"Sensei... Um… Sensei... Stop…" Acma uttered, her eyes struggling to stay open, caught between sleep and consciousness.
"Huh?" Zyma responded, perplexed by her words.
"Stop tickling my feet!" Acma exclaimed, rising up from her stomach sleep position.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, still unable to comprehend the situation.
"You're tickling my..." Acma began to explain, but her words trailed off as she realized that the sensation brushing against her feet was not Zyma's hand, but the intruding touch of multiple thin, hairy legs. "Ahh..."
A scream escaped her lips as she instinctively kicked and flailed her arms, seeking refuge in her mentor.
Zyma, still bewildered by the situation after catching her, asked, "What's going on?"
Acma continued to scream, pointing in the direction of the insect, struggling to form coherent words. "Sp… Spi… Spider..."
"Geez, seriously?" her mentor asked, clearly disappointed.
The brown spider before them loomed as large as his palm, surpassing the average size. However, he couldn't fathom how someone who had easily killed over monsters twice her size could react with such terror to a mere spider.
"Do something!" she urged, still screaming in fear.
"Do what? It will go away on its own. Maybe the roses attracted it..." he tried to reason.
"Fire!" Acma screamed as the spider took a threatening step forward.
"Don't!" he exclaimed, trying to stop her from using fire magic, but it was too late.
As the spider caught on fire, thousands of baby spiders erupted from their mother's body, frantically scurrying away from the flames.
Acma's high-pitched screams continued to assault his ears, making him ponder if one day she might surpass Siren in the vocal department.
Yet, the emergence of the baby spiders was not the most distressing aspect of the situation. The fire, fueled by the rose bouquet, spread rapidly to the dried redwood branches, poised to ignite a wildfire amidst the hottest days of Timber's summer.
"Acma, calm down! Cast Water, please! You're burning the forest!" he pleaded, trying to bring some sense to the chaotic situation.
"No! You kill them first! Don't let them touch me!" Acma continued to scream, clutching his windbreaker collar tightly, as if attempting to strangle him.
"Listen! Lesson number one: don't cast Fire in the woods during summer. Use Flare instead," he stated in an oddly calm voice.
"I don't have Flare!" she screamed out loud, her head buried in his chest as her body curled upon his lap.
"Of course," he sighed. "Fine. You owe me a Flare stone then."
"For Hyne's sake! Just cast it!"
He cast the non-elemental magic and the baby spiders immediately burned into ashes.
"Now, can you please cast Water?" he reiterated, forcefully pushing her away.
Acma finally released her grip on his collar, though still clinging to him, and assessed the burnt spiders. Realizing that the fire had spread to another tree, she swiftly cast Water to extinguish it.
Once the damage was contained, she turned to him with an awkward smile. "I'm so sorry. Please don't include this in the report."
He smirked and shook his head. "Spider, huh? And you call yourself a SeeD candidate, a savior of the world."
"I was half asleep, it caught me off guard," Acma defended herself. "I swear, it won't happen again. Not when I'm awake."
"I don't believe you," he replied, a hint of skepticism in his voice as he slowly revealed his hand.
Confused, Acma tried to see what he was trying to show her. It was then that she noticed a tiny baby spider crawling in his palm.
"Ahhhh..."
Startled, she instinctively moved backward, forgetting that they were perched upon a tall tree. Her loss of balance caused her to tumble downward.
"Shit!" he exclaimed, shocked by her sudden fall.
He leaped down after her, using his Zyclaw device to latch onto a nearby branch. To his surprise, in the midst of his descent, a lasso from below unexpectedly hit his face.
"What the..." he was about to swear, but his words cut short as the lasso tightened around his neck.
"Oh no!" Acma cried out in fear, realizing that her lasso had inadvertently ensnared Zyma
They now dangled precariously, with Acma gripping the lasso wrapped around Zyma's neck, while her mentor clung to his Zyclaw device with one hand and desperately held onto her lasso with the other.
"Release..." he managed to utter barely audible words, trying to communicate to Acma to free him. His face turned red under the strain of her weight and the constricting lasso.
"I'm sorry!" Acma panicked, torn between the fear of falling and the fear of causing harm to Zyma.
"Release! Ground!" he desperately repeated.
She debated whether to hold onto the lasso, but figured she would die anyway. It was better for her to fall alone. At least he had a better chance of survival without her weight pulling on his neck.
"Farewell, sensei! Please remember me!" she tearfully spoke her final words, releasing the lasso and freeing herself entirely, prepared to meet the other side of the world at a young age.
Thud!
Acma's body collided with the ground much sooner than she had anticipated.
After a moment of confusion, Zyma's exclamation from above enlightened her.
"Are you blind? You were only three feet away from the ground! Freaking Hyne! You almost killed me!"
"Oops!"
He quickly descended to the ground, joining her, and began complaining about the ordeal they had just experienced. She had her debrief on spot.
"Lesson number 2: always cast Float before free-falling. Why would you want to keep 100 Float spells in your junction when you're dead? Holy Hyne! I ran out of words! I'm at a loss for words! And you call yourself a prodigy! Isn't it obvious that the combined length of our Zyclaw and lasso is enough for you to reach the ground?"
After enduring his tirade, Acma mumbled, "But sensei, we wouldn't have been in this situation if you hadn't shown me the spider. And you were aware that I had a lasso, weren't you? You shouldn't have jumped into my lasso like that..."
"Bad pupil! So, it's all my fault now!" he scolded, rapping his knuckles against her head, causing her to wince.
He continued to lecture her on her lack of gratitude for another five minutes. Now she understood why he disliked her whining that much.
"Alright, alright. I'm sorry. Can we reset, please? No one dies, right?" she pleaded, hoping to move past the unfortunate incident.
"One day, you'll kill me. I'm sure of it!" he exclaimed, clearly still frustrated.
"You could have let me die," she muttered under her breath. "I'd rather die than listen to your whining."
"What did you say?" he narrowed his eyes at her.
"Um, nothing. Reset?" she grinned, trying to change the subject.
"Geez… Murdered by a bad pupil. Quite a shitty eulogy to end my solo mercenary career," he remarked, still slightly annoyed.
"I'm really sorry..." she apologized sincerely. "Well, it's nearly 5 am. Don't you have to sleep now?"
"Sleep? No, thank you. I could have slept eternally, think about it. I don't dare to close my eyes with you wide awake with your lasso," he scoffed.
"Breakfast with sashimi, perhaps?" she suggested, an awkward grin on her face. "You rest, I'll hunt."
"Fine," he sighed, trying to think of ways she could harm him with her limited culinary techniques. "I only eat raw fish. You don't have to start a fire. What could go wrong?"
"I won't let you down this time, sensei!" she grinned, and quickly ran away.