Spider

The three sprinted through the village streets, the sound of the scream still reverberating in Haruki’s ears. Villagers peered from shuttered windows or clutched children close to their skirts, watching the trio race past.

They followed the sound to a lone cottage at the far edge of the settlement. The door stood ajar, swinging gently as though someone had left in haste. A thin wisp of smoke rose from the chimney, curling in eerie stillness against the dusky sky. Haruki’s stomach knotted. Something about the cottage’s crooked roof and gray stone walls seemed uncomfortably familiar.

“Inside,” Loto ordered softly, his voice sharp and calm like a blade being unsheathed.

The scent of herbs and cooking broth filled the air of the kitchen, undercut by a sharp tang of fear, sweat, panic, and the metallic hint of blood. Haruki scanned the shadowy living room: a toppled chair, a knitting basket overturned, yarn tangled in messy loops across the floorboards. Somewhere above them came a frantic cry, followed by the heavy thud of movement.

“This way!” Kiera’s hands flared with firelight, casting orange shadows across the staircase.

As they charged up the steps, Haruki was slowly realizing the images he was seeing were coming eerily close to what he was seeing before. The narrow hallway, the soft creak of the third step, the pale light spilling from a door at the end. The earlier images were vague, but the scent of memory lingered.

The moment they burst into the room, his vision crystallized into reality.

A hulking spider the size of a wagon loomed over a cowering couple pressed into the corner of the bedroom. Its eight eyes gleamed like beads of polished jet, and its thick, bristled legs scraped deep gouges into the wood floor. The thing hissed, its mandibles clicking, just like in the vision.

Kiera wasted no time, summoning a flaming sword that burst forth with an overwhelming power.

“Move!” she shouted, stepping between the beast and the terrified villagers.

But before she could strike, Loto calmly adjusted the brim of his slightly tilted detective-looking hat.

“Ahem,” he coughed, clearing his throat as though preparing for a lecture rather than a battle. “If I may…”

Haruki blinked as Loto stepped forward, not with a sword or staff, but a thick, leather-bound book so heavy it looked like it could flatten a wild boar. The Deacon flipped it open to no page in particular, coughed again, and said in a controlled voice:

“Ahem – AHEM… I’ll take care of this.”

Then, with a decisive motion, he closed the book and slammed it straight onto the spider’s head like it was a brick he found somewhere on a construction site.

The monster screeched and reeled back, but Loto didn’t hesitate. He struck again and again, each blow punctuated by a loud thumping sound that seemed to annoy the creature more than it was actually hurting it.

Kiera froze mid-strike, her flames flickering in confusion. “What the…”

Then her face recoiled into a desperate shout of disbelief:

“What on earth are you doing?”

“Have no fear,” Loto responded with a knightly demeanor, “everything is under control. No dirt or ooze is staining my robe, so that’s all that matters.”

“You WHAT?” Kiera screamed along with the couple.

“Is he… is he winning?” Haruki asked aloud, ducking as one of the spider’s legs swung dangerously close.

“I don’t know!” Kiera snapped, poking the spider with her flaming sword every time it came closer. “Please, sir. I am begging you to get your hands dirty!”

“Are you insane?” Loto snapped back. “This thing is filthy. And I forgot my sanitation oil rub back home.”

“The what-oil? What even is going on?” Kiera held her head in confusion.

The spider shrieked, throwing itself against the wall in an attempt to shake them off. The couple huddled together in terror, and Haruki’s instincts screamed at him to move out of the way.

Loto stood there, back pressed against the wall, the massive spider’s shadow flickering over him in the dim lamplight. He raised his book like a shield as the creature hissed and skittered closer, the floorboards creaking beneath its weight.

“I was really hoping to get through this entire trip without having to… ugh…” he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose like he knew he was going to regret this.

“Have to WHAT?” Kiera barked, whipping her flaming sword in a wide arc to drive the beast back. Haruki was already scrambling against the corner of the wall, trying to keep himself safe.

“Ugh, fine,” Loto growled, the word dragging out of him like a bored sigh. “There goes my weekend bonus. I hope the cleaning potion is still in stock.”

He tossed the book aside and extended one elegant hand, index finger raised like a duelist presenting a pistol at dawn. This was a pose that Haruki also subconsciously recognized like those gunslingers in those movies of his, which only reminded him how bizarre it was that Loto had all of this going with his getup while the man was clearly living in the middle of this medieval fantasy.

The air around him seemed to hum softly, and the faint golden glow around his fingertip swelled until it burned like a miniature sun. The spider screeched, sensing danger, but it was too late.

The ray of light that erupted from his fingertip was blinding, a concentrated lance of brilliance that tore through the spider’s body as if it were parchment. The crack of the blast rattled the windows, and in an instant, the massive creature collapsed into a wet, nauseating blob. Its limbs curled inward like dead branches, and a spray of viscous green ooze splattered across the wooden walls, dripping in uneven streaks.

Silence followed. The smell of the scorched carcass with its burned guts glowing within infiltrated every nose in the room. Kiera froze in place, blinking at the carnage, while Haruki instinctively shielded himself from the gore. Loto, standing amidst it all, stared at the sizzling remains with an expression of profound disgust.

He lowered his glowing finger with exaggerated care, holding his hand as far from himself as possible, his lips curling like he’d just eaten the spider’s innards themselves.

“This,” he said, voice flat and full of tragedy, “is precisely why I cannot have nice things.”

He flicked a glob of goo off his sleeve with two fingers, wincing as it smeared further.

“I had this whole thing custom made from wool. Wool I say!”

Kiera couldn’t help herself – and immediately exhaled a defeated laugh, trying to keep her composure and respect for a higher-ranked member of the Holy Hunters. But there was very little holy about this. Or maybe it was completely too holy, with how he wanted to separate himself from the filth.

Haruki just stood there, utterly bewildered, trying to reconcile the absurdity of the moment with the deadly precision he’d just witnessed. The Deacon had reduced a monster twice his size into a splatter of guts with a flick of his finger… yet somehow, he knew, there was little heroism sparkling in the eyes of the couple, despite the danger passing.