Sword-Leg Spider

“Huh? Why is only the Sword-Leg Spider coming out? …I see. That bastard Rikyou lost.”

I must have been a little surprised, because my voice had grown loud.

“You idiot! There’s no way I would lose.”

I heard Rikyou’s voice. When I looked for him, he was up in the tallest tree in the grove, looking down from a branch.

“What are you doing? Weren’t you supposed to hunt the Sword-Leg Spider?”

“Fuhahaha… The one being hunted is you.”

“Weren’t you saying you came to hunt the Sword-Leg Spider on the elder’s orders?”

“That was a lie I told to lure you out. The elder doesn’t even know anything about the Sword-Leg Spider.”

“Why would you do something like that?”

“Because you made me lose face.”

Since I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, I tilted my head.

“What did I even do?”

“Shut up! Just die quietly.”

I instantly wanted to beat Rikyou senseless, but the Sword-Leg Spider that had emerged from the grove was closing in on me, so I focused all my attention on it.

“Why is this thing coming after me?”

Since I had not wanted to fight it, I ran, but the Sword-Leg Spider chased me at tremendous speed. It was faster than I was.

“So running won’t work, huh?”

Once I judged that escape was impossible, I stopped with the White Wolf Warhammer in hand, then ran straight toward the Sword-Leg Spider. I had decided that the grove would be easier to fight in than an open grassland with nothing around.

The moment I crossed paths with the Sword-Leg Spider, it attacked me with the sword-like blade attached to the tip of its leg. I jumped sideways to evade it, ran past the side of the Sword-Leg Spider, and entered the grove.

The Sword-Leg Spider turned and came after me, but before it could catch up, I reached the tree Rikyou had climbed.

“Don’t run. Fight the Sword-Leg Spider.”

Rikyou started shouting.

“Hah. You said you’d be the one to kill the Sword-Leg Spider. Or what, can’t you kill it, so now you’re asking me to do it?”

“Asking you…? Don’t be ridiculous. This is your punishment.”

He was just angry because he had decided on his own that he had been humiliated. The Sword-Leg Spider, having caught up, swept one of its sword-legs at me. I jumped backward to avoid it. The giant spider’s sword-leg bit some twenty centimeters deep into the tree trunk.

“Whoa, what are you doing?”

The tree Rikyou had climbed shook violently. It was probably from the impact of the sword-leg striking it. I moved behind the tree. The Sword-Leg Spider, trying to pursue me, attempted to pull its sword-leg back out of the trunk.

At that moment, the Sword-Leg Spider’s body lurched. The sword-leg that had sunk in deeply would not come free. The Sword-Leg Spider braced itself in a panic, trying to yank it out. Thinking this was my chance, I circled around to its side, poured qi into the White Wolf Warhammer, and slammed it into the Sword-Leg Spider’s back.

The Qi Claw Strike activated, blasting apart the Sword-Leg Spider’s hard carapace and scattering blood and flesh. The Sword-Leg Spider thrashed and brought down its other sword-leg toward me. I barely dodged it, and the sword-leg stabbed into the ground. Seeing that, I smashed the White Wolf Warhammer into the base of that sword-leg.

The Qi Claw Strike tore the base of the sword-leg off, sending it flying. That meant the Sword-Leg Spider’s two weapons had both been sealed. It seemed Rikyou up in the tree understood that as well.

“Damn it. I can’t let my prey be stolen again.”

Rikyou was saying whatever he pleased. Since it looked like I was about to kill the Sword-Leg Spider, he seemed to be panicking. Rikyou drew his treasured sword and held it in a reverse grip, then jumped down on top of the Sword-Leg Spider.

It seemed he meant to skewer it from above with the treasured sword. At that very moment, the sword-leg lodged in the tree came free, and the Sword-Leg Spider moved away from the tree. Then Rikyou landed right in front of the Sword-Leg Spider.

“Ah.”

Rikyou let out a stupid little cry, and his treasured sword stabbed into the ground. Naturally, the Sword-Leg Spider attacked Rikyou. Rikyou blocked it with his treasured sword. Then Rikyou started running toward me.

He intended to use me as bait to buy time to recover his footing. I ran off to the left. The Sword-Leg Spider, which had been chasing Rikyou, changed course midway and started running toward me instead.

“Damn it, why is it coming this way?”

Once Rikyou confirmed that the Sword-Leg Spider’s attention had shifted to me, he gave a meaningful smile. Seeing that smile, I realized Rikyou had done something.

“What? What did Rikyou do?”

Thinking back on Rikyou’s actions, the suspicious thing was the liquor he had thrown at me. Could it be that that liquor was attracting the Sword-Leg Spider? The gourd containing that liquor was in my pack.

At this rate, the Sword-Leg Spider would catch me. So while fleeing in a circular path, I started chasing after Rikyou.

“You idiot, don’t come over here!”

As Rikyou shouted that, I closed in on him and threw the liquor-filled gourd I had taken from my pack at him. Of course, I had already pulled out the stopper.

Rikyou noticed the gourd flying toward him while scattering liquor, and cut it apart with his treasured sword. If he had had time to think calmly, he would have realized it was a foolish thing to do, but since it happened so suddenly, he cut it instinctively.

The liquor inside the gourd splashed all over Rikyou’s clothes. As I passed by him, the Sword-Leg Spider caught the smell of the alcohol and attacked Rikyou.

I did not know whether spiders on Earth had a sense of smell, but it seemed yōma spiders did. The battle between Rikyou and the Sword-Leg Spider began, moving out of the grove and onto the grassland.

“You bastard, you fight too!”

As I watched the shouting Rikyou, I was steadying my breathing. I had been running around with my body enhanced by qi. Every cell in my body was clamoring for oxygen.

Rikyou was pressing the battle in his favor. He truly felt like an inner disciple. Rikyou was a user of the Jūsō Sword, and he fought while skillfully controlling his treasured sword.

The Jūsō Sword was a sword style in which one strengthened one’s muscles with qi and used that power to wield heavy weapons and the like to kill the enemy. When using a sword with enhanced strength, if one did not alter one’s movements, one could injure one’s own body. The Jūsō Sword took that into account, and its movements had been refined to cut away all waste.

The Sword-Leg Spider was already at a disadvantage, partly because I had cut off one of its sword-legs. It was being slashed all over by the treasured sword and was beginning to weaken. Then, at that moment, another Sword-Leg Spider emerged from the grove.

That Sword-Leg Spider crept up behind Rikyou. Then, the moment Rikyou split the wounded Sword-Leg Spider’s head in two, it attacked him from behind. I approached the new Sword-Leg Spider and, using my enhanced leg strength, leaped onto its back.

Almost at the same instant, the Sword-Leg Spider’s sword-leg pierced Rikyou through the chest, and my White Wolf Warhammer smashed open the Sword-Leg Spider’s head.