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Story Synopsis

The story opens with Usagi traveling on a crowded road. He asks a man eating a meal under a tree just off the roadway where an apparently little-used path leads. The path leads in the direction Usagi wants to go, but the man warns it is ?Better to stick to the main road, samurai.? However, Usagi is in a hurry to return to Sanshobo?s temple, so he takes the path.

Some time later, Usagi is alone on the path, somewhere within a forest, and spiders are seen crawling all over the trees and onto the path. Usagi is oblivious to them until he feels them scurrying atop his hat. Usagi is then shocked at the vast number of spiders. He follows a tokage?s terrified ?Yeek! Yeek!? and finds it trapped within a large mass of spider webs. After helping the tokage to escape, he spots someone?s corpse hanging in sheets of webbing spread across a tree. Usagi decides it is time to hurry on.

A while later, Usagi emerges from the forest and enters a small town, which is crawling with spiders. Usagi makes his way to an inn, where Usagi comments to those inside ?You sure have a lot spiders around your town.? The serving girl relates they started showing up about a week past and are ?everywhere,? but they simply regard them as an annoyance. However, after Usagi tells the girl of the dead body in the spider webs near the town, panic ensues and nearly all of the inn?s patrons depart hurriedly to barricade their homes against the spiders.

At this point, a mysterious ronin, Sasuke, introduces himself to Usagi and invites him to sit with him for a drink. Usagi and Sasuke exchange information on their routes into the village and how both are infested with the spiders. Sasuke comments, ?They have us trapped here,? but Usagi does not think the spiders capable of such an intelligent act. Sasuke takes his leave, saying he will soon see Usagi again since they cannot go very far.

That night, while sleeping, Usagi is bitten on the forehead by a spider. He then hears the sound of a large crash and screaming coming from below his room in the inn. He rushes down to find a large section of the inn wall broken open, and the innkeeper exclaims his daughter is missing and implores for Usagi to help. The innkeeper believes brigands have taken his daughter, and Usagi tells him to round up some volunteers to help track down the brigands.

As Usagi inspects the large hole in the wall, Sasuke arrives and states spiders are the culprits. At first Usagi thinks he is being ridiculous, but slowly he seems to be convinced, though the villagers who come to help are not and think they are being made fools of as they follow the trail of huge ?spider tracks? out of the village. That changes when the group is attacked by a huge spider goblin. The spider goblin is defeated, but the villagers run screaming back to town.

A short while later, Sasuke and a very nervous Usagi reach the entrance to a cave that emits ?the stench of Evil.? Inside the cave, Sasuke reveals himself to be some sort of sorcerer as he lights their way with a magical ball of light. Usagi is even more shaken by this knowledge, but continues to follow Sasuke to help save the abducted girl.

Finally the girl is found trapped within large sheets of spider webs. However, before she can be rescued from them, the Kumo-Onna (spider woman) and her horde of giant spiders attack. It seems the Kumo-Onna and Sasuke are familiar with each other. Sasuke summons a giant frog, freaking out Usagi even further, and then the battle is on.

During the battle, while coming to Sasuke?s aid, Usagi is hit by venom spit by Kumo-Onna, and he collapses, feeling his body ?wasting away.? In the end, however, Kumo-Onna is defeated as Sasuke?s giant frog devours her.

The scene switches back to the inn, where Usagi awakens to find three days have passed. In turns out Sasuke brought both the innkeeper?s daughter (the serving girl) and Usagi back to town on the back of the giant frog, and Sasuke gave Usagi herbs that restored his health. Sasuke left the day before Usagi awakened to take care of ?some trouble up north? and the spiders are also all gone. With a hard look in his eyes, Usagi hopes to never meet up with Sasuke again.