Chapter 101: I Know it’s You

"Grandma... is that you?"

I couldn't believe my own ears. This was the last thing that I expected to hear from this girl, especially after she almost died.

"Eh?" I stared at her blankly, unable to come up with anything to say. 'Did she just call me Grandma? Or is she delusional?'

'Wait a second, how did she get here in the first place?' I wondered, using my shared link with my spiders to know what was going on.

Apparently, it was my fault; I ordered my children not to get near this girl, Jane, and my spiders took that too seriously, maintaining a fixed distance from her, allowing Jane to bypass them with ease.

'Damn... I should have ordered them not to harm her or keep her busy,' I cursed, realizing that my mistake could have cost the girl her life.

"G-Grandma, is that you?" Jane asked again, still staring at me with those blue eyes of hers. Her body was still shaking from the impact of the attack.

"Grandma..." she called again, her eyes began to water as she raised her hand, placing it on my head.

"Huh?!" I let out a confused yelp as the girl rubbed her soft hand on my head.

"It really is you, Grandma," she smiled, moving her hand down to my face. "I miss you."

'Huh?! What is going on?' I thought, feeling my body heating up for some reason. I felt like my heart was about to burst out of my chest as the girl kept touching me. 'What is this feeling?'

"JANE!" the teacher shouted, watching us from afar while slowly taking a few steps forward.

"I said!..." I growled, my voice was low and dangerous. "Don't take another step... cough!... cough!... cough!."

"Ahh!" The teacher's body flinched, she froze in place and watched us with wide eyes.

'Shit... I'm still damaged,' I cursed, feeling my health dropping to 25%. Which was surprising, not that low given the fact that half my body was gone. My whole abdomen was gone; since it was big, I used it to suck up the damage from Harper's beam after placing multiple layers of webs all over it.

However, that was barely enough. My spider abdomen, three left legs, and two right ones were destroyed. Plus, a lot of my internal organs were damaged. And the teacher did all of that with half of her strength. Now imagine if my debuff wasn't active, she could have just deleted me from existence with just the tip of her finger.

'Fuck! I can't even move,' I thought, trying to move but my legs didn't respond to me, 'This is bad, I'm defenseless and the regeneration is too damn slow.'

I swiftly opened my system, checking on my condition, and realizing that I was suffering from heavy bleeding. I'm losing 10 HP per second, and the regeneration is only healing 5 HP per second. If this keeps going, I'll lose my entire health in less than two minutes, maybe even less; I was just guessing.

'Shit... What should I do?'

I had to find a way to stop the bleeding, and for that, I needed to use a health potion to keep recovering my health until the bleeding duration was over. The problem was, I couldn't open my system and consume a potion, not with Jane in my arms and Harper behind me waiting for a chance to strike again.

"Huh?" I blinked, feeling a comfortable heat in my chest. I looked down only to see Jane placing her hand on my chest; her hand was glowing green.

"What are you doing?" I asked, watching her in confusion. "Stop it"

"Healing you," she replied. "Grandma, don't move, I'll heal you."

"Huh?... I'm not your Grandma," I replied, shaking my head. "I'm a monster and you're a human; how can I be your grandma?"

"Yes, you are," Jane argued, refusing to accept the truth. "You're my Grandma... I know it's you."

'Damn! What should I do?' I wondered, watching her trying to heal me with a determined look on her face. I didn't have the heart to push her away; she was already in shock after almost dying.

"Jane!" Harper shouted again, "What are you doing? Stop that NOW!"

"NO!" Jane yelled back at her, "She's my grandma... I must save her!"

"She's not your Grandma!... She's a monster!" Harper shouted, "She almost killed you!"

"No! She saved me!" Jane yelled back, "If it wasn't for her, I would be dead!"

"What are you talking about?" Harper asked, her tone was confused. "Are you delusional?"

"..."

Jane didn't reply and kept focusing on healing my injuries. I had no idea what was going on in the girl's head, but I needed to take advantage of the situation.

Swiftly, I used my link to jump into the mind of one of my spiders that I sent to the yellow team. And as I expected, my spiders managed to capture the whole team. They were alive; however, there were a few minor injuries here and there.

Next, I mentally commanded them to bring the yellow team to me. As for the rest of the blue team, they were engaging in an unwinnable fight, especially against my magical spiders.

"Y-You can stop healing me," I told the girl, noticing the change of color on her face and the drops of sweat on her forehead. "I'm alright now."

"I can't, Grandma," she replied, refusing to give up. "You're injured and you need to heal more."

"Sigh..." I let out a sigh. I couldn't push her away; having her in my arms gave me a strange feeling of warmth and comfort, and I didn't want to let her go.

[15 Hours 54 minutes]

'Damn, still plenty of time for the trial,' I cursed, thinking how I'm going to spend the next sixteen hours, plenty of time for Harper to recover and attack me again.

Crack!

"!!!" I flinched at the sound of a stick breaking, quickly pressing my right-bladed leg on Jane's back.

"I said... stay back," I growled, watching Harper taking another step forward, "This is your last warning or all of the yellow team die–"

I didn't get the chance to finish my threat when a terrible fatigue came crashing down on me.

'This is not the time!' My head started to feel dizzy, my vision became blurry, and my body lost its strength. I couldn't even hold Jane in my arms properly.

Crack! Whoosh!

"Fuck!" I cursed out loud, realizing that Harper seized this opportunity to attack me again. She dashed, her body was slightly glowing blue, but it could be just because of my blurry vision. I had no strength to move, I could barely move my head to the side, so I just shielded Jane and prepared myself to accept the attack, hoping that I would survive.

However...

"..."

To my surprise, Harper didn't attack me; instead, she simply snatched Jane from my legs and dashed toward the other member of her blue team.

"NOO! Let me go," Jane screamed, trying to break free from Harper's grasp, but that woman was way stronger than her, and the fact that Jane was still recovering from her injuries was not helping either.

"Be quiet," Harper said, hitting the girl on the back of her neck, and making her pass out.

"Jane!" I yelled, my head was getting clearer and my vision was good enough to see. However, I couldn't get up, I couldn't even move. My regeneration was working its best to repair my body and keep me alive, but it was not enough.

I stood there watching Harper as she carried Jane away from me. I could have ordered my army of spiders to capture them and bring Jane back to me, but I didn't. I let Harper escape with the rest of her blue team. I even ordered my spiders to open the way for them, and I couldn't even understand why.

Tink! Tink!

"Cough... C-Carry me back to the nest," I turned, ordering my stone spiders to carry me. As for the rest, I commanded them to slay every creature inside the dungeon other than humans. My goal was to level up as much as possible for the remaining time.

As for the yellow team, I made sure to order my spiders to transport them close to the dungeon gate, where they could leave this place for good. I kind of lost the desire to do anything after this short encounter with Harper and Jane.

"Grandma..." I couldn't get this word out of my head, it was driving me crazy. I wanted to find out more about the girl and why she called me that.

"I need to find a way to contact Nana-chan and ask her about the girl," I muttered, looking at the blue sky of the dungeon as I was being carefully carried back to the nest.

"..."

Opening the map, I saw that the blue team was heading for the gate, trying to escape this dungeon, and the yellow team had already been dropped three hundred meters away from it. As for Nana-chan, she was already at her spot, ready to execute her plan.

"Sigh..." I let out a sigh, letting my mind drift back to the moment when Jane touched my head and called me Grandma. "I hope that I get the chance to meet you again."

"My little Jane."

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