Kays Translations

Chapter 67: Arrival of the Big Spider

After delivering the ordered goods to America and receiving the priority claim document for Demon Lord materials, I bid farewell to the two who were setting off from Okutama.

The Black Ship carrying Hiyori and the professor would take the western route back to America via China, India, and the Mediterranean in Europe. Along the way, they’d search for survivor communities and recruit more allies.

I hoped they’d return stronger than before.

But honestly, I didn’t mind if they came back the same size—what mattered most was their health and safety.

Barely an hour after saying my goodbyes in the early morning, a massive eight-legged shadow emerged from the Mist of the Lost in Okutama. One of its legs held a staff—one that I had crafted—secured in a special holder.

“Spider Witch! Over here, over here!”

I waved from the entrance. The Spider Witch raised a leg slightly in response and scuttled over, letting out a sharp chittering sound.

“Good morning. It’s been a while, Dairi. You seem well…”
“You too, Spider Witch. As beautiful as ever.”

Her form was as breathtaking as ever.

Her massive black body, the size of a car, was lined with fearsome spines. Her legs were densely covered in fine hairs.

Her seven compound eyes had the cold, inorganic quality of an insect’s—like a machine, impossible to read. But that was oddly reassuring.

And to top it off, she had a great personality. Meeting her was one of the luckiest things in my life.

The Spider Witch chittered and pulled out a bundle of fabric, tightly bound with string, from beneath her abdomen—spider silk cloth.

“Thank you. This is just a small token, but I hope you’ll accept it.”
“Oh, I appreciate it, but really, you didn’t have to. I’m the one relying on your protection, after all. Ah, damn, I didn’t prepare anything in return.”
“It’s fine, don’t worry. I just brought it on my own.”

After a brief chat at the entrance, we headed off to greet the local residents.

First, the fire lizards.

They had recently shed their skins and relocated their homes.

• Tsubaki, the largest and most assertive, had taken over the blast furnace.
• Mokutan, the friendliest, had claimed the hearth in the earthen floor kitchen.
• Sekitan, the laziest, now lived in the small workshop furnace.

Each had built their own nests out of metal materials and now slept separately. Their growing bodies had made sharing a single nest too cramped.

These fire lizards had been only about 8 cm at birth, but now they had shot up to 12 cm.

Though they were nearing two years old, they were still quite young. They stacked hand-me-down educational blocks from Fuyou with their front legs and even held “Who Can Melt Metal the Fastest?” contests among themselves. They could understand structure and rules, which meant they were seriously smart.

At this rate, they might start talking soon—both exciting and a little terrifying.

When we found them sprawled lazily on some battered firebricks in the backyard, they immediately tumbled off in a panic the moment the Spider Witch appeared.

They chirped in distress, scattering embers from their mouths in a feeble attempt at intimidation.

“Oh… I’m sorry. I’m scary, aren’t I…”
“S-Sorry about my kids. But they’ll get used to you over time.”

The Spider Witch looked downhearted, so we simply introduced her before heading to the back mountain.

To be fair, the fire lizards’ fear made sense—when they first met her, she had wrapped them up in silk from head to tail.

Their first impression of her was the worst possible, but she was a good witch. Hopefully, they’d warm up to her eventually.

Up in the back mountain, where my home was nestled among the trees, Fuyou, the tree spirit, had already taken precautions to welcome the Spider Witch.

She had temporarily disabled her essential oil defense, which normally killed insect- and fungus-type monsters on sight.

As expected, the moment she saw the Spider Witch, she happily extended a vine and wrapped it around one of her legs—almost like a handshake.

“Hello, Spider! Let’s be friends, okay?”
“Huh? Oh, uh… yeah. Nice to meet you… You’re not scared of me?”
“See, I need your help! My far-reaching roots and leaves keep getting chewed on by bugs. You eat bugs, right? So take care of them for me, please!”

Fuyou flailed her vines and arms enthusiastically as she explained.

This was actually my doing.

If Fuyou ended up hating the Spider Witch, she could have a tantrum one day and spray her deadly essential oils, killing her instantly. I needed them to get along.

So, I had told Fuyou in advance: “Spiders eat plant pests. They’re your allies.”

Fuyou’s essential oils only affected monsters, meaning she was powerless against normal Earth-born insects. And since handling pest control herself was a hassle, she often got nagged by the Flower Witch, her mother, to take better care of herself.

But now, she knew that the Spider Witch could help with that.

Feeling pleased by this, Fuyou was in a great mood.

“Your name was Fuyou, right? That was a very polite request. But… I don’t eat aphids or grasshoppers. Sorry…”
“Wait, really…?”
“However, most spider monsters listen to my commands. Even Earth-born spiders—some understand me, some don’t. So I could have my subordinates handle pest control for you. How does that sound?”
“Hmm… so basically, you’ll take care of the bugs anyway? Yay! Thanks, Spider!”

Fuyou’s smile literally blossomed, and she beamed with joy.

The Spider Witch let out a satisfied chitter.

She could see fear. And the more fear someone had, the more delicious they looked to her.

But thanks to my intervention, Fuyou saw her as an ally.

Since plants naturally benefited from carnivorous spiders eating their pests, their friendship was bound to work out.

The Spider Witch seemed genuinely happy that the Flower Witch’s daughter wasn’t afraid of her at all.

“Fuyou-chan, you’re such a good girl. When you grow up, you’ll become a beauty just like your mother…”

“Fufufu! I’m going to be even more beautiful than my mother! The old man said so!”

“I-I see… Dairi, you really shouldn’t be flirting with just anyone…”

“I’m not flirting! There’s no way I’d hit on a little kid.”

Hitting on a two-year-old girl? That’s insane. And to top it off, it’s a kid I personally helped deliver. Please don’t accuse me of such dishonor.

Actually, I’ve never flirted with anyone in my life. I don’t even know how to.

After waving goodbye to an overly cheerful Fuyou, I guided the Spider Witch, who had finished greeting the local inhabitants, and we took a walk around my living area.

The Spider Witch took a liking to an old temple in the neighborhood and said she wanted to make it her nest.

When I gave her the okay, she immediately started spinning webs to build her home. I sat in a corner, hugging my knees, admiring the artistic craftsmanship of a giant spider weaving her nest—

“It’s embarrassing if you stare that much…”

She said, so I made myself scarce.

It would take two or three days for her to finish weaving and setting everything up, so in the meantime, I decided to read through my research materials on magic script.

I’d been too busy handling America’s orders to read it before.

Man, I was really looking forward to this!

For years, Professor Ohinata had insisted that “Magic Language has a written form.” Magic script had only been theorized until now, with no concrete evidence. But finally, it’s right here before me! I’m getting hyped.

I prepared some tea, piled a basket full of homemade soy sauce rice crackers, and crawled under the kotatsu, ready for a long reading session. I turned the pages of the thick magic script document and found priceless information laid out without hesitation.

First off, magic script can be seen using a Möbius Loop Gremlin.

When using magic through a Möbius Loop Gremlin, the inside of the loop glows golden.

By looking through a light-filtering plate, you can see the magic script displayed inside the loop.

I immediately crafted a Möbius Loop Gremlin, put on sunglasses, and chanted a bypass incantation for fertility magic. Sure enough, unknown characters appeared at high speed inside the loop.

Fascinating. It seems that as words are pronounced, corresponding characters appear one by one, changing in real time.

The linguistic analysis and theoretical sections were full of technical jargon, so I skimmed them for now, deciding to read them properly later. I focused on the practical applications of magic script.

Magic script is, after all, just writing.

Just like writing Japanese produces no special effects, simply writing magic script doesn’t do anything.

To unlock the latent power of magic script, it must be inscribed using a special alloy.

The alloy consists of:

• Silver 61%
• Platinum 23%
• Gold 10%
• Iron 2.6%
• Copper 1.4%
• Titanium 1.1%
• Gremlin 0.9%

The same composition as the metallic substance found clinging to raw magic stones.

Upon reading that, I flung the document aside, bolted out of the kotatsu, grabbed a shovel from the agricultural shed, and sprinted to the back of the mountain.

Dammit, dammit, dammit! I saw that alloy on the very first night of the Gremlin Disaster!

That stuff clinging to the Octa-Meteorite’s raw magic stone, right? I remember it. I was too fixated on the magic stone itself and just tossed the rest into the mountain.

Shit. A once-in-a-lifetime blunder.

Of course! It was a meteoric mineral, after all. A substance that had enveloped a magic stone—it should have been obvious it was important. Damn it! If I had just thought a little outside the box, I could have figured it out…!

I dug through the fallen leaves and soil in the back mountain, recovered the mineral, and brought it home.

According to the document, writing with this metal allows for simulated magic control.

Magic script also contains rhetorical symbols, which modify or refine the meaning of the text. Like musical notation for phrasing, they add nuance and depth rather than altering the core meaning.

The document listed all 28 known rhetorical symbols—though it noted that there were likely still undiscovered ones.

The symbols themselves were simple, resembling punctuation marks. Some looked like Japanese periods and commas, others like English periods and colons. There were also double dots, slanted brackets, and other straightforward shapes. Writing them was easy.

Using them, however, was anything but simple.

Rhetorical symbols couldn’t just be tacked onto words at random. Certain symbols could only be used with specific words, while others were prohibited.

It was similar to how Japanese has dakuten (゛) and handakuten (゜), which only apply to certain kana. “Ga, gi, gu, ge, go” exist, but “a゛, i゛, u゛, e゛, o゛” don’t—not in standard usage, at least.

Magic script is written in a straight horizontal line, connecting the characters—like Sanskrit.

A key rule is that rhetorical symbols placed above the baseline give a refined, noble, or formal nuance.

Symbols placed below the baseline convey a childish, crude, or casual tone.

Curious, I used the Möbius Loop Gremlin and chanted “Flames, Jin-Ga!” Every single rhetorical symbol was under the baseline.

Yep. Knew it. That guy’s spells always sound dumb.

The grammatical rules for rhetorical symbols were ridiculously complex. Some identical-looking symbols had entirely different meanings depending on context. Even “standard” rules had exceptions.

There was also an alien concept called the “existence symbol”, which wasn’t just about usage—it required an entirely new way of thinking.

Just reading about it made my brain overheat.

The information in this document was recorded by a second-tier magic script user who was aboard the Black Ships. That person was only on the ship to perform maintenance on magic artifacts inscribed with magic script. While they could maintain the script, they were unable to write it from scratch—in other words, they were not an expert in magic script.

Even so, the sheer volume and complexity of the information recorded by a non-expert is staggering. If this is what a layperson knows, then an actual expert’s knowledge must be on a whole other level. No wonder Professor Ohinata is so eager to study at the source.

Magic script is difficult.

But if I can master it, I’ll be able to engrave magic script onto staff.

Not just some decorative markings that look mystical, but real, functional magic script that enhances the user’s abilities—and looks damn cool while doing it!

It’s extremely difficult, but absolutely worth learning.

Knowing that mastering the basics of magic script will take months, I dug out a practice notebook—the first one I’ve used since elementary school.

This is my next step as a staff wand craftsman. Time to put in the work.

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