Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

  He could only battle, then.

  Seiji carried Yukari over to a corner and placed her down onto the ground.

  "I'll deal with that spider. Don't get close and be careful to avoid it."

  "Seigo…" The purple-haired girl grabbed on to his shirt with a worried expression.

  "Relax, it'll be fine." Seiji smiled. "I've dealt with monsters larger than this one before. It's not a big deal."

  Yukari took a deep glance into Seiji's eyes before slowly letting go.

  "You have to be careful."

  "Yeah."

  Right when they finished talking, they heard the sound of footsteps.

  *Tap tap tap tap…* The large spider had caught up to them.

  Seiji headed out to face off against it.

  When the humongous spider saw him, it lifted up its abdomen once more and shot spiderweb at him!

  "Don't think that you're the only one capable of shooting such things."

  Seiji dodged the attack as he injected his own Mana into his wooden sword. He suddenly sliced out with a white wave of sword energy!

  The wave of sword energy scored a direct hit against the large spider. It didn't cause any obvious damage. However, the red light on its body flickered slightly.

  It would seem that this spider had Spiritual Abilities as well, so he decided to call it a Spiritual Spider Beast for the time being.

  Seiji recalled a game from his previous life called Monster Hunter where the game was mostly focused on dealing with large monsters. One of the earliest monster encounters in that game was a spider monster, which seemed similar to this circumstance.

  In that game, the first step required to deal with the large spider monster was to slice off all of its eight legs.

  'Although it might not be the exact same thing, I can use it as a reference.'

  Seiji moved around at a high speed while dodging the Spiritual Spider Beast's attacks and continuously unleashed new waves of sword energy aimed at the spider's legs.

  The large spider roared ear-piercingly in anger once again.

  It gave up on its useless spiderweb shooting and gathered red light at the end of its abdomen. It seemed to be preparing for some stronger attack.

  When Seiji saw this preparation for such an obvious ultimate move, he decided to suddenly change the direction he was moving in and rushed towards the spider monster instead!

  *Pu!* A large mass of white shot out in Seiji's direction. This mass of something white suddenly expanded into a huge spiderweb.

  If Seiji had kept going in his original direction, it would have been impossible for him to dodge. But since he changed to dashing directly towards the enemy spider, he barely managed to dodge the edge of the huge spiderweb.

  He dashed right in front of the spider monster!

  The large spider wielded two of its legs that were glowing red as if they were two gigantic sickles and sliced down at him!

  Seiji was able to dodge one and blocked the other with his wooden sword. Immediately following that, he used some sliding steps footwork to slide beneath the large spider and swung his wooden sword while holding it in a backhanded grip!

  *Boom!!*

  It felt like it would be very difficult to pierce through, but suddenly, the wooden sword broke through the red light protecting the spider monster and pierced through the spider's stomach.

  *Shing!* …Although the speed was a bit too quick for Seiji, so he was unable to see things clearly, he was certain that this blow dealt the spider monster some definite damage.

  He speedily slid out from the spider's other side and instantly put some distance between him and the spider. It was angrily roaring; red flashes of light streaked all over its body, mostly concentrated on its stomach area down below.

  "It doesn't seem that difficult to deal with. It just might take some time."

  Seiji was confident that he could defeat this spider just like in the game Monster Hunter if it was only strong to this degree.

  The background music of Monster Hunter even started playing in his mind… Cough, don't get sidetracked!

  He was unsure if it would have any extra powers or transformation abilities, and needed to be cautious against it. In fact, he had no clue where this place was or what exactly this Spiritual Spider Beast was supposed to be. He knew that he shouldn't treat this just like a game.

  At this moment, the large spider suddenly jumped up into the air and curled up its body into a ball, which smashed towards him at a high velocity as if it was a meteor!

  *Boom!* The spider crashed into the ground.

  Seiji managed to dodge it just in time.

  The spider monster unfurled its legs and jumped up once again for its meteor crash-like attack.

  *Boom!*

  Seiji dodged it for a second time.

  The spider monster jumped up yet again…


  "Are you supposed to be lice, jumping like that?!"

  The third time that it crashed down, Seiji intentionally dodged at a close distance so that he could rush up to it and viciously slice down at its legs while it was recovering its balance!

  The Kapok tree bark wooden sword broke through a red flash and sliced through one of the spider's legs.

  The spider monster roared in pain and used its other legs to furiously counterattack!

  Seiji immediately retreated and sent out waves of sword energy to cover himself.

  The human and spider's fierce battle under the illumination of the red cluster amaryllis seemed like a scene from legends.

  The battle between a Spiritual Ability user and a large spider monster… Yukari who was watching all this felt her heartbeat rapidly increase.

  At first, she felt only worry for Seigo. However, the fight seemed awesome to the extent of being just like something from a movie, so she gradually got excited.

  If it wasn't for the fact that she had reflexively covered her mouth, not wanting to shout out and distract Seigo, she probably would have shouted out countless times already.

  The more she watched, the more allured she was by Seigo's cool actions.

  'So amazing…' The purple-haired girl's eyes were lighting up more and more as she praised him in her heart.

  'He answered my call for help and came to save me.

  'He's facing such a scary spider monster with no signs of fear or hesitation. He's fighting bravely, and even gained the upper hand.

  'He's a true hero… and the person I love.'

  Yukari's eyes slowly became those of a maiden in love's.

  'I think that should be sufficient,' Seiji thought to himself when he saw that the Spiritual Spider Beast's red light was faint to the point of almost becoming imperceptible.

  Although it might be fine to continue fighting with it like this, Seiji wanted to avoid it bringing out some new unexpected technique once it was forced to the brink, such as self-destruction. He felt it would be better to finish it off quickly with an ultimate ability.

  …Actually, it was half because he wanted to take a look at his new ability's effects.

  The large spider rushed towards him once again.

  It furiously waved its legs around, creating a patch of fragmented red shadows before it that seemed like they could tear through anything.

  Seiji dodged this attack, while the spider corrected its path and faced off against him again.

  Seiji retreated to the wall of the cave clearing.

  The spider monster continued proceeding towards Seiji. It saw that he had nowhere to run to now, so it waved its legs around more fiercely than ever! It had an imposing manner like it wanted to rip Seiji into little pieces.

  At the final instant right before the spider could attack Seiji, Seiji suddenly jumped up, ran up the wall, and sprang off the wall in order to dodge the spider's attack, as he backflipped through midair and wielded his wooden sword with both hands.

  [Ice Calamity Blade]!

  The Kapok tree bark wooden sword's slice left blue-tinted trails behind in the air, slicing deeply into the large spider's back together with a wave of chilling energy!

  At the exact same time, six spiritual swords of ice materialized in midair and viciously stabbed themselves into the spider's body.

  *Shriek!!!*

  The large spider made its most pitiful scream of all so far. However, it soon stopped screeching.

  That was because it had been frozen.

  Its entire body was frozen solid, just like a gigantic ice cube.

  'Nice power level…' Seiji felt that his new ability that he had just tried out for the first time was pretty nice.

  He pulled out the wooden sword and jumped off from the spider's corpse.

  "It's over, Yukari…"

  When he looked at the girl in the corner, he discovered that she had retracted her body into a ball and was shivering all over.

  "What's the matter!?" Seiji rushed over immediately.

  Yukari felt a sudden headache along with a cold feeling spreading all over her body.

  When she heard Seigo's voice and saw him rushing over towards her, she did her best to greet him.

  'It's wonderful that you're fine.

  'You were so cool when defeating that monster.

  'Thank you so much for saving me… my hero.'

  She wanted to tell him all that.

  However, her vision became blurry, her hearing no longer worked properly, and she was unable to make any sounds.

  Her legs felt completely drained of energy… and her consciousness felt like it was being swallowed up by something heavy and icy.

  Just what was this type of feeling?

  'I… just…'

  "Yukari!!"

  Seiji hugged the purple-haired girl who had collapsed.

  He could tell that her body was freezing, just like an ice cube.

  'Why are things like this? What happened this time!?'

  He furrowed his eyebrows deeply, pondering about the confusing situation.

  He suddenly came up with one possibility.

  He had slain the spider monster using his [Ice Calamity Blade] technique.

  And right now, Yukari's symptoms were just like that of being frozen solid.

  Could… that Spiritual Spider Beast have actually been…