Though it took a while for me to get back into shape, I did eventually get there. She took ages to explain, spending the majority of it apologising, but her explanation did cover all the bases. 

The reason she immediately attacked us was her class-skill, which she activated when she heard a noise. Basically, she gets temporarily stronger and faster but becomes extremely aggressive and violent. 

Other than her attack, she also told us about the village. From the jist of it, they weren't hit nearly as badly as we had been. Apparently, only about 10-15 monsters appeared, and though there had been few deaths, most people had survived. After the monsters had been killed or inexplicable left, everyone had come together and grouped up close to the centre. 

They had nearly everybody from the village there, but since the village had so many abandoned buildings, they had enough space. Even if there hadn’t been enough space, with the lack of monsters, people had been relatively lax about leaving their encampment, her looking in the bookshop as an example. This was also why there were no corpses, most of them had been moved away and buried. 

 

“......so we’re going back to you now,”.

Since the spider was, like always, wanting to know everything, I gave her a run-through. 

“Haha,” the woman, Hana laughed awkwardly, before concerningly asking, “Are you sure your arm’s ok?”

“Is there anything you could do if it wasn’t?” I snapped back. 

My arm wasn’t bleeding anymore thanks to my healing skill. It had also been wrapped in the Sanjantjamen’s jumper to stop me from reopening the wound. Why she was a jumper in this heat was a mystery to me. 

*why are you so angry? It’s seeping over to me.*

“Yeah, and what am I supposed to-!”, I had to stopp myself.

Why was I so agitated?

I had just been slashed by a stranger, but that wasn’t what was making me irritable. It was hurting like a motherfucker, but I didn’t think that's what it was. 

I continued to contemplat in silence while we walked before it suddenly hit me. 

‘It’s healing, that's what it is!’ I mentally shouted. 

*ah, that makes sense*

Of course, I had gotten frustrated every time I healed actually. To differing degrees, but that agitation was always there. Wasn’t sure what exactly caused it, but it helped to know. 

I took a deep breath in to relax my frustration, trying to clear my mind, but it was hard to find a focus with a second echo in my mind. The spider had been trying to find ways to block out my emotions for a while, the issue was, her concentration acting like a resisting force against my own concentration. 

So, instead of trying to fight against it, I decided to just let go.

Without that constant subconscious resistance, it was peaceful. 

Not calm, but peaceful.

“Are you okay?” Hana hesitated, undecided whether she should stop talking.

‘She had already asked me if my-!’

Trying to maintain that relaxation, I stopped that train of thought. 

I had been staring into the void for a while. It wasn’t surprising that someone might find that worrying.

“Ye-yeah, I’m fine thanks, just… sorry, for the outburst. Think it’s a side effect of healing,”

We walked the rest of the way to the group without talking. When we did, I noticed that the other two groups hadn’t gotten back yet.

…

It had only taken the group about an hour? to get to the city centre after we had explained everything. There hadn’t even been that big of a deal when we got there, since the other two groups had already talked to the townsfolk. 

The centre was a lot more built up than the rest of the village, all the buildings were two stories tall, but most were run down. 

What they had done was impressive, they had taken up a large area of the town centre, and barricaded most of the roads with a number of things like draws and large stones or boulders, to about waist height, held together by rope and some concrete

It hadn’t been used though, so whether it could hold was a good question. From what I could see they had even started planting crops around the general vicinity, already preparing for the future. 

There came a shout from the crowd

“Hey!”.

Most people had already funnelled into the bordered area, leaving just Eric and me, as always taking our place in the back. 

A man, presumably the one who shouted, hopped over the barricade closest and ran towards us.

“Don’t you dare-” He cut himself short, looking up towards the spider. 

*Is he shouting at ‘me’?* she asked me, feeling uncertain. 

“No,” I responded shortly.

“Erm, ehr, Which one of you is its owner?” he spoke much softer than before, probably finding the 40-thousand-pound spider a bit intimidating.

“Why?”

“I can’t-” he nervously glanced at her, ” ‘that thing’ can’t go in. It needs to stay out here.”

I hadn’t even thought about it, but obviously, that would be the case, she was enormous and the streets were pretty narrow, it had been for her to get around now, then add people swarming around under her and it’d be impossible. She’d probably put the fear of hell in people going about whatever they were doing. 

The image of someone hanging up their washing to see a head half the size of their body and eyes the size of their fist peeping through the window. 

“Yeah, that won’t work,” I muttered my thoughts. Somehow, I ended up ‘saying’ it to the spider as well.

*I can’t go into that area?* She deflated.

I wanted to say she could, but it wouldn’t work, and I can’t just force her in. 

“Yeah, It wouldn’t work, people are still very… shocked about everything, so having you walking through would terrify them,” I was going to continue, but the feeling I got made me stop. 

She was upset. 

Not at anyone or anything, just upset. I was surprised at how upset it actually made her. I also wasn’t quite able to tell what was upsetting her, which was apparently her doing.

So the only thing I could add was, “Sorry”.

I noticed the man staring but didn’t pay it much mind. “Ehr, do you think it's ok for you to stay out around here?”. 

A violent flush of emotions burst, before she calmed herself down, “I can wait,”.

-wait for people's fear to subside-

Giving a mental nod, I turned back towards the guard, “She said ‘I can wait’ ”, before walking towards the area. 

It definitely wasn’t what I expected when walking into a postapocalyptic settlement. Everything seemed so normal.

There were tons of people walking around and chatting and laughing and people sitting and playing board games. It was clear that something had happened, but it wasn’t nearly as overwhelming as our group. Well, we also hadn’t been like that before the ants.

It was relieving to see that at least not the entirety of the world was in flames. “Let's hope that ‘our’ situation was one in a million,” was the remaining thought. Continuing to walk, I took note of a guy using some kind of spell in a large fridge.

“Hello?” a man walked up to us, “You guys are… You’re from the city?” he asked hesitantly

“Yes, We’re with others who just got here,” 

“Fuck,”    “So…,” he seemingly wanted to say something, but decided against it, “You guys looking for the others?” he said, while not wanting to look me in the eyes. 

That wasn’t what we had been doing, we needed to do so anyway. 

“Pretty much, you know where they are?”. 

He found something confusing, but without saying what answered “yea... yeah. They went down the road, should be down the second to last left?”, 

Giving him a nod and thanks, the two of us went down where he said. 

We found where everyone else had grouped up, a circular opening.

Since the walls had been built to cover a large area, and the village had an abundance of abandoned buildings, there was enough space for everyone to stay there, albeit not with much room. 

I would have been dreading being so bunched up, but with the spider's feelings on her own situation, I wasn’t all too bothered.

Looking at everyone, the difference between their expressions and those of the villagers was night and day. 

It suddenly clicked why that other guy was so confused when talking to me. In comparison to everyone here, I was cheerful. Even compared to before the ant attack, though I had been somewhat carefree, there was an overhanging feeling of dread. But It was nearly completely gone. 

Even the bird's attack, though it had affected me, wasn’t bothering me anymore. Though I wanted to contemplate it more, I pushed my thoughts to the wayside, to listen to John’s speech. But I completely zoned out anyway. 

*What’s happening?* a sudden voice rang through my jumbled thoughts.

“Nothing really, people are just getting split up into different sleeping regions,” I muttered back.

I focused back on what he was saying just in time to gather where I’d be staying. I along with about a third of the group would be staying in this clearing.  Since this place had space between it and the border, we wouldn’t need to worry about monster attacks. There were plenty of people who found this dubious, saying that something like the bird monster could easily pick us off. But, in the same way, the spider would find it hard to navigate streets like this, the bird definitely couldn’t with a wingspan that size

That and It would be too hot for 20 people to bunch up in a small building in this heat. 

I was pretty glad actually. Though It was so public, there would be plenty of space, so I didn’t need to worry about that.

Eric didn’t say anything at all. He actually seemed even more distant than he usually was. No, I guess not, he was usually like this when around a lot of people. 

Not much time was spent on finding out who was staying where. Some people complained, but for the most part, people didn’t seem like they had the energy to.

Since it was still light out, I figured I could walk around a bit more, and get a better feel of the place. I told Eric this, but he decided to just stay. 

 

“Hello? Hi,”

I had been roaming around for a bit and eventually stumbled on someone who looked somewhat familiar. 

The guy caught up to me out of breath but righted himself up. 

“I’m so sorry about my sister, I still can’t believe she would do that,”

That's who he reminded me of, Hana! Actually, the similarities were uncanny.

“No, It’s fine.”

“It not, She attacked you!”

“No, It's literally fine,” I extended my right arm, which led to a burst of pain, “Ah! O.k, I guess It wasn’t ‘fine’. Well anyway, it's better than If it was someone else,” realising I poorly explained, “better as in, if it was someone else, it would still be an open wound,”.

“Huh, glad you think like that.”

…

…

4 days had passed since we arrived at the village and I  had already gotten into a rhythm. There was a woman who used to run a bakery, so she had been Baking bread for everyone since ‘the room’ and I had been helping her along with some others. Afterwards, I’d go and walk around outside the village with the spider. I was surprised at how restless I was with staying still like this, though It was probably just her messing with my thoughts. 

*so ‘Eric’ Is still being ‘weird’?* 

We were currently on one of those walks.

” Yeah. But he doesn’t want to say anything about it,” 

He’d been acting weird since we got here. I mean, it wasn’t like he was a very socially active person, but he had just been going to a building and just staying there. I mean, if that was what he wanted to do… It was still worrying.

Suddenly, she started to sprint, and though she didn’t say why, I could feel what it was. A monster was out there. A feeling as though some weight on my body had finally lifted, I started sprinting as well. Obviously, I knew I couldn’t catch up with her with legs my height.

Because of the speed difference, When I eventually caught up, she was already finished. Or at least usually. For the first time, she was still fighting it.

She was fighting a grey tat monster with thick forelegs standing just below my height.

But even though there was such a large size difference between them, she was still having trouble with it. Out of the two, she seemed like the fastest, but the rat was still dodging all her attacks.

She tried to stomp down on it, but it managed to evade to the left, attacking her left, biting at one of her legs. She lifted the leg it was aiming for out of the way, but the thing was under her, and so redirected itself and bit upwards towards her underside.  She wasn’t able to move her legs underneath her properly, forcing her to jump backwards. Unlike the ants, who were too stupid to do anything but blindly attack, the rat had amazing reaction speed, preventing her from landing a solid hit, which would otherwise kill it. From what I gathered, she also couldn’t use ‘Charge Burst’, since she had to stay still to charge it which would give the rat plenty of time to attack. Along with that, she had a limit on how many times she could use it, so using it without a plan would be a waste.

“I’ll distract it,” I suggested, but before the words had even left my mouth, she had fallen back, understanding the intent before I said it. 

*Keep your back to me*

I sprinted towards the thing. It looked at me and, probably assuming I wasn’t a threat, it haphazardly jumped towards me. Its movements were fast, but because of its lack of focus, I had ample time to dodge. I noticed an opening while doing so, and I could have pushed forward to stab it but held back. My job was to hold it in place, and one or two cuts wouldn’t help, especially since I didn’t have a follow-up plan for it. 

It barely landed on the ground before continuing to attack me, pushing itself with one of its front legs and twisting in my direction. Its two hind legs slammed on the ground, not giving me much time to think. It seemed to be leaping left, so I evaded in the opposite direction. But it was a feint, though its body looked like it was moving that way, it repositioned its front leg to a sort of ‘fall, and lept towards me instead. Knowing I couldn’t get out of the way, I brought my arms up instead, pressing the blunt end of my knife against my forearm as a guard. 

But realised that I could have dodged. The rat, while having tricked me, apparently hadn’t properly done its ‘move’ and so even though I was a stationary target, only its right-front foreleg could reach me. Even though it managed to get me, the cut wasn’t that bad. But it was enough for me to lose grip of the knife.
“Fuck,” It hurt a lot more than I thought it was going to. The rat also didn’t seem all too happy, as its paw had gotten cut during the swipe. Before giving me time to breathe, lept onto me. This time literally. Even though I could see what it was going for, It was too close and too fast for me to evade, so instead, I let it jump on me. It slammed me into the ground with its weight, winding me, and attempted to bite my head. Once again, I brought up my arms to defend against it. He bit into them, forcing me to let out a grunt, but somehow through gritted teeth, I let out a chuckle. If it had attacked me with its claws, it could have done something more fatal. But more than that, It forgot about the other player. 

“Hwop chlichhhhhh”

A long black nail pierced through the rat's head at an angle, slamming the ground about an arm's length away from my head, spraying blood and brain matter over me. 

*It would have been easier if I had just fought with you,*

“Yeah, but- Gah,” the teeth pulled in my arm as she yanked her leg out of its corpse, “-Hey!” before continuing my sentence, 

“Foresight tells all or something like that,”