“Run.”

As soon as Mary spoke up, we started to run.

Mary went in the lead, with Keltie, Karime, and Jessica in the middle and Josh, Andrew, and I guarding the rear.

“Follow me closely. Don’t fall behind.” Mary shouted and we nodded.

We ran in the direction with the least spiders. Our goal was to escape their encirclement without getting their attention.

We did not want to fight them.

But unfortunately, the spiders did not seem to share our thoughts.

As soon as we started to run, the spiders followed closely behind us.

“Fuck…” Josh cursed in a low voice, and I wanted to curse with him.

It seemed that the spiders already considered us their next meal.

Fortunately, the spiders did not try to attack us. They were wary of Mary. With her strength, it was not impossible to kill ten or twenty of them, perhaps more.

However, she would be unable to protect us while she was fighting. And for the spiders, we were much easier prey.

We continued running and trying to shake off the spiders, but to our dismay, the number of spiders was increasing instead. At this rate, even Mary would be unable to cope with them.

At a glance, I estimated that there were thirty or forty spiders chasing us. They were like patient wolves, waiting until their prey was exhausted to lunge out for the kill.

Just at that moment–

“H-Help! N-No! Agh! H-He–”

We heard a woman screaming for help in the distance before it was abruptly cut short.

Our expressions turned pale.

Mary looked in the direction of the scream and put on a complicated expression.

“Eveline…” She muttered.

I sighed to myself. She was one of the members of the group that ran away.

“Sorry…” I murmured, but I didn’t know if Mary heard me.

She just continued running silently.

But we could not keep running forever. The spiders would not allow it.

Around three minutes after we left the police station, finally a spider lunged towards us.

“Duck!” I shouted to Josh when I felt the spider and swung my spear.

Josh instinctively crouched down as my spear hit a spider and crushed it into a paste.

However, that was the signal for the rest of the spiders to attack.

In that instant, spiders jumped towards us from all directions.

“Be careful!” Mary shouted and brandished her sword.

Quickly, she cut three spiders in front of her in half, she then brandished her sword again, killing a pair of spiders that were aiming for Karime and Jessica.

At the same time, Andrew, Keltie, Josh, and I swung our weapons towards the spiders coming against us.

“Die!” Andrew shouted as he hit away several spiders that were aiming for his face. At the same time, I used my spear to skewer another spider that was attacking us from behind.

In an instant, the situation became much more dangerous.

Fortunately, the spiders were not that strong individually. Even the strongest spiders were around Tier 2 or Tier 3. Mary was Tier 5, and Andrew and I could deal with Tier 4 creatures, so we did not have much trouble killing them.

However, the sheer number of spiders was overwhelming.

As we killed the spiders, more and more of them appeared. Their number seemed uncountable.

Moreover, we were forced to slow down our movements to face the spiders. And the spiders took advantage of that to slowly surround us.

At this rate, they will eventually tire us to death!

‘Demon! Do you have any idea!?’ I asked the demon on my mind.

The demon looked at me lazily.

[Of course, escape and abandon them.]

Fuck… I don’t know why I asked you!

I racked my brain to think of a way out of this situation, but just at that moment, I saw something moving from the corner of my eye.

Surprised, I saw a small spider approaching slowly to Jessica.

My expression changed.

“Careful!”

I shouted and swung my spear, skewering the spider that had already jumped towards Jessica’s neck.

Jessica noticed the danger and turned pale when she saw the spider almost over her, but when she saw that I managed to kill it, she sighed in relief and looked at me gratefully.

However, my expression turned serious.

This spider was very small and weak, of the size of a palm. A normal person could kill tens of them easily.

However, in the current confusion, their size helped them to sneak on us.

Keltie had told us that these spiders were poisonous. Just a bite was enough to paralyze our nerves.

And looking around, I saw tens of these small spiders.

Unlike the bigger ones, they were not rushing to attack us. Instead, they were moving around us silently, waiting for the opportunity to attack.

My expression turned ugly.

I was not sure if we could guard against their attacks.

But just when I thought we were doomed–

“It looks like I will have to use it.”

Mary suddenly spoke up.

Before we could understand her meaning, she stopped and turned around.

“Don’t stop! I’ll buy you time!” She shouted and raised her sword.

Instantly, I felt as though time stood still.

But I soon realized that it was not time, but the surroundings spiders that were frozen.

“Lone Sword!” With a cry, Mary swung her sword down.

Immediately, a tsunami of mana surged out of her body.

The mana rushed towards the spiders. It swept tens of them away, destroying their internal organs and killing them instantly.

The spiders were unable to resist, but even so, more spiders appeared to replace the spiders that Mary killed.

However, Mary just raised her sword again.

“What are you waiting for!? Run!”

As soon as she finished speaking, she swung her sword again.

And the previous scene repeated itself.

We snapped out of our daze and looked at each other. For an instant, I hesitated about if running away or not, but after one second, I made a choice.

We need to run away.

Staying here will just burden Mary. It’s very likely that she can escape by herself without us.

Thus, I stopped hesitating and pulled Jessica and Karime with me.

“Let’s go.”

“B-But–”

“We are just a burden here. Run!”

The group looked at each other before nodding and running away.

Before leaving, though, I looked back at Mary again.

She was smiling fearlessly, holding her sword with a proud expression as spider after spider was killed by her.

“Good luck,” I murmured to her.

The auburn-haired woman curved her lips up in a smirk.

“I don’t need it.”

Then, she swung her sword again.

At that moment, I could not help but think that Mary looked incredibly beautiful.