CH 248

Proofreader: Xemul

After returning to the inn, Loren’s group carried the luggage they had brought to their rooms, down to the inn’s yard and tried to get permission from the innkeeper to use the yard.

After all, even if they had food in their luggage, they could not eat them unless they were cooked.

They could also ask to use the inn’s kitchen, but Loren felt awkward about asking to use the kitchen to cook their own food after refusing the meals provided by said kitchen. So he decided not to do it.

They thought that cooking in the inn’s garden might be frowned upon, and were ready to give up cooking and eat only what they could eat without using a fire. They had also considered cooking somewhere else in the city, such as a vacant lot. However, the innkeeper still seemed to be uninterested in their group and kept giving them absentminded replies, so they were at a loss to decide whether it was alright or not.

Since there was no clear refusal, they decided to take it as a yes and set up a stove near the place they had parked their wagon as well as assembled a simple table that had been loaded on the wagon.

After a while, as the daylight began to fade, the stove and table could be considered ready for use. Loren, having decided to draw water for cooking from the well on the grounds of the inn, looked in the direction of the well and was dismayed by what he found.

By the time Loren looked at it, the well had already turned into a huge white cocoon.

Loren looked over his shoulder and saw that Nig, who should always be clinging to it, was gone. Nig was the only creature in the vicinity that could have covered the well with threads. The disastrous scene had to be Nig’s doing, but Loren had no idea what the hell the spider was thinking.

“Loren, what are you looking at…?”

Lapis called out to Loren while preparing to cook, and when she saw what Loren was looking at, she was speechless.

The cocoon seemed to be quite thickly woven. Loren tried to touch it to see if he could get it off, but he soon gave up because of its thickness and the toughness of the threads. It seemed possible to burn it down with fire, but Loren wondered if it would be a waste to go to such lengths for something that Nig had apparently done with an intention.

“Do we have water in the wagons?”

“I think so. But won’t this cause trouble for the inn?”

If the well was not available, the inn would not be able to replenish water. Thus they would not be able to serve food or provide hot water for guests other than Loren’s group, which must be damaging to the inn.

Thinking that he should find Nig and force it to and retrieve the threads, Loren turned toward the inn, and was struck speechless by the sight he saw there.

As it turned out, Nig’s threads had covered not only the well, but also the doors and windows of the inn. This made it impossible to even open the windows, let alone enter or leave the inn.

Whatever Nig’s intentions were, Loren knew that the innkeeper would be furious with them, but no matter how closely he listened, he could not hear a single sound coming from inside the inn. He thought that at the very least, he should have been able to hear some shouts in response to this unusual situation, but contrary to his expectations, the inn remained quiet.

“What’s going on?”

“Shouldn’t there be a clamor like ‘Let us out’ or ‘What the hell is going on’?”

Loren tilted his head in confusion, and Lapis did the same, but since the windows and entrances were kept closed, it was impossible to see what was going on inside. In addition, although Nig could communicate to some extent, he could not speak, so they had no way of knowing what he was thinking when he did such a thing.

“So, where’s Nig?”

“Nig-chan is over there.”

Gula pointed to a spot above her head without taking a break from her work.

Loren looked in that direction and saw a palm-sized black thing flying from the treetops of the trees in the inn’s yard to the treetops of the neighboring grove, trailing a thin thread.

As Loren wondered what it was doing, Nig leapt from tree to tree, weaving the threads he was spitting out between them, and began to cover the area over where Loren and the others were preparing food.

“It wants to make something to substitute for a tent?”

“Isn’t it a little too high for that?”

The threads, which were laid across each other through the movements of Nigs, eventually were woven into something like a cloth that spread out over their heads. But as Lapis had pointed out, the height of the thing was so high that it did not seem to be a good substitute for a tent.

“What is this?”

“We can burn the threads covering the well, but the ones covering the building… We could burn the whole building down if we use fire, and it’s almost sunset. It seems like there are no complaints, so how about we think about it tomorrow?”

“Is that okay?”

“Even if I say no, we can’t do anything about it anyway, can we?”

He must tell Nig to do something about this, but Loren didn’t know how to get it to untie the threads wrapped around the building. He had a feeling that it would do it if he asked it to, but he could not call out to the spider when it was working far above his head.

“But how can Nig spit out so many threads?”

Lapis sounded impressed.

As Loren thought about it, a single thread was very small compared to Nig’s body. There must be quite a lot of threads to be able to cover the well as well as the inn’s entrance and windows like that. The volume of the threads was probably larger than Nig’s current body, and if it was able to spit out that many threads, then the question was where it got the materials required to produce that amount of threads.

“Well, it’s not like we’ll know how by thinking about it.”

“You’re giving up too soon…”

[‘Nig seems to be eating some prey while weaving the threads.’]

It was Shayna who answered the question that Loren had given up thinking about.

[‘It seems like it caught some small animal or something the size of an adult’s thumb, and is working while eating it.’]

Loren looked at his own thumb. It was probably bigger than a child’s, but the only small animal of that size that came to Loren’s mind was a mouse at most, and even then it would have to be a fairly small one. However, if he were to ask whether such a thing could have a volume comparable to the threads that Nig spat out, he would think it unlikely, even though it would depend on the amount of those things. The amount of threads that Nig spat out was that enormous.

“It’s a good thing there’s plenty of food, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think that’s the point.”

Lapis quipped at Loren, who was trying to put an end to the conversation despite still not knowing what was actually happening or why. Even so, it seemed like she didn’t have any intention of thinking about what to do, and intended to leave the decision to Loren.

Loren, somewhat exhausted, and somewhat resigned to the idea that the problem would have to wait until tomorrow, decided to keep watch after eating dinner anyway.

The reaction of the town’s inhabitants was strange, and Nig’s behavior after entering the town was also somewhat strange. There must be a reason for this, but there was so little material to consider that Loren couldn’t even formulate a reasonable theory, so he decided that it was pointless to think about it and that he would prioritize the essential activities of eating dinner and sleeping for now. He wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad decision, but it was the only thing he could think of right now.

“Loren? Could you please get up for a minute?”

After having a meal, they cleaned up, and the order of the watch shifts was decided, with Gula and Ivy assigned to take the first shift. Then Loren sat cross-legged at the back of the wagon and dozed off until he was woken by Ivy. He did not know how long he had been asleep, and when he looked up from the back of the wagon, all he could see was the strings that Nig had stretched around them, illuminated by the light from the campfire they had built to keep watch, not the sky.

Rubbing his eyes and trying to stand up, Loren dropped his gaze when he noticed a weight on his leg that prevented him from standing up.

It was Lapis, breathing softly in her sleep with her head resting on Loren’s thigh and her hand firmly clutching the hem of Loren’s jacket.

Even though he wouldn’t be able to get up if he left it like this, he still felt a little guilty about waking Lapis, who was sleeping comfortably. Loren poked her on the cheek with his finger.

The first poke didn’t wake her up. After a few more, she frowned and looked unhappy. But Loren continued to poke her, and Lapis eventually opened her eyes.

“Wake up. Something’s wrong.”

“It was bliss.”

Lapis muttered earnestly as she let go of Loren’s jacket and placed her hands on his knees to push herself up. Thinking that his thigh should be too hard to make a good pillow, Loren stepped out of the back of the wagon.

“What happened?”

“Outside.”

Huddled against the fence surrounding the inn’s property, Gula peered out.

Thinking that he should ask Gula for more details, Loren looked at his shoulder before moving.

Before he went to sleep, Nig, who had taken up a permanent position there, was still in the middle of his work and was not there, but the spider had returned at some point and was now clinging firmly to Loren’s shoulder as it always did.

After confirming this, Loren put the greatsword, he had removed to sleep, back on his back and moved quietly until he was close to Gula, who was peering out from behind the fence.

“What happened?”

“Don’t know. But there are a lot of people gathering at this time of night.”

Gula said and pointed to somewhere, but there was not a single light on the street despite the late hours, and the people Gula was talking about did not seem to have any kind of lights with them, so Loren could not see them with his eyes.

[‘I’m syncing with your vision, onii-san.’]

As he heard Shayna’s voice, Loren’s eyes could see through the darkness. He saw Gula’s pointing to a group of quite a few people gathering without lights.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that it’s obviously strange for people to be gathered here at this time of night without lights.”

Loren did not see anything common among the people gathered here. Their ages were all different, and there were both males and females. Among them was also the owner of the store where Lapis had bought fruit during the day.

“It’s probably too late, but put out the fire anyway.”

Loren, not knowing why people were gathering, instructed his party to destroy any element that might attract their attention, and Ivy immediately put out the fire by pouring water on it.

As soon as the fire was extinguished, Gula, who had been watching the group, raised a small voice in the darkness.

“The group is moving.”

“I’m going after them. One of you follow me.”

“Then it can’t be anyone but me.”

If they had not just gathered, but had started moving as a group, then there had to be some sort of destination. Loren thought he had to confirm this, regardless of whether or not it had anything to do with the abnormalities they were sensing in the city. Lapis offered to accompany him

“We’ll leave Gula and Ivy in charge here then.”

“Don’t push it, Loren.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not very good at this kind of thing. I’ll cut it off where it’s appropriate.”

Loren was not suited for tracking work because of the weapon he used. Even so, as he was not willing to have someone else go, he had no choice but to go himself.

“Does this even have any meaning?”

“The meaning will come later, won’t it?”

Ivy tilted her head in doubt, and Lapis responded with something that may or may not be an explanation.

“It’s better than having no information at all. We’re off then.”

After saying this, Loren quickly ran out from behind the fence into the street. After seeing off Lapis, who ran after him, the two Evil Gods began to watch their surroundings in order to protect their current location, which could now be called their base, until those two came back.