Tursed my worid upside down

The new decoration on his hand did not bother Egor at all. During his sleep, the picture faded a little, but it was still clearly visible. It was good that the work shirt had long sleeves.

The atmosphere in the house was oppressive. Everyone was lost in their own thoughts. Today they were going to visit the place where, according to Klaus, there was a portal to another world. Egor really wanted to see it. The young man was interested in what it looked like? What was special about it? He was in anticipation, unlike his gloomy neighbors in the apartment.

"We need a taxi. Of course, there is a public bus on that route, but it doesn't stop," Pouoka said, putting on a light coat.

- I'll call. What address should I specify as the final destination?

- Any. We'll have to get off at the highway anyway.

Egor chose the very first house in the suburbs and specified it as the final destination. The taxi arrived quickly. Klaus didn't even have time to light a cigarette. His new habit, which irritated him. He didn't like the smell of cigarettes and didn't understand the point of smoking.

Pouoka sat in the front seat, and the young people settled in the back. Egor thought that Klaus would insist and sit next to the driver, but he just said:

"The nobles should ride in the back. The seat next to the cab driver is more suitable for you, although you have already risen in rank," he reasoned thoughtfully.

The taxi pulled out onto the highway they needed. Klaus, without blinking, looked out the window, Egor fidgeted in his seat impatiently.

"How much longer do we have to go?" Pouoka asked.

"I have no idea" Klaus answered calmly.

"What do you mean?" Egor was indignant. "You don't know where the place is?"

"Theoretically, I know, but I have no idea how far it is from the city. I was unconscious when they took me to the hospital."

"Stop the car," Egor asked and, seeing Powoka's puzzled look, added "This one" he waved his hand in Klaus's direction "doesn't know where we need to go. It would be easier to walk. You'll be able to recognize this place if you see it again, right?"

"I'm not sure. It was dark when I showed up. It's daytime now."

"Damn you! Why did we even go then?"

"It's somewhere here. I'll find it. I have to" the young prince said in a steely voice, and Egor stopped arguing with him. In the end, they would have to look for the portal anyway, so what difference did it make whether they did it now or later?

The car stopped. Egor thanked the driver, apologized for having to get out early, and paid the meter, leaving a small tip.

"Do you even remember which side we need to look on?" Pouoka's grandson sighed.

"The one where the cars go to the city. The professor almost ran over me and he was heading home."

The day was approaching midday. The sun was barely visible behind the wide crowns of trees that surrounded the highway on both sides. A cool wind was blowing. Two young men and an old woman were walking along the side of the road and trying to find what, in their opinion, was already impossible to find.

"I can't do it anymore," Pouoka said breathlessly. "You seem to forget that I'm over seventy and such walking is bad for my old joints."

"That place is definitely somewhere around here. Be patient."

"Everything here is the same! How are we going to find the portal?" Egor was indignant. The young man was tired too. He was not used to such physical exertion.

"You should have left you at home."

"You should have told me right away that you didn't remember where the portal was" the old woman groaned and stopped. "That's it. I'm not going any further until I rest."

Klaus was irritated, but he understood that he could do nothing about it. Pouoka was an old woman, Yegor was frail and weak, if they weren't given a chance to rest, they would be no use.

"You have ten minutes, and then we'll move on."

The young man looked around and saw a fallen tree ahead. Something flashed in his memory and immediately disappeared.

"You can sit down over there."

"Great, I can handle another hundred meters," Egor said out of breath.

Klaus tensed up. He was uneasy. Something was wrong here. His intuition was working at full strength, but, unfortunately, it did not help him understand what exactly was bothering the crown prince so much. While the grandmother and grandson were resting, Klaus decided to look around. A fallen tree, a white, half-erased mark on the asphalt. Someone decided to leave an advertisement in the most inappropriate place.

"Do you want to drink water?" Egor handed Klaus an open bottle.

"Yes, I did..."

Before he could finish speaking, he heard a strange clicking sound behind him. He turned around abruptly, reached for his belt, not feeling his sword (he couldn't get rid of this habit) and saw a bright flash a little ahead of the fallen tree. Right on the road. Exactly where he was thrown into this world.

"A portal," Pouoka said, slowly rising from the fallen tree. "Why did it open?"

"I don't know, but I feel that this won't end well" Klaus answered without turning around or taking his eyes off the flash.

Enchanted, Egor slowly approached Klaus and was about to move on, closer to the portal, when a strong hand grabbed his wrist. The young man froze.

The flash disappeared, and in its place was a huge spider. It was taller than Klaus. Egor had never seen such a monster before, so he looked at the prince in fear. If he was scared, he didn't show it. He wasn't surprised by the monster, which meant that the guy had encountered such things before.

"Step back," the heir to the throne addressed Egor without taking his eyes off the spider. "Old woman, hide with your grandson behind the tree."

"What are you going to do?" she asked, throwing her leg over the trunk.

"I don't have a weapon. I'll improvise."

"Be careful, it spits poison."

"I know without you."

The monster's black eyes darted around and stopped slightly to the left of Klaus, who turned his head slightly to see what had attracted the spider's attention and saw the pale Egor, who remained standing in place.

"Idiot, I told you to hide!"

And then two things happened at once. The spider stirred, took a few quick steps towards the young men and spat out a stream of pale green liquid, aiming at Egor, who was frozen with fear. Klaus quickly pushed the young man aside, and the poison missed its target, barely touching Klaus's hand. This was enough to corrode the sleeve of his jacket. Klaus quickly took it off and threw it aside. The poison continued to spread throughout his outerwear.

Klaus didn't wait for the second attack, grabbed Egor by the collar and threw him over a fallen tree, next to Pouoka.

"Bring him to his senses, and run as far as you can. It's hunting him!"

"That's a bad idea," the old woman answered.

"Do you have a better one?"

"We need to kill him on the spot."

"How come I didn't think of it right away!" Klaus retorted. "Why are you sitting there? Give me something I could do it with quickly."

"Now is not the time for your jokes," the old woman was indignant.

"Exactly! Take your grandson and run!"

"You know it's useless! The spider will chase us!"

Klaus was nervous. He felt naked without a sword, especially in this situation. What could he do now? What would his teacher do? There are no hopeless situations, he always told Klaus. What would he say now? What solution did he find?

Pouoka hit Egor on the cheeks several times.

"This is not the time to lose consciousness! Unless, of course, you want to be dissolved with poison or eaten."

"Dissolved with poison," Egor asked in confusion. Pouoka pointed to the place where Klaus's jacket had been lying just a few minutes ago, and now there was only a light smoke and a scorched circle of earth in its place.

"Grandma, what should we do?" Egor's eyes widened.

"We need to kill the spider before it kills us. A difficult task for an old woman, a frail boy, and a warrior who can do nothing without a weapon."

Klaus listened to the conversation behind a fallen tree. He was angered by the fact that the old woman considered him helpless. He understood that she was partly right, but his wounded pride did not allow him to admit it. With a wild cry, Klaus ran straight at the spider.

"What are you doing, crazy boy?" Pouoka's voice full of horror was heard from behind, but it was too late for Klaus to retreat.

The spider saw the approaching target and again released a stream of poison, which the prince deftly dodged and continued his attack. The spider and Klaus seemed to be dancing in a dangerous dance, where the life of one of them was at stake. The monster did not move from its place, but spat poison vigorously. Klaus barely managed to dodge, but could not get any closer. He began to get tired, and another spit landed on the collar of his T-shirt, which the young man, without thinking, tore off himself and threw aside. For a second, the spider's eyes followed the flying T-shirt. This was enough for Klaus to approach his opponent in a few jumps.

The spider could no longer spit poison at him, it had gotten so close to him. The monster snapped its mouth, began to move madly, trying to touch Klaus with one of its legs, but the young man crawled under its belly and disappeared from the insect's field of vision.

Hairy, sharp legs flickered before Klaus's eyes, he tried to catch at least one, but to no avail, and then a shaking voice, breaking into a scream, was heard from afar:

"Hey, freak! I'm here! Are you looking for me?"

The spider froze and directed its gaze at Egor, who was standing in front of the fallen tree. His target. The poison attack would not reach, so the insect scurried toward its victim.

"Where are you going!" Klaus shouted, but the spider paid no attention to him, then the guy grabbed one of the monster's hind legs with all his might, which practically did not slow it down.

Klaus was furious. Despite the coolness of his half-naked body, sweat was pouring down. He yanked the insect's leg back with all his might and managed to stop it. The spider froze for a moment, which Klaus spent on kicking the spider in the knee joint with all his might, then with his hand, then with his foot again, until a sickening crunch was heard, and the spider fell on the side of its broken leg.

Without wasting time, Klaus broke the thickest branch he could in such a short period of time from the nearest tree and threw himself on the back of the spider, which had already begun to rise, balancing on seven healthy legs. Grabbing the branch tighter, the young man aimed it straight at the monster's eye. Sticky and disgusting liquid flowed from the eye socket. Klaus did not stop until he completely deprived the spider of sight. The monster went mad.

Poison flew in all directions. The trees around were melting, the earth was dying. Klaus, riding on the spider, barely kept his balance. "He need to finish him off." Belly. i need to pierce the belly. Klaus slid off the monster, almost getting hit by one of its legs, crawled under the spider's belly and jabbed with all his might with his improvised weapon. The stick broke in two.

"Eyes," Egor shouted at him "hit the eyes."

"I already gouged out all of his eyes! Are you blind?" Klaus shouted irritably, rolling and saving his groin from another spider leg.

"Hit him in the eyes" Egor continued to shout.

Klaus hit his shortened stick under the knee of the paw, which landed next to his side, scratching the skin and making the monster stagger. He stood up abruptly and pulled the same trick as with the first leg. A lunge with his fist, then with his foot, again with his hand and so on until he heard a familiar crunch, and the monster lost its balance.

The young man climbed onto the spider's back again and jabbed the stick into the empty eye socket with all his might. Then again and again, until the monster stopped fluttering. He rolled off the dead insect and fell on his back, breathing heavily.

"Are you okay?" he heard Egor's worried voice, who was stumbling and running towards him.

"I'm alive, unlike that bastard," he answered with a stupid smile.

"It was a fascinating sight," the young man who had arrived smiled and extended his hand to Klaus to help him up.

"If you don't mind, I'll lie here for a little while longer. It's been a long time since I fought, especially with improvised means. If only I had a sword..." he said dreamily.

"You're incredibly cool!" Egor's eyes were shining. He sat down next to Klaus and didn't take his admiring eyes off him! "You're fucking incredibly cool!"

Having caught his breath, Klaus sat up and shuddered from the cold. Pouoka was standing where the spider had appeared, holding some strange ball in her hands. It was the size of a large pearl and glowed with a bluish light. The young man took Egor's outstretched hand, stood up and silently approached the old woman. Upon closer inspection, Klaus saw that the ball was not glowing. Some strange substance was shimmering inside it, similar to both liquid and gas.

"Is this what I think it is?" Klaus asked, reaching out to touch the object.

"Don't touch it" she lightly hit him on the arm. "This is the artifact that was with me when I ran away from home. This ball can detect magic, absorb it and share it."

"A very useful thing. Can it open a portal?" Egor asked

"That's exactly what I'm doing now, but alas. There's too little magic in it. I want to check something."

She clutched the ball in her palm and walked towards the dead monster. When she opened her palm again, the ball was milky. The beautiful watery-gaseous curls were gone, but as soon as Pouoka extended the ball and touched the spider's body, it began to shimmer again. A thin silver thread stretched from the monster to the old woman's palm.

"As I thought. There are grains of magic in this spider that we can collect in this ball."

Egor watched what was happening, fascinated. Now he had no doubt that his grandmother and Klaus were telling the truth. He saw with his own eyes how a spider appeared from a bright flash of light. And the insect itself? There is simply no such size!

And so, after a few minutes, the last grains of magic flowed into the ball, and it again became milky white and opaque, and the spider's body dissipated, as if it had never been there. Pouoka carefully put the artifact in her purse and turned to the young people.

"This magic will not be enough to open the portal. We need to go home now. God, I'm so tired! I hope the taxi driver won't ask questions when he sees you," she looked at Klaus.

The young man raised his hands to his eyes. They were covered in dirt, dried spider blood, and fluid from his eyes. There was a scratch on his side, deeper than Klaus had first thought. Blood was still oozing out. One pant leg was torn, the top part of the garment was completely missing, but the perfectly styled ponytail looked just as perfect, except for a few twigs tangled in her hair and a couple of leaves on the top of her head.

"His job is to fulfill orders, not ask questions," Klaus snorted. "What are you standing there for? Call a taxi. I'm terribly hungry."

"Where?" Egor pointed in surprise to the place where the dead body had just been lying.

"Monsters are magical creatures," Pouoka answered. "Unlike human magicians, these creatures do not have other life forces. This creature would have dissipated in a few days anyway, it's good that we were here. Otherwise... How many people could have suffered?"