Charles's eyebrows shot up. The monastery was never very large to begin with, and thanks to his memory, he knew every corner and furnishing by heart. He was certain that before leaving, this mound hadn't existed.
What had happened?
Puzzled, he turned and called out beside him, "Andny, what's with that little dirt mound?"
It was already winter, but Liberl Port's low latitude, bordering on the tropics, and South Harbor District's seaside warmth, meant there was no shortage of worms—or of insects for the Insects Witch to command.
So even now, the monastery was full of her messengers.
As soon as he finished his question, a tiny worm softly landed by his ear. Andny's voice came through—unexpectedly, now thick with tears: "Master…"
"The spiderborn that hatched from the egg died because of my care…"
Between sobs, Andny told Charles the whole story: simply put, the Giant Egg she had brought back from the Drider nest hatched, but the infant inside would not eat or drink, would not cry or move. No matter how hard she and Sophia tried, it lasted less than a day before dying.
In the end, a grief-stricken Andny could only dig a small hole in the garden and bury the corpse.
Staring at that little mound of earth, Charles's expression grew complicated. Knowing there were two dead infants buried underfoot, he couldn't help but feel uneasy.
But then another thought struck—if one of those dead infants turned into an undead and clawed up from the dirt, he might just net a few dozen more Purification Points…
At that, his mood improved. But when he heard Andny still crying softly, he comforted her gently: "It's all right, don't cry, Andny. Where are you now? I'll come find you."
Andny said she was in her own room, so Charles walked through the monastery's garden to her doorway, didn't bother to knock, and pushed open the door.
Then he saw the Insects Witch, neatly dressed in her pitch-black heavy nun's habit, but at that moment she was curled up on the bed.
Looking closer, Charles immediately noticed that her abdomen was swollen, as though she was pregnant. Instantly, a jolt of alarm ran through him: "Your stomach—?"
Andny lifted her nun's habit, revealing her pale, snow-white belly and—hugged closely to herself—a giant spider egg the size of a basketball. "It's this."
Charles's face immediately turned complicated. "Ah, so there's another one left… Wait, why are you holding it against your belly like that? I thought…"
He almost said, I thought you were pregnant. I distinctly remember the game saying witches can't get pregnant.
Andny let her habit fall back down and continued to cradle the egg against herself. "Sophia said the reason the last spiderborn died might be that we got the hatching process wrong."
"She said that spiderborn could probably be counted as greatly weakened, and eggs like that need high temperature and motherly love to live, so she told me to do this; maybe this way the one in the egg will survive…"
Charles inwardly wondered what kind of nonsense that was, but at the sight of Andny's pitiful, hopeful eyes, he simply couldn't voice his doubts. Instead, he put on a serious expression: "That's logical and well-reasoned—it convinces me."
He said this and walked to the foot of the bed, sat down beside Andny, lifted the nun's habit to reveal the giant egg beneath, and placed his hand on it, grave and focused.
Even though this was a fantasy world where spawning new species didn't need to follow any basic laws, ilthreza wasn't some kind of goddess. She simply had a mastery far above the ordinary, but still nowhere near being able to create a stable, brand-new species.
Which meant these spiderborn might have simply been born with fundamental flaws—and that dying at birth was normal; surviving would actually be the abnormal outcome.
That's what he thought, though, seeing the anxious hope in Andny's eyes, he truly couldn't bring himself to speak any brutal truths.
Mm… even if creating a wholly new and stable species is out of reach, with our power, letting a child that shouldn't survive make it through—that ought to be doable, right?
He activated the system, eyeing the land area and prestige still lacking, and pressed his lips together before letting out a sigh.
Ugh—even by blowing through money as fast as possible, he could buy one hundred thousand square meters of land in a short span, but there was simply no way to grind up prestige points that quickly.
You can't keep distributing porridge every day. And if there aren't any big disasters in the slums, the prestige gained from free meals would be minimal at best…
Forget it. Looks like the monastery won't be getting a level-up to tier 3 anytime soon, nor will the clinic hit tier 3.
So, the only option is to try something else.
With that in mind, he pulled up his attributes panel, eyed the 15,000-plus Purification Points on hand, and drew a deep breath.
Whether this works or not will depend on whether the level-2 clinic is up to the task…
…
Three days later, in the monastery's clinic.
Charles and a group of nuns were gathered around the operating table, each more serious than the next. Andny, in particular, had her hands pressed reverently to her chest, face pious, silently praying.
On the operating table in their midst, a basketball-sized spider egg was quietly resting.
According to the calculations of Andny and Sophia, and Theresa's foresight, today would be the day this giant egg hatched.
In this near-unbearable silence, time ticked by. At the very least, Sophia's calculations were accurate: soon, the egg began to stir.
Crack—
It rocked twice, then the clear sound of eggshell splitting rang out through the quiet clinic room. Visible to the eye, the crack widened, the rocking grew more violent, and in just a few seconds, cracks had spread all across the shell.
Everyone held their breath, tension and anticipation thick in the air as they waited for new life to emerge. Very soon, the white shell collapsed, and in the midst of transparent, viscous fluid, a strange new being was born into the world.
It looked like a human baby girl, but with pointed ears; her skin was pale, but the wispy hair atop her head was a faint violet—perhaps inherited, perhaps mutated.
None of that mattered, though. What set her truly apart from all other life in the material world were the four pairs of spider legs sprouting from her back, each a different length.
The little girl trembled, stretching her tender arms and kicking her stubby legs, as if trying to grasp something—or perhaps enduring terrible agony. The eight spider legs at her back swung back and forth, brushing fragments of eggshell from her body in an apparent instinct.
Her eyes were squeezed shut, mouth parted, but entirely filled with slime; her expression was agonized, lips purplish, as though she wanted to cry out, but no sound emerged.
Charles's face turned grave at once; as feared, the child's state was all wrong.
No crying, no struggle.
That was a grave abnormality. Charles didn't try to act like a doctor and slap the baby to make her cry. Instead, he immediately looked up and commanded, "System, scan the baby's condition."
As soon as he finished, a football-sized, eye-shaped scanner floated over and hovered above the infant, beginning a full body scan.
Charles stared down at his system panel, watching line after line appear on the interface: cardiac failure… heart failure… kidney failure…
His expression froze.
Just as he'd suspected—ilthreza's technique was entirely unreliable. Her basic skills were nowhere near enough to create a new species from scratch.
This new kind, blending drider, giant spider, and human traits, fundamentally lacked viability; death at birth was to be expected.
And yet, if Andny wanted to save her…
Charles took a deep breath.
"System," he called again, "formulate a treatment plan that will enable this spiderborn to survive, and tell me what to do next."
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