## Chapter 90 – Memories of the Widow Spider (5) (※Caution: Archaic Language)
As Rhea entered Yoonmei’s hideout, she was met with a thick aroma of meat.
Perhaps the small, weak Fey had struck gold.
If so, it would be a great help to Yoonmei.
Rhea placed the meat wrapped in her spider silk on the floor beside her and called out to Yoonmei with a trembling voice.
“Yoonmei… Yoonmei…!!
I… I… have returned…!!
Where are you…?”
But hearing no response, Rhea felt a strange unease and began to search the various places with hurried steps.
“Yoonmei…!! Yoonmei……!!”
And finally, she found her precious friend, her lips stained red, holding a very red and fresh piece of meat in her mouth.
“Yoon… mei……?”
But why did this red, fresh meat feel so familiar, as if she were looking at a human arm?
And why were the silhouettes of the torn pieces of meat scattered nearby so familiar?
And why were tears, no, tears of blood, streaming down Yoonmei’s face, even though she should have been happy to be eating something delicious?
How agonizing must it be to burst even the capillaries, causing tears of blood to flow?
Bad premonitions always came true.
“Yoonmei……”
“Rhe… a…… *hic*……”
A sob-filled breath escaped her parted lips, yet she couldn’t stop tearing at the piece of meat in her hand.
Only then did Rhea, belatedly realizing the situation, approach Yoonmei and slowly reach out for the piece of meat she was holding. Yoonmei, as if not wanting to lose it, hid it behind her back.
“Yoonmei… it’s alright…… it will only take a moment…”
“Rhea… don’t look… please… just go back……”
“I… I have much to say to you… so… Yoonmei…!!”
“Let go…!! Leave me alone……!!”
In the end, Rhea forcibly grabbed Yoonmei’s hand and snatched the piece of meat away. Leaving Yoonmei, who was flailing her arms trying to get it back, behind her, Rhea brought the piece of meat to her nose.
“Ah……”
The familiar scent filled her nostrils, and Rhea’s eyes widened.
Only then, her fingers trembling, did Rhea drop the piece of meat to the floor and immediately begin searching through the other pieces on the ground.
“No… this can’t be……
No… it can’t be……”
Then, finding familiar strands of reddish fur, Rhea felt all the strength drain from her body, and her shoulders slumped.
“Why……”
“I said I would… take responsibility……
I said I had to……
I… I… *sob*…
Just being together… was enough…
Even though I didn’t want this to happen…… *sob*…”
Hearing Yoonmei’s tearful words, Rhea suddenly remembered something and collapsed to the ground.
– You must take responsibility…!!
You must…… take responsibility…!!
A weak male with little talent for hunting.
Yet, with a kind heart, he suffered for the pain of others as if it were his own.
Knowing that he would suffer, she had cruelly driven him on just a few days ago, and now that action had become a dagger, returning to pierce her own heart.
What consequences her rash, emotional words had wrought.
And how that result had wounded the very person she had wanted to protect.
The moments of her decisions had returned as the worst possible outcome, and Rhea’s mind went blank. Unsteady footsteps approached from behind her.
Soon, Yoonmei stood before Rhea, her face stained with blood, her hand caressing Rhea’s face. Rhea slowly looked up at Yoonmei with tearful eyes as Yoonmei’s face, filled with anxiety, loomed over her.
And at that moment, Yoonmei’s hand, which had been caressing her face, began to grip Rhea’s neck. Rhea began to convulse from the unexpectedly strong force.
“Sorry… I’m sorry… if I stop here… the babies……
Fey… this is the chance he gave his life for…
Actually… this isn’t enough… so… Rhea……”
Yoonmei whispered to Rhea in a tear-filled, rambling voice, her expression consumed by impatience. Her red eyes reflected Rhea’s own, growing ever more bloodshot.
And soon, that face was gradually diluted by the rising tears, distorted to the point where its shape could no longer be recognized.
“You are… my dearest friend… Rhea……
So… let’s become one……?
Inside me… inside the babies……!!”
The madness rising from her voice echoed through the hideout, and Yoonmei’s gleaming eyes stared directly at Rhea.
Although she could breathe through the spiracles on her lower body, it was a wonder that her neck wasn’t broken. When her neck was strangled like this, the blood flow to her brain was inevitably cut off.
Feeling the blood to her brain being cut off in real time, Rhea began to droop, feeling a sense of drowsiness washing over her.
“…Yoon… mei……”
She had spouted the word “responsibility” to Fey, and it would be irresponsible not to take responsibility for the disaster she had brought about.
“I’m… sorry……”
A single tear streamed down her face as she slowly began to close her eyes.
But at that moment, the hand strangling her neck released, and Rhea felt the blood rushing back into her blocked cerebral vessels. She was thrown backward with tremendous force.
“Go……!!”
“Yoon… mei……”
“Go away!! Get out of my sight……!!
Disappear from my eyes……!!
Like last time…!! Don’t ever come back!!”
Rhea, bewildered by Yoonmei’s actions of punching her indiscriminately and driving her out of the hideout, was pushed out as if she had been swept away.
But Rhea, who had not been able to take responsibility and had tried to stay in place with the intention of taking responsibility, froze when she saw Yoonmei holding a sharp piece of bone to her own neck.
“If you ever come into my sight again……
I’ll die right away……!!
Then you’ll be the one who killed me…!!”
After hesitating for a moment at Yoonmei’s stern appearance, Rhea decided that she needed to give her time and eventually stood up, clutching her staggering legs.
Then, slowly turning around and limping towards her original home, Rhea could not bring herself to look back, filled with anxiety.
She didn’t know what Yoonmei, whose mind was unstable, would do.
Perhaps that was why.
She didn’t immediately respond to the small voice that drifted in the wind, a voice she wouldn’t have noticed unless she had thought about it carefully.
“I’m sorry. I don’t think I can live like this.
Don’t you do this? Okay……?”
Was the story that followed too obvious?
The next day, Yoonmei’s hideout was empty, and Yoonmei was found hanging from a nearby dying tree a short distance away.
Rhea, who had been wearing a hollow smile as she looked at the scene, felt her eyes moisten, but the tears never flowed.
A disaster created solely by herself.
A disaster caused solely by herself, not by Yoonmei or Fey.
She, who had made all the decisions with misguided intentions and a heart that thought she was helping her friend, had to take responsibility for it and accept it.
She could only despair at her own shockingly miserable state, having lost a friend with whom she had spent decades.
So she turned around and walked and walked.
She killed the monsters that tried to harm her with a fierce determination, not even putting their meat in her mouth, and walked and walked.
Just as she was about to collapse, she collapsed with a feeling of darkness in front of her eyes. Because of her lower body structure, which made it impossible to even fall face down, she could only lower her head weakly forward and breathe heavily.
Thus, she closed her eyes with the thought that she would die and fulfill her responsibility, but unfortunately, reality did not seem to allow her such a comfortable death.
“Huh… you’re awake? You’re lucky after all.”
An unfamiliar man’s voice echoed in an unknown, dark place.
Even when she regained her senses and tried to move her body, Rhea was in a state she had never experienced before, unable to move a single part of her body from head to toe, no matter what she was fixed to.
Her eyes, wide open, darted around, filled with an unfathomable fear.
