Between Your Letter and My Reply

Chapter 126

They hadn’t walked for long when they came across an open space. It was quite large, and in the center stood a magnificent flowering tree.

Blood-red blossoms bloomed profusely, filling the air with a strong fragrance. The tree seemed to be as tall as a five-story building.

Mesmerized by its beauty and grandeur, the group stared at the tree in a daze. Then, Casey, sniffing the air, remarked, “This floral scent is suspiciously strong.”

He covered his nose. Damian tilted his head and asked, “Why?”

“This kind of thing can cause hallucinations. I told you, there might be man-eating plants. And those kinds lure people in with their scent, making them crawl into their mouths…”

Before Casey could finish his explanation, Annette, who was behind Lilliana, stumbled and barely managed to say, “Could you… tell us that sooner…?”

Her eyes were filled with reproach, but then her gaze turned unfocused, and her eyelids slowly closed. As Annette was about to collapse, Damian caught her with one arm and covered his own nose with the other.

“Tell us what you know as soon as possible! If it causes hallucinations, could it be life-threatening?”

Damian also had a word with Casey for not sharing crucial information promptly.

“No, usually you wake up after some time.”

Lilliana, who had already covered her nose, looked relieved. She looked back and forth between the two men and the unconscious Annette and asked, “What do we do now?”

“Let’s get out of this space and find some fresh air.”

“So we just have to be careful of that tree?”

Damian carried Annette on his back and walked close to the wall, as far away from the tree as possible. Casey and Lilliana followed behind him.

“But according to your explanation, brother, man-eating plants that emit this kind of scent are supposed to lure their prey to them, right?”

“Yes.”

Casey nodded, and Lilliana, with a puzzled look, said, “But Annette is unconscious and can’t walk towards that flowering tree on her own.”

At that point, Damian and Casey stopped in their tracks. They exchanged glances and then looked back at the flowering tree almost simultaneously. But the tree remained unchanged, peaceful as ever.

As Lilliana tilted her head in confusion, a shadow fell over her. The shadow quickly moved to cover Casey and Damian as well.

The three looked up with grim faces. And their eyes met with a giant arthropod floating in the air.

Click, click.

No matter how they looked at it, it was clearly a giant spider. Its creepy mouth moved as if chewing, making an unpleasant sound.

The reason it appeared to be floating in the air was because of the spider webs densely strung between the flowering tree and the walls.

“Kyaaa!”

Lilliana’s face was contorted in terror, on the verge of fainting. As she screamed, a large amount of the floral scent entered her lungs, and she actually fainted.

“Lily!”

Casey, unburdened by carrying Annette, rushed to Lilliana while Damian was still struggling with his load.

While he was checking on Lilliana, Damian, along with Annette, was caught in a spider web and pulled into the air.

“Casey!”

Damian called out to Casey for help, and Casey shot fire from his fingertips. The flames spread to the spider web in the air, severing the strands.

The web that the giant spider carrying Damian was stepping on also caught fire and broke, and Damian started falling to the ground with the spider.

“Idiot, you’re making us fall!”

“Ah.”

At Damian’s rebuke, Casey let out a silly sound, acknowledging his mistake. But contrary to Damian’s worries, the spider took advantage of Casey’s momentary hesitation and shot a new web towards the flowering tree.

It stuck to the tree, and the spider, carrying Damian and Annette, quickly climbed the web and hid inside the tree.

The inside of the flowering tree, which had been hidden by leaves and flowers, was covered in spider webs.

It seemed that the flowering tree wasn’t trying to lure prey to feed on, but was being used by the spider hiding inside to attract its victims.

Damian, fighting against the spider, held his breath until he couldn’t anymore and had to inhale. The thick, sweet scent of flowers filled his nose. He felt his body weaken and his vision blur.

The spider separated Damian and Annette, who was still unconscious, and started wrapping her in spider webs.

“Stop it, you bastard…”

Damian muttered and aimed his gun at the spider, but it simply extended one of its legs and swatted it away.

The gun slipped from Damian’s weakened hand and fell far away. Damian slapped his own cheek and bit the inside of his mouth hard enough to draw blood, trying to stay conscious.

Meanwhile, the spider carried Annette, neatly wrapped in spider webs, to one side and hung her in the air.

As Damian followed it with his eyes, he saw another person wrapped in spider webs, similar to Annette. Gray hair was sticking out from the webs.

“Mr. Asher!”

If no one else besides Asher had entered this maze, that gray hair definitely belonged to him.

Damian, with his trembling legs, moved towards Asher and Annette. But the spider blocked his path.

It spread its legs, trying to grab Damian as well. Damian pretended to surrender and let the spider capture him.

And when the spider came within reach, he took out the knife he had been hiding in his pocket and stabbed one of the spider’s many eyes.

“Screech!”

The spider let out a sharp cry and swatted Damian away. Damian, who had no strength left, flew through the air and landed on a branch.

As he shook his head and got up, the spider, now truly enraged, charged towards him with ferocious speed.

Damian, realizing that a single knife wouldn’t be enough to deal with the giant spider, quickly looked around.

He saw his gun, which he had dropped earlier, lying not too far away. Damian, with sheer willpower, forced his barely functioning legs to move and lunged towards the gun.

At the same time, he heard Casey’s voice.

“Damian! Get down!”

Damian, clutching the gun, threw himself flat on the ground. Hot flames swept through the air above his head. The flames caught onto the spider.

“Screech! Screech!”

The spider screamed and struggled, its eight legs flailing as it rubbed its body against the ground, trying to extinguish the flames. Two gunshots rang out, aimed at the immobilized spider.

Bang! Bang!

The spider’s thick shell was pierced, and bodily fluids splattered. Lilliana covered her mouth with her hand and widened her eyes.

“Gasp! I actually hit it!”

Lilliana, who had never shot at anything other than a target drawn on a tree, marveled at her own marksmanship. She hadn’t killed it with one shot, but she seemed to have succeeded in inflicting a fatal wound that immobilized it.

The spider lay on the ground, clicking its mandibles and flailing its legs.

Damian aimed the gun at the head of the still-living spider. And when his vision cleared for a moment, he pulled the trigger.

Bang!

With a sharp gunshot, the spider’s head exploded, and its body rolled limply before falling to the ground below the flowering tree. A faint thud echoed from below.

Damian leaned against a branch, panting.

As the spider died, the scent of flowers seemed to gradually fade. He looked up with a weary face at Casey and Lilliana, who had climbed the five-story tree.

“How did you get up here? Did you really climb this height with your bare hands? No, wait, why is Lilliana here in the first place? Isn’t it dangerous?!”

Lilliana and Casey flinched at Damian’s barrage of questions and hurriedly explained themselves.

“We just climbed the tree… I regained consciousness as soon as brother brought me to a place with fresh air. I’m fine. Climbing a tree is no big deal!”

“That’s right. And I was about to go help Damian, but I couldn’t leave Lily alone, could I? I calculated whether it would be safer to leave Lily alone or to take her with me to fight the spider. I thought it would be less dangerous to have her in front of my eyes, so I brought her along.”

Damian sighed deeply and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Anyway, thank you for your help. I almost died.”

He approached Annette and Asher, who were tightly wrapped in spider webs.

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