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We cross the gates and feel the scent of flowers at full bloom. We’ve only been away for half a year, but it feels like we haven’t been here in forever. The Academy students are on a long vacation, so Olivia and I returned home.

“Natalia, I’ll sort my own luggage.”
“Alright, but please do call me if you need help.”

I’m carrying her luggage in my magic storage like usual, so I take it out and she carries it to her room. While she does that, I sort the remaining luggage.

That includes my clothes and accessories obviously, but also potions and metal ingots I made while practicing alchemy. I’m planning on selling all of it at the Adventurers’ Guild, though I’m still Olivia’s Servant, meaning technically she’s the one doing the transaction.

“And this…”

An enormous Clamp Boar comes out from my opened magic inventory. Its head has a deep fist mark. We had run into it while walking from Bamel to our home, and Olivia defeated it with a single punch. The fight was already over by the time I took my gun out, leaving me utterly baffled and it took me some time to finally react.

Now that I think about it calmly, Olivia had already been up to her antics while attending a normal school, so I guess it makes sense that she gathered enough experience to take down a Clamp Boar.

But no matter how strong she is, I’m her maid, so I can’t allow her to stand in front defending me. I need to be the one standing up for her next time.

I wonder if just the two of us can eat all of it though. We’ll be staying here for a week, and Olivia likes to eat a lot, so maybe having some excess isn’t too bad, I’m mostly worried we’ll get fed up eating nothing but pork only.

Oh, I know, I’ll give Mir and Aria some when I check on them too. I never thanked Mir for the gauntlets, so this is perfect.

I butcher the Clamp Boar and drain its blood, then stash the pieces I plan on giving away into my magic storage. I’m done unpacking the remaining luggage too, so I quickly clean and straighten my clothes before I knock on Olivia’s door.

“Young Lady, I’ll be going to visit Aria-”

Clatter, clatter, clatter!

Some sort of noise comes from the room, interrupting me. It sounds like a teen trying to desperately hide something from his family. Ah, it must be puberty. Well, at least I doubt Olivia would be into something weird though.

“I-I’ll go too.”

Olivia opens a slit on the door and her head peeks out, saying that while breathing heavily and avoiding eye contact.

“Umm…it’s alright if you’re busy, I can go alone.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll be ready soon.”
“…Okay.”

I can’t bring myself to contradict Olivia seeing her like that, so it’s almost like she forces her way to go with me. After a bit of waiting Olivia is done, and we head together to the cave behind the house.

“Float Light.”

The light magic illuminates our surroundings. I can handle the darkness now, but I doubt Olivia will be comfortable.

We walk for a bit before we run into a brown colored spider. Steel Spiders are usually a gray color, so I guess it’s a different species, even if everything else looks the same.

The spider notices us and raises a front leg, waving it as if greeting us. It looked friendly, so I squatted down and spoke to it.

“Hello, do you live here with Aria?”

Nod!

I ask and the spider’s head bobs up and down.

“I’d like to see her, is that possible?”

…Nod!

It seemed to take a bit to think about it, but eventually it nodded again. It starts waddling away, and waves its front leg again, as if telling us to follow it.

“Let’s go then, Young Lady.”
“Okay…you seem used to this.”
“?”

The spider leads us to the place where Aria once beat me up. As we walk into it, I notice an unexpected presence.

“Careful, you might get caught if you don’t focus~”
“I can keep going!”

There were dim torches propped up by stones, and faintly illuminated by them was Mir, fighting against a swarm of Aria’s Steel Spiders. Just like how I used to train. Soon after Mir’s longsword gets caught in the Steel Spider’s silk. At the same time, many strands of silk get stretched around her, sealing her movements.

“Alrighty, that’s checkmate.”
“Ugh…I give up.”

The Steel Spider silk restraining her gets pulled back, setting Mir free. Assuming they are done, I finally speak up.

“That was close, Mir.”
“Natalia, you came back?”
“Yes, just earlier.”
“Oh Natalia and Olivia, you look good~”

Aria descends from the ceiling and lands in front of us.

“You look just the same too, Aria. I wasn’t expecting to see you here too though, Mir. I thought you were bad around bugs, what changed?”

I look at the countless spiderlings on the ceiling as I ask, and Mir looks away awkwardly. I guess she hasn’t conquered her fears yet.

“See, little Mir here came asking for some of my Steel Spider Silk.”
“Your silk?”
“I know how resilient it is, and its excellence as a magic conductor, so I wanted to sell it as my store’s specialty.”
“But giving it up for free would be boring, so I told her I’ll give her some as a reward if she manages to defeat my children.”

Mir still looked uncomfortable around spiders, but Aria chuckled teasingly.

“I still can’t win though…”

I could understand that. Even if it was the spiderlings doing the fighting, Aria was the one giving them orders, making it much harder. Though from what I saw, Aria seems to be giving her an even harder fight compared to the time when we both were defeated by her.