"I still don't understand, Lady Rose. Your explanation makes no sense at all."
Wind and sand swept across the Wilderness constantly, but a few insects could withstand its harsh conditions.
This one, for instance.
At the border between the Black Wilderness and the Sandy Wilderness, a sturdy silverfish trudged into the windblown sand.
His thick body protected him from the ravages of sandstorms, and years of experience kept him from losing his way.
Every sign pointed to him being a wanderer.
Wandering was a mysterious profession whose practitioners roamed the Wilderness endlessly, leaving their biographies behind.
What puzzled other insects, however, was the insect sprawled lazily on top of his head.
A jet-black carapace, a mask with six eyes, and six pairs of slender limbs. Throughout the Wilderness, almost only one kind of insect possessed such features.
A spider.
Or rather, a Weaver...
"Oh~~ please, Lochy, just do me a favor. Those bandits scared me to death."
"Lady Rose, I'm a scholar. You can't expect me to cross blades with them. Besides, you hardly seemed to exert yourself."
"But it's my birthday!"
"I don't believe that for a second."
A burly scholar and a slender, indolent Weaver with formidable fighting skills.
Quite an odd pairing.
Bickering back and forth, the two travelers made their slow way forward on foot, without any means of transportation.
Not far behind them lay a heap of bandit corpses, dismembered and scattered, their deaths gruesome.
Their tools were crudely made, their carapaces worn by wind and sand, and their bodies hunched from severe malnutrition.
They looked pitiful, but whatever they had been in life, there was little difference between them now.
The Weaver's methods were nowhere near as gentle as her appearance suggested. Some sharp implement had finely diced both the dead insects' weapons and