Genetic Awakening: My Genes Evolve Infinitely!

Chapter 194: Spiders

Beneath it, something clung.

Not wet. Sticky in a mineral way. Almost fibrous.

He looked ahead.

The marker stones continued in a straight line across a shallow dip. Nothing visibly moved. The ash lay smooth between the slabs.

Too smooth.

"I do not like the dip," he said. "The ash beneath the surface feels bound together, almost like old webbing. It is not skarn sign, but it is not normal drift either."

Veska came forward slowly, leaning on her staff. She crouched beside him, scooped a tiny amount of ash into a small metal spoon, and held it under her nose.

Then she spat into the ash beside the path.

"Burrow silk."

Everyone shifted at once.

The shield hands lowered their stances. The archers raised bows. The harvesters backed away with obvious fear.

Rohan remained crouched. "I am guessing that is bad."

Veska looked at him as if he had disappointed her. "Things that hide under roads are rarely good, ash-child."

Maerin signalled for the formation to retreat three markers.

"What made it?" Rohan asked as they moved.

Liora answered, voice tense. "Threadmourners. They build under old paths and wait for weight. If enough people cross, the silk collapses and drags them down."

"Spiders?"

"No. Worse."

"People keep saying that."

"That is because the Ash is creative."

Maerin sent Sen and Arv wide to test the alternate route. Veska marked the unsafe dip with a red-black strip and a bone charm shaped like a closed hand. No one suggested fighting whatever waited beneath the ash. The entire expedition simply changed course.

Rohan glanced back once.

The smooth dip remained silent.

That bothered him more than if something had emerged.

The Great System appeared.

[Minor Quest Complete: Identify Hidden Burrow Hazard]

[Reward Acquired: Expedition Standing +2]

Rohan dismissed it with a thought.

Liora saw the slight motion of his eyes.

"Quest?"

"Yes. It rewarded me for noticing the trap."

"It should. You may have saved someone."

He looked at her.

She said it plainly, without teasing.

That made the reward feel less abstract.

They camped that night in a hardstone hollow marked on Maerin’s route plate. Calling it a camp was generous. It was a shallow depression surrounded by three slabs high enough to blunt the wind. The expedition set no open fire. Instead, the harvesters placed heat stones inside a covered ceramic basin, warming ration tins and mineral tea without visible flame.

The sky darkened from bruised violet to a deeper black-purple. Silver streaks moved faintly behind clouds. The Ashen Marches did not become quiet at night; they became more careful with their sounds. Distant cracks travelled strangely. Ash hissed in unseen gullies. Once, something cried far away, high and brief, and no one spoke until the echo faded.

Rohan sat with Liora and Jorren near the inner curve of the hollow, eating dense travel bread softened in broth.

It tasted better than fungus cake.

That was the highest praise he could give it.

Jorren removed his mask just enough to drink tea. In the low heat-stone glow, his face looked broader and more tired than it did beneath the shield helm. He had a scar across his lower lip that pulled slightly when he spoke.

"You did well with the burrow silk," he said.

Rohan almost dropped his bread.

Jorren did not speak often, and when he did, people listened mostly because they were startled.

"Thank you," Rohan said.

"I mean it. My brother died in a threadmourner collapse before I joined the watch. We lost four people because no one noticed the silk under the old north path."

Rohan lowered the bread.

"I am sorry."

Jorren nodded once.

Liora looked down at her cup.

For a few moments, the three of them sat with that memory between them. Rohan had not known

Jorren had a brother. He realised, not for the first time, that much of Veyrhold existed beneath the surface like ash layers: names, losses, debts, old stories, all compacted into the way people moved through each day.

Jorren took another drink of tea.

"He would have liked you," he said.

Rohan looked up.

"Why?"

"You complain when frightened. He did that too. It annoyed everyone."

Liora laughed softly.

Rohan tried to decide whether to be touched or offended.

"I will choose to accept that as a compliment."

"It was meant as one."

"That helps."

Jorren’s mouth moved, almost a smile.

"Mostly."

Liora shook her head. "You are both impossible."

"No," Jorren said. "We are coping."

The words were simple, but they carried enough truth that the conversation quieted again.

Later, when Rohan took second watch with Maerin, the camp had settled into uneasy rest. The heat stones glowed faintly under their cover. The shield hands slept with weapons close. Veska was wrapped in three layers of cloth and still somehow looked like she was judging the sky through her eyelids.

Maerin stood at the edge of the hollow, watching the eastern dark.

Rohan joined her.

For a while, neither spoke. The silence was not uncomfortable, but it was not empty either. It contained the wind, the sleeping camp, and the knowledge that beyond the low slabs, the Ash kept moving.

Eventually, Maerin said, "You handled the first day well."

Rohan glanced at her. "That sounded almost relaxed."

"It was an observation, not praise."

"I will take it anyway."

"You usually do."

He smiled faintly.

Maerin kept her eyes on the dark plain.

"I was not certain you would adjust to travelling with a full expedition. You have improved on hunts, but a resource route requires different discipline. There is more waiting. More restraint. More chances to be tempted by something valuable in the wrong place."

"You mean the wreck field."

"I mean many things. The wreck field is one of them."

Rohan leaned his spear against his shoulder.

"I am trying not to be stupid about it."

"I know."

That surprised him.

Maerin’s voice was quieter than usual when she continued.

"The problem is that curiosity and stupidity can wear the same face when the Ash offers an answer."

Rohan looked east.

"I need answers, Maerin."

"I know that too."

"Do you?"

"Yes," she said. "More than you think."

There was something in her tone that made him turn toward her fully.