-Boar, has been sucked dry and chewed on just like an ordinary wolf earlier.
And the Dreadfox was large enough for Reynard to ride it if he wanted to.
It was around the same time that Reynard noticed that the birds and rodents near them went quiet.
"Mister Artemy... I think we entered the wrong place. We should go in another direction!" Terence said. "Like... Away! Or to the side!"
"You know what? I’m not a Fire Magus either. Let’s go."
Reynard picked a direction perpendicular to their previous one and made four steps down it before a scream went through the air.
"HEEEEEEELP! SOMEBODYYYYYYY!"
"It’s coming from where we were walking to!" Terence exclaimed, looking there.
"And that voice is vaguely familiar." Reynard frowned, trying to remember where he had heard it. The distance and the shouting made it hard to tell.
"Mister Artemy, quickly! This is our fellow student, we gotta help him!"
"Oh, so you pulled me into trouble once, and you are trying to pull me into trouble a second time, Terence? Was this your ploy from the start, or what?"
Terence clenched his fists.
"No! I... We... The students of Blue Bismuth School are supposed to help each other in danger! So... I will help even if you won’t!"
With these words, Terence took off into a run toward the voice.
Reynard cursed under his breath and followed close behind.
"You have my Chili, you moron! Stop and at least don’t get my pet pig killed!"
’Helping other students, my ass! I bet if it were ME shouting, other students would have only come over to loot my body and celebrate that a competitor died without them having to break the rules! It’s not like people maim each other in duels every other month. I suppose I should try to be better than these pricks... Even if they don’t deserve it!’
Despite these thoughts, Reynard ran ahead of Terence.
He pushed aside the underbrush and cursed his backpack that snagged on every tree branch on his way.
"HEEEEEEELP!"
"Hold on!" Reynard shouted. "Terence, stay—agh!"
Reynard’s leg snagged on something unseen, and he stumbled to the ground.
He threw his hands forward to catch his fall, only to be crushed face-first into the moss and leaves anyway, when his backpack’s weight crushed his back.
"Oomph! What the—?!"
"Mister Artemy, are you alright?" Terence caught up with Reynard and tried to help him up. Since the young magus had a backpack that rivaled Reynard’s own, he mostly only made things worse.
Reynard shook off his backpack, pushed himself upright, and spat out some grass. Something was still holding his leg, though.
He looked closer and grimaced.
It was a patch of white spiderweb with some leaves and grass already stuck on it. Reynard’s fall made the spiderweb stick to his shoe, and now it was snagging on everything.
"Shit. So, Terence, I was about to tell you to stay behind, cover my back, and protect Chili. Do that, and also watch over my backpack!"
Reynard pointed a finger at Terence.
"Uh... Yes, sure!" the young magus replied, but Reynard was already walking forward.
He was concerned that he didn’t hear any more screams.
Several steps later, the spiderweb stuck to his foot caught enough leaves on it to stop snagging on anything else.
’This could have been a good camouflage if it covered my entire body. But it just ruined my shoes. I bet it will NEVER come off—this spiderweb is closer to some industrial-grade glue.’
Reynard could have resumed running, but he preferred to look where he was stepping and avoid a few more spiderweb spots.
They didn’t look like intentional traps, but Reynard wasn’t sure.
There were still no screams coming from up ahead. Instead, Reynard heard...
’Is that singing?’
The melody was beautiful. Its pitch went from high to low like an ocean, carrying with it a sense of perfect peace and calm. The wave of sound flew around the forest, making it hard to distinguish where it was coming from.
Reynard’s tense shoulders relaxed.
’Why... Why would someone sing? I guess this means that they aren’t in danger? I should check anyway...’
He walked forward much more relaxedly than before. The danger ahead must’ve passed, so Reynard’s hands weren’t on the hilts of his guns or in a spellcasting stance.
He almost stepped into another web patch, which made Reynard blink and focus more on where he was stepping. Still, he listened to the song.
It was beautiful, and all around him...
And then, he walked around another tree and had to stop.
Ahead, an unremarkable-looking brown spider was spinning a cocoon over the base of a tree. While its front feet moved, its mouthparts—iridiscent, unlike the rest of its body—rubbed together, producing the wonderful sound Reynard heard.
The spider was the size of a horse. The cocoon was the size of a human, and threadbare enough to see the black robes of the man inside. His mouth and hands were already covered by the web, but his eyes were wide open.
There was enough face visible that Reynard recognized the student—he was one of Markus’s cronies!
And the song was still urging Reynard to calm down, even when the spider suddenly stopped with the cocoon and turned to him. Its eight black eyes stared with a silent warning.
’I... If I just walk away... Everything will be alright...
