Chapter 29: The Forest

"Well, it is overwhelming, atleast for someone who didn't lived for more than a century."

Altair looked at me with rattling eyes that she is doing her best to hide but ultimately failing on doing so for I am the one she is trying to hide it from and I am not calling myself a manipulator without me knowing how to detect a change in someone's emotion by body language alone.

She seem to be quite disturbed and terrified of the revelation of Arachne's past, well if you think about it, having yourself be a vessel for a curse that will kill someone just by you existing is quite the scary thought, imagine bringing suffering to someone just by existing?

Just imagine how painful that can be, just imagine how Arachne hates herself by being someone like that... It really can make someone even as simple minded as Altair be shaken to her core. Well, it's not like Altair is gutless and a coward, after all she is a former soldier and was given a task to lead a whole unit, so by profession she already saw scenes of blood and gore that can make anyone not in the military to puke their intestines out.

However, this is different, this is not about just blood, no matter how gory blood is, when you wipe it with a rag, then it will be fine, or no matter how mutilated corpse are gut wretching, if you just bury it to the ground, then they will just become fertilizer and will be forgotten that they are even humanoids at one point of time in the first place, but, that is not the case with the cursed fate of Arachne and Idun, the two of them transcended the realm of being mortal enemies or lifetime rivals, they just became two existences that like I said earlier, that should never exist at the same time.

Furthermore, Altair also doesn't have any idea that someone can make such a mythological curse and she can't even understand the bases of the curse for she doesn't have that good of a foundation in magic, so her feeling overwhelmed or anything of the sort is absolutely normal and is not beyond my expectations even though she is quite the simpleton.

"I am still too weak huh..."

She lightly clutch the cloth in the part of her heart as she started to think of how insignificant she is, which is true, or atleast as of now she is still insignificant and she have to learn of that fact if she want to be strong, and she cannot expect any help from me, for I honestly can't help her at all. I can't just use some sweet words to sugarcoat her weakness for she will have confidence that is not backed by ability and that is not beneficial for me and for her in the long run.

What I want her to do is to realize the harshness of reality about being a subordinate of one of the strongest individuals in the planet, being just a former soldier will not make her someone important if she became a subordinate and a follower of me or any other people in the Seven Rulers.

Though I really do hope that she can get out of her self loathing of some kind no matter how hard she was slapped by reality and I can only rely on her simple-mindedness to make her go through this, like, if she thought that she is weak then she have to just become strong or some cliche things simple minded protagonists of fighting mangas will say.

In any case, because I can't do anything, or rather I won't do anything and will let herself sort out this realization of hers, I just gave her a head pat and smiled as she also brightened up a little bit, well isn't she a very adaptable person.

I look forward to her future growth, though her learning to think a little bit is beneficial too and I think that's the first thing she have to work on in the future.

In any case, enough of that for as I was thinking of those things, a forest greeted our sight receiving a "Wooh.." from Altair, damn she sure can recover very fast that it is actually impressive.

The forest is white and full of webs...?

In every part of the forest except a one hundred to two hundred meter radius in the center of the forest is covered with webs that have purple veins of some sort that is pulsating every often as it seem to be a cocoon in which Arachne is enclosed to, the trees, the land everything is pure white and in the edge of the forest a white oval matter that also have some purple veins that is pulsating vigorously was present.

The former forest of green and gold, the forest in which humans and other races are so ashamed of trespassing because of its mere Beauty and mystique was now gone, the forest that yields golden fruits that can heal any non-fatal injuries and known as the miracle fruits of the Fairy Princess is now nowhere to be seen and only a plain and terrifying white was visible added by a gigantic sheep in which is a little smaller than Leon for about half a meter, he is Aries and some other member of the twelve star.

Aries have a humanoid person in top of him, in which I can identify as Virgo, well I can always identify Virgo no matter how far she is and she is probably is now preparing a gigantic magic circle in the vicinity of the cocoon and as the cocoon being the center of the circle, the question is should I make Arachne stay inside the circle until she finished her thing?

Well, that was the only explanation I can have and she made a thumbs up with her usual maiden like smile, well just imagine how a maiden should smile for I don't have time in explaining how she is smiling for I can see the solid cocoon slowly shake around and notice it intensify every second.

"That's... Arachne-sama...? Why is she in a cocoon?"

Altair looked at me, confused as she looked back into the cocoon and me a single time and then asked the question in which I answered in solemnity as I let out a sigh and stood up, Leon immediately understood my intention as he immediately started to stop in mid air knowing what will I do next, a black colored wings that can oddly be seen even in the middle of the night immediately sprouted in my back as my clothes fluttered, I looked at the cocoon of my wife that started to crack as a dark purple miasma began to exude out of the cocoon signifying the weakening of Idun's powers further as Arachne slowly but surely started to wake up.

Even though the curse will work by Arachne just being in the vicinity of Idun, of course the power of the curse still depends in the power being exerted by Arachne, meaning that even if she is far away to Idun, even if she is in Valentine if she went past a certain threshold of her strenght that she is holding back as part of the pride of the strong, then the curse can reach Idun, though only to a certain extent and not to the point that she will have to focus all her strenght like now just to not die from the poison that is being transferred from Arachne into Idun by the curse of that damned Dark Fairy.

Going back, what will happen if Idun and Arachne is in the sphere of effect of the curse, plus Arachne will fight someone and she have to exert force and her power, plus her opponent is me? What will happen to Idun if that happens?

I can only imagine her... Dying, godamnit, what the hell is wrong with this shit, I can't find anything that can resolve this one detonator in this supposed to be easy to resolve bomb.(easy because of Idun's discovery of the answer of the curse's cancelation)

As I was thinking about those things, Leon suddenly talked to me and Altair.

"You need not to worry about Idun for she have already made a magic circle that cuts off the effect of "power proportionality" of the curse and have ordered this one to just let you fight your wife with all your strenght... After all, you and Arachne have the same level of strength."

Power proportionality is a term used by Idun to describe a spell or enchantment that doesn't have a fixed amount of mana consumption, meaning that the power of the spell depends on how many mana will the caster infuse into the said spell, simply speaking that means spells that power is directly proportional to the infused power of the caster.

Well, enough magiscience stuff now and immediately jump into action for as of now, several briskly legs of arm sized spider legs can already be seen peircing the cocoon signifying that Arachne is already on the verge of breaking free from the cocoon, Leon already said that Idun already solved this problem and even though I am still worried to fight Arachne basically in her backyard, as long as she said that it is already fine to go all out, then it should be fine.

After all, I will be in danger if I didn't went all out when fighting any of my wives so this thing will help me have a piece of mind for my well being, well what do you say, I am a selfish person to and if not for Idun being personally close to me and Arachne being my wife then I would not bother helping someone if I don't want to lay (have sex with) a woman or when I want to manipulate someone by making that someone believe in me to some degree.

Thinking of those things I heaved a sigh of relief and a little excitement, I actually knew only by instinct that Arachne is atleast as strong as me but didn't confronted her in a battle of strength for the reasons about the characteristics of the curse of her and Idun that is stated a while earlier so I cannot really challenge her to find out how she fights and only watched her fight with her threads dripping in poison that didn't failed to kill anyone I saw being dripped by it without a single fail.

It is very nerve wracking fighting someone that have one hundred percent fatality rate or no, because I tried the poison and I was just paralyzed for a whole day and didn't die , anyway, nerve wracking as it may be, it is also exciting thinking of how will I fight someone of the same caliber as me, because surely you can't expect someone in the same threshold of power as me walking around casually on the streets right?

Thinking about those things I immediately started to fly out of Leon's back as I gave an order to him.

"I see, that's convenient then, go with Altair and escape in a safe place, this battle will be filled with poison that can kill with a single drop flying around in gallons, so please make sure that you are in the safe distance, also go to Idun and ask to lower the barrier and give me ten minutes for I will calm down my rampaging wife."

By the time I said those words, Arachne was already out of her cocoon as I can see her drooling and looking at the direction of Idun's residence with bloodlust in her eyes, however the bloodlust was not from herself but from the curse, the curse have the characteristic of amplifying the anger of the vessel forcibly towards the one affected by it, that means Arachne doesn't even want to kill Idun right now but can only desire to do so because of that fucking curse.

Damnit, that dark fairy messed up my wife too much that I want to drag him back to the surface from hell and torture him myself, I wonder if a nightmare of Idun beheading every member of his race everynight will do... Ah, before all of that, first, I have to go and fight my wife.

Thinking of those, I immediately flew and landed in front of Arachne as her bloodlust filled eyes shifted towards me.

"Arachne, I am here to save you."