Days continued to pass like the last, I would answer the spider’s question, or explain things to her throughout the day. Our conversations would often get interrupted by cockroaches or Praying-mantises-like monsters, who she leapt to fight and kill. Then at night, she would sleep, and I would start talking to Eric about anything and everything. Alexander and Dave even came to talk at some points. My sleep wasn’t great during that period, nightmares would haunt me during the night, though I would never remember them when I woke. I found out some new things about this status screen as well. When I opened it, I could ‘expand’ (for lack of a better word) the text ‘beast tamer (2)’ (the class had levelled up at some point) to show;

 

/Species: Human/

Class: Beast tamer (2)

                      XP pooling.

                            Black-Leaper spider: 0%

                            Human: 100%

 

           Bound to:

               Black-Leaper spider()... 

 

And when I opened Black-Leaper spider()..., it opened a second window, 

/Species: Black-Leaper spider/

Titles:

  ____

  ____

XP pooling.

     Human: 80 %

     Black-Leaper spider: 20%

Nearly all of them were at least double mine, and though I was unsure what the numbers actually meant, how much a point affects you, whether it has an exponential value or not. 

Obviously, she was clearly much stronger than me, someone with lower stats, but that might also be size.

Along with that, there was something both of us had, XP pooling, which essentially said who was getting how much XP. We did a little experimentation and found out that:

A: We could choose how much of the XP we got went to the other ‘person’.

B: Neither of us could affect the other ‘person’s’ ‘XP pooling’

We also realised that she seemed to her level percentage rose slower than mine, whether that was because she was a monster, or because she was just at a higher level we didn’t know.

But because of that, She decided it would be best if she funnelled most of the XP to me, so I could “Start being useful” when fighting.

*Oh, yeah, Why do ‘humans’ cook their food? Does it taste better? Because  you don’t seem to like it that much?*

She was still asking me a bunch of questions about anything that came to mind, which I surprisingly still welcomed.

“That is one of the reasons why, but it can also be dangerous… for us at least, to eat things like meat without cooking it, gets rid of… bad stuff. And that's especially with something we don’t know anything about, like the meat from monsters.” 

I had gotten better at answering her questions without falling into potholes like germs, science seemed like something that should be held off for now. 

But that had nothing to do with her ability to understand, though her questions might lead you to think otherwise. She was actually pretty good at mentally putting things together. It just didn’t want to jump into anything elaborate before covering all basic things, like who built the cities.

And it would definitely come up again, with her endless barrage of questions.

*Oh, so that's why you didn’t take a lot of the other monsters I killed at first, You were making sure that they didn't have ‘bad stuff’,* Once again, I found it impressive that she had taken note of that.

“That is probably the reason: I know they brought the supplies they could when they evacuated the apartment building, so they probably didn’t feel the need to rush to start eating monsters”

Feeling her understanding, I smiled, the second-hand emotions, while weird, were very welcome, like feeling the wonder of everything a second time.

Our conversation, which had been going on for a couple of hours, came to an abrupt stop at the sight of a man walking towards us from the larger group in front of us. There was something off about him, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, it might have been the greyish-black vest,  the confidence in which he carried himself, the way he walked so perfectly, or just his sharp nose. But whatever it was, I didn’t trust him.

I barely ever get bad feelings about anything, ever, but the few times I have, it always saved my life.

He glanced between me and ‘‘the spider’ and Eric for a while walking before his gaze settled on me. I prepared myself for anything, as was ‘the spider’ behind me. She probably felt what I felt.

When he got within hearing range, he started to talk to me “Hello, my name is Nathen,” in a nearly business-like manner while outstretching his hand to me. Hesitating, I grabbed his hand, and while forcing a smile replied “Dan,”.

He looked at the spider, tensing slightly before tearing his gaze back to me.

At that point, I realised that the feeling wasn’t mine, but the other somebody in my head. Putting this to mind, I tried to be a bit more hospitable, but once again, just because I knew it wasn’t how ‘I’ felt, I could still ‘feel’ it.

“Sorry for disturbing… whatever you were doing, I only wanted to say thank you, for saving me during the attack,”

I saved him? I genuinely don’t remember seeing him at all. I’m not known for remembering people that well, but surely I’d remember if I saved them, right? 

From a combination of both deep thought and the spider's hostility towards the man, I didn’t actually reply to him. This led to him too, eventually, somewhat rattled, giving a last “well sorry, for disturbing you,” before leaving. He had already walked off by the time I caught myself. 

I immediately felt bad, he came to give me thanks, and I practically brushed him off. 

*So why did ‘he?’ come over here?* 

“I’m honestly confused myself, he said I had saved him before but I don’t remember ever doing that,” I answered, and thought a second before asking my own question, “Why don’t you like/trust him?”

*He attacked me after I killed the ants he was fighting.* She didn’t ‘say’ anything, thinking about something before realisation struck, *Oh, was he upset that I stole his kill? I thought he wasn’t going to win, but that wasn’t the case was it?*

“I don’t think that’s it. You know that you look pretty… scary to most people. And aren’t used to the idea of ‘good’ monsters, He probably didn’t understand you were trying to help him”

Complicated emotions emerged, but I didn’t get the chance to process that though, as a new emotion came up from her, one I’ve never felt from her. 

Unease.

This completely unnerved me, what could ever make something as enormous as her worried?

It didn’t take me 2 seconds to figure out what, as an enormous gold-brown bird flew from the skies. From my perspective, it looked the same size as the spider. 

The bird monster divebombed down towards the group giving very little time to react.

The spider lept into motion, bolting towards the bird, the usual thrill she felt wasn’t there yet.

She wasn’t nearly fast enough, as this was on the other side of the group. The bird swooped up just before it would have slammed into the ground, catching someone with it. As I watched, I ran towards the spider with Eric running alongside me. Panic had broken out in the group, with people trying to rush out for cover that didn’t exist. But John thinking that spreading out would lead to more casualties, yelled out,

 “Stay in place! Spread out and the monster picks us off. Everyone that can use magic, spread out around the group and raise an arm while preparing a spell, and everyone that can fight, move to a magic user and defend them! Dan, Move here Now!” 

he barked his command, with the designated guards on the group's sides and a few people inside the group scrambling out to follow his command. 

I weaved through the rushing crowd towards John, explaining to the spider what he said at the same time. 

*So he wants you to tell me where to go,* 

Somehow, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but that was probably what it was about. 

When he got sight of me, he rushed over, “Your monster, make it wait for the bird monster to get close, and pull it to the ground. It needs to hold it down as long as possible so that we can get its wing. Do you understand?”  

I nodded my head, as I started to repeat what he said to the spider, “he wants you to grab it and hold it down until they can break its wing (the familiarity I got told me she knew what a wing was),”

*And if I can kill it myself?”

“Then kill it,” I answered before asking John whether there was something else.

“No, stand by the spider, and make sure it doesn’t let the thing go.

“Ok- I’m making my way to you,” while running towards the black blob standing above the ground, the last part was directed towards the spider. 

A small dot shot through a cloud. The bird dive-bombed us again, but we had preparation.

“Fire at the bird!” John yelled, followed by faint bursts of lights from around the group. I could see balls of fire, a black jet(from Eric), a boult of light, and even a  ray of purplish light. But that only accounted for 6 of the light bursts, I didn’t know what happened to the last few.

None of the shots landed on the bird but did make it retreat upwards. 

After reaching a certain height, it stopped climbing up and just circled above us. 

I stood waiting for its next move with bated breath, like nearly everyone else. Nearly. 

A certain insect was more waiting with restlessness (like a kid on Christmas)’

The standstill lasted maybe a minute before the monster finally decided to act again. I sharply turned down into a fast dive. 

*tell them not to attack,* 

I was unsure how to act on that, but her seriousness decided for me.

“Fire at th-” 

“Hold Fire,” I yelled, interrupting John’s command while catching his eyes.

Only one shot was fired which flew past the bird, leaving it unperturbed. 

The bird only took a couple of seconds before nearly reaching the ground. 

The spider immediately released the ‘charge burst’ she had been charging.

She then slammed directly into the bird, sending it flailing through the air, just over a group of people, into the ground. 

She immediately ran towards its direction, while making sure not to trample anyone in the process. Not looking to see what others were doing, I began running in that direction too, while thinking about how to fight it. The spider jumped on the bird, who resisted, leaving the two In somewhat of a bear hug situation. An enormous spider grappling a giant bird.

*It’s strong, much stronger than that centipede I killed,* 

A leap of shock burst through the excitement, 

*it nearly got one of my eyes!* she cried, before ‘yelling’, *Ha, got it*. 

She had managed to bite the base of its wing while attempting to hold its wings with her front two legs. 

A volley of spells shot over me, towards the two fighting. Most of them missed since the spider and bird were tossing around, but one did manage to slam into a wing. 

But, another smashed into the spider's back, which I got from 2 perspectives, as I could also feel her surprise and irritation, among some fainter emotions after it landed. I had gotten up close and immediately tried to go for the bird's leg, but they flailed around, and I wasn’t sure how to even get close without getting flung away. I also wasn’t sure what a small knife would do in this situation. 

*It’s breaking loose, I can’t hold it.* 

As she said that, the bird tried pulling left, but with the spider stopping its attempt, it moved right. I would have broken free, but vines sprung from the ground, grabbing its claw. Because of that, the spider managed to get one last farewell bite, on it before it broke free from her and the vines.

A man came from behind me holding a spear over his shoulder and sprinted towards where the bird was headed. He came to an abrupt stop, and twisted his body around, before tossing it an explosive power. The spear arched through the air before stabbing into the monster’s ‘thigh’.

It shuddered, but pushed on, flying back into the sky.

“Was it running away?” I tryed to figure out its next move, but since I got nowhere, asked the spider. 

*I’m not sure*

We waited for a while, staring at the sky, like everyone else. Which included the spider, It turned out that she had a blind spot directly above her, and directly behind her if it was close. 

I wished I had been an outsider then, just watching a good 100 people and a giant spider standing staring at a cloudy sky. 

By the 3rd minute, some people had thought that the danger was over, but I still had a- The spider still had a bad feeling. But more time passed, and we started to assume it had left. I looked down and saw the spearman kneeling on the ground, exhausted. It’s a shame he lost his spear, that could have been useful, but at least the bird is gone. 

I decided to give a second look up, and a jolt of dread arose, a back speck zooming down towards us. The spider, noticing my fear, tilted its head up as well. It immediately started running towards the centre of the mass, but there was no way I would make it there, and from the distance from the spider, the same was for her. The group tried to pull itself apart, but there were too many people to do so successfully.

As the bird flew down, talons open to grab someone, someone from the crowd launched, he swung the sword above him, leaping nearly a meter vertically, and swung his jet sword over him, slicing into its body, even managing to dislodge the spear. The bird once again retreated to the sky. We waited for ages this time, but nothing happened. It really had left.