What?!? I've Been Reincarnated as a Arachne! (On hold)

Part 5

Pygmalion

"Hungryyyyy..."
I continued to feebly walk inside the Forest of Glamour using my huge spider legs – what I called my Arachne form, so to speak.
The last time I had something in my stomach was 2 days ago.
I can make water with magic by condensing the moisture in the air, so water isn't a problem, but I was absolutely lacking the calories needed to maintain this magical beastArachne body.
Aaaaahhh... That's right, might as well do my usual self-introduction here.
Well, to put it simply, I, Arakura Shiori (24), was working at a florist in a city, when a runaway truck slammed into the store and killed me. After that, I happily reincarnated in Falyias, a fantasy world of swords and sorcery.
As a half-human half-spider monster called an Arachne.
...Well, I ran into a lot of trouble with that as one of the reasons, but now I'm making my living by running a tailor shop in the nearby town of Rihak.
Luckily, manipulating threads – the special skill of my race – is my forte, and turning into a human is also quite simple, so I haven't had any problem living here.
The shop is doing well too.
And so, the reason why I'm here is because 5 days ago, some bigshot noble came to my shop and ordered some sentient magical clothingan Intelligent Robe.
Apparently, his son said "I'm going to be an adventurer!" and simply wouldn't budge from his decision.
And then, when the noble tried to convince him to bring along some escorts, he replied "No adventurer would do something so shameful!" and rejected that idea... After a long discussion, his son finally reluctantly agreed to a compromise, which was to wear some sentient magical clothingan Intelligent Robe with the memories of a veteran adventurer copied inside it.
And so, they've decided that since they're going to go through the trouble anyway, might as well go to the Arachne Tailor that's been making waves lately. In other words, my shop.
And that's how I received another order. Thank you for your patronage.
Well, my shop won't have any problems making a robe that would satisfy the noble's defensive need, but the problem is making it a 'sentient magical itemIntelligent Item'.
Actually, the process of putting an artificial intelligence into weapons and armor requires a critical material, which is a 'Spirit Stone'... According to the adventurer guild's information dealer, "There has been reported cases of finding crystallized Spirit Stones inside the bodies of magical beasts living in the Forest of Glamour, a place bountiful with the spirits' blessings", which is why I'd been venturing inside the forest since 3 days ago.
However, one problem I didn't expect was that... the magical beasts here are too low-leveled.
Since only magical beasts at a certain level of strength create Spirit Stones inside their bodies, I had been running around the whole forest hunting every single boss-class beast I came upon, and managed to acquire 1 large stone and 3 smaller stones after all that.
The large stone is especially valuable. I only got it by venturing deep inside the forest and defeating the Marionette Devil, the lord of this area.
The Marionette Devil is a high-rank monster. As you can guess from the name, this devil can create and control different kinds of dolls, using them to fight in its stead.
The devil itself wasn't that powerful, but the nigh-endless Jack Dolls it summoned were incredibly troublesome.
Well, even though the dolls weren't edible – no surprises there – their boss was quite tasty. I even got a new skill, so all in all, this was a good hunt. (Just like a lot of those monstrously powerful reincarnators, I can also acquire a part of my prey's powers by eating them.)
But then, I realized a problem.
"...How do I go home?"
This forest is so large and complex that it gained the name 'Forest of Glamour'.
Furthermore, the space inside of it is subtly distorted, so you can't use teleportation items or magic.
And since I just randomly plunged inside the forest without sparing a single thought for anything else aside hunting monsters... Well, not getting lost would be stranger.
Since I could only find weaklings in the outer forest area, I just kept on going deeper and deeper, which only helped create my current situation.
If this was a forest where I can find decently strong magical beasts wandering around (which it isn't, unfortunately), then I can just hunt and eat them while finding my way out.
There's a reason for my confidence. I can say for sure that my current stats already surpasses the demon king'sBaramos-class monsters'.
Perhaps I'm even as powerful as the Great Demon LordZoma-class monsters.
Mob-monster-level magical beasts – and normal animals too, of course – don't even dare to get close when they sense my presence.
There's no longer a single living soul in a circle with the radius of a few hundred meters around me.
The last thing I ate was the aforementioned Marionette Devil.
If I had known that this would happen, I would have wrapped it up in my threads and brought it with me instead of leaving the devil half-eaten.
That monster was quite big, so I could have lasted for a whole week if I had brought it along...
*stomach rumbling...*
"Ah, no more... I can't move...?"
Just when I finally couldn't take it anymore and slumped onto the ground from my empty stomach, the [Detect Presence] skill discovered something alive.
There's almost no magic in them, but they're quite large, as large as a medium-sized or a big-sized dog.
And not only that, there's 5 of them.
"F-Food..."
Just when I thought I could no longer move a muscle, my limbs were instantly reinvigorated. Seems like I'm quite easily moved by desires.
"Foooooood~♪"
*Crack* *KRRRRRRAKKRAKRAK!* *BOOOM!* *BLAM!*
I rushed straight towards that 'presence of life', while pulverizing all the trees and boulders barring my way...
※
After following that 'presence of life' for a while, the trees began to get noticeably sparser.
The thick forest started to give way to open lands, and I could finally see the bright, shining sun again.
And most importantly, those presences of life were just a few steps away.
I gathered up strength in my eight legs and leaped forward with the intentions to strike at those presences.
At that moment, I noticed that my prey has looked up at me, seemingly surprised.
They wore leather armor, with short swords in their hands. Men.
Huh?! Humans?!
Oh no, this is bad, brake, braaaaaaaaake!!
Even when I jammed the claws on my legs into a nearby tree trunk in an attempt to slow down, *BAM!* *Krrrkkrrkkkrrrsshhhh...* That strange sound came from the aforementioned tree being torn apart like a piece of paper.
Of course, that wasn't enough to completely kill my momentum, and I slammed right into the men, who were standing there in a line.
With expressions of shock on their faces, they scattered like bowling pins.
"Ouch-chie ouch... S-Sorry! Are you okay?!"
I immediately activated the skill [Human Transformation], turned into my human form, and tried to shake the men's bodies one by one.
...Aaaaahhh... Damn. They're completely unconscious.
In fact, most of them already had their arms and legs twisted into some impossible directions. I don't know if they can even move at all, even if they woke up.
For the time being, I picked a flat spot of grassland, dragged the men there and lined them up next to each other.
One, two, three, four... Four of them in total.
But still, how curious.
It's not my place to say this, considering how I was the culprit for their current state, but both their clothing and their faces just made them look like a gang of bandits.
"Ah, excuse me... Thank you very much! These bandits were just about to kidnap me..."
"Eh...?"
When I turned toward that childish voice, I found a boy with blonde hair, around 10 year old, staring at me with shining eyes.
"Eh, bandits? Huh?"
"Y-Yes, recently, some bandits settled down near the village... They occasionally came to our village to steal or to kidnap children... I nearly became another victim when they found me while I was going herb gathering..."
So turned out they don't just look like bandits, they ARE bandits!
"If you hadn't come at that time, I would have... *hic*..."
*sobs* *sobs*. The little boy tried his best to unsuccessfully contain his tears.
My god, what is this cute creature?
They're seriously honest-to-goodness angels, these Western-looking kids (this isn't Earth, though...)
Wait, I'm not here to look at cute kids, am I?
Seemed like I crashed the party right when these 4 bandits were attempting to kidnap a child.
...Oh yeah, I DID detect 5 presences before, didn't I?
Dear me, and here I was, panicking a little bit since I thought I accidentally injured some innocent villagers. If they're bandits, though, it probably won't be a problem.
And it also looked like he didn't realize that I was in my Arachne form when I bursted in, since everything happened so suddenly.
*Grrrrrrrumbleeeee...*
Right when I relaxed, my stomach reminded me of its current emptiness with a magnificent growl.
I unconsciously held my belly and dropped down on the ground.
Yeaaahhh, now that I think about it, the situation still hasn't gotten any better at all.
No matter how evil those bandits were, eating humans is simply out of the question.
"E-Excuse me... Sis, are you hungry?"
"Y-Yeah... Actually, I got lost for 2 days already... and haven't gotten anything to eat at all... Ahahah... haha..."
"T-Then... Please eat this, if you're fine with this sort of food."
The boy rummaged inside the sack that he had with him, and finally took out something wrapped in cloth and gave it to me.
What is this...? This is... the smell of food!!
Without thinking, my hands instantly moved to snatch that package. I didn't even have the patience to open up the knot, so I used my nails to tear it apart and take out the food wrapped inside.
Oooooooohhh...! Marvelous!!
Inside were some rye bread and jerky.
There's also some kind of fruit similar to an apple and a flask of water.
I took them in both of my hands and took a big bite.
*chomp* *chomp* *munch* *nom* *nom *nom*.
Normally, you would soak the hard rye bread in water and chew it off a bit at a time, but don't underestimate my jaw strength.