So I’M A Spider, So What — Part 2 of 8

Part 2 of 8

The current king—in other words, our father—was also attending.

Aside from that, there would be a who’s who of other important people present, so making a mistake and embarrassing myself was not an option.

Despite being a kid, I was still a member of the royal family.

I was about to play a leading role in the ceremony, so I needed to carry the dignity of the royal family on my shoulders.

That was a heavy load for a former lower-middle-class commoner.

However, when I saw how majestically my sister was carrying herself next to me, I felt a determination to do things properly that bordered on impatience.

“Are you ready?”

I nodded silently in response to Anna’s final check.

“Then please proceed.”

Anna pushed us forward, and Sue and I walked side by side through the door to the ceremony hall.

As soon as we passed through the entrance, the ceremonial space loomed large before my eyes.

A red carpet extended from the door in a straight line toward a pedestal, behind which a man stood waiting.

A huge crowd of people lining the wall watched us in silence.

Everyone here was a high-ranking noble.

Sue and I walked across the carpet without a word.

Our steps were measured and dignified, the way we’d been taught to walk in anticipation of this very day.

I could feel the gazes of the assorted nobles piercing me, but I did my best to ignore them.

Eventually, we reached the front of the pedestal. Sue and I halted and knelt down.

Standing at the ready behind the pedestal was the king, our father, Meiges Derra Analeit.

“The Appraisal Ceremony will now begin.” The king’s majestic voice boomed throughout the ceremony hall.

Although he was my father, I’d only met this person a handful of times. He felt more like a high-ranking relative than a parent.

This only made my nervousness worse.

The king was still speaking, but I couldn’t quite process what he was saying.

“Now, Schlain Zagan Analeit. You may rise.”

“Yes, sir.”

I stood up.

“Let the Appraisal begin.”

I advanced onto the stepping stool in front of the pedestal.

Without the boost, I wouldn’t be tall enough at my current height.

A black stone was fitted in the pedestal.

This was the Appraisal Stone. Smaller than I’d expected. If I were an adult, it would fit in the palm of my hand easily.

Masking my surprise, I placed my hands on the Appraisal Stone.

Just as I’d been taught, I thought: [Appraise].

My status displayed with unexpected ease.

<Human

LV 1 Name

Schlain Zagan Analeit

Status:

HP: 35/35 (green)

MP: 348/348 (blue)

SP: 35/35 (yellow)

: 35/35 (red)

Average Offensive Ability: 20 (details)

Average Defensive Ability: 20 (details)

Average Magical Ability: 314 (details)

Average Resistance Ability: 299 (details)

Average Speed Ability: 20 (details)

Skills:

Skill Points: 100,000

Titles: None

[Magic Perception LV 8]

[Magic Operation LV 8]

[Magic Warfare LV 6]

[Magic Conferment LV 5]

[Magic Attack LV 3]

[MP Recovery Speed LV 7]

[MP Lessened Consumption LV2]

[Swordsmanship LV 3]

[Destruction Enhancement LV 2]

[Mental Warfare LV 2]

[Energy Conferment LV 1]

[Concentration LV 5]

[Hit LV 1]

[Evasion LV 1]

[Vision Enhancement LV 4]

[Auditory Enhancement LV 7]

[Olfactory Enhancement LV 2]

[Taste Enhancement LV 1]

[Tactile Enhancement LV 1]

[Life LV 5]

[Magic Mass LV 8]

[Instantaneous LV 5]

[Persistent LV 5]

[Strength LV 5]

[Solidity LV 5]

[Technique User LV 8]

[Protection LV 7]

[Running LV 5]

[Divine Protection]

[n% I = W]

I could see my status.

At the same time, the results of the status appeared on a screen-like surface at the front wall. The screen was connected to the Appraisal Stone so it could display the results. Apparently, this world had no concept of “personal information.”

For me, the Appraisal results appeared in Japanese, but on the screen, they showed up in the language spoken here. I’d been wondering what would happen if it displayed in Japanese, but I guess the system accounted for that kind of thing.

Voices stirred throughout the room.

The king raised his voice and attempted to calm the crowd, but the tumult continued unabated.

My status must have been unusual to warrant that reaction.

Honestly, I kind of figured something like this would happen.

My magic-related stats were relatively high. Anna had guaranteed that.

By comparison, my physical ability was appropriate for my age.

Well, it was still a lot higher than average, but it didn’t deviate from the standard as much as my magic.

So my stats were pretty unbalanced.

As for the skills, a voice called the Word of God informed me whenever I leveled up a skill or gained a new one, so I already knew about most of them.

But there were two I didn’t recognize.

One was Divine Protection, and the other had a name that looked like corrupted text.

Curious about these, I tried Appraising them.

<n% I = W: Cannot be Appraised>

What’s that?

The Divine Protection thing was crazy. Definitely a skill that could be considered cheating.

However, the phrasing “easier for you to gain the results you desire” must have meant that things won’t necessarily go the way I want every time. It was still an awesome skill, but I shouldn’t depend on it too much.

What I didn’t understand was the other one.

Its name and the results of the Appraisal were equally cryptic.

I had no idea what kind of skill it might be.

The fact that the highest-level Appraisal Stone available still yielded this result was especially mysterious.

If this Stone couldn’t tell me, there was probably no way to find out the details of this ability.

I didn’t get it.

“Isn’t that like the duke’s daughter?”

“Yes, that prodigy…”

“But His Highness is just as much of a prodigy as her…no, even more so!”

As the nobles continued their chatter, I heard repeated references to a “duke’s daughter.”

Was there someone else who had similar stats?

I thought Sue was the only one besides me…

“Quiet down!”

In response to the king’s exceptionally loud shout, the ceremonial hall finally simmered down.

The king handed me a piece of paper.

It was a record of my results, magically printed from the screen connected to the Appraisal Stone.

I accepted the paper reverently. Then I bowed and stepped away.

With this, my Appraisal Ceremony was over.

Now it was Sue’s turn.

Needless to say, another uproar filled the hall when Sue’s Appraisal showed results similar to mine.

However, unlike me, Sue didn’t have Divine Protection or any mysterious corrupted skills.

Aside from the minor uproar, the Appraisal Ceremony ended more or less without incident.

But our unusually high stats wasn’t the only cause of the disruptions.

Listening in on the nobles with my enhanced hearing, I learned that skill points were normally only awarded when a person leveled up, so having a hundred thousand skill points at level 1 like I did was highly abnormal.

Which reminded me: Sue had 0 skill points, too.

I figured this was probably because I was a reincarnation, but what really interested me was that the duke’s daughter was apparently born with skill points as well.

From what I could tell, her Appraisal Ceremony had been just a few days before mine.

And like me, she’d had incredibly high stats for her age and skill points that she shouldn’t have had.

Apparently, the duke’s daughter even had that garbled skill of corrupted text.

A certain suspicion began to well up inside me.

If my hunch was right, then I had to meet the duke’s daughter at any cost.

An opportunity came sooner than expected.

After the Appraisal Ceremony, a small reception was held in a separate venue.

The king brought Sue and me to the center of the hall, where we ended up greeting a line of nobles.

The guests were all accompanied by their children, who were mostly the same age as me or slightly older.

So basically, the purpose of this get-together was to introduce young nobles who were close in age.

And that was where I met the aforementioned duke’s daughter.

“It is a sincere pleasure to meet you. I am the eldest daughter of Duke Anabald, Karnatia Seri Anabald.”

She was a very pretty girl, with fiery red hair and an impressively strong-willed expression.

Her appearance alone was enough to grab my attention, but on top of that, my Magic Perception skill told me she had enormous magical power.

It was right about equal to mine and Sue’s.

Duke Anabald, by the way, was one of the most powerful nobles in the country.

His family had held important positions in the country for generations, and they came from a pedigree with connections to the bloodlines of heroes and the royal family.

People born into the duke’s family would all undergo a tough, thorough education, and they were brought up with the know-how to support the country.

Even so, the girl in front of me possessed a highly abnormal amount of magic.

It even exceeded that of the red-haired man at her side, who I assumed was her father.

“How do you do? I am Schlain Zagan Analeit. Yoroshiku.”

With a certain conviction, I pointedly spoke the last word, meaning “nice to meet you,” in Japanese.

The duke’s daughter’s eyes widened for a moment, then quickly narrowed.

Judging by that reaction, I was positive that my guess had been correct.

“Father. May I speak with this young lady for a moment?”

“Hmm?” The king’s response sounded a little taken aback.

This was only natural, I suppose, since there was still a long queue of nobles with their children standing behind the duke and his daughter, who were the first in line.

But I couldn’t afford to back down here.

“Must I not?”

“Eherm.” The king looked at me, then the duke, and then the line behind him before speaking. “Very well. But do not be long. You are to come back after a short while.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you very much.”

I grabbed the duke’s daughter’s hand like a child and ran off.

Behind me, I could tell that Sue was seething with fury, but I couldn’t worry about that at the moment.

I left the hall and entered a private room that served as a waiting area.

Nobles frequently left parties to discuss business and other private work-related matters, so there were always rooms like this near the assembly halls.

This place was supposed to be soundproof, and a guard was positioned outside the door, so we were safe.

“Whew. We should be okay here.” I was openly speaking in Japanese now.

“I can’t believe it. So the prince is a reincarnation, too…” The duke’s daughter replied in the same language. “Oh man… It’s been so long since I heard someone else speaking Japanese. I’m getting a little emotional, even.” She seemed as strong-willed as ever, but now her tone was rather light.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, does the name Heishin High School ring any bells?” I tossed out the name of the high school I attended back on Earth.

“Yeah, of course. So you really were reincarnated into this world from the same high school as me…”

Just as I’d suspected, this girl was a former classmate of mine, dragged into this world by that mysterious crack in our classroom, just like I was.

“My original name was Shunsuke Yamada. What about yours?”

“Pffft!”

When I offered my name, the girl gave an uncontrollable snort of laughter.

“Ba-ha-ha-ha! Heh, ha-ha-ha! You, you’re, you’re Shun?! Shun, a prince?! Ah-ha-ha… That’s not you at all, dude!”

She was roaring with laughter now.

I got a strange sense of déjà vu.

I didn’t recognize the girl in front of me, but her speech and behavior made her a dead ringer for someone I knew very well.

“Y-you’re not…Kanata?!”

“Yep.”

Now it was my turn to burst out laughing.

My former gamer pal, my bro Kanata, was now an aristocratic young lady.

It was like he’d been reborn as the exact opposite of his previous self.

“Hey, don’t laugh. Do you know how depressed I was when I first got reborn like this?”

“Sorry, sorry. You laughed too, though, didn’t you? Now we’re even.”

“I guess. Damn, though, I’m glad we met like this. I’ve been pretty lonely all this time.”

“Yeah. You and me both. I’m glad I found you.”

Kanata and I punched each other in the arm.

At that moment, tears started to spill from Kanata’s eyes.

“Whoa, wha…? Ah, geez, sorry. I swore I wasn’t…hic…gonna cry…hic…”

Kanata’s sobs grew stronger.

Before I knew it, I was crying, too.

I remembered what it was like when I first realized I had reincarnated.

I definitely couldn’t say that I didn’t miss my old life. If anything, I was full of regrets.

I was still at the height of my youth, and I wanted to spend more time hanging out with my friends. I never even got a girlfriend.

Besides, I felt terrible for not only dying before my parents, but even my grandparents.

When I realized I would never see my family again, my heart sank lower than you could imagine.

I was curious about the state of the school after I died, too.

I remembered the rift in the air and the moment it split open. If I died from that, what happened to everyone else? Kyouya, Kanata, Hasebe who sat next to me… Did they all die along with me?

The thought terrified me.

That morning had been perfectly ordinary, but now I could never see any of them again.

I’d been fighting against that crushing fear ever since I first reincarnated. With no idea what was going on, I suddenly woke up as a baby, so it was only natural that I felt anxious. On top of that, the country of my rebirth wasn’t Japan. In fact, it wasn’t anywhere on Earth. This was a different world entirely.

At first, I didn’t realize.

I couldn’t understand the language, and I rarely got to leave the nursery. So there were a lot of things I didn’t know. At first I thought I was somewhere in Europe.

But the first time I saw magic, I realized that wasn’t the case. This happened when a powerful priest performed a blessing on me. I was enveloped in glittering light, and I felt power flowing into me. That was when I sensed the existence of magic for the first time.

Initially, this was exciting to me.

But then I became anxious again.

Could I actually make my way in a world with magic? I had just been an ordinary guy in my previous life.

Back in Japan, I didn’t really experience any hardships. But in this world, where I was born into an elite family, mediocrity was not an option.

Could I live up to that expectation? I was worried.

And since I was a baby, I couldn’t get my body to move the way I wanted it to, which was scary. Being unable to live without the help of others added to my stress.

What if the people raising me suddenly decided to stop?

I wouldn’t be able to do anything but weaken and die.

On top of that, the people bringing me up were maids, not my real family.

Since they had no blood relation to me, there was no guarantee that they’d continue to care for me.

Plus, since I still remembered my previous life, my real parents in this world seemed like strangers.

So wasn’t it possible that these parents had just as little attachment to me and could potentially discard me at any moment?

My mind was so worn down that I started having those wild delusions.

Meanwhile, I desperately started trying to learn the language.

Not knowing any words was more frightening than I would have ever imagined.

I didn’t understand what anyone was saying. Who knew that would give me such hopelessness?

It made me feel completely alone.

I worried about being reborn in another world. Fretted about not understanding the language. Agonized over whether I’d be able to make it in the future.

What soothed my troubled mind was the presence of my little sister, sleeping peacefully beside me.

This half sister of mine wasn’t concerned about a single thing.

She was totally carefree, as if there were nothing in the world to be anxious about.

Well, I guess that’s natural for a baby.

A weak little creature that leaves its fate in others’ hands and depends on the world for everything…

That’s what a baby is supposed to be like.

The only reason I was so concerned was that I possessed memories of my previous life.

Then I realized something…

Since I had my memories, I should at least be mentally above my sister.

So why was I so full of anxiety when she was right beside me, being happy?

I was her older brother. I shouldn’t act so pathetic in front of her, I realized. An older brother is supposed to be cool.

Maybe that was just pretension.

But after that point, I stopped worrying so much. I hadn’t completely gotten over my fears, but I knew I wanted to at least protect my defenseless little sister.

I gradually learned more words, and slowly but surely I began picking up more information about this world from the bits of conversation I caught.

Wanting to regain the range of motion I was used to as quickly as possible, I whipped my baby body into shape by moving around as much as I could.

Thanks to that, I learned to crawl much sooner than normal.

In this way, my desire to show up my younger sister motivated me.

I wanted to be a big brother she could be proud of.

However, I hadn’t accounted for the possibility that she would turn out to be a ridiculous prodigy who would imitate me and become nearly as strong.

Kanata must have experienced at least as much anxiety as I did.

I mean, it must be jarring to live your whole life as a man and then suddenly be reborn as a woman.

I tried to picture enduring the stress of newly found womanhood on top of all the fears I’d faced.

That must have been harder than I could possibly imagine.

And then I was reunited with my friend, whom I thought I’d never see again.

I couldn’t help being overcome with emotion.

Without thinking, I moved to embrace the weeping Kanata.

At that moment, a thunderous roar came from the door to the private room.

“What was that?!”

Kanata looked flustered.

I panicked for a moment, too, but calmed down once I realized who was standing at the door.

No, actually, I just panicked in a different way.

A second roar blew the door inward.

Standing outside the entrance with a magically fueled fist at the ready was Sue, who’d enhanced her physical strength with magic.

Sue eyed the two of us, then locked on to Kanata.

“Sue, stop!”

If I hadn’t hurriedly thrust myself between them, Sue’s fist would’ve blown Kanata away.

“You can’t have my brother!” Sue muttered, latching on to me instantly.

“Your sister’s scary, dude,” Kanata muttered in Japanese.

That was the day I was reunited with my first classmate.

THE EGG

The egg.

It’s an essential ingredient in cooking, from simple preparations like boiled eggs and fried eggs to more complex dishes like rolled omelets and custard.

They’re excellent on their own, but combined with other ingredients, they open up a world of endless culinary possibility.

Yes, the egg is the king of all foods, so much that every refrigerator has a space designed specifically for storing them.

I used to eat them in cup ramen all the time.

Zzz. Yaaawn… Ahhh, I slept well. Almost too much, enough to make me sluggish.

Being able to sleep safely is a wonderful thing. The lazy life is the best. Thank goodness for my little home.

Since I ate my sibling and that frog earlier, I don’t feel too hungry.

Maybe spiders can store food longer than humans?

As I wake up with an assortment of idle thoughts on my mind, I feel one of my threads vibrating.

I’m not particularly famished, but it’s probably still a good idea to eat whenever I can.

After all, if I miss this opportunity, who knows when I’ll get my next chance.

So, what’ve I got now?

Huh?!

A h-human?!

A man carrying some round object is struggling furiously in my webbing.

He’s wearing the kind of clothes you’d expect on an adventurer in a fantasy world.

Maybe that occupation really exists here.

Wh-what should I do?

Wait, this guy’s all bloody. Is he okay?

Ah, he noticed me. He looks panicked.

Seriously, what am I supposed to do here?

Ah, he took something out.

Wha—?! It’s burning?!

The man throws the item he’d produced to the ground, and it starts spouting a crazy inferno.

Now the man is covered in flames.

What the hell is he doing?!

The fire is spreading to the webbing and burning my net. Did he self-destruct to get rid of my threads or something?

Apparently so. Now he’s rolling on the ground, extinguishing the flames on his body.

But now he’s covered in burns.

He was already bloodied to begin with, and now he’s scorched, too. It doesn’t take an expert to see that he probably isn’t going to make it.

Nevertheless, the man musters the last of his strength to dash away.

Pretty impressive he’s able to run in that state.

Now it’s just me and the round thing the man was carrying.

What’s this?

<Egg>

I use Appraisal and learn it’s an egg.

It’s about the same size as me, so probably three feet across or so.

Well, this has to be a monster egg. What kind of person leaves a thing like that lying around?

Judging by the guy’s condition, maybe the egg’s parents attacked him?

This thing isn’t going to hatch suddenly, is it?

Or worse, its parents aren’t going to come looking for it, are they?

Yikes, I hope not. Scary.

For the time being, I have to start rebuilding my web, since the adventurer-looking dude burned it down.

I can think about the rest later.

A whole day has passed.

My home is quite peaceful.

Apparently, the egg’s parents aren’t going to show up after all.

Maybe the thief gave them the slip before getting here, or maybe they hadn’t bothered chasing him for the loot to begin with.

I don’t know what happened to the egg thief afterward, but from the look of those injuries, I doubt he survived.

Which means it’s okay for me to eat this, right?

That human risked his life to bring back this egg. It must be a very rare item.

Maybe it’s an extremely delicious one, too.

Since my rebirth, all I’ve eaten is gross stuff like my sibling and a frog, so even a raw egg seems like a much more respectable meal.

I have no reason not to eat it.

So I decide to get down to business.

First, I’ll have to break the shell.

I tap it with my front legs. Nothing.

I hit it again with more strength. Nothing.

Getting desperate, I bang on the shell as hard as I can. Still nothing.

Huff…huff…

Why is this egg so tough?!

At this rate, I can’t eat it even if I want to.

But still… Hrmph. If you think I’m just some ordinary spider, you’re making a big mistake!

Kneel before the glorious wisdom of a former human being!

I adhere a strand of thread to the egg. Then I attach the thread to the ceiling and loop it back down to the ground.

I pull on the cord, raising the egg nearly to the ceiling. It’s pretty heavy.

Finally, I let go, and gravity pulls my meal to the ground.

Splat! …Or not?!

Despite falling from close to the ceiling, the egg is completely unharmed. What is up with this insanely tough shell?

Humph. Clearly, I’ll need to take more drastic measures.

Okay. Next, I’ll drop it on a sharp rock.

Once again, I haul the egg up to the ceiling.

Then I position it above a particularly sharp rock and let it fall.

Now that should definitely be enough to splatter it… Or not?!

In fact, the egg actually chipped the rock. What?

Okay, well, I’m not gonna break this thing open.

All right, how about wrapping a bunch of elastic threads around it?

I vaguely remember an experiment where people wrapped hundreds of rubber balloons around a watermelon until it eventually burst.

Maybe that would break an egg, too?

It’s worth a shot.

And so I set about creating rubbery threads and winding them around the egg, over and over.

Doing repetitive tasks like this makes me sleepy, so I decide to use the time to consider something that has been bothering me.

Namely, skills.

Of course, there’s the question of what exactly these skills are, but that tangent won’t yield an answer, so I’m not going to bother.

More important, I want to think about the abilities I currently have and the ones I might be able to gain in the future.

From what I can tell, I’ve acquired five thus far: [Appraisal LV 1], [Acid Resistance LV 2], [Poison Resistance LV 1], [Taboo LV 1], and [Heretic Magic LV 1].

I also got ahold of Appraisal by spending skill points. Those points are another mystery.

However, I decide not to worry about them for the time being.

Frankly, since I have 0 skill points and no idea how to go about procuring more, there isn’t much point in worrying about that at the moment.

Anyway, unlike Appraisal, I obtained Taboo and Heretic Magic by earning a title.

After that, I tried a bunch of other stuff, but I didn’t end up with any new titles.

Without knowing what titles are available or what I need to do to get them, it’ll probably be tough to gain titles deliberately.

For now, I’ll just count myself lucky when I do get one.

I continue winding the rubber thread. I’ve made a lot at this point, but there’s still no visible change in the egg.

At any rate, although I got some skills through titles or skill points, the way I stumbled upon Acid Resistance was totally different.

I think I got that one because I was hit with an attack and took acid damage.

So as long as I can handle the pain of the process, I bet I can acquire more resistance.

For instance, if a fire attack lands on me, will I obtain Fire Resistance?

In terms of self-defense, the more resistances I have, the better.

So from now on, should I always take the first hit from an enemy as long as it won’t kill me?

Hmm… Nah. I don’t want to get hurt, and there’s no guarantee I’ll even obtain any resistance skills.

There’s no need to put myself in unnecessary danger, at the very least. Yeah, it’s not just because I don’t want to deal with pain for any length of time.

When I got hit with the frog’s attack, I not only received Acid Resistance, my Poison Resistance skill also went up.

So if what the Divine Voice (temporary name) said was correct, that means I had the Poison Resistance skill from the beginning.

Well, I’m a spider, and I use venom, so it’s no big surprise that I would be a little more immune to these things.

Even so, though, what kind of system doesn’t tell you what skills you have in the first place?

If the Divine Voice hadn’t mentioned it, I wouldn’t have realized that I had Poison Resistance.

So wait, doesn’t that mean I have other skills I don’t know about yet?

That would probably make sense, huh? So what kind of skills do I have? Poison attacks?

I wish I could check, but I don’t have a way to do that.

Maybe if my Appraisal skill level goes up, I’ll be able to see it?

Appraisal…level? Proficiency?

Hey, wait, maybe I could raise that skill level, then?

Proficiency basically just means how familiar you are with a thing, right?

So if Appraisal ranks up based on proficiency like the Resistance-type skills, won’t it increase if I just use it a whole bunch?

Since I got it with skill points, I assumed I’d only be able to raise its level with more points, but maybe not.

Still wrapping rubbery thread around the egg, I start Appraising everything in sight.

A ton of useless information, like <Wall> and <Floor>, flows into my brain.

Oof, that’s kind of unpleasant. Like getting drunk on too much data.

Worth it! Woooo! It only went up one level, but I feel like I’ve taken a huge step forward! With some anticipation, I try Appraising myself.

Ooh! Now there’s something that looks like a species name, too!

I still didn’t get much information, but compared to level 1, when it only provided <Spider>, this is still a substantial improvement.

At the same time, though, why “small” and “lesser”? That makes me sound inferior…

Okay, now my excitement about increasing Appraisal’s skill level is dying down a bit. I wasn’t expecting much to begin with, but it didn’t occur to me that I might be such a small-fry… But that’s more or less what I was in my previous life anyway, so I guess it isn’t a big deal.

More important, I have to keep Appraising and raising my skill level!

As I wrap the rubber threads around the egg, I do some level grinding on Appraisal.

…It won’t go up.

I keep Appraising the wall over and over, but my skill level doesn’t rise one bit.

By the way, the result of that analysis was <Dungeon Wall>. Not exactly helpful.

That isn’t such a big deal, but why isn’t my level going up?

Hmm.

The most likely explanation is probably that your proficiency only increases the first time you Appraise something. Otherwise, it’d be too easy to level it up, huh?

Just to be sure, I Appraise every nook and cranny of my home. But the skill level doesn’t rise.

Looks like I don’t have enough proficiency.

Which means that if I want to cultivate my Appraisal, I’ll have to leave my house and use it on other things. Thinking back, I did Appraise a whole bunch of monsters when the skill was still level 1.

That might be what got me most of the way to level 2.

Outside, though… Ugh. Now that I have this safe, comfortable house, why would I bother going out?

If I want to live in peace, my best bet is to stay a shut-in.

But if I want to raise my skill level, I need to go outside.

There are pros and cons to both sides, but the danger of going outside is a pretty massive downside for sure.

Plus, although this probably isn’t the case, it’s not impossible the egg’s parents are roaming around out there.

Okay. That settles it.

I’m staying inside.

As I continue working on the egg in my home, one of the threads of my web starts vibrating again. It’s a special occasion: my second catch. Perfect timing! I was just getting a bit hungry.

I skip a little as I head toward my prey.

…It’s kind of surreal for a spider to skip, even for me.

Last time, I let down my guard and took a surprise attack to the face, so this time I approach with caution.

Now, I wonder what kind of prey I’ve caught this time…?

It’s another frog. You again! Why, dammit?! There are tons of other monsters in this dungeon! What are the odds of catching the same kind of monster twice in a row?!

Ha…ha…

Whoops, I got a little carried away there. Really, though…

Splat! Noooooooo!

While I’m preoccupied with a one-man comedy act in my head, the frog aims a spit attack right at me. Never in both of my lives have I been so shocked! I’m such an idiot!

Ah… Okay.

The pain brings me partially to my senses. This time, my resistance doesn’t level up. Must not have enough proficiency yet. Well, whatever.

I wrap the frog in thread so it can’t fight back. Then I bite down on it from above. Chomp!

The first frog didn’t die after one bite, so this one probably has some resistance, too.

Still, if I immobilize it and bite it once, that should weaken it significantly.

I quickly bring the frog bundle into my house, then go back and immediately rebuild the broken web.

Last time, I left the webbing as it was and ate my prey right on the spot. But thinking about it afterward, I realized I left myself totally defenseless in the meantime.

If other monsters or even humans had arrived right at that moment, I would’ve been under attack without a complete web for defense.

So this time, I’ll restrict the frog’s movement first, repair my web, then finish it off and eat it once I’m fully prepared.

When I return to the frog, I see it wriggling around in an attempt at escape, despite being all wrapped up.

Hmm.

I guess one bite didn’t have that much effect.

Chomp! I bite it again.

The first time, I’d beaten the frog by biting it over and over, but that probably wasn’t necessary. All I need to do is sink my teeth into it and keep injecting poison through my fangs.

Oh! I totally leveled up a skill! This is the first I’ve heard of this one.

At the same moment my skill levels up, the struggling frog gives one last spasm and stops moving. It’s so sudden that I’m a little startled.

Oh, but that probably meant that leveling up my skill increased the potency of my poison. Nice!

Hmm? Hmmm? Ah, my body feels strange!! Huh?! What’s going on?! My skin’s peeling off?!

Molting? Am I molting?!

Wh-whaat?! W-wait a second!!

Did I just get a whole bunch of important information at once?!

Say it again! One more time, please!

The Divine Voice (temp.) remains silent, ignoring my wishes.

Oh man. Seriously…?

No, no.

I have to calm down and remember. Did it say I leveled up? It did, didn’t it?

Argh, I was so distracted by the sudden molting that I didn’t catch everything!

No, wait, there’s no way I’d just randomly start molting for no reason, right?

Maybe my body renewed itself because I leveled up?

At any rate, the old skin is still stuck to me, so I peel it off. Wow, a few areas, like on my back, are pretty messed up. That was where the frog’s acid got me. I wasn’t able to see it until now, but it looks like a pretty bad wound.

Hmm?

Speaking of which, the part of my vision that was busted is all back to normal!

Ooh! So if you level up, you make a full physical recovery and everything? Very fancy!

Okay.

So this is definitely a level-up. My body feels kind of light and refreshed, too.

It probably happened because I beat that frog and gained experience points, right? I decide to start eating the frog while I process what happened.

Now, let’s see if I can remember it one at a time.

I think the first thing it said was that my level went up. The molting started right after that, and while I was freaking out, I think the Divine Voice (temp.) spouted off a whole bunch of other stuff.

Let me see… Skills? That’s right—wasn’t there something about skill levels going up?

And it was more than one, right? Did two go up at the same time? Why?

Right, I think there was something else before the bit about skills.

Uh… “Skill proficiency level-up bonus,” maybe? That’s it! It did say that!

In other words, when I leveled up just now, bonus points were added to my skill proficiencies!

So that’s why multiple skill levels went up at once.

The skills affected were Poison Resistance and…Spider Thread, right?

Huh, so thread handling is a skill, too. I didn’t catch what level it is, though.

But if I keep making spider thread, the skill should improve easily enough, right?

Well, that’s handy information.

And at the end, wasn’t there something about skill points?

So I guess you get more of those by leveling up, then.

In summary, when I level up, I completely recover health. I think my stats go up, too. Plus, I get skill points.

I can probably test out how much I earned later.

And the most important part is that I received a skill proficiency bonus.

I don’t know exactly how many points that entails, but since it raised two skills at once, I bet it was a ton.

So leveling up might be a good way to enhance skills effectively.

Levels, huh…

Since skills and titles exist, I kinda figured levels would, too, but still.

I’ve been trying not to think about it too much, but boy, this world sure is gamelike.

I was afraid that if I took that view, I might start acting as if I’m just playing a game, but I guess it’s too late for that. I have to admit, though—I’m already getting a little excited.

I can’t help it if I have the soul of a gamer, all right?

For now, my current goal is to break that egg. It seems impossible at the moment. The shell’s just too tough.

Wrapping the rubber threads around it didn’t do a thing, it seems.

But if I keep raising my level and improving my stats, I should be able to crack it eventually.

Heh-heh-heh. Just you wait, egg!

I’m gonna break you open and eat you if it’s the last thing I do!

LEAVING THE NEST

If I want to break the egg, and if I want to survive, I’m gonna have to become stronger.

I don’t want to get killed by a monster, human, or whatever else.

And since that egg thief showed up at my doorstep, it seems that humans do come this far out from time to time.

There’s no guarantee that the egg’s parents aren’t lurking around somewhere, either.

Now my spider body is decently agile.

I can jump almost seven feet in the air, and I can climb walls, too.

Before I made my house, I encountered other monsters while I was wandering around outside, but I was speedy enough to avoid them without a problem.

Well, doesn’t that mean you’re actually a pretty powerful monster, you ask? That’s what I thought, too.

But clearly, I was wrong.

How can I be strong when I can’t even break an egg?

My best weapons are my thread and poison fangs. I can bind enemies in my web and finish them off with my poison.

This golden combo is my key to victory, so in other words, any situation where it doesn’t work will spell my defeat.

My webbing and fangs are essential to me—no, to all spider monsters.

Once I arrived at this conclusion, I stuck with the pattern of rendering my opponents helpless with my thread before finishing them off.

Using this strategy, I took out my third frog unharmed, and when I finished eating, the Divine Voice (temp.) rang out again.

Hey, I got a new title.

So I can’t get one on purpose by doing all those other things, but then one gets dropped on me when I’m not even trying?

Hey, I can’t help it if my food is foul!

There’s nothing here for me to eat but monsters!

Well, I guess complaining to the Divine Voice (temp.) won’t do me any good.

So the skills I got were Poison Resistance and…Rot Resistance?

What does that mean? Can I eat rotten things now, maybe?

That doesn’t seem particularly useful, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

And I already have the Poison Resistance skill, but judging from what the Divine Voice (temp.) said, it must’ve added a level-1 skill’s worth of proficiency to what I already have.

Well, if my skills get stronger, then so will I, probably.

Although ramping up my resistance isn’t going to help me break that egg.

After a while of playing with thr…ahem, I mean, practicing with my threads very studiously, my skill level rose.

Since I now know that my spider thread is a skill, I‘ve been trying all kinds of things with it to earn more proficiency.

Raising the skill level might improve things like the elasticity of the rubber thread, in which case the egg might just break.

Man, sure took a while to level it up, though.

As a result, the inside of my house is now entirely white.

Compared to when I first made it, my home has changed a lot over the course of a few days.

For one thing, I’ve got more webs.

For a while, I just put one web over each of the three passages of the intersection, but now I have several more set up along the passageways.

My thinking was that a single trap might be easy to break through.

With this many spiderwebs, it’ll take some time for anything to get to the center.

Now my home is even safer than before.

That alone wasn’t enough to raise my skill level, so I decided to decorate the walls next.

I applied my silk all over the wall, coating it in white.

Of course, these weren’t just ordinary decorations.

These wallpaper threads were linked to my webs so that when prey got caught, the fibers would automatically pull away from the wall and wrap around the unlucky victim.

I was extremely proud of this trap, which took a good deal of trial and error to complete.

Around the time I started putting up the wallpaper threads, my skill level rose by one.

After those were all finished, my last project was to string up some invisible strands inside my house.

This thread doesn’t have any stickiness, and it snaps with a single touch. If I leave it alone long enough, the natural flow of air eventually breaks it before it’s absorbed by the wallpaper threads.

I think I was able to make such fine filaments now because my skill level had reached 5.

These are for enemy detection. The ends of the invisible threads are connected to me, so if something touches them, I’ll know what it is.

I developed this detection fiber to counter the inconvenient fact that I can’t see behind me.

Since I don’t have to worry about my back while I’m at home, I decided to put up a few around my house instead.

My hope is to eventually be able to remotely control these when I explore outside my house.

After all this, I was pretty much out of things to do, so I just started pointlessly stockpiling more thread until I finally reached skill level 6.

Thanks to this, I gained the ability to make high-quality, silklike threads, so I produced a few balls of that and left them lying around wherever.

Of course, naturally producing all this webbing ended up making me hungry.

Which was why I wasted no time devouring the next victim of my web.

All the monsters in this area seem to be venomous, so my poison fangs can’t kill them very quickly.

Well, once it’s trapped in my web, I have as long as I like to do it in.

As a result, my Poison Fang skill went up to level 4, and my Poison Resistance skill rose to level 5.

So far, I’ve defeated three Elroe randanels, one Elroe peckatot, one Elroe basilisk, and one finjicote.

In addition, there were two more of the now-familiar frogs.

Is this dungeon a frog-breeding ground?

I’ve defeated quite a few monsters now, but I still have yet to see any other humans.

Elroe randanels are small dinosaur-like monsters. Three of them attacked me at once, which totally freaked me out.

But all three of them got trapped in my net perfectly, so it was no sweat.

The Elroe peckatot is a bizarre monster resembling a cross between a penguin and a pelican with monkey arms.

The finjicote is a freakishly huge, beelike creature, so large that it took up almost the entire ten-foot width of the passage. Because of that, though, my web ensnared it without a hitch.

The biggest pain in the butt was the Elroe basilisk.

It looked just like a giant lizard, but true to its name, it had some kind of petrification attack. I think it had the same kind of petrifying glare you see in games and fantasy stories—it turned one of my front legs into stone. What a terrifying enemy.

I was so scared that I resorted to a strategic withdrawal, aka hiding behind the egg.

Just then, the rubber threads around the egg all turned to stone and shattered.

Maybe that’d work on the egg, too? Tentatively optimistic, I let it keep using its petrification attack, but the egg was unaffected.

In fact, the lizard wore itself out attacking my shield, so I was able to slip in and finish it off without any issue. What the hell is up with the egg, anyway?!

After that encounter, I had to suffer with a petrified leg until I leveled up and molted again.

Since I got the Petrification Resistance skill in the process, it was an overall benefit, but it was still at least as dangerous as my first meeting with a frog.

Oh, right, like I was saying: I leveled up. Three times, to be exact. Now I’m level 5.

As far as I know, I have the following skills: [Poison Fang LV 4] [Spider Thread LV 6] [Appraisal LV 2] [Taboo LV 1] [Heretic Magic LV 1] [Poison Resistance LV 5] [Acid Resistance LV 2] [Rot Resistance LV 1] [Petrification Resistance LV 1].

I’ve gone up three whole levels, but my skills haven’t changed all that much.

Guess the level-up proficiency bonus isn’t as big as I thought.

It doesn’t seem like I gained too many skill points with each level, either.

I got all excited when the Divine Voice (temp.) said I had more skill points, but I can’t figure out how to obtain any new skills with them.

I try imagining all manner of skills that might exist, but I can’t do anything.

When the skill I thought of doesn’t exist, the Divine Voice (temp.) won’t say a damn thing, and when it does…

…is all it’ll say.

The rules for skills are more complicated than I first assumed.

Another day lazily spent. Ah, I love my little home…

What? What egg?

I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have zero recollection of any big white bundle of rubber threads.

My meals deliver themselves to me without any effort on my part, and the house is totally secure, so I can snooze to my heart’s content despite being in the middle of a dangerous dungeon. I’ve carpeted the hard floor with plenty of soft silk, so it’s nice and comfortable, too.

I’m taking it easy as I go about my daily thread-making routine. Ah, this is the life.

Thinking about it now, my days were pretty busy back in my former life.

I didn’t pay any attention to it back then, but in retrospect, how did I ever live on four hours of sleep a day?

Before, my life consisted of waking up early to go to school, then coming home and playing video games until I succumbed to the drowsiness.

Part 2 of 8

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