This was an event that transpired long ago.

Smoke rose into the evening sky and was carried away by the wind.

Normally, it would be from households cooking rice for dinner, but this time, it came from the burning houses around the castle town. Soldiers from the neighboring countries, many of whom were originally burglars, were looting the area, killing entire households, and setting fires.

The same was happening in the Ichinose castle, which stood on the north side of the town… Amidst the angry and anguished screams, the castle burned and burned.

“F-father…”

“Princess, you must hurry.”

“That’s right, please leave while you still can.”

How are you still saying this?

Although my mother and the others managed to draw the pursuers from earlier, I wouldn’t be able to do anything even if I escaped safely to the neighboring ally’s territory. It might have been a different story if I was born male instead, but it’s impossible to change the gender I was born with.

For a moment, I remembered the explorer and the boastful blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman who visited the castle last year.

Rosa Valeria, who had traveled from the far west, was also a great warrior who defeated the samurai in our household in a friendly match by skillfully wielding two blades, a shortsword and a longsword, that was made in a country in the west. She was a woman with a dynamic personality, and I have a feeling that she would smile fearlessly at such adversity.

While thinking about such nonsense, I escaped with my bodyguards and headed east to the Forbidden forest, but we were caught before long.

“Guuh!?”

“D-damn you, gahah, uu…”

Near the keystone which was said to be the place where our ancestors had sealed a great demon in the ground hundreds of years ago, several men who had been lying in wait in the bushes jumped out with their crude bamboo spears and stabbed the two bodyguards.

“No… why?”

It was not the enemy soldiers who had rushed to the castle fortress, but only the poor lords who lived in the village just beyond the forest.

“Hey, there’s a woman here.”

“Heheh, yer a pretty lil’ thing, ain’tcha?”

“Gubuh, p-please… run…”

The guards coughed out blood as they told her to run, but the daughter of the daimyo was unable to move her legs due to the horrible scene in front of her and was soon held down by the group of men.

The two thugs seized her arms and forced open the front of her kimono, and a large man with a vulgar smile on his face forced her legs open.

“Noo! Sto– guuh!”

“Shaddup! Hey, hold her still!!”

She frantically struggled, but a single hand was pressed to her throat, stifling her voice and depriving her of any strength to resist. The last thing she saw as a human after being severely tortured by her captors was her dazed expression which was reflected on the deadly blade that swung down on her. 

“Kafuh…”

As she harbored resentment towards the fools who only cared about fulfilling their desires while their own country was facing a crisis, her dying consciousness noticed something beneath the ground.

It was very weak just like her, but its will to survive was so strong that it appeared to shine… and her soul was drawn to it as soon as she drew her last breath.

After a while, the two souls merged, and a new life was formed.

“Wh-wha– an earthquake!?”

“… C-calm do– guuuuuh!?”

“Uwaaaah, guh, uuugh…”

“Wh-what’s, this…”

A silver thread appeared on the ground and captured the men who were stripping the clothes and possessions of the people they had just killed. And then, the earth shook intermittently and split, and a giant spider that was at least 3 meters tall crawled up from the depths of the earth with wounds all over its body.

(I’m hungry… Huh? I’m… No, hungry, must eat… can’t stay awake…)

Driven by an uncontrollable sense of hunger that bordered on starvation, its restless red eyes looked around until it found the prey it had captured.

“Hih, a d-demon spider… stop, it hurts, it hurts, DON’T EAT ME, GIYAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

“Ah, a, aaaaaah, h-help, HIIIIIIIIIH!!”

It gobbled up the men who were begging for their lives without reflecting on their actions, and, along with their bodies, it also consumed their souls.

(Not enough, not enough, more, more, I want more…)

The demon spider, who felt hungrier even after half-heartedly eating several men, drooled as it was attracted by the smell of blood that was mixed in the wind and headed towards the castle town where a massacre was about to take place.

All the warriors from the victorious neighboring country who were celebrating their victory, the few people who were still resisting, and the people who were escaping were all entangled in its strings and their souls were consumed as their bodies were crushed.

But even after all of that, the hunger it felt from several hundred years could not be satisfied, and the fear and regret that had clung to the souls it consumed caused the demon spider who had lost its sense of self to go on an unstoppable rampage.

After consuming tens of thousands of souls, the mysterious spider which ran amok across the country stopped its activity and retired to the deep forest to molt undisturbed.

But strangely enough, when it broke through its exterior exoskeleton, its upper half was a beautiful, black-haired woman with clear eyes while its lower half continued into that of a smaller spider’s body. When the woman saw her lower half, she screamed.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA— Wh-what has happened to me!? Uegh, oeeegh!”

After ascending the silver spiral staircase and somewhat regaining her humanity to transform herself, she spat out the contents of her stomach, but the souls she had devoured did not return and she could only go on and on admonishing herself for what she had done.

To her credit, she consumed tens of thousands of souls before she regained her reason.

However, the rumors about her had grown, and she was now known as one of the Seven Plagues, “The Devourer of a Million Souls”. But… All of this had transpired hundreds of years ago and was just a tale that nobody could know about now.

……………

………

…

“Giuh, zeno gareausu…” (Damn, I had that weird dream again…)

The Goblin twin swordsman cursed as he woke up wrapped in a blanket in a neatly rebuilt cave and unconsciously stroked the large scar that ran from his abdomen to his shoulder.

“Hmm, it’s a sign that the fragment of my soul that I have given to make up for the missing part of your soul has taken root. I’m sure you’ll be in good shape soon. Also, you understand the common continental language now, don’t you?”

“Gih, noigiorusu, rizeru degludo zelnogia.” (Sigh I just can’t understand why ya have to show me that unpleasant memory every time.)

Sword didn’t mind the scene where the humans were dying left and right, but he became extremely uncomfortable whenever he saw the female that looked exactly like Kaede being tortured to death.

(I wonder, is it because I owe her my life?)

In any case, as long as they are conversing, Sword could tell if his friend is lying, but… He didn’t need any words as it was clear from the look of envy that his partner was giving him.

“Sword, you don’t know, suffering I’m going through.”

“Brave… you actually love what you’re doing, don’t you?”

“… I don’t really hate it.”

Just like that.

It wasn’t long before he followed along that Brave was fascinated with the various illustrated books that Kaede possessed. After that, the former Goblin Hero began to read them with Kaede’s help, and he also developed an interest in languages.

He didn’t understand why the Goblins are always the villains in every story he read, but… it didn’t hinder him from satisfying his hunger for knowledge, and now he was able to read books on his own.

“Is that “The Observations of the East”…?”

“Different pictures, pretty.”

The large, dark-skinned pseudo Demon was holding a book written a hundred years ago by the explorer Rosa Valeria which was part of the reason the Demon Spider from Yamato was on this continent.

For Kaede who had been confined to the castle, she longed to hear the amusing tales of adventure told by the explorer who visited Yamato. So even if she had already lost her humanity, she decided to embark on a journey after her hometown was destroyed and she was chased by the Imperial Court as a fugitive.

Remembering that she had already placed that memory to the back of her mind, Kaede glanced at the disgruntled Sword and at Brave who was engrossed with reading his book.

She secretly smiled as she thought that it wouldn’t be a bad idea if she brought them along as travel companions if she had to leave again, and involuntarily turned her gaze outside the cave and at the white snow that had recently started to fall around the area.