“This is so weird,” I said after the elf broke away. “I could literally see myself kissing you.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

I smiled. “I don’t think so? It’s just… weird.”

I grasped for my head as another jolt of pain coursed through it.

“Ugh. It does seem I’ll need time adjusting. My head can’t handle all this.”

Velariah brushed my hair behind my ears, carefully, so as to not poke my new eyes.

“You won’t be the only one adjusting, El. Isn’t your hair just frustrating?”

“I’m more worried about my helmet… I won't be able to utilize my expanded vision with it...”

“Huh, that’s a good point,” Velariah replied, “It’s something to worry about later, though. Do you want a painkiller to deal with your headache?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know if that will cause any side effects. I feel like this headache is my brain adjusting. I don’t want to accidentally change the process or anything.”

I closed my human eyes.

“Besides, if I do this, it doesn’t hurt as bad.”

“It looks funny.” The elf smiled. “Blindfolds will have no effect on you now.”

“Depends on how you wrap them around my head, but yeah. I get what you mean.”

“Just take it easy for a bit,” She advised. “You just molted too. I guess we will head out for the fields?”

I nodded. “It seems to help my carapace. Maybe it will help me get used to this as well.”

I looked into the mirror once more, my normal eyes still closed.

I shook my head at the sight of two fully dark-red spider eyes about an inch in diameter between my eyes and ear, near my temples. It would seem my hairline had slightly receded to make place for them. They protruded about a centimeter out of my face. I imagined that was the reason why I could see so well to my sides and behind me. Only a small part directly at my back was out of my vision range. It was easily solved by slightly turning my head, though.

Velariah saw me looking and commented.

“You’re still beautiful, El. Nothing will take away from that.”

“You mean it, or are you just saying that to make me feel better?” I asked, slightly gloomy.

“No, I do mean it. Even with those weird, spidery eyes, you’re still beautiful.”

I turned around and hugged the elf tightly, all four of my arms and my pedipalps were used.

“Thank you, Vel. I was quite scared this would put you off.”

“You know you can’t do that. No matter how weird or spidery you may get. I’ll still love you.”

I smiled and felt tears form in my closed eyes. I rubbed my eyes to get rid of them and saw Velariah put her arms around the back of my head at the same time.

Yep.

It was definitely awkward to still be able to see with my eyes closed.

Velariah kissed me again while holding the sides of my head. She accidentally poked a finger into my eye as she cupped my ears.

“Ouch,” I let out in reaction and Velariah immediately let go.

“Oh shit, I’m sorry, El. It seems I’ll need to get used to that too.”

I sighed. “It’s okay.”

I looked up from Velariah to the mirror once more. “I do hope these things won’t stay as sensitive as they are. This is just… meh.”

 

I put my upper arms in my hair. “Not to speak of my hair. I wouldn’t know what to do with it… I intend to hide these eyes with it when not doing anything. It would suck for my hair to irritate them all the time.”

“It would be perfect camouflage, though. I doubt anyone would notice your eyes through your hair. The colors are strikingly similar,” Velariah replied.

“That’s what I thought too.”

Velariah peeked over to the far side of the room.

“Say, El?”

“Hm?”

“Aren’t you curious what Minia thinks of you now?”

“Hadn’t thought about that yet. I wonder if my Arachnid Communication works better now.”

“Time to find out,” Velariah said as she broke the hug.

My eyes went over the empty silk-covered bowl as I moved towards the open crate.

“I assume you have Gray somewhere else?” I asked.

“He’s in the main room. Last I checked, he was sleeping in front of the fireplace.”

“What about the others? Are they still here?”

Velariah nodded. “As I said, things are still pretty much the same as when you went to sleep. They transferred all of their belongings upstairs. Draco is currently out and about. Nira and Seralyn are currently learning how to make coffee from Elly. I hope you don’t mind her teaching them.”

I smiled.

“It’s fine.”

 

I stopped walking for a second. “Also, sleeping is putting it lightly. I had another dream with Arch in it. He told me a few things about what he could do as a dungeon. He also told me that perhaps he could analyze that massive Borer if we could bring some of its body to Arch. He told me that maybe he could give us more information regarding its origins.”

“Uhh,” Velariah thought aloud. “That shouldn’t be a problem. The corpse is still there. It’s guarded by my father’s soldiers as Pylanor and others are researching it. I have to warn you though, it’s starting to get a bit smelly. You may want to hurry up with whatever you plan to do.”

“Yikes, and here I was thinking I could take some time off.”

“I guess a day or two wouldn’t hurt. I’m just giving you some advice.”

“Thanks, Vel.”

I walked up to the crate that housed Minia, to see her appear on the edge the moment I approached the crate.

I sensed her emotions again, far stronger this time. No words or anything of the sort entered my mind yet, just basic emotions but less muddled.

She was happy to see me, and also… surprised.

I lowered myself so I could take a closer look.

“You don’t mind my eyes either, do you?”

She was confused.

I sighed.

“At least I know what you can see now, I guess.”

I saw Velariah walk up to me before kneeling next to the crate. Minia turned to look at her with her large, frontal eyes.

“What do you think about Vel?” I asked the spider.

It seems the spider at least somewhat understood what I meant. She extended a pedipalp forward and Velariah reached out a finger.

I observed what looked like a mini high-five.

 

I smiled at the sight.

Maybe this spider wasn’t so stupid after all. It made me feel bad for hating on them all my life.

Then again, not all spiders were as pleasing to the eye as Minia.

I felt another stream of emotion coming from her. She thought Velariah was… cute?

“This spider is hella smart,” I chuckled. “She thinks you’re cute. In like… a puppy-cute kind of way.”

The elf moved her finger over the spider’s head, patting it. I felt Minia enjoy her touch. I was sure she would have closed her eyes if she could.

“Your turn,” Velariah smiled.

I did as she did and extended a finger to pet the spider. It eagerly accepted it and enjoyed my touch. I still couldn’t believe the progress that Velariah had me make with spiders…

I decided to see if it would understand my commands better this time.

“Minia, can you play dead?”

The spider jumped to the floor in front of me and landed before rolling onto her back and curling up her legs before remaining still.

“Well, what do you know? You can actually command spiders to do things. That’s… kinda creepy, but so awesome.”

“Heh,” I chuckled. “I imagine this would make for great torture methods. Imagine someone chained up, unable to do a thing. Then I show up with an army of small spiders that crawl all over them...”

“What the fuck, Elania? That’s brutal.”

I shrugged. “I imagine they’d talk in no time.”

“I’d think so, yes...”

I looked at Minia who still lay motionless.

“It’s okay, Minia. You can get up now.”

The spider rolled over once more and stood up to look at me. I decided to reward Minia. I grabbed the jar of grasshoppers and took one out to feed her. She didn’t waste any time and jumped on it in the blink of an eye.

 

Her movements really did make me wonder how far I would be able to jump if I practiced it. I imagined it wouldn’t be quite as far, relatively speaking, because of my much larger weight.

“We’ll be heading out, Minia. We’ll be back later.”

I waved with one of my pedipalps and Minia mimicked the movements.

It was odd, but cute for us to interact this way.

I think?

I stood up and stretched my arms before putting on the shirt that Velariah had already prepared for me in the sink.

A quick brush if my hair wasn’t out of place either.
Before leaving the room, I made sure to cover my extra eyes with my hair before opening my human ones again. I regained most of my former vision this way, except that a large part outside of my human field of vision was now red. It seemed I had already started to adjust. It didn’t cause all kinds of weird overlaps anymore with a red haze before my human eyes.

Velariah deposited my molt on the pillows before following me as I opened the doors.

Seralyn, Draco, and Nira were all seated at the table, seemingly anxious for me to join them. There was no game or food on the table so I had to assume that.

I thought Velariah said Draco was out?

“Good afternoon, Miss Elania. I hope everything went well?”

I nodded. “As well as it could have.”

“Great,” Seralyn commented. “It was taking a while. I was almost starting to get worried… and bored… mostly bored.”

 

“Everything alright?” Nira asked.

“I’m fine...” I spoke slowly. “I just need… some time adjusting, I guess.”

“Oh my. What happened this time?” Seralyn chuckled as I walked to the table.

“Are you sure you want to know?” I asked.

“Now I’m curious,” She replied.

All eyes were on me, as usual…

Heh, funny.

I took my hair on my hands and brushed it behind my ears, revealing my new eyes.

They went dead silent.

Shock seemed to be their first reaction, followed by curiosity.

“Seems I was right, after all,” Seralyn smiled.

“Yeah, I remember you saying this would be the first thing. What did you say was next again? Wings, right?” I said with a smile. “Can’t wait...” I finished, sarcasm dripping from my last words.

“I’d love to see how that works,” Velariah laughed. “I don’t think it would work, though.”

“What do you mean by adjusting, Miss Elania?” Draco asked.

I closed my human eyes again, earning weird looks from Nira and Seralyn to my right.

“All this sight is giving me a killer headache. It’s less when I close my eyes like this, but still. I think I’ll need some time before we head out again.”

“You’re in luck,” Seralyn spoke. “There’s not much to do currently. Quests for goblin camps and supplies are being handed out again, but most of them are not interesting at all.”

“That means that I’ll be making money with my silk again, I guess.”

Velariah walked back into the bathroom and returned with her pack, which she put on the table.

“Come to think of it,” She said. “Should we check your inherity sheet again? Check if anything showed up with regards to your silk?”

I thought for a second. “Not a bad idea. Where do you keep the document, anyway?”

“Upstairs,” She replied. “In a safe. They are valuable papers, you know?”

I nodded. “Totally understandable.”

I could see Seralyn and Nira still staring at my right eye while I looked at Velariah with my left with my head forward, facing Draco on the other side of the table.

“You guys having fun over there? You know I can see you, right?”

“I know,” Seralyn grinned. “I was just wondering how much you can see.”

“Almost full circle around me. I’m still trying to figure out how to use it exactly. It’s quite disorientating, truly.”

“I can imagine,” Nira said softly. “And you’re sure the headache is from that?”

“Go ahead. See if you can find anything wrong with me.”

I was fairly confident in my ability to judge things like these. Especially after going through molting. One of my Adaptive Body subskills was Healing Molt for a reason, after all.

Velariah ascended the stairs while Nira stood up to put her hand on my forehead.

Her warm magic flowed through me twice before disappearing back into her hand. I could see Nira shake her head at my side.

“I can’t find anything wrong. Maybe Master Pylanor would...”

“Forget it,” I said. “I already know what it is. No need to burden him with something so trivial.”

Nira nodded. “I understand.”

Velariah returned with my inherity sheet and laid it on the table before walking into the kitchen.

Oh right, there was that.

Blood…

The elf returned with the very same large knife she used the last time.

“Seriously, could you buy a new, small knife for this stuff? That one is quite frightening.”

“Perhaps. For now, this is the best I can do.”

 

“Aren’t you hungry, Miss Elania? I thought that was one of the first things you did after molting.”

“Uhhh,” I thought aloud. “Now that you mention it, I’m only slightly hungry. I’m surprised it’s not worse.”

Velariah grinned. “Don’t worry. I just spoke with Elly. She’ll make you some omelets in a bit.”

“Thanks, Vel.”

Velariah created a tiny cut on one of my arms, enough for a single drop of blood to form. I let it drip onto the paper and observed the words on it as they changed slightly.

 

 

I stared at the paper with all my eyes.

“What does it say?” Velariah asked, unable to contain her curiosity.

“I missed my birthday...” I said softly.

“Huh?” Velariah let out.

“My age… it changed to twenty-five...”

“Aww, no need to be sad,” Velariah said. “Happy birthday, El. Here,” She took my head and turned it to face her before she kissed me.

I was shocked and embarrassed at her doing something like this in front of the others. She didn’t do it for long, though.

I saw Seralyn giggling to my right while Draco put on a small smile.

“Congratulations, Miss Elania. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to get you a gift.”

“Happy birthday,” Seralyn said, before Nira repeated the same words.

“Thanks, guys, but I don’t actually know when it was.”

I smiled at the positivity that radiated from my companions.

“We’ll just take today; the fourth day of the sixth moon.”

I never bothered to check how the calendar here worked. It appeared the moon was used as a reference, just like it had been on Earth in the past.

“I still need to know how seasons work here. That doesn’t tell me much.”

“It’s summer after this month,” Velariah said. “The first three months of the year are winter, then three spring, three summer, and then three fall.”

“That’s… actually pretty easy to remember.”

“Your old world was worse?” She asked.

“Not really. The seasons were placed weirdly in the months compared to this world, I guess. Nothing you can’t get used to.”

“I see.”

Elly walked down the stairs with Gray in tow. She smiled as she entered the kitchen and Gray ran up to me. I gave him some pats and ruffled his fur.

“Anything else?” Seralyn asked, impatiently.

“Chill, Seralyn. I’m happy to see Gray didn’t freak out at seeing my eyes. Let me have a moment here.”

She sighed as I gave some more affection to the wolf pup. Nira took over from me as I raised myself to check the paper once more.

“As to whether there is anything else, yes. One of the question-marked sub-abilities under adaptive body got changed to ‘Multi Eye Vision’. As if I didn’t know that one yet.”

Seralyn chuckled briefly.

“In addition, under Silk Weaver, My Sticky and Non-Sticky silk got changed to ‘strong’. Furthermore, my Water-Resistant silk is now considered very strong, and my Fire-Resistant got changed from very weak to… normal? Then there is one new one called Steelthread which is considered weak. I don’t quite know what it is, but it sounds interesting.”

“Sounds… interesting indeed,” Velariah spoke. “I hope for you that the water-resistant version is easier on your body now. The tailor seemed quite interested in getting his hands on more.”

I nodded. “No harm in trying, right?”

I had to admit I was mildly interested in seeing what I could do after my evolution. This whole silk business didn’t bother me at all anymore. Besides, It was a great source of income.

Steelthread sounded hella interesting too…

My excitement was only dampened because of this headache. I just wanted to lie down and relax in the sun…

But first, I needed to eat something. I saw Elly enter the room with a plate of cheese omelets.

It really bothered me that I wasn’t as excited about her cooking as before. Was that because of my headache?