The Queen
The Spider Mountain Range, which we had finally reached, was a truly vast and towering place. Peaks swallowed by clouds, their summits hidden from view; range upon range of such mountains stacked layer over layer. Add to that cliffs carved as if by a blade's edge and the occasional shriek of a spider echoing through the air, and you had a rugged, menacing mountain range steeped in an atmosphere of pure hostility.
Well, that was how it looked on the map, at any rate. In reality, the blizzard made it impossible to see anything at all. Which, thanks to that, made climbing the mountain all the more difficult.
If there was one mercy, it was that the viewers had told me where the Queen made her nest. Though that location happened to lie near the very heart of the range, naturally.
"I'll just call this a stroll around the neighborhood."
However wide the range might be, what was it compared to Murim, where the land itself stretched on without end? A place where merely visiting a single friend could take half a day's travel.
"How is it that every last tree here wears leaves like thorns?"
It wouldn't apply to me personally, but getting pricked by one of these would sting quite a bit.
And yet, strangely enough, the spiders were not showing themselves. Could it be that the spiders which had swarmed me back then made up the bulk of their numbers?
You think I walk quickly? The terrain being what it is, I do vary my manner of walking — but I hardly feel that I'm moving all that fast.
"I couldn't say whether it's fast, but I do walk differently, yes."
"I am streaming at the moment, but I am still waiting on a certain someone, so whenever you like — do upload that video."
Normally the chat answers me readily enough, yet now there is only silence. Well, no matter. It seems I've climbed at least one mountain.
"Quite the magnificent view, wouldn't you say? Not that saying so helps much, when the blizzard hides everything from sight."
Was this blizzard the work of the Winter Lord? This snowstorm is far too inconvenient to wait for a meeting on some distant day — so I shall seek him out soon enough. For now, let me focus on the goal before my eyes.
After crossing some four peaks in that manner, the mountain's summit had drawn near enough that the clouds looked almost tangible, and the air had grown so thin that my breathing felt subtly off.
"Almost there, then."
"The oxygen here is rather thin. The air pressure seems considerably lower as well."
And now the spiders, little by little, begin to reveal themselves. I sense two presences. One of them neither attacks nor flees, standing perfectly still — apparently keeping watch.
"How rather systematic."
I suppose I should think of it as a sentry. The other presence was moving toward somewhere — no doubt to announce an intruder's presence within.
Clever creatures, these. Even when we fought before, they attacked in a fairly coordinated fashion. No doubt this time too, they will come with their formations in order.
"It matters not."
The deeper I walked, the more caves came into view — dens, I judged, where the spiders made their homes. Along with them, spiders shrieking and hurling themselves at me began to appear, so I pressed onward, drawing my sword and cutting them down.
"There are far too many caves. The spiders attacking me are still few — but if they pour out of every one of those dens..."
So they think it's nothing to me. In truth, they're hardly difficult — merely tiresome to deal with one by one.
I don't know how much intelligence the Queen possesses, but that she is scheming something, there can be no doubt.
"This is the place."
Despite the raging blizzard, an enormous cave — unmistakably the Queen's den — came clearly into view. Looking three or four times the size of an ordinary spider's nest, the cave alone gave some measure of the Bladespider Queen's sheer bulk.
"And yet it's so dark I can't see inside."
A cave into which no light entered. I hadn't thought to bring a torch, and nothing of the sort could hope to keep burning in this temperature anyway.
Light or no light, it made little difference to me — but what if I mistook venom for water? Stepped in what I took for melted snow, only to find it a deadly poison?
Hm. I've thought far too deeply on this. This place is not reality. That's right — not reality.
"Let us go in."
The deeper I went into the cave, the darker it grew, until at last the light vanished entirely.
Left, right diagonal, behind.
The spiders began their assault.
Starting with the one closing in from the right diagonal, then the one from the left, and finally the one at my back — I cut them all down. The cave was wide enough for five grown men to stand shoulder to shoulder in a row, so ambush was meaningless. Only novices would be caught by such a thing.
"The sound has stopped."
Outside, the spiders had shrieked as they attacked. But here within, they strike in silence — is this the Queen's deception, or is there something more at work?
So this is where all those novices were hiding. And yet this window, inconveniently enough, glows so.
I wondered for a moment whether this glowing holographic window wasn't the very reason the cave seemed even darker — then pressed onward.
Cutting down spiders, arriving at fork after fork and following wherever my instinct led — and with each repetition, I could feel it beyond doubt: the number of attacking spiders was growing.
"We will reach the Queen's chamber soon."
The moment I set one foot past a point where the passage abruptly widened, the world changed. It was not a shift in space. Nor was it a formation of any kind. Something had changed on a far more fundamental level.
"Light."
In an instant my vision flooded white, and when the world found its light again — there before me stood a colossal spider. No. "Spider" was hardly the word for it.
"It is a woman."
The upper body of a woman, no less — and a rather beautiful one at that. A face that seemed almost angelic, and between it and a mane of golden hair, eyes of a shining grey.
Though her lower half, of course, was a spider.
"Strong human. So you have come to kill me."
Her eyes, meeting mine, trembled faintly, and from between parted lips flowed a lovely voice.
"So you can speak."
There was nothing especially surprising in it. I had witnessed beasts of wisdom and yokai alike speak on more than a few occasions. Indeed, surprise was a luxury of the first one or two times only. There had simply been far too many astonishing things in my life to marvel at each and every one. Besides — for a being with a presence this overwhelming, would it not be stranger if she couldn't speak?
Though I suppose it isn't saying much, coming from these people.
The Spider Queen — the woman's lips drew a clean, elegant curve. Strictly speaking, it was closer to a sneer, but a smile was a smile.
"Speech? That crude method of communication you humans rely on?"
Crude, is it... I will grant that its efficiency leaves something to be desired. With transmission of voice, transmission of thought, and even implanted knowledge, there is hardly any need to bother with spoken words.
"Do not say such things. I myself would agree — but there are many who would not."
"You cannot spare me. Can you."
"You already know the answer."
The smile vanished from the woman's face as if wiped away, and her eyes — tinged with something like resignation — regarded me. There was nothing left to exchange. Not from her, and not from me. We both knew it.
And yet, that resigned expression somehow caught at a corner of my heart, and so—
"Is there anything you wish to say, before the end?"
I truly am weak to women. But even so, what of it? It is simply my nature... Though, nature or not, there's hardly a woman at my side to keep me company. But that is neither here nor there.
"What I wish to say... Kill me cleanly. If it's all the same — cut me in two."
"In two?"
"Come at me."
She can use magic... I have never experienced magic firsthand, but it is commonly depicted as a kind of sorcery. Not something I particularly care for.
The Queen's eyes darkened to black, and the spiders that had lain hidden around us emerged, swarming in from her flanks. Something I had pondered long before this: in games and novels, the Arachne — a spider with the upper body of a woman — is always depicted as terribly powerful. What, then, would happen if one met her in reality?
Six of her eight spider legs rose and braced themselves for support. The remaining two served as her arms. She bore no special weapon. Nothing more than sharp supports and a magic with no opening to be used — and none of it would avail her.
"I find myself quite sick of spiders, by now."
I imagine the feeling is mutual.
And so—
"As you wish — I shall cut you in two."
O woman who became a spider.
"Let me ask once more. Is there anything you wish to say?"
Boring, is it? That would be the eyes of one who cannot recognize a single thing worth seeing.