Chapter 266 – Spider King

“Why did you not tell me about Paula? You know she is like a teacher to me.” Asked Noah.

“You had to concentrate on a more pressing matter. Your safety. Her execution was still not decided, so I decided to tell you later. It does not mean I did nothing. Our black-mist cats are surveilling the situation and will inform us if anything changes.” Theressa said.

“How did this happen? What did she do?” Asked Noah.

“Remember our visit to Margrave O’Sullivan's mansion. Well, apparently there was a lot more going on there than we saw. And when the shit hit the fan, we were not the only ones at fault. But the worst part of it hit them when Paula arrived. When she entered the mansion and saw what those people had done, she went berserk, according to testimonies. That day not only Margrave, but also quite a few young scions of other families had perished from her sword. All of whom are now pressing the Archduke of the West to deal with her as soon as possible.”

“I see… she was there, right after us.” Muttered Noah. “But, I can’t accept it. Paula may seem crazy but she is not. If she decided to go after them, it means they deserved it. I don’t think it is right to execute her.”

“I know dear. But going against so many high nobles isn’t easy, even for an Archduke. But in case you want to do something about it, I’ve been doing some preparations. We will discuss what to do once our guests leave.” Said Theressa.

“Alright.”

“However, there is another thing you should know.” Said Theressa with a hesitation. Noah looked at her questioningly. “The adventurer guild’s receptionist girl, Lina, the girl… you felt close to.” Said Theressa “it seems she has disappeared.”

“What?!” Exclaimed Noah.

“Well, not disappeared, but… How do I say… She moved away, it seems, but no one knows where. But what is strange is that even her closest friends did not know of it. However, it seems the guild master is at least in the know about it. But he refuses to give any information to anyone. At least all our contacts in the region failed to get any information from the guild. So, I am sorry, I don’t know much more.” Said Theressa.

“I see. Well, she has my medal…. What?” Muttered Noah

“What is it?” Asked Theressa.

“The medallion I gave her… its is gone.” Said Noah

“Gone? Broken?” Asked Theressa creasing her eyebrows.

“No, I..I can still feel it, as if the connection is still there, but when I try to connect with it…it feels like it is hidden from me.’

“Its is created with a dream magic. Who is capable of hiding it from you?”

“Alice.” Muttered Noah. “If anyone can, then it would be her.”

“But why?” Asked Theressa. “What connection does she have with Lina.”

“I don’t know.” Said Noah, shaking his head.

“Could it be that Lina actually met Alice somewhere outside the dreamworld?” Asked Theressa tapping her chin thoughtfully. But no matter how much she thought about it, she knew too little about the dream world to make a certain guess.

“By the way, what’s going on with Ugy?” Asked Theressa.

“Usual Ugy trying to fuck me up behind my back. But I’ll take care of this, don't worry. I just need some time.” Said Noah.

“Fine then, I’ll go fire up the kitchen. After all, we have a royal guest and I am the best cook in this house.” Theressa said, standing up and walking to the door. “By the way, you should go check on Wolf; I think he misses you. He’s been kind of restless lately, besides the repairs are almost done, all we need is some time for him to adjust to the modifications that Brianna and I had done.” Added Theressa walking out of the room.

“Missing me?” Muttered Noah, looking at her retreating figure suspiciously.

Noah walked through the halls, nodding to the knights who now lingered all over the place, patrolling the mansion, feeling quite nervous from their intent gazes that lingered on him the entire time he walked by, as if he were the prime suspect of some crime. Theressa had no guards, which was against the usual protocols of nobles, so until the royal family member was inside the mansion, his knights took the role upon themselves.

Once he finally reached the workshop, where Brianna and Theressa left his companion for repairs, Noah sighed in relief that he could finally hide himself from the gazes.

Entering the workshop, he looked around, creasing his eyebrows.

His companion wasn’t there.

Noah walked around, noticing that Brianna finally cleaned the corner with broken dolls, where Noah previously found the new body for his companion. The room was still quite haphazard, but at least now looked like a proper workshop rather than a junkyard.

Still, there was no figure of his battle golem. Noah was about to send a telepathic question to Theressa when he heard some rustling in the corner of the room.

He looked at the couch, where he saw something resembling a dress lying around in a heap, thinking it was a strange place for a girl to throw a dress, but now he stared at it intently.

A few seconds later the dress shook, one of its sleeves fluttering up and down before falling back on the couch.

Noah stared at it in shock.

“Don’t tell me…” he muttered, walking up to the piece of clothing that seemed to be alive, and as if it had become possessed by a ghost, it sprang up, wobbling in his direction.

Only then did Noah notice the strangeness of this dress. Its sleeve did not just end where a hand would be, it continued into a gauntlet. The hem of the dress had an opening at the side showing the greaves underneath. And the front of the dress had something  that looked like cuirass armor.

Overall, it looked like a robe sewn into armor. Something close to what mages use in battles.

“Wolf?” Muttered Noah, but before he could react, the robe jumped on him, enveloping his body and tightening around him, turning him into a mummy.

“Mmmmm” Noah tried to scream, clutching at the dress and trying to tear it off, but his face was entirely covered in seconds, letting through just a bit of sound.

Just as Noah thought he was about to suffocate, the robe finally slid around his body as if adjusting itself into the correct position, and he felt relief as his face was uncovered.

“What the hell?” Exclaimed Noah, looking down at himself, and saw himself now wearing that mage battle garment.

A long robe going down almost to his shins, long sleeves, and pieces of armor here and there, covering just the vital parts, yet giving maximum flexibility, without any restrictions to his limbs.

“Wait, Wolf, is this really you? What the hell did they do to you?” Muttered Noah, and suddenly the hood of his battle robe fluttered up and covered his head.

Noah felt something tickling him all over the body, as if hundreds of stray threads were tickling him under the dress, then a stream of light electric shocks spread all over his body, pricking him like needles, and then images and feelings flooded his mind.

He felt his companion as if they were the same being. As if they were standing in a complete void where only they existed. And in that moment he could feel its thoughts. See them as if they were his own.

Images flooded his mind, similar to how he watched the stories in his mind realm.

Only these pictures showed the world from the first-person viewpoint. As if he were the main character in them.

He saw himself lying on the table; his movements were restricted, and he felt a great deal of discomfort whenever he tried to move. He knew he was damaged. The space mage crushed his body with her magic.

Then Noah saw two women stare at him from above, like doctors staring at a patient on the operating table.

Theressa and Brianna gazed at him with excitement, but there was something strange about them. Some kind of craze filled their eyes, which seemed to shine when they stared at him intently.

“How does it work? It has no internal nervous system and yet can move all its limbs and even activate the functions I disabled.” Said Brianna.

“I know, right. This is an incredible opportunity for us to learn something new.” Said Theressa. “We would have to open it up to find out, though.”

“We have no choice, right? It is damaged and we are repairing it. There is no other way to repair it. We need to dissect it…I mean, look inside to see what’s broken.”

“Yeah. No other choice than to take it apart and see what’s inside…” Confirmed, Theressa.

Noah felt the goosebumps. Those eyes did not show the slightest sign of wanting to help. They wished to dissect it and see how it works.

The pictures changed as if some time had passed, and he saw two laughing women with totally crazy faces holding what looked like pieces of his internals, staring at him with maniacal eyes.

“It moves. It still moves. I wonder what the limits of his integration with the material are. When would it not be able to control it?” Said Theressa.

“The variations are numerous.” Whispered Brianna. “What should we try first?”

“I have an idea. What if…” Said Theressa and took something out of her ring.

“Mother this is…” Said Brianna, shocked, then her face shone with glee, “This is genius. Complete autonomous garment? This might be the best Thesalia garment you have yet to make.”

Two women stared at Noah with craze in their eyes intensifying by the second.

One of the women took a saw, the other giant scissors. Then they started to hack and saw, tearing off pieces of the body on the table, throwing them aside as if totally forgetting their whole purpose to repair it.

With this the flow of pictures stopped and Noah was back in the workshop. He felt a prickling sensation, this time as if something that was glued to his skin tore off, and immediately their tight connection stopped.

“It’s ok.” Said Noah patting his chest as if stroking a robe. “Those scary women must have scared you immensely, but it's okay now.” The robe tightened around him as if hugging him and shook as if it was crying.

“Tess!” Said Noah through his telepathic connection with his mate. “What the hell?”

“Hehe. You found it?” Came Theressa’s voice. “Amazing right?” She said happily.

“Amazing? What did you do to it? Where is its body? It's just a bunch of robes now.”

“It's not just a robe. It’s The Robe. Your safety is the most important thing for us now, dear. And this companion of yours is your best guardian. So I turned it into your best protection. Something equal to a Thesalia battle garment. Well, I had no time to make a fully functional Thesalia-grade battle garment, after all it takes years to make. But I had some half-made things from our training with Cil. In a month we only managed to put some basic functionality together. But in the future we will be able to upgrade it and make it even more powerful. One day you would have the strongest battle armor in the world, honey.” Explained Theressa.

“I…I am thankful, but…how is it supposed to be a companion when it’s… just a cloth now. It lost its independence.” Said Noah.

“This is where you are wrong. Think of it, dear. Your skill, called the Stronger Companion, and the fact that this cloth is compatible with it mean that this piece of cloth is stronger than you. And believe me, it IS. In fact, right now you are nowhere near close enough to fight it.” Said Theressa making Noah’s eyes go wide with surprise. She was right. This was the condition of the skill. It had to be met for the skill to still work. So the skill perceive this robe as stronger than him?

“If you mean it can easily suffocate me, I would not doubt it, but how can it fight when it can barely stand still without the rigidity of the body.” Said Noah doubtfully.

“Hehe. Let me explain its functionality, then. As I said, we did not have time to give it more than the bare minimum to let it meet the conditions of your skill in just a month, so for now there is not much.” Said Theressa.

“First of all, it has two modes. Manual and autonomous. When you wear it, it is manual. Which means you are in control; the robe is only assisting you and protecting as armor. But when you are not wearing it, that is when the fun begins. Autonomous mode.”

“You mentioned rigidity of the body, and you are completely right. It needs an inner structure for it to move. A body. And with its inner layer of microscopic hairs, it can integrate with anything, allowing it to move any body as its own.”

“Wait, wait, what do you mean by any body?”

“It is a sentient robe. The mind stays inside the robe, but with your companion's incredible ability to integrate with anything as if it were its own body, it can be put on, for example, a new battle golem, and it will control it as its own body. As if possessing that body like a ghost. But now it can exchange bodies whenever the current body is damaged; all it has to do is jump to another body, and it can fight on.

And even if it is attacked with space magic like last time, the body may get mangled, but my Arachna silk garment filled with magic would not tear even from that. It can withstand literally anything save for a nuclear explosion and keep on fighting as long as it can get a new body.

“Nucklear what?” Asked Noah

“Ah, just some old forgotten technologies. Anyways, this new version of your companion can basically wear bodies like we wear gloves and exchange them whenever it wants.” Said Theressa.

“By bodies… you mean dolls, right? Golems, armors.” Said Noah, suspicion creeping into his voice.

“And dead bodies.” Said Theressa gleefully. “Anything that is capable of moving but has no mind to oppose its control. For now at least. In the future we may as well upgrade it to let it possess the living enemies and steal control of their…”

“Stop! Stop right there. That would have to be discussed quite seriously before you give it that ability.” Said Noah.

“Yes. Of course. I understand your concern. We would not want it to take control of you after all. But its a topic for the future. Right now its is completely safe. Is it on you right now?” Said Theressa.

“That’s not exactly what my concern is…” Said Noah

“Do you see a mirror?” Asked Theressa, ignoring his worry.

Noah looked around and saw a mirror at the far end of the room. He walked up to it and looked at himself in the mirror.

“Yeah.” He said.

“As you can see, in some places you have rigid armor, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well it's not. What you see is a thick layer of silk that is structured in such a way that it gets rigid only when you wear it. But when needed, your robe can use those strings for another purpose; however, weaving something complex is beyond your companion's capability, so I preinstalled a few functions into its structure for ease of use. To activate it you just have to say something, dear”

“Say something?” Said Noah

“Yes, just call it by its name and it will activate.” Explained Theressa. “Now repeat after me…”

“Spider King mode,” said Noah.

Suddenly spider legs sprang out of his back, spreading to the sides, piercing the wood of the walls and floor, lifting his body from the ground.

“Wow.” Said Noah in awe as he looked at his body in a mirror that now resembled one of Arachna's forms. Now he looked more like the mate of the Spider Queen.