The host doesn’t have a lot of time to consume. It would be most efficient to focus on the body.

  It would be better if I wasn’t doing this at all. But if it’s this or die from running out of energy, raw arachnid it is.

  Part of me started to wonder if the universe was enjoying my suffering. Not only did my attempts to trick myself with both a cheery mood and a lie to myself about eating snickerdoodles fail, but the meat tasted even worse. The sourness was cranked up to twelve.

  How long was this spider here? Was it starting to rot? Did I not only eat a spider again, but a decomposing one? Yuck!

  Fighting against my revulsion, I managed to eat anything that didn’t look like an organ. At least my energy bar was filled again. Orange also stayed quiet through the whole ordeal. Maybe it’s learning that sometimes, I don’t want to hear it.

  With the spider eaten, I headed back in the direction I was going before I had to turn back. As I left the room, I could feel a deep chill in the air. The assassin was gaining on me, and she was close—too close.

  Caution would have to wait, and I barged into the room full of webs and a now decommissioned giant wooden golem puppet. The double doors were unbarred, and I went through them just as I heard the familiar clicking of heels on stone. I didn’t bother closing them on me.

  The next room was much like the last in that it was covered in webs. But instead of a net, it was matching patterns on the floor and ceiling. Every brick was connected to one another on the same level as it. It was long and narrow, with eight doors, four on each side, lined the sides.

  The creature barely waited for me to enter the room before springing its trap. The stones underneath me shot up. I was fast enough to get off them, but they tripped me as they crashed into the ceiling.

  As I rolled forward, the stones beneath me lifted up as well. Every stone I touched ascended to the ceiling for a moment before dropping back down. I had to keep moving, or I was going to get crushed, and that didn’t leave a lot of opportunity to think. There were eight doors, and I had to pick one.

  They were all identical, from what I could tell. None of them were covered in webs, but all of them had webs funneling above them. Through all my constant movement, the closest one sounded like the best option. Which at the time was the one in the far back right.

  The moment my hand wrapped around the door, the demoness burst into the room with a gale of frozen air and shards of ice. It seemed that the creature controlling the webs was confused at the development. Did it not notice her presence earlier?

  Then the webs on the surrounding stones froze solid before shattering. Oh. She’s breaking his webs. That’s so not fair. Magic is cheating!

  “You’ve almost made this little jaunt more troublesome than it’s worth,” her sneer carried all her building frustration. “But I always finish what I start. Delay after delay. It won’t matter. Once you’re dead, I can be free of this sordid plane. It enjoys me being here as much as I enjoy being in it.”

  She threw her arm out at me, creating and launching a spear of ice. I pulled the door open and used it as a shield. It hammered into me so hard I bounced off the wall.

  The assassin stood in the center of the room with her arms crossed over her chest and her mouth turned down. The air grew colder as she looked at me hiding behind the door. She muttered something I couldn’t hear, but I could hear her voice dripping with contempt.

  The room resumed moving with us inside it. This time the stone flooring ripped out to fly towards my pursuer. She created barriers of ice to deflect the attacks.

  Finally. The creature is taking her on.

  But it wasn’t going to be enough. The angles it was attacking her seemed almost haphazard-guesswork as she wasn’t standing on a web, so it didn’t know her exact location.

  When I tried to leave through the door I opened, an ice covered stone flew towards me, forcing me to jump back. It crashed into the doorway and blocked most of it.

  “Ah, ah, ah.” The demoness wagged her finger at me. “I didn’t say you could leave.”

  I pointed my gun at her. Her eyes went wide as she crossed her arms and wings over her. A wall of ice flew up between us. I smirked. Gotcha.

  I jumped and slipped past the block of ice and away. You can deal with the spider monster’s trap now. Now that was step one, getting the spider to target her.

  The new room, at first glance, was empty. But when I looked closer, it was filled with webs. Thin, nearly invisible webs were scattered along the walls and floors, like they were meant to trip me. I looked up and saw hundreds of holes in the ceiling.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  It’s a trap.

  Orange…

  This one didn’t follow the patterns the others have so far. This room looks more automated than the other traps the creature could personally manipulate.

  At this point, if a room doesn’t have a trap in it, I’ll eat my boots.

  That won’t provide any nutritional benefit. Also, the host will be without foot protection.

  Yeah, but it won’t happen since every—single—room—will—be—trapped!

  We are sensing some hostility from the host.

  Oh, I’ll show you hostile if you don’t shut up.

  A large mirror that took up the whole far side of the room. It looked impractical and, from what I could tell, pointless. There weren’t any doors in the room, but I wasn’t about to go back into the room with the demon and the moving floors.

  My eyes surveyed the webs, and I saw what looked like a safe path through them to the mirror. It wasn’t straight and would require me to contort my body to fit through. It was possible.

  I can turn this room’s trap on her. And if it kills her, great. At the very least, it will give me a chance to slip past her and head back out. I need Killa’s help to fight the assassin if all these traps aren't working to stop her. If anything, they should be tiring her out and using her mana. It looks like I might be able to use her reckless devotion to hunt me down against her.

  I slipped through the opening and picked my path carefully. There were a lot of heavy slams and crashes from the other room. Soon I was standing with my hand on the glass mirror. All I had to do was wait for the demoness to follow me.

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  There was a thud behind me. Through the mirror, I saw the demoness standing at the door. She let out a long-suffering sigh.

  She raised her hand towards me and said, “It’s time to die.”

  A barrage of icicles shot at me, and I dove out of the way. But the moment I landed on the floor, I felt myself drop. My face hit the ground as the room lurched again. The webs above me stretched taut for a fraction of a second before they broke.

  I didn’t have time to think as the hundreds of spears made of webs rained down from the holes in the ceiling. They were small but numerous. They fell all around me, and I didn’t have anywhere to run.

  But neither did the demoness.

  The webs slammed into the ground in a giant shower of sharp wooden blades. I shielded my head with my arms as they crashed into me. The webs cut into my legs and bounced off my arms as I curled up into a ball, hoping to protect my more vital areas. The sound of the rain of death was almost deafening, and it drowned out any screams the assassin made.

  I only received superficial wounds, but the demoness was bleeding from the half dozen small spears that were sticking out of her. A canopy of ice protected her from the worst of the trap.

  She glared at me with palpable hatred. “You’ll pay for that.”

  “We’ll see about that.” I stood up and faced her as she limped into the room.

  More of the spears dropped from the ceiling each time she broke more of the thin webs. Her frozen canopy moved with her. Pressing my body as close as I could to the mirror helped dodge most of it, and raising my arms over my head kept me safe. Soon, the demon and I were staring at each other.

  A wicked grin spread across her face as she prepared to take another step. But instead of stepping, she raised her arms and threw them forward. The canopy she’d been shielding herself with came straight towards me.

  I dove to the side. The exchange triggered more spears to fall, with the addition of shards of glass showering me. My arms deflected the worst of the spears again as the assassin created another shield above herself.

  In the aftermath, both of us looked at where the mirror was shattered. The chunk of ice didn’t hit the wall behind it. It carried through. On the other side was a whole other room. More of the nearly imperceptible webs covered the room. Halfway into the room was the ice that carved a path through the tripwires.

  Instead of spears falling from the ceiling, axes swung like pendulums back and forth in crisscross patterns all over the room. Some of them chipped chunks of the icy block effortlessly. Even as most of the axes crossed paths with others, they were perfectly timed so that they never collided.

  And on the other side of all the axes was a door.

  I had enough of being stabbed by the small spears. Once the last few that managed to catch me were ejected by my nanites, I dove for the opening. The swinging axes were much easier to avoid.

  I was fast enough to slip between them and follow the timing to never get touched by one. The demoness screamed in frustration as she watched me run through. I spared a single glance to watch her walk into the network of bladed pendulums.

  She created a sword out of ice and cut several of the webs holding the axes. They flew off their path and timing, colliding with others around them. Like dominoes, the whole trap destabilized into a mess of chaos.

  Before it could catch up with me, I sprinted out of the room. I had to pull on the door hard to open it. A section of web fought me and pulled the door closed as I rolled inside.

  I looked and saw a square room with four doors, one on each wall. Webs wrapped around each door and handle all fed into the center of the ceiling. A ceiling that was falling. All the webs on the doors were going slack.

  Go to another door; the host can reach it if they hurry.

  With the first helpful words from Orange in a long time, I followed them. I headed to the door on my left and dove through it just before the ceiling finished collapsing and sealing the room off.

  My chest heaved as the situation finally caught up with me. There was so much adrenaline coursing through my body that the pain had been negligible. But now that I lay on the ground staring at the collapsed room, it was all going away. A massive wave of lethargy was washing over me.

  Thanks Orange. See? You can be helpful.

  We always act in ways we believe to be helpful.

  We’ll need to talk about what’s helpful later. But right now, I really need to rest. I was in a hallway—an ominously empty hallway. This seems like a good time to take a small break.

  I looked at my energy and saw that it was just below half again. All this running around is draining me.

  I let my head rest against the cold stone and let my eyes drift shut.

  We suggest against sleeping at a time like this.

  It’s not sleeping. I’m just catching my breath and resting my eyes. There aren’t any webs. So there aren’t any traps, and the creature probably doesn’t know I’m here. And before you say anything, this is a hallway, not a room. It doesn’t count.

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