Chapter 26

Previous summary:

Garbera learned the table flip technique

8

Garbera immediately scooped me up and headed straight for Arachne's nest.

My consciousness was always hazy.

Perhaps due to the burns, I didn't feel much pain.

We didn't encounter any monsters along the way, and the white Arachne moved as fast as possible, carrying me to her nest.

"Master!?"

"Se-, Senpai!"

Rose turned around and let out a scream uncharacteristic of her, and Kato turned pale.

"Master!"

Lily pounced and almost tore me away, taking charge of my body.

I was laid on my back on the floor.

My armor was peeled off, and my blood-soaked clothes were removed.

Lily gasped.

Or perhaps she swallowed a scream.

Immediately, white light overflowed from Lily's hands.

It was a healing spell.

The bleeding from the bullet wounds on the iron vine slowed.

Magic is truly great. I felt relieved and surrendered to the warm light.

...But that only lasted for the first minute or so.

"Aaaah, ah, aaaaah!?"

As the treatment progressed, the nerves that had been numbed began to recover.

Despite the wounds not being fully healed.

Normally, healing spells should have some pain-relieving effect, but the current situation exceeded that range.

Of course, there was no such thing as painkillers. All I could do was grit my teeth and endure.

Kato shouted something.

Lily's fingers entered my mouth, fixing my jaw to prevent me from biting my tongue.

This time, Lily screamed.

My body was restrained by her smooth, hard limbs. It must have been Rose holding me down as I writhed in pain.

I couldn't hear Garbera's voice.

Where had she gone?

A part of my brain, detached from the pain, kept thinking about that.

"The burns can be healed with magic, but... the seeds that have been implanted..."

I heard Lily's anguished voice.

There was some exchange of words.

In my current state, regressed almost to an animal, I lacked the ability to understand words.

I had nothing now. All I had was pain.

"...Rose, the knife."

My ears picked up only the sound.

I didn't understand the meaning.

I didn't want to understand.

"I'm sorry, Master."

A foreign object—was—driven—into—my—body—

"Guhh, ugh, ah!!"

It hurts... It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts—!

My brain was struck by intense pain.

If this was pain, what had I been feeling until now? It felt like something given to destroy my very existence.

I writhed and suffered, thrashing as much as my restricted body allowed.

My clenched teeth bit into Lily's skin, almost tearing her fingers.

Suddenly, her fingers melted, and the flexible tissue of the slime caught my teeth, which would have otherwise broken from the pressure.

Every time a current of pain shot through my senses, my body jerked unnaturally.

My arms, which reflexively tried to thrash, creaked as they were restrained by the doll's arms.

Even as my flesh bruised and bled, my body jerked uncontrollably.

Abdomen, shoulder, collarbone, side, thigh.

One by one, the seeds were extracted, falling to the floor with a heavy, wet thud.

It felt like an eternity.

This was the price for my foolishness.

I wanted to lose consciousness, but I knew it would be bad.

It's like a sailor clinging to a storm-tossed ship. If you let go, it's the end. You'll sink into the darkness and never resurface...

I just endured, as much as I could.

How much time had passed?

When I could no longer recognize the pain as pain, the bloody work was over.

Healing magic was applied again.

Magic is truly great. Without it, I don't know how many times I would have died.

"Why? Why is this happening...!?"

It took a long time for me to regain my senses, having become almost an animal.

"All the seeds have been removed. The wounds are sealed, and the burns are... "

I could feel the white light of the healing spell behind my eyelids.

The pain from the wounds was gone.

However, my body felt abnormally weak.

Thrashing around drained my strength, and overuse fatigued my muscles. My body, which had sensed the danger to my life, had been thrashing around until just now. I didn't remember much, but that was how it was.

So it was natural to be exhausted... but this weakness didn't seem to be solely due to fatigue.

There was a feeling that something fundamental had been lost from my body.

I still felt a chill as if something was missing.

To put it another way, it felt like there was a hole at the bottom of the vessel that is me...

Perhaps because of that, I couldn't muster any strength in my body.

My fingertips wouldn't even twitch.

Moreover, a white mist was creeping into the edges of my consciousness.

If I lost consciousness now, I might never wake up. This unpleasant premonition remained.

Perhaps this was the result of such severe injuries.

I knew that healing magic was not omnipotent.

Lily's third-tier healing magic couldn't restore lost body parts, and she had to spend several days recuperating after being critically injured. If you died, healing magic couldn't bring you back.

Had my body exceeded that limit?

If so, would I die like this?

...I don't want to die.

I can't die.

Because I still have to see her...

"...It's my fault."

At that moment,

I heard Garbera's voice.

It felt like I hadn't heard her voice in a long time.

I opened my eyes slightly.

Even that simple task was a great effort for me now.

My vision cleared slightly.

Lily and Rose were beside me.

Lily had inserted her right hand, which had returned to its human form from slime, into my mouth, and her other hand, wrapped in the magic circle of a healing spell, was placed on my chest.

Rose, who had been half-straddling me and holding me down, was now sitting on my right side. This was probably to hold me down if I started thrashing again.

I could see Kato standing with a hard expression, her hand on Rose's shoulder.

...Where is Garbera?

I moved only my eyes to search for Garbera.

I found her quickly.

She was on the floor, more than three meters away from me, a girl with eight folded legs, looking dejected.

"It's... my... fault..."

Garbera's shoulders were slumped.

Her already pale face was now as white as paper.

"...Can you explain what happened?"

Lily asked.

Her voice was restrained. I couldn't tell what she was thinking from her voice or expression. I didn't have the presence of mind to sense her feelings either.

"We—"

Garbera began to recount what had happened so far.

How we started exploring together. My intentions and the conversations between us. How we couldn't find a familiar and decided to look for a different approach, eventually thinking of the water source where more monsters gathered. How things seemed to be going well, but then a disaster struck...

The gist of her account was the same as mine.

There was only one crucial difference.

"...It's all my fault."

Garbera crouched, hugging her white head.

"I still couldn't change. My innate nature can't be altered. I was nothing but a curse to my Master."

Garbera had a sense of guilt.

The unerasable past of hurting me.

This had become a kind of trauma for her.

"How foolish. I should have known! If we stay together, I will eventually hurt my Master..."

I had devised various plans for Garbera. Without her as a combatant, my plan to "deal with a group" would not have been possible.

In that sense, it could be argued that "it was all Garbera's fault" if one wanted to.

Of course, that was just one way to look at it. The failure was ultimately mine.

Garbera had done well.

The fact that I was still barely breathing was entirely due to her efforts.

She had no reason to feel responsible. I could assert that her belief that she had caused my injuries was wrong.

But at least, in her mind, it was the truth.

"I shouldn't have been by my Master's side..."

Garbera sank... and at that point, my plan had also collapsed.

I had intended to let Garbera take the credit, to make up for the points she had lost from the moment we met, and to have Rose recognize her.

But instead of making up for it, this was the result.

Regardless of the reason, the fact that Garbera couldn't protect me was undeniable.

I had caused her to lose more points.

I wanted to speak to the dejected Garbera, but my weakened body couldn't even produce a sound.

I couldn't defend her.

I could only watch as something important was lost.

...Ah, damn it.

How did it come to this?

I wasn't acting without thinking.

I wasn't being overly optimistic or half-hearted.

I thought about it, agonized over it, and believed it would be fine.

But I overlooked things, and all my efforts backfired, leading to a disaster that was too terrible to behold.

I suffered, nearly died, and was on the verge of dying.

In the end, I lost something important.

Why, really?

I just wanted everyone to get along.

"Garbera"

At that moment,

A calm voice called out Garbera's name.

At first, I didn't realize it was Lily's voice.

She was that calm. Despite witnessing my peril, Lily didn't panic.

She bit her well-aligned teeth into her lustrous lips, but her face remained composed.

It might have been a feigned calmness. A mimicry of something else. She was good at presenting herself as something different.

But even if it was, the fact that she could maintain such a composed self was certain.

"Did you say it's your fault that my Master was hurt?"

Lily's tone was lower than usual.

"So, you can't be by my Master's side?"

A restrained emotion leaked slightly from the end of her words.

It was anger.

Lily was quietly angry.

But it wasn't because of my injuries.

"Do you think my Master wants that? What do you think my Master did all this for? Are you going to waste his efforts?"

Lily was angry at Garbera for continuing to blame herself.

"But, I—"

"‘But’ and ‘however’ are unnecessary. Garbera doesn't understand anything. Really, she doesn't understand anything. My Master's feelings... and ours...!"

Lily shook her head and directed a gaze that made anyone flinch at Garbera.

"Garbera, I learned something from you before I became a companion... from the 'White Arachne.'"

"From me?"

"Yes. It's that I don't have enough power... both mentally and physically, I'm too immature to help my Master alone. I've already realized that. I hate it, really."

It was more accurate to say she was "confronted with the fact" rather than "taught."

Her tone was bitter, but Lily didn't avert her eyes from the unpleasant truth.

"But at that time, I also learned the importance of working together. Probably, we, as familiars, are creatures that lack in various ways. So we need to complement each other, work together as sisters... or we're no good."

Lily's voice had a firm core.

This was likely a question