As the two giant spiders charged, I felt time dilate as I thought. Their pincers were certainly large and intimidating, but somehow I thought they wouldn’t be able to pierce my steel exterior. Mug and Pauvert on the other hand… well, we would have to make sure it didn’t come to that. Stelheim was sitting smugly and calm—I knew that in lore he was a powerful blood mage, so two giant spiders probably posed as much threat to him as a cotton pillow. Still, from his body language and expression, I could tell he would not be running to the rescue. He wanted to see how I handled adversity, what with being his adversary and all.

  Pauvert was obviously no help, so that meant just Mug and I. Mug was strong—far stronger than he had any right to be—but he was still small. I didn’t have any offensive spells yet besides my weak Steam Shot and I didn’t have the pneumatic cart cannon we’d used in the mines, so the sword here would have to be Mug. Which meant I was the shield. I had a plan.

  ‘Mug, hop inside! We gotta keep these things away from our new paycheck! Er, I mean patron!’ Mug dutifully tossed my lid and threw himself inside me. I did a quick search of items inside me and settled on one of the cleavers that clan Goldtail had attacked us with. I felt the heat flare inside me as Alchemical Recycling triggered, but I held it for a second longer than usual to make a small modification. The cleaver popped out of my opening directly between Mug’s hands with a pop. I had extended the handle to be almost as long as him, giving him an impromptu glaive.

  With the weapon securely in Mug’s hands, I focused on myself. So far, I had stuck with three or four legs in the interest of conserving mana. Now, I had not only greater mana stores, I also had relatively fast mana regeneration. That meant I could be a little more unrestrained with myself. I activated Polymorph 1 and grew eight long poles angled up 45 degrees, then grew another eight poles on the ends of those angled downward. I now had a set of legs matching the spiders coming our way. Kicking open the carriage door, I scuttled towards the closer one while Pauvert screamed and clawed at the seats, urging the carriage driver to go faster.

  The spider coming from our right was only about twenty feet or so from the carriage, and the one on the left was double that distance. Easy enough target selection; we charged the right one, Mug standing inside and holding the glaive high above his head. As we charged, we got a good look into its eight eyes; inky black with no irises but somehow holding an unmistakable madness. Maybe Pauvert hadn’t been exaggerating, and the monsters really had gone nuts? Well, that was a mystery for another time. As we grew near, it reared back and lunged directly at Mug.

  I dodged to the side, my eight legs pushing us faster and farther than I had thought possible without a cart. Mug was surprisingly in sync, and he chopped while I dodged, separating one of the spider legs from the spider body. It let out a chittering scream as pale blue blood began to spurt. It didn’t give up though; it swung around and took a swipe at Mug with its other front leg, which ended in a nasty clawed digit. Mug ducked it by going inside me, and it dinged off my body harmlessly. Then Mug was back out, slashing again and taking another leg.

  I was in the middle of beginning to compliment Mug when another blow caught me from behind my awareness, almost toppling me over. The second spider had made its appearance, menacing me from the other direction. Well, this was a pickle.

  ‘Mug, we gotta take out the one you injured so we don’t get pinched. I don’t think it can hurt me, but also, I’m not that interested in finding out. Think you can finish it on the next opportunity?’ Mug just grunted in a voice that sounded a bit deeper than it had a few days ago. I took that as a yes and charged the injured spider, running straight at it. Right before we made contact, I willed the mana inside me to work, producing a pipe in the front and activating Steam Shot.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The steam was not particularly hot or powerful, but eyes are notorious for not being well protected pieces of bioengineering. My steam blasted the injured spider in the face, causing it to stumble backwards and rub its forelimbs across its eyes. Mug took the distraction and delivered a powerful overhead chop directly to its head. It stumbled, screeched, then dropped. It was almost perfect, except for the fact that the glaive was stuck in its head, and Mug was still holding the glaive. He shot out of me and dangled in the air, legs flapping in the wind like a lumpy green flag.

  The uninjured spider wasted no time, lunging directly at Mug. I guess it realized which of us was the easier target. I rammed its body with mine, our collective sixteen legs getting tangled. While Mug tried to wrestle his weapon free, I wrestled with the spider. Its legs did nothing to me, but it did manage to get a chomp in on my base.

  WARNING: HEALTH POINTS AT 50%.

  Where its mandibles had made contact, the green liquid from its mouth had spread and bubbled with heat. It felt like having a curling iron pressed against my skin. It reared back and went for another bite, but I was ready. As it bore down, I used Polymorph to perform two actions at once; I retracted my legs to drop me to the ground while extending a sharp spike directly upwards. The effect was that I dropped out of its intended attack while its momentum carried it into my spike, impaling its body. It screamed and thrashed, trying to use its legs to push me off, but I used Polymorph again to add a hooked edge to the end of the spike, making me impossible to shake.

  As it thrashed and tried to free itself, I saw Mug behind it, his glaive free and his expression determined and frankly, downright scary. He raised the glaive, sized up his unaware opponent, then delivered a devastating chop right at the base of its head. With no real fanfare, its head was separated from its body, and the spider dropped. I waited for a few seconds as Mug pulled the corpse off me, then righted myself with three legs. The grove we traveled through was quiet again, and besides the two dead giant spiders there was no sign that we had just fought for our lives. Mug was panting slightly but seemed fine. Seemed great, even; there was a look in his eye that told me he was down for a few more spiders, but that quickly faded to his normal tone of earnest, slightly bumbling politeness.

  “Master Lugenhelm! Are you ok?” he asked me in his squeaky voice. I recycled an old rag into his hands, and he took the hint and began to carefully wipe the bubbling venom from my body.

  ‘Right as rain, Mug. Good job out there. How are you so handy with a glaive?’ Mug blushed a deeper green. “Master Edvald would make me train with broom handles against lesser golems from time to time. You know, to make sure I was ready for anything.” Yeah, sure, that’s why he did it. Well, regardless, Mug had once again proved himself remarkably competent on a battlefield. I grew a basic arm and gave him a pat on the back.

  Our lives not currently in mortal danger, I took a moment to assess our surroundings. The carriage, Pauvert, and Stelheim were long gone. I could see the dirt path they had taken though. The fresh horse droppings made it easy to follow. If I strained, I thought I could still hear screaming in the distance. Well, before we made our way back to our brave benfactor, there was a bit of housekeeping that needed doing; luckily, I was just the trashcan for the job.

  I had Mug place the spiders inside me one after another, starting with a few legs. Once I activated Devour they were fully sucked inside me the same way the fume wyrm had been. Mug turned away as they were forcibly constricted into my opening, leaving blue stains on the golden grass.

  OBJECT DETECTED: MEGA SPIDER CORPSE. EXPERIENCE VALUE: 1,161. TOTAL EXPERIENCE: 4,633. CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE NOW A LEVEL 18 UNADORNED TRASHCAN WITH MODERATE ENCHANTMENT. STATS AVAILABLE ON REQUEST. NEW RESIDUAL SYNTHESIS ABILITY: CAUSTIC CREATION 1

  Well, a lucky break! Not only did I gain a level, I also had a new weapon in my arsenal! And this one sounded a little better than Steam Shot. Being able to make acid sounded like something that might come in handy, especially since we had met the locals and they were definitely not friendly. I turned towards the path towards Pauvert’s manor, presumably.

  ‘Come on, Mug. Looks like we’re hoofing it the rest of the way. Somehow, I don’t see our employer deciding to come back to check on us.’ Mug nodded and fell into step alongside me. To be perfectly honest, it beat riding with a snob and a serial killer.