"You can treat it as so," Yomi responded.

"What does that mean?"

"Interpret it however you like. I like to maintain a feeling of mystery."

"There's far too much unnecessary mystery about you!" Seiji retorted.

"Heehee…" The only response was a light chuckle.

"Why do you always sleep?" he asked something he really wanted to know the answer to.

"Because I want to sleep… Actually, I want to sleep right now as well. I'm a little tired after working so hard just now."

"Wait! I have so many questions I want to ask you…"

"I don't like men that ask too many questions, you know~" The female spirit yawned lazily. "Good night~"

"Hey!"

There was no more response after that.

Seiji felt helpless about it all.

"Geez…" He could only sigh.

Long, long ago, there was a spider.

This spider lived in an incredibly large forest. In this forest, there were many other spiders of the same species, as well as a wide variety of various living creatures.

This spider wasn't any different from her kind. Every day, she weaved webs and captured prey that was weaker than she was while avoiding creatures stronger than her. She obeyed the natural law of the jungle and survived, just like that.

However, one day, the spider wondered, 'Why is it that I must only eat those weaker than I am?'

After beginning to wonder about this, this spider began thinking about it.

A while later, she decided to do something she had never done before—to hunt a creature that was much stronger than her!

This was quite difficult for her. However, due to her clever use of her own abilities, she finally accomplished it.

The spider felt an immense sense of satisfaction as it gazed upon the corpse of the creature she slew which was many times larger than she was.

From then on, she began hunting larger and larger as well as stronger and stronger creatures.

After an unknown period of time, this spider became a gigantic spider. Not only did her body shape far exceed that of other members of her species, she was now the largest living creature in the entire forest.

She became the ruler of the forest as there was no longer a single existence in the forest that was stronger than her.

The gigantic spider lived idly in the forest day by day, year by year, and slowly began to feel bored.

At such a time, a strange group of creatures arrived near the forest.

These creatures had very little body hair compared to most animals, and they preferred to cover themselves with something resembling tree leaves. Although the spider saw that they had four feet, they only used two of their larger feet to walk with, and used their two smaller "feet" to manipulate various objects.

The large spider secretly spied on these creatures and discovered that they were quite clever at manipulating all sorts of objects in a flexible manner.

These creatures built a nest of their own near the forest. Sometimes, they would enter the forest to hunt some of the weaker animals or to take some of the plant life for their own consumption.

The large spider tried hunting a few of these creatures and felt that their taste wasn't bad.

These creatures responded to the fact that their species had been hunted. The stronger-looking ones among them gathered together and entered the forest as a large group.

The spider understood that they were looking for her, wanting to hunt and kill her. It was quite amused by this, so it happily came out to battle them.

As a result, she killed a portion of these creatures in battle while some others escaped. There were also several that lay collapsed on the ground, making strange sounds.

The spider hadn't had so much fun in such a long while, so she decided to spare these creatures that survived. Instead, she grabbed them all and placed them outside the forest, close to their nest.

After that, these creatures stopped entering the forest for quite a while.

The large spider was rather disappointed.

Although these strange creatures were quite weak compared to her, their actions and reactions seemed much richer in variety compared to any other creature she had ever met, which really interested her. She didn't want them to fear ever entering the forest again.

Finally, one day, these creatures finally reentered the forest.

They brought some objects and arrived at a clearing in the forest. They kneeled in unison and made some strange sounds before getting up and leaving. They left what they brought with them in the clearing.

The large spider had seen similar actions from other creatures before, and understood that these items were offerings given to her.

So, she decided to go take a look. She played with the items and ate a few. She felt that the flavor was a little strange, but it wasn't bad.

A while later, these creatures arrived again, and just like last time, they left some offerings and immediately left the forest.

Once again, the large spider went to enjoy the offerings.

The third time that these creatures came to give offerings, one of them stayed behind with the offerings, and kneeled prostrate on the ground.

The large spider walked in front of this creature.

The creature made some strange sounds. Then, a strange light floated from its body towards the large spider.

Out of curiosity, the large spider decided not to dodge the light. It allowed the light to settle on its body.

This light was a human magic spell that helped it to clearly understand and communicate with humans.

This creature called itself and its species "humans," and called the spider a "G.o.ddess."

Humans would pray to and seek protection from the G.o.ds, while swearing to wors.h.i.+p and venerate the G.o.ds. This would be an eternal contract.

The large spider agreed.

From then on, it became a Spider G.o.ddess.

After that, another long, long period of time pa.s.sed.

The Spider G.o.ddess got to understand humans better and better, and became more and more interested in humanity. She felt that compared to her own life as a G.o.ddess, human lives were far more interesting.

When her boredom reached a peak, she made a decision—to transform herself into a human!

She had learned various types of knowledge from the humans. After many experiments, she finally succeeded at transforming into a completely human form.

She transformed into a human woman… and left the forest, heading for human territories to have fun.

She experienced various things, tasted all sorts of food, saw lots of interesting sights, and had so much fun with all sorts of entertainment… Sometimes, she would help people, or save people, or hurt people, or kill people…

The Spider G.o.ddess enjoyed everything that humans viewed as fun.

One day, she got married to a human man. Her goal was to experience what it was like for human families to be married.

However, baseless rumors started spreading that she was having an affair with a man other than her husband.

Her husband, who happened to be a human domain lord, believed these rumors. He tossed her into a cage filled with poisonous spiders as a way to execute her.

She was quite bored with this and broke free from the cage quite easily. She slaughtered her husband as well as those who spread the false rumors about herself before leaving.

Some time later, she gave birth to a child.

At this time, many strong humans were attempting to hunt her down. She found it inconvenient to take her child along with her. And so, the Spider G.o.ddess gave a portion of her own power to her child and left the child in the care of a human family as she left on a journey by herself.

Yukari was unable to defeat the red spider.

This was only natural. She was only a normal high school girl. How could she possibly defeat such a large monster?

Her current appearance was quite pitiful. She collapsed on the ground, injured all over and completely unable to stand up anymore. It was all she could do to barely hold on to the wooden sword in her hand.

This was her limit… the red spider made this a.s.sessment as it observed the injured purple-haired girl.

This red spider was actually a portion of the Spider G.o.ddess's power that was left in her descendants.

Logically speaking, it shouldn't have woken up while it slept in this girl's soul. However, due to certain reasons, it was awakened and acted on its job: to carry out a trial to test the Spider G.o.ddess's descendant.

The trial was mysteriously interfered with by an outsider, but it was now over.

As a portion of the spirit of the Spider G.o.ddess, its final a.s.sessment of this girl that shouldn't have faced it to begin with was...

Barely a pa.s.s.

The red spider closed its eyes as it transformed its gigantic body into specks of red light that gradually dissipated. A small portion of the red lights entered the purple-haired girl's body.

Yukari instantly felt like her entire body was painfully tearing apart!

She was in so much pain that she was unable to even scream. Her consciousness became hazy, and she felt like she was dying.

'No… I can't die…

'I still… want to be together with him…'

Yukari was swallowed by the darkness as she continued struggling.