## Chapter 82 – Which Path to Take
‘What kind of extreme play is this…?’
No matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t connect, so I kept trying to reconnect with the spider in Carla’s room.
For some unknown reason, it wouldn’t connect, and it wouldn’t synchronize. I focused my mind for about half an hour, sending other spiders to Carla’s room, just in case.
But then, suddenly, like a light bulb turning on, the spider started working, and I was sucked into its body as if being possessed.
‘Blood… is that blood…?’
A familiar but slightly more acrid and subtle scent of blood.
And a sticky membrane gently and thickly constricting my, the spider’s, body.
‘It should have been in Carla’s desk drawer originally.’
Although I seemed to know where I was, I wasn’t supposed to be here, so I slowly finished synchronizing with the body and started to move.
Walking as if through a soft vaginal canal, I pushed through the intricate vaginal walls, where the light from outside shone gently like stained glass, and finally faced the outside world.
‘What on earth is going on…?’
I fell onto the pure white bedding, leaving bloodstains, and inadvertently turned around, slowly raising my head.
Then, the familiar face that came into view was waiting for me.
“Spider-kun… *sniff*… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
Carla, her eyes swollen as if she had been crying her heart out, spoke in a cracked voice, and I couldn’t hide my bewilderment.
‘What is really going on…’
But I had a vague idea.
It wasn’t the unique scent of a woman in heat, but if there was blood coming from inside her vagina…
‘She must have forced it in…’
Come to think of it, quite some time had passed since I entered this new body and hadn’t moved.
It was probably natural for the spider, which needed to be recharged periodically, to run out of power.
So it was only natural that the spider couldn’t move, and I couldn’t connect with it.
And Carla, seeing that, probably mistook me for dead.
But despite my mistake, Carla’s eyes welled up as if it were her fault, so I slowly crawled up her leg and onto her thigh.
“*Sniff*… *Sob*…”
I climbed onto Carla’s thigh and summoned her hand. Thanks to her following my instructions with a tearful face, I was able to reach her face.
Then, I stretched out one of my front legs and clumsily stroked her hair. Only then did Carla let out a strange sound, a mix of laughter and tears, as if she was dumbfounded. She smiled slightly with tearful eyes.
‘Well, they say if you laugh after crying… she’s pretty.’
I didn’t realize such a big thing had happened while I was away.
The reason I came back here wasn’t for any particular reason.
Yui was making such a fuss looking for Carla that I came back to Carla, just in case.
I might have known this situation would happen to some extent, but I didn’t expect it to turn out this way in a slightly different direction.
“Thank you… for coming back…
I’m the owner… but I feel like I did something bad to you…
I won’t leave you alone anymore… Hehet…”
‘Am I… a pet…?’
There were still some secretions left, but Carla rubbed her face against me and smiled, making me feel increasingly bewildered.
A little later, Carla, looking embarrassed, tidied up the messy bed and bedding, and then said she was going to take a bath, picking me up and taking me into the tub with her.
‘Uh… did she check if I’m waterproof before taking me in…?’
I was momentarily filled with inexplicable anxiety, but fortunately, Carla took me out of the water and wiped my surface with a washcloth soaked in bathwater, allowing me to finally sigh in relief.
“Stay still!! I’ll clean you up, okay?
This… I made a mess… Ahaha…
I’ll take responsibility and wipe it off…?”
I felt a chill as Carla’s eyes seemed to become dangerous for a moment.
Carla, who had been rubbing me with the wet washcloth, suddenly looked down at the washcloth she was holding, and then bit her lip with a gloomy expression.
This was probably the washcloth that she had gone out to find, following Yui’s words, when Yui was kidnapped.
“Yui…”
‘Okay, got it…’
It seemed she was worried about her too.
Perhaps the relationship between the two of them was best revealed not when I first saw them in the dormitory, but during the special evaluation, when they were looking out for each other.
‘I need to resolve this as soon as possible somehow?’
Of course, it was true that it was an unintentional incident, but once it had happened, I couldn’t just ignore it.
Besides, Yui and I seemed to be destined not to be entangled with each other.
‘Is this right…’
The disconnect only grows.
Not getting involved with humans, just killing and using monsters.
‘I’m happy, Enic. Are you too?’
To be happy myself, I wanted to be invisible to everyone.
I regretted being born in the flower bed in the corner of the academy, where countless people passed by.
Even so, this path I had taken with the determination to struggle, without knowing a single person, unintentionally reminded me of my lonely days, and yet, I felt like I was changing little by little.
Such an insignificant existence.
And I, who should continue to be so, which path am I taking?
I felt the sensation of the wet washcloth pressing against my body again, and Carla’s face, wearing a bitter smile in the bubbly bathtub, came into my view.
‘Is it pointless to think about it now…’
What kind of existence will I become to the beings I have encountered so far, and will encounter in the future?
And where will the end of my existence, having become such a being, ultimately lead?
Weighed down by the ever-increasing, unresolved questions, I slumped on Carla’s hand, lost in thought as I received a pleasant body cleaning.
.
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.
Inside a small office attached to the empty auditorium where people had left.
It felt a bit gloomy, but also strangely familiar. In the small office, relying on the bright light from a lantern, a woman was writing documents, and a man was watching her from the opposite side.
“I don’t know why, but I thought you brought me here because you were too lazy to do paperwork, Professor.”
“I don’t know why either, but it’s probably just your imagination, Borgia.
Why would I bring the Borgia here to do paperwork?
I’m working hard for the education of successors and nurturing juniors…”
“Then how about we work together on the evaluation forms?
You were the one who actually sparred, Professor…”
“The spars today were so pathetic that a chronic headache has spread to my prefrontal cortex…”
“You might actually get a headache if you keep that up, Professor.
Or rather, it’ll be self-inflicted.
I know a great way to communicate in times like these, though.”
The man, Professor Zeppeli, was saying ridiculous things for a professor, and the woman, Lucia, let out a dumbfounded laugh. She slowly pulled out a stick the size of a club with ornate engravings from her side.
“Hand that over.”
Eventually, Zeppeli took the document from Lucia, looking sullen with annoyance, and seemed to have no choice but to grumble.
“Don’t you know why I’m telling you to do this?
If I did it, it would be over quickly, just like you said.”
Then, he turned the received document upside down and placed it on the desk as if presenting it to Lucia. Zeppeli blinked his tired eyes a few times and continued to speak in a voice that still didn’t have much inflection.
“Do you know the most decisive difference between a student and an educator?”
“Is it important?”
“It is. What if a student and an educator knew the same things?
For example, what about a student like you who is on par with the professors in terms of skill?
Wouldn’t such a student be no different from an educator?”
“You wouldn’t say that if there wasn’t a difference.”
“How boring. If you don’t use your head too much as a prosecutor, it’ll get rusty.”
“Are you talking about teaching experience?”
Zeppeli’s eyes changed subtly as he raised his eyebrows at Lucia’s question.
“Similar. In order to convey my knowledge to someone, three things are needed.
One is knowing the knowledge. Another is recognizing that the other person doesn’t know the knowledge. And the last is figuring out why the other person doesn’t know it.”
“That sounds like grasping at straws.”
“That kid you took. How was it after you fought him?”
“Emotional. He charged head-on at me, even though the skill difference was obvious.
The fact that he’s good at improvisation and quick to accept criticism is commendable.
But it’s hard to give him a good evaluation because he didn’t think about other, more effective methods and stuck to his own way until the end.”
Eventually, Zeppeli slowly got up from his seat and patted his back, casually pacing around the office as he continued to speak.
“You mean he’s stubborn.
Stubborn… who does that remind me of…”
“I haven’t given up on using a great way to communicate yet.”
Then, after hearing a threat that wasn’t a threat, he laughed in disbelief, saying “Huh…!!”. He immediately took a piece of paper from among the books on the office bookshelf and gently tossed it into the air as if throwing it away.
The paper floated through the air like a boomerang and landed gently on the desk where Lucia was working, and Lucia’s gaze was fixed on it.
“What’s so great about swordsmanship anyway?
You can learn more about swordsmanship the more you see.
So this is my judgment, but I think you like that junior quite a bit.
Right?”
“That’s true. But I don’t intend to forget my duty and show favoritism.
As an assistant, I have a duty to be fair…”
“How stubborn. That’s why this is your first assignment.
I usually don’t give out assignments like this.
Escort the undergraduate students who came to practice and go to the Paulo Hall.”
“Paulo Hall…”
“Yeah, that place. A place you guys will probably like.
Well, the swordsmanship department has never disliked it.”
“I’m sure that’s true…
I’ll… like it…”
Lucia’s lips curled up slightly as she smiled gently.
