The guardian Jorōgumo

  The car had been on the road for some time. The trip back home was as usual. Traveling with me was the rest of the family that had taken me in. Adelis had been on the phone for a while. In the back seat sat Momo and the two androids who always accompanied Adelis, Kazumi and Charlotte. The latter had even suggested that we travel in the trunk to make room for the mermaid who was also accompanying us on this trip. Of course, we couldn't leave Levia behind, as she always needed someone's help to live on the surface. Besides, she was the most excited, looking out the window and enjoying the change of scenery beyond the aquarium she was usually confined to at home. It was a shame that the day was already coming to an end.

  This day had started strangely, thanks to the nonsense my new husband Cesar is always in the middle of. This time it all started last night when we realized that Maria, Tifa and Lisa had disappeared. Although Adelis was scared, we managed to calm her down by assuring her that wherever they had gone, Lisa was undoubtedly with them, so there wasn't much danger. Later we received a phone call saying that they had appeared in Romania due to some strange witch hunt happening in Europe, but were now in a safe place. However, Maria mentioned that she would be joining her brother on another adventure - on another planet, world, or something. I'm too new to all this, so I don't know all the details. Anyway, after this call, Adelis was finally able to sleep.

  Today started early in the morning because there was a military weapons test in the Shimogō region, and it seemed that they wanted Adelis to visit. Apparently, they wanted to show off their best missile launching platforms, tracking systems, and firearms in an attempt to impress the Alliance and secure large orders. Unfortunately, the demonstration was, in Adelis' own words, disappointing. It seemed that the equipment had been developed too quickly. While it was impressive that all the systems had been created using only Japanese production, most of them were too complex to manufacture and maintain. They weren't suitable for adoption by a multinational force like the Alliance, which consisted of various military armies from different countries and combat doctrines. Compared to the systems already adopted by the Alliance, the Japanese systems lacked the modularity and standardization of parts that would have made battlefield repairs easier.

  The firearms were also impressive in terms of performance and statistics, but they used a new type of ammunition instead of the standard 5.56×45mm NATO caliber that had become the norm. The engineers, though innovative in their approach and focused on local production while keeping costs relatively low, were disappointed in themselves for overlooking the logistical needs of a multinational army. They were too focused on reducing production costs. The only result of all this effort was that they were given a second chance in a few months to see if they could correct the deficiencies.

  Now the trip was all about getting home - two hours of travel through the autumnal mountainous landscape of Japan. Levia was undoubtedly the most impressed, seeing almost the entire region in shades of red and brown. She was worried, thinking that all the flora on the planet's surface was dying. The poor thing still didn't understand the concept of seasons, as she had spent most of her life underwater and in a tropical country where summer existed all year round. She relaxed a bit when it was explained to her that everything would return to normal the following spring.

  Adelis, on the other hand, received another call from her daughter a little later. She spoke with her for quite a while before hanging up.

  "Maria called me. She said they were on a space station beyond Jupiter.

  "According to what she told me, they're waiting to meet up with Stella's military team before continuing their journey elsewhere."

  "She told me that Cesar is fine, but very nervous. She said his eyes are permanently red again, but he's not angry."

  "What scares me is thinking about how much he must be eating. Knowing him, there can only be two outcomes - either he's not eating because he's nervous, or on the contrary, he's eating like a bottomless barrel for the same reason," Adelis said, sighing in disappointment for her son.

  "Cesar? Nervous?"

  "What the hell happened? Did he have another mental breakdown?"

  "That's really rare for him unless he's in direct combat," I said, confused.

  "It's about Nanami, his first wife. It seems he's finally found a way to locate the place where she died."

  "It looks like he wants to go there as soon as possible and see what happened."

  "See what happened? Wasn't he fighting there too?" I asked, now knowing the truth about Cesar.

  "Even though he fought there, according to what he told me, he was mortally wounded."

  "He says he remembers getting medical attention and talking to Nanami for a while, but then he lost consciousness shortly after."

  "When he woke up, he was already trapped in Nanami's body at a military base far away from the Celestial Forge."

  "Later, when he inherited Atlantis, he searched the entire continent, but the entire section of the Celestial Forge had disappeared, and no one knew what had happened to it."

  "The angels thought it was lost in the void of space or something like that, but apparently they just ran into someone who was there, so he forced them to take him there."

  "The person he forced to take him - it's a girl, right?"

  "'But of course."

  "She's not human, I guess. Did he marry her too?"

  "She's almost 9 meters long, apparently. A serpent girl with multiple personalities."

  "The good thing is that she's long, not tall - you know, snakes are long."

  "I still have no idea how the hell he keeps meeting monster girls. Normal people don't even know about the existence of the paranormal or the occult, yet he finds supernatural girls and weird fetishes under every rock."

  "There's no more room in the house for anyone! How the hell are we supposed to accommodate a nine-meter snake girl? Why the hell did he have to marry her, too?"

  "Why do I have an emotionally needy son like him?!" Adelis cried out in frustration.

  "Hey, I married him too!"

  "And it wasn't out of convenience. Maybe it doesn't seem like it, but I love him just as much as the others."

  "He saved me from my mother and myself, you know?"

  "Besides, this is partly your fault, too. It's because of you that this guy has emotional problems."

  "A lot of his self-deprecation comes from the amazing work you did when he was little and forgotten by the whole world." I reminded Adelis that she was part of the problem, too.

  "Hey, we all make mistakes, especially me."

  "That's why I'm not complaining - well, I am, but not because he has multiple wives. Instead, I'm happy that he has several girls who really love him and his harem. He deserves it more than anyone else."

  "I don't think I've ever seen a group as beautiful as yours, how despite being a group... with different backgrounds and traumas, you all want to overcome your problems together."

  "......"

  "What I complain about is the logistics behind it, not the love."

  "There are no more beds in the house, no more rooms."

  "Do you know how much food we go through in this house? And not only that - personal items, the bathroom is always occupied."

  "And now a nine-meter-long lamia."

  "This can't go on! We have to do something!"

  "There's no more room in the house. The biggest room was the garage, and even that's taken."

  "Oh, well, excuse me for being a giant spider."

  "At least I'm lucky enough to pass as a human and not take up too much space."

  "Do you have any idea how hard and exhausting it is for a spider to contort itself and try to fit into a human body?" I said sarcastically.

  "Every time I walk is like a whole loop of our weird movements."

  "Besides, since I got married and became part of the family, you stopped paying me my salary as a professional assassin! In fact, you don't even pay me to be a bodyguard, even though that's what I've been doing all day today!"

  "Hey, I'm not just talking about space."

  "I'm talking about you having to sleep in the garage next to this car."

  "Besides, winter's coming, and I don't think the heating will go that far."

  "Wouldn't you like to have a room of your own, well furnished with your things? To have some privacy?"

  "I think it's time to expand the house, and I plan to make the source of the problem pay for it."

  "If he had money to buy a used car dealership, then he surely has money to make the house bigger."

  "........"

  "Hey, how much longer until we get home?" Adelis asked, always concerned about time and schedules.

  "There's still a long way to go; we won't get there until night."

  "I'm worried about Cesar and Maria, what if they come back while we're here?"

  "Can't we go back faster?"

  "Well, the Shimogō Highway isn't a direct route to Tokyo, but I think I could save some time through the mountain."

  "It'll be a bumpier ride, but we'll get there faster."

  "If you take the next exit to the left, we could go through Yumoto and take the Tohoku Expressway to get to Tokyo faster," Kazumi suggested, always trying to help.

  Following her suggestion, I took the exit. The road was the typical Japanese mountain pass - narrow, winding curves, a natural forest, old houses. It seemed like a mostly rural place with a little bit of tourism. Suddenly, without warning, a loud thud shook the car, the engine began to lose power, and no matter how hard I pressed the accelerator, the car refused to accelerate. It just continued to move with the momentum it had. The car stopped shortly thereafter and I maneuvered to park it off the road. It seemed to be a serious mechanical problem after I stopped to check it. Momo, who was an exceptional mechanic due to her experience as an Angel in charge of repairing battle ships, couldn't fix it as she had neither the parts nor the tools to do her job.

  "Looks like it's the fuel pump. The impact hit the gas tank from above, partially damaging the pump."

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "It's not delivering the necessary fuel pressure to the injectors, so the engine can't keep running."

  "It's not such a big problem, but I can't do anything with just a couple of wrenches."

  "Maybe if I had a proper toolbox for a car instead of weapons and bulletproof vests from a certain international assassin..."

  "Or the car could have survived the impact if it didn't have military armor and extra weight," Momo said, looking at the androids and the mermaid.

  "We are high performance androids. Our bodies contain what we need to exist."

  "Our bodies are capable of carrying their own weight and moving around without any problems."

  "We are not to blame for mechanical failure due to poor design," the androids said monotonously and emotionlessly at the same time, sarcastically mocking the mermaid as they looked at her - a way of showing the feelings they never had the chance to possess.

  "Hey! I'm not fat!"

  "My fish-tail isn't big because of fat! It's actually muscle! It's different!"

  "I need much more strength and muscle than a human to swim fast through the water!" "I'm a mermaid!"

  "I don't call you fragile monkeys just because you're human!" Levia said, offended, her lower fish body glistening in the sunlight.

  "It doesn't matter whose fault it is, these things always happen.

  "When I used to travel with my husband Rafael, his beloved car would break down every now and then, far from home."

  "It's no big deal; we just have to be a little creative and patient," said Adelis, seeming to recall the adventures she had with her late husband in her youth.

  "Anyway, we just have to call the insurance company."

  "They should send us a tow truck and a mechanic nearby," I said, pulling out my phone.

  "So no car?"

  "How are we going to get back?" Levia said, a little worried about being a burden because of her body again.

  "It's not a big deal. Even if it is a serious problem, it shouldn't take us more than a few days."

  "And if not, we can always take the bullet train and come back."

  "The whole point of traveling by car was mainly to avoid other people seeing... well, the weird band that we are."

  "But if there's no other way, we'll just do it. Right now, the most important thing is that we're all okay," Adelis said, trying to comfort her.

  After talking to the insurance company on the phone, they managed to get a tow truck that was passing nearby to pick us up. Since Levia was a siren and her considerable weight made things tricky, we decided to leave her in the car with the others and just Adelis and I would go in the truck. The tow truck driver was a very friendly guy who did his best to make our situation more bearable. He took us to a mechanic's shop that was relatively close, but since it was night, it seemed to be closed. However, the tow truck driver, trying to help us, honked the truck's horn persistently until someone - a man - came out to greet us. He was the mechanic, an older, tired-looking man, but after hearing our situation and taking advantage of the charm my body, created by Xian Fang for moments like this, he put aside his complaints and got to work immediately. He said he would stay and work on the car all night, even though it wouldn't be ready until the morning. Unfortunately, it seemed that someone else had another emergency, and the tow truck driver couldn't take us any further. But the mechanic mentioned that there were some ryokan inns nearby, so we could just walk a bit and wait for him to call us. We gathered our things and I got out the wheelchair for Levia. After that, I double-locked the trunk and warned the mechanic not to open it for anything in the world, implying that it contained a girl's secrets, when in fact I just didn't want him to see the weapons and ammunition I had inside. Then we made our way to the town of Yumoto.

  "Come on, I told you, having an erotic body has its advantages."

  "Having an lustful body makes men do whatever you say," I said as I pushed the wheelchair along the path to the village.

  "But it never seems to work with Cesar," Levia mentioned about our shared husband.

  "Well, Cesar is a different case. Thanks to a certain lady here, he often sees himself as trash in front of everyone else."

  "He always feels that he does not deserve to be with anyone.

  "Whenever he sees a girl, he thinks, 'Why bother if I'll never get a chance to go out with her?' Or, 'She probably has four guys waiting for her anyway; I'd just be a nuisance.'"

  "The poor guy is already resigned to dying alone. He's just looking for someone to be with, someone to really get to know who Cesar is."

  "He's not looking for a woman who he thinks is promiscuous, or has 'a million friends,' or feels that if he reveals anything about himself, it'll just be used against him later."

  "For him, the girl everyone considers 'the girl of the moment' or 'the popular one' is the last option."

  "I know that technically I could be seen as that girl, and that's why I'm trying to show him that I'm here for the hugs and cuddles, not for a sexual relationship, that I could love him without ever having a single sexual encounter with him."

  "......."

  "Besides, his body is far superior to mine after he became a slime girl. How could I seduce him with my body when he already has something better all by himself?" I added resignedly.

  "How much further? I'm already tired of walking," Momo mentioned.

  "According to what the mechanic told me, it shouldn't be much further. We just have to go down the mountain a bit."

  "After passing the Nasu Heisei-no-mori forest, we should reach the hotel. Apparently, it also has private hot springs, so we can all enjoy them, including Levia."

  "If you see a golf course, we've already passed it," I told them what the mechanic had mentioned.

  "I like hot water, but not to be completely submerged in it. If I open my gills in hot water, well, it's no fun, let's just say it's like drinking boiling water from a frying pan."

  "So if the water is very hot, I have to keep breathing with my lungs, which means I can't breathe underwater, and it feels strange to me when I lack air underwater."

  The road to Yumoto narrowed between skeletal trees whose branches intertwined above us like claws. The streetlights, rusted and cobwebbed, flickered with a sickly light. The air smelled of damp earth and something else... sour, like rotting meat disguised with incense.

  "Hey, are you sure this is the right way?" I asked, adjusting the handle of Levia's wheelchair so she wouldn't keep rolling downhill.

  "Aren't you supposed to be the one who knows the way?" Levia said indignantly.

  "According to the GPS, we're close to..." Charlotte started to reply, but her voice stopped when a lantern hanging from a post suddenly went out. Behind us, the forest whispered with laughter that wasn't human.

  We all looked at each other, not saying a word, but it felt like we were all thinking the same thing: the possible presence of trouble ahead. We decided to change our approach; even the androids stopped talking and we began to move forward in silence, trying not to be discovered immediately.

  The village appeared suddenly, just a few steps ahead: wooden houses with collapsed roofs, broken lanterns swaying without wind, and a faded sign that read "Welcome to Yumoto Onsen" above a puddle of black water. There were no cars, no tourists, not even birds. Just the crunch of our footsteps on the gravel.

  "I don't think this is a high-class ryokan I was expecting," Momo whispered.

  "Look! Over there!" Levia pointed with a trembling finger at a figure at the end of the street.

  A woman in a pristine white kimono walked backwards. She joined a group of people, all wearing purple and white robes, who seemed to be trying to burn something in a bonfire. It was an event where the entire village seemed to be gathered, but the atmosphere wasn't one of celebration; it was something darker and more sinister. Flutes and drums out of tune, beating like dying hearts. The windows of the houses were boarded up, and nearby was the village square. There, in front of a ruined shrine, a dozen people knelt in yellow robes burned at the edges. They were chanting in an archaic dialect, their heads covered by fox masks with golden fangs. In the center, on a moss-covered stone altar, lay a large stone split in half, surrounded by ropes and strange papers.

  "This can't be! Is this the Sessho-seki?" Momo said as we hid in the nearby trees.

  "The Sessho-seki? What's that?" Adelis asked.

  "Do you remember the story of Tamamo?"

  "How she was betrayed, hunted and sealed in a stone for a thousand years?"

  "Well, here is that stone," the angel said in a slightly frightened voice behind her metal mask.

  "The one from the legend? The murderous stone of Tamamo?" I asked myself, trying to remember the context of the story.

  The cult members chanted prayers in archaic Japanese in an almost hypnotic frenzy, their voices rising and echoing in the sepulchral silence of the place.

  "Are they... invoking her?" Levia said in a tone that was part fear and part fascination, while Charlotte and Kazumi exchanged looks that said more than their mechanical faces could express.

  "If so, why should we be worried?"

  "I mean, we know Tamamo isn't evil, and besides, she's with Cesar right now, trying to find Nanami."

  "Besides, that stone over there is just a replica; the original is in the Heavens, guarded by several legendary hunters."

  "No matter how much they summon her, we know that Tamamo won't respond; she's too busy traveling with her true love," Momo remarked in a slightly mocking tone, ridiculing the cult's futile attempts.

  But to everyone's surprise, we saw a black spectral light begin to ripple near the stone. It soon took on a vaguely human form. A dark creature appeared before the crowd kneeling before the presence of their dark goddess - a vague silhouette of a woman, completely black as the void, without color or features, with only a creaking sound and a disturbing smile.

  "What the hell? Did it work?" the angel said in surprise.

  I felt torn between the urgency to escape and the fascination of unraveling this mystery. My mind wrestled with the responsibility to protect the family and the urgent need to understand the dark force awakening in this forgotten sanctuary. Our setup was less than ideal; I was the only one present who knew how to fight. Adelis had never really fought; the androids could help, but Levia was completely useless, and Momo was more of the same. It was my duty to protect them; right now I was responsible for their safety, they were my responsibility, and Cesar had entrusted them to me - I couldn't let him down.

  "Guys, I don't think that's Tamamo."

  "She doesn't look very Kitsune-like, if you ask me," the Siren said, noting the lack of tails, which were as much the pride of Tamamo as her fox ears.

  "But if it's not her, then who's that over there?"

  "Because she doesn't usually look like that either," Adelis replied.

  "High levels of electrical energy detected in the area."

  "Megami class signature detected," Kazumi reported, adding that it probably wasn't good.

  To our surprise, the black creature with the devilish smile pointed directly at our position, even though we were hidden among the trees. The high priest with the golden fox mask pointed and shouted angrily. The rest of the people stood up angrily as well; they didn't seem to have good intentions.

  "Catch the Jorōgumo!" several men shouted at the same time.

  "Shit! They've spotted us!"

  "Run! Now!" I warned the others.

  I quickly grabbed Levia's wheelchair and started pulling her as fast as I could. It didn't take long for the others to follow. But even though we were running downhill, I didn't think it was enough. My fears became reality when three armed men appeared right next to us in a single burst. Their weapons looked like ninja tools, like the Kusarigama or the Tekko-Kag, they were no ordinary people. Concerned for the safety of the group, I was forced to show my true form to have at least a chance. In an instant, my body changed from an ideal erotic girl to the poisonous and deadly spider monster that I had always been, and that only my kind family could see beyond. With my new extra limbs, I stopped the ninjas' attack and trapped them between the trees with my web. Once the immediate danger had passed, I continued to use my form to carry Levia more easily and find a safer place where we could more clearly consider our next move.