Chapter 145: Jorogumo

Fang You sensed at once that something was wrong. There was no longer any sound from inside the room.

He hurriedly crashed through the door, and the scene before him left everyone utterly stunned.

The room the woman had just entered was covered in spiderwebs, resembling a cavern from a legend. Within the webs hung one cocoon after another. Some had already been sucked dry, while others were still writhing.

When the woman saw Fang You burst in, astonishment flashed across her face. Then, noticing the exorcist-like clothes he wore, she smiled as though she understood. “Have you come to hunt monsters?”

The commotion drew the others over.

“There’s a monster! Miss Caize is a monster!”

The shop assistant cried out in terror and fled without knowing where he was going. Only the innkeeper remained relatively composed, quickly ordering his employee to summon an exorcist to deal with the monster.

“What kind of monster are you?” Fang You asked.

The woman before him looked exceedingly refined, though a trace of sorrow showed in her expression.

“A monster?” Miss Caize tilted her head. “What, exactly, qualifies as a monster?”

Fang You was momentarily taken aback, then replied, “Anything unlike ordinary human beings, dwelling in evil energy and unable to live among people, is a monster.”

“Perhaps a monster is simply another kind of creature,” Caize said. “Just like human beings, monsters are living creatures too. Humans can coexist with other creatures, so why can they not coexist with monsters?”

Fang You was rendered speechless.

Miss Caize smiled and said, “After graduating from the university I attended, I discovered that my education was completely useless to society. Everything had to begin again from the bottom.

“I had to do the same work as those students who had performed poorly in school, for the same wages. In society, it seemed that there was no difference between excellent students and failures. In fact, because my family kept demanding financial support from me, my life was even harder than theirs.

“Life is always full of suffering. Everything leaves people confused and bewildered, and all the effort we make may end in utter futility.

“Yes. Tell me, wouldn’t it be wonderful if one day I could become a spider? I would only need to weave a great web, and all kinds of food would keep flying into it. I could live as peacefully and comfortably as a spider.”

“What monster dares cause trouble here?”

With a thunderous shout, an exorcist arrived, summoned by the inn’s staff.

“I am Kamo Mumei of the Kamo clan. Before this grand exorcist, you would do well to surrender immediately!” the exorcist declared with tremendous authority.

“I was not a monster to begin with,” Caize said, “but I truly wished to become like a spider—to spread a great web without a care in the world and simply wait for food to come to me.”

Her body suddenly began to tremble violently.

Then, from beneath Caize’s body, eight long legs burst forth.

Eight eyes emerged across her abdomen, and a huge mouth split open where her navel had been.

“At last, I, the Jorogumo, have taken possession of a human body and regained my freedom!”

The monster possessing Miss Caize revealed its true form beneath her waist.

According to legend, the Jorogumo was a monster formed when a spider transformed into a human woman. It seduced men, and once they fell under its spell, it would sever and devour their heads, then wrap up the rest of their bodies as provisions.

Its weakness was fire. By day, it took the form of a beautiful young woman, supposedly appearing to be in her teens or twenties. At night, it revealed its true form as a spider spirit, releasing tiny spiders that spewed blue smoke and drank human blood.

It seduced men and, three days later at the hour of the rat, would take their heads to eat. It was an exceedingly dangerous monster.

One legend held that the Jorogumo had once been a beautiful woman married to a local lord. When the lord discovered her affair with another man, he threw her into a chest filled with venomous spiders and left them to devour her body. After her death, her vengeful spirit merged with the poisonous spiders, transforming her into the merciless spider-woman known as the Jorogumo.

Now that its true nature had been exposed, the monster turned and used its long limbs to pierce through the window.

“After finally escaping the seal of an exorcist by borrowing this woman’s body, I am free at last! These past few days, I have used her body to seduce men and obtained enough nourishment. It is time to continue along my path as a monster!”

As it spoke, the Jorogumo prepared to leap out of the window.

At that moment, Kamo Mumei drew a thin red cord from his hand and began chanting an incantation before casting it into the air.

In an instant, the red cord seemed to come alive. It shot forward of its own accord and bound the Jorogumo just as it was about to escape.

“You would flee only to harm others? My Kamo exorcist clan will never stand by and let a monster like you run free!”

Kamo Mumei pursued it. Just then, black mist suddenly sprayed from the Jorogumo’s rear opening and struck him directly.

He was instantly poisoned by the spider’s venom and collapsed to his knees in agony.

Fang You merely sighed. “Life is impermanent, and suffering lasts too long. You have strayed from the right path and joined yourself to a monster. Let me set you free.”

He instantly drew ten fire talismans and began reciting a fire-conjuring spell. At the very moment the monster was about to leap through the window, Fang You hurled the talismans.

Flames engulfed both the Jorogumo and the girl Caize, who had fused with it.

“Fire! Fire is everywhere!”

The Jorogumo, utterly terrified, tried to flee, crashing wildly around the room.

Every strand of webbing caught fire, and in an instant the room became a sea of flames.

Yet the girl Caize, whose upper body remained atop the Jorogumo, only smiled faintly.

“I no longer wish to remain in this world. Do it, Exorcist.”

Fang You let out a sigh and drew the peach-wood sword and the sword of copper coins from behind his back.

“Your body has already fused with the monster. I can no longer separate you safely. I am sorry.”

He swung both swords and struck with all his strength, cutting through the place where the girl and the Jorogumo had become one.

In an instant, the girl’s upper body was severed from the Jorogumo.

Without its host, the Jorogumo screamed in panic. “This body is mine! No one can take it from me!”

Still crying out, it crawled toward Caize’s body on the floor.

Fang You raised one sword and brought it down. The copper-coin sword split the Jorogumo cleanly in two.

The girl Caize, now bereft of her lower body, reached toward the empty sky.

“Life is vast and bewildering, rising and falling like seaweed beneath the waves—without support, without anchor, stretching endlessly in every direction. In the end, the final resting place is the finest destiny of all.”

Her hand fell heavily. She breathed no more.

Fang You picked up a talisman and pressed it against Kamo Mumei’s forehead.

“Evil-Dispelling Talisman: drive away corruption and purge the poison from the body!”

With the power of Fang You’s talisman supporting him, Kamo Mumei also began chanting his own protective spell. Under the combined force of the two incantations, the spider venom gradually faded.

“Thank you for saving me, sir. I was careless for a moment and fell victim to the monster’s trick.”

“It is nothing.”