They had initially a very good day. They managed to encounter a merchant ship loaded full of goods, so they did what all good pirates do and took the merchants as slaves, along with some of their merchandise. But only the most expensive things, the rest were thrown to the sea, since the pirate ship could not accommodate so many things at once. They wanted to appease the sea gods by offering a sacrifice. But that proved to be a mistake.
When they sailed away from the merchant ship, with all the spoils and some new slaves, the sea started to churn. Nothing unusual given the merchant ship was sinking after it was set on fire. But the waves soon became unusual. Big and dark and too round, moving with a purpose. Almost as if the sea itself was alive.
At first, none did notice anything. They were all too jolly, rejoicing over their latest spoils. Or too busy keeping new slaves in line. But then some of them saw it. It was a Cetus a sea monster! Going after their ship and swimming very fast. Many of the pirates took to the oars and rowed like their lives depended on it because they did.
Yet there was no running away from the monster it was just too fast. Closing the distance between itself and the pirate ship span by span.
"Start throwing the loot at the Cetus!" ordered their captain.
Some looked surprised, but after several smacks from others, they did as ordered. It was easy, the less their ship had to carry the faster it could sail. The better the chances were at outrunning the sea monster. And it seems to work! Their ship was faster, slowly leaving the monster behind, putting a good distance between them. And they still had the slaves to sell, so the raid was not completely worthless.
Rowing was becoming tiering and it could be seen on several of them, that they need to be switched for another person. And then one of the greenhorns managed to throw amphora so far it hit the sea monster in the eye. It let out a thunderous wail, a roar of pain and with renewed vigor, it went after their ship. Ever so faster, ever so closer and closer.
The captain threw the idiot to the sea. Which, to everyone, even the captain's, surprise managed to slightly slow down the Cetus as it chomped on the human flesh. The captain let out a vicious curse and ordered everyone to row faster. But the monster followed relentlessly, whether it was for revenge or because it was hungry remained to be seen.
Once it got closer, the captain ordered one slave to be thrown over the board. And then to no one's surprise, the monster tore the poor bastard apart and slowed down for a while. This let the pirate ship put some distance between them and the Cetus.
The process repeated several times until they ran out of slaves. At that moment was clear that anyone who could no longer row would become food for the sea monster. And so they rowed since their lives did depend on it. But the monster was relentlessly chasing them to the deep seas, so far from any land.
"Row faster you bastards!" shouted the captain seeing the sea monster getting uncomfortably close to their ship.
"Captain, there is a fishing boat on the port side!" shouted one of the navigators.
"What would be a fishing boat doing this far on the sea?!" said the angry campaign ready to throw the navigator to the monster.
But then he saw that the navigator was not lying! There indeed was a fishing boat. The then captain let out a vicious laugh.
"Go for the boat! The sea monster will choke on it!" the captain ordered.
Everyone on the board was glad that they were not the next poor bastard who ended up in a monster's belly. But what other choice did they have? Better get rid of dead weight so that the useful ones can live.
Sailing through the night was not easy. I was not using stars for navigation and while there was some light reflected from the Moon, it was still quite dark. Now I understood where all the legends about mystical sea creatures came from. It was, after all, a human nature to fear the unknown and what better unknown than being in the middle of the sea during the night? I wondered, given my own nature as a monster, if there was perhaps a Kraken lurking somewhere beneath the waves. Or would the Sirens lure me to the rocks? What a ridiculous notion! Monsters and gods are just a way, for primitive humans to explain things they cannot understand. I might be a monster now, but my own situation is completely different. I was once a normal human, whose body had been morphed, without my consent on top, by some pretender.
What was real though, were pirates. Or what I assumed to be pirates, given that their ship was rapidly approaching mine without any signs of slowing down or changing their course, except to follow me. I already changed my course several times, since they were first spotted on the horizon by me. But every time they seemed to correct their course towards me, moving at the ramming speed.
My boat was small, so they would not ram it, but drove over it, with me inside. Were they attempting to squash me like a bug? If I were still fully human, I could perhaps go overboard and try to swim to the nearby island of Lemnos. Sadly, my current physique would not allow me to do such a feat. My estimated weight would have to be somewhere near that of a horse or a cow, given how much the ship sunk once I boarded it. How much I envied normal spiders, who could use water surface tension to move on top of the water, thanks to their negligible weight and small size.
Alas, my pirate problem was growing ever so larger as their ship was closing on me. My only option was to deal with them, while also keeping my ship intact. I also had to make sure that all of the pirates did perish. If any of them survived, they would inevitably spread rumors about a half-spider, a half-woman monster, which could prompt many individuals to earn glory in an attempt to become heroes by trying to kill me. This way, it would be impossible for me to achieve a calm and leisurely life.
Worst of all, I had to deal with them, personally, from a close distance. A few shots of optical formulae could easily destroy their ship if it was on the land or in the harbor. And while the sea itself was relatively calm, it was constantly in movement. This highlighted a great downside of optical formulae and the main reason why I preferred explosive formulae in my previous life as a magical child soldier. The optical spell fired a beam of charged particles, in different spectrums, but the beam, as its name suggests, was moving in a straight line.
Thus the optical formulae would inevitably miss the pirate ship, as it moved along the surface of the sea full of waves. Another problem was, that even if fired from a closer distance, some of the particles would refract and go at different angles when colliding with the water. Because of that, it was impossible to make a single decisive hole in the pirate ship, below its water line, to suddenly sink it.
And setting the ship on fire from a distance was not an option either. The fire would take time to spread, which would lead to some pirates abandoning their ship early. And I could absolutely not risk the survival of any of them, since the island of Lemnos was near and the currents could carry the sea thieves there. And if any of them survived, the rumors about me would spread, whether they knew that I was a monster or if they thought me only a witch, who could sink a ship with light during night.
By the process of elimination, this left me with only a single option. And that was to board the pirate ship and carry out a quick sweep, from up close and personal. Needless to say, I hated my predicament and if that bastard Being X, was not playing the dead, for the last few hundred years I would curse him with a passion. Alas, I must have been at the wrong time at the wrong place, no "godly" intervention was involved. Smiling, I realized that the only thing I could do was to make sure that the pirates regretted choosing their occupation. After all, being the thief of the sea was just as bad as being a communist.
Thinking about it, was not communism just another form of thievery? The similarities were there. Focefull redistribution of wealth, colectivized ownership and all of it ruled by incompetence, parasitising on actually productive society. With the pirate ship, up and close, it was time to show these proto-commies the real value of the free market. This is the lesson I was happy to teach them, sadly it would be the last one for them. What a pity.
The decision was made to eliminate the rowers first, for a simple reason. I could not let my little ship get too far away from the pirate one. Because then, it would be impossible to jump back on it and continue my journey.
Without a computation orb, there was no flight, or casting multiple spells at once for that matter. But that did not mean I could not jump on the pirate ship from a relatively safe distance. It was thanks to a simple formulaic spell that threw my center of gravity in a specified direction. If my bottom half were that of jumping spider species I would probably not need such a spell, since they could jump a distance tens of times their body length, alas I was an orb-weaver spider monster.
And being a monster was certainly to my advantage. The moment I landed on their ship, the pirates were in uproar and panicking. Running around like headless chickens. Without as much blink of an eye, I started cutting them with a mage blade. To my grievance, each mage blade counted as a separate spell and thus only one could be used at one time. But swiftly switching mage blades from one limb to another was no problem, thanks to slight help from metal formulae, that when applied once, started the production of adrenaline. Also, the fact that in addition to my two arms, I now had eight other prehensile limbs in which a mage blade could be used.
Thus before any semblance of resistance could be enacted by the pirates, four of them lay on the deck dead or dying. With the initial shock gone, some of them finally managed to arm themself with various makeshift weapons and several spears. I had no intention of risking my bodily integrity, and because of that, I applied a protective film spell. This spell was one that had to be maintained and as such it would be impossible to use another spell while using this one. Luckily my enemies could not use any spell and as such were vulnerable to any weapon of theirs.
This was my first fight in hundreds of years, with a body bigger than that of my enemies and no modern weaponry available. I must have actually gone mad when I decided to engage the pirates in close-quarters combat, didn't I? But I had no time for idle thoughts, now that I was in the middle of a combat situation and had to focus fully on my enemies. Now with a spear, I liberated from one of the dead rowers, I slashed and stabbed several more of them, while the strikes did nothing to me. My protective film should be able to take several more hits before it would have to be replaced.
"ROW FASTER!" a hoarse voice shouted from somewhere back on the ship.
But the order would be useless, as rowers were my primary target. The ship would not go any faster because their number was now significantly reduced. And then I learned why they were supposed to be rowing faster. The screams were heard, wood snapped, splinters flying everywhere and the giant hole in the back of the ship opened after a big dark shape drove under the water. Suddenly the pirates were not a priority anymore, I had to get away from this ship!
Swiftly turning I made my way on the board of the pirate ship, looking for my own boat. It was not that far away, therefor I would be able to propel myself towards it without much trouble. Pushing some pirates out of the way, I accelerated myself from running jump, directly onto my ship, with only a few corrections of course needed to land safely. And it was just in time. I saw a giant whale-like monster with too many eyes gorge itself on the pirate ship. With another mightly bite it split the pirate ship in half, creating waves that almost toppled over my little fishing boat.
Without waiting I started rowing, enhancing myself with more adrenaline. I needed to get away from whatever it was and fast! With any luck, the sea monster would be satisfied with the pirates. They must have somehow aggregated it if it was going after them. So their death should satisfy it. Not that I had any intention of finding out, whether I was right or not.
I could no longer see the pirate ship or the monster, which meant that I must have put a decent distance between us. And since the monster did appear to be some cetacean I should be able to see if it was following me based on its need to breathe air.
Except I was wrong! So very wrong! The sea monster surfaced right beneath me, with a speed that turned my boat into splinters. Only thanks to adrenaline enhancement I was able to propel myself into the air just in time. But without a boat or the ability to swim, I was going to die!
Looking at the monster beneath me, I saw it maw open, in order to eat me like a bug. But if I was going down, it would go down with me! Propelling myself to the side I would be able to avoid its mouth. And after taking aim, I accelerated myself towards one of its eyes. Applying a mage blade on my front spider leg, I pierced the monster's brain through its eye socket. It did not even have time to scream in pain. But as if in spite it dragged me to my watery grave.
"Damn you Being X!"
"Lady Arachne please be safe," said the young woman, wrapping herself in spider silk blankets.
"Hey, Hey! Look at it!"
"Cetus? What's it doing here?"
"It looks hurt,"
"Maybe some heroes got to it?"
"Maybe,"
"If it was heroes then maybe we could have some fun with them?"
"Sure, that sounds good!"
"Not to spoil your fun, but let's make sure it was heroes first, OK?"
"Fine!"
"What is this?"
"A little spider,"
"What is it doing here?"
"Drowning,"
"That's not good, is it?"
"No, it isn't,"
"What to do with it?"
"Eat it!"
"Bleh!"
"Doesn't taste good?"
"Tastes like soap!"
"Really?"
"Try it yourself!"
"Eugh, you were right!"
"Better get it out of the water before it spoils this whole place!"
"Right, right!"