So I’M A Spider, So What — Part 4 of 8

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Part 4 of 8

Have I finally passed out of this narrow maze zone?

If so, what kind of place is next? Nothing like the spider hell I first came from, I hope.

I peek over the edge of the cliff cautiously.

And so on and so forth.

Geh! My head!

The information from my Appraisal floods my brain, making it ache as if someone smashed a hammer into it.

Whew, felt like I was going to faint for a moment. That was close.

I guess if you Appraise too much at once, the excessive information literally hurts.

It makes sense that that could knock you out.

……Wait. Enough information that I almost lost consciousness?

Nervously, I peer down over the cliff again.

Really, it’s only about three feet high.

Right below, there’s a wide, spacious area.

But despite its size, the area doesn’t actually feel particularly roomy.

That’s because it’s teeming with centipedes.

Wha—?! What the hell is this?! Centipedes, centipedes, centipedes, as far as the eye can see!

Oof, that’s disgusting. I feel like I’m gonna be sick.

Huh?

What are you all looking at, Mr. Centipedes? Me? C’mon, what would you be interested in me for?

……Okay, I’d better book it. Fly like the wind! I turn around and sprint back the way I came.

Patter-patter-patter-patter-patter!!!

Eeeeek! They’re chasing meee?!

I’m sorry I got carried away! Please, let’s just call it even!

My yellow stamina gauge is empty. Ugh, it hurts. But I’ll die if I stop now!

I have to run for my life if I want to survive!

With the yellow bar gone, the red one begins to slowly decrease.

In the end, I run until about half of the red gauge is depleted, when I’ve finally managed to lose the centipede army.

Man, I thought I was seriously gonna die back there.

THE SECOND CLASSMATE

I was spending some time alone.

Sue had gone to her mother’s place.

Since Sue and I were half siblings, naturally I had no relation to Sue’s mother. In fact, since she was the king’s wife and I was born to one of his concubines, it made sense that Sue’s mother wouldn’t be particularly fond of me. So when my sister met with her, I made sure to keep my distance.

I was being sensitive, of course, but I also enjoyed having some rare alone time.

Whenever I left my room, Anna or Klevea, the other maid, would usually escort me, but neither was around today.

I didn’t give them the slip or anything. I just told them up front that I wanted to be alone.

Anna was a half elf, a master of magic.

Klevea was a former knight, a hardened warrior so muscular that she could be mistaken for a man at first glance.

I couldn’t shake them off even if I tried.

While I technically had more magic power than Anna already, according to her, I was still no match for her without the ability to use it.

Magic could only be activated by someone with Magic Perception, Magic Operation, and a magic skill.

I didn’t have a magic skill yet, so I couldn’t cast anything.

To learn a magic skill, you had to either pay the requisite skill points or earn proficiency by using a tool with magical powers, like an Appraisal Stone.

I had skill points, but Anna informed me that there were other restrictions on the acquisition of magic skills.

Apparently, this was because it would be dangerous for someone too young to acquire them.

My physical stats might’ve been high for my age, but they were still no match for those of an adult warrior.

In other words, I was basically helpless. So, could a weakling like me roam freely, even just inside the castle?

The answer was no.

No doubt somebody was guarding me in the shadows, and I simply hadn’t noticed.

I walked through the castle with Fei on my shoulder. My destination was the sporting grounds inside the castle. I was weak for now, but if I kept training, I’d eventually get stronger. The skills and stats that existed in this world were proof of that.

If I trained, the numbers for whatever skill or stat I was working on would go up accordingly.

Like Katia had said when we were skimming through the skill encyclopedia, if I powered up my basic stat skills, their levels would rise.

The most efficient way to increase basic physical status skills was simple exercise.

So I practiced running and weight training on the grounds. By my side, Fei exercised in a similar way. Whether she was just imitating me or was actually training herself was a mystery to me.

Fei was very clever, though, so she probably was trying to train with all her might.

“Whew.”

Once I’d worked out every part of my body, I took a break.

I drank some of the water that I’d prepared earlier.

Fei didn’t drink any, though. I didn’t really understand the physiology of monsters, but I had never once seen Fei drink anything.

As I took a breather, I hummed absentmindedly.

It was a song from Japan, not this world. I used to sing it at karaoke with Kanata and Kyouya…

The thought made me nostalgic.

“I know that song.”

Maybe that was why the sudden comment in Japanese made me homesick. Even when Katia and I hung out, we didn’t speak Japanese very often.

Surprised, I looked around, but I couldn’t find the source of the Japanese voice.

“Down here.”

The voice spoke again, and I felt a tug on my arm at the same time.

Looking down, I saw Fei play-biting my arm and pulling on it lightly.

“So, Fei, you’re…Shinohara?”

“That’s right.”

Once I’d calmed down a bit, I listened to Fei, aka Shinohara, tell her story.

To be precise, she wasn’t actually speaking but using a skill that allowed her to communicate telepathically. Apparently she’d noticed it when we were looking at the skill encyclopedia, and she’d acquired it using her SP.

“Ah, but you can just keep calling me Fei, of course.”

“Right…sure.”

I couldn’t help feeling somewhat awkward.

I mean, this creature that I’d been treating as a pet this whole time was actually my former classmate.

Since I was a kid again, my sexual maturity and such had been reset to zero, so I didn’t see it in a weird way, but it was still embarrassing.

“Aww, I can’t believe you turned out to be a prince, though, Shun. I have to admit, I’m a little disappointed.”

“Uh, excuse me?!”

What a terrible thing to say right to my face.

“I mean, I was reincarnated as a baby dragon, not to mention I wound up as a prince’s pet. Obviously the logical course from here would be to eventually turn into a human and become a princess, right?”

“No, not really.”

“Oh, come on. A girl can dream.”

That’s dreaming a bit too much, if you ask me.

“I mean, how am I supposed to go on without one? You can’t imagine what it’s like to be reborn as something other than a human.”

I hadn’t realized it until she said that.

That’s right. When I was reincarnated as a baby, even a human one, I still panicked.

What must she have felt all this time, being reborn as something else entirely?

Shinohara was right. I couldn’t even begin to grasp it.

“Yeah… You’re right, I’m sorry. That must’ve been hard for you.”

“Yes, I suppose it was. I was able to hear outside sounds while I was in that egg, you know. So I latched on to that with all I had and tried to learn the language.”

“Oh, yeah, I did that, too, when I was a baby. Wait, does that mean when you were cozying up to me whenever I was reading, it was because you were trying to study?”

“Yes, that’s right! Ahh, I was disappointed at first, but it’s a relief to have a friend here.”

A friend, huh?

“Oh yeah, I guess I can tell you, then. Katia’s actually a reincarnation, too.”

“What? Seriously?”

“Yeah. It’s Kanata Ooshima.”

“Are you kidding? But Ooshima was a guy.”

“I know, right? Her gender changed when she got reincarnated.”

“For real? That’s hilarious!”

“I don’t think it’s a laughing matter for Kanata.”

“Ah, I suppose not. Okay, I won’t laugh in front of…her, then.”

Those words surprised me a little.

To be honest, I didn’t have a very flattering impression of Shinohara. In her previous life, she was practically a bully. She constantly picked on another classmate named Wakaba.

The root of the problem was that Shinohara liked an upperclassman who had a crush on Wakaba. Though Wakaba herself had no idea. But apparently, when Shinohara confessed her feelings to him, he rejected her and stated who he liked instead.

Wakaba was the prettiest girl in class…no, in the whole school.

As a result, she became the target of a lot of jealousy.

And Shinohara was the ringleader.

She would harass her almost every day—deliberately saying rude things about her while she was in earshot and hiding her personal belongings, among other things.

Wakaba never gave any sign that she was bothered by it, so it never came to a head, but it was still basically bullying.

“Surprised?”

My thoughts must’ve showed on my face.

“Kinda, yeah.”

I answered honestly. I thought it was probably better that way.

“Well, I had a lot of time to think while I was stuck in the egg. It didn’t take long to realize that I wasn’t human anymore, you see. I thought maybe I was being punished.”

Fei’s telepathic words berated herself.

“But like it or not, I’m a pet now, you know? So once I was born, I figured I might as well try to serve my owner as best as I could. It’s not like I was intentionally trying to atone for my sins, since that seemed like the most likely chance for my survival. But it’s a fitting penalty that my ‘master’ would turn out to be a former classmate.”

“Sorry you got stuck with me as a penalty, then.”

“Ah-ha-ha! Did that bother you? I was only joking.”

“Didn’t sound like a joke to me.”

“Now, now. Let’s just try to stay friendly from now on, right, Master?”

Her voice was dripping with so much sugary sarcasm that I could only sigh.

And so, I had been reunited with my second fellow reincarnation.

Yes, the second one.

When I first met Katia, I began to have a slight suspicion.

But now that I’d met another one, that suspicion turned into conviction.

I believed the rest of the members of my old class might have reincarnated here, too.

I’M EVOLVING!

Man… Centipedes are scary. Seriously, what the hell? I never wanna see that many insects again in my life.

Wow. I’m exhausted.

My legs are trembling. Probably because I ran for so long after depleting the yellow stamina gauge—my immediately available energy.

It’s definitely time for a rest.

I look back one more time to check whether the centipede army is following me. Sweet, no sign of them.

I lay out some webbing to make a simple home.

The moment I finish the web to ensure my relative safety, all the strength drains from my body, and I collapse.

Wow, I might’ve gotten a little traumatized.

Those centipedes may be weak individually, but that enormous horde was a major threat.

If that many of them came at me at once, there’d be nothing I could do.

Plus, those guys can inflict paralysis. If I got bitten even once, I’d probably be totally immobilized prey.

After that, all I’d be able to do is wait for them to gobble me up.

The thought alone makes me shudder.

I should’ve thought more carefully about why there were so many centipedes in that area.

Or maybe what I should’ve noticed was the lack of other monsters around there.

I mean, on their own, the centipedes are crazy weak.

In retrospect, it was odd that there weren’t any other predators around when there was so much prey to be had. I’d considered that maybe other monsters didn’t want to eat them because of their paralyzing venom, but in a dungeon chock-full of poisonous monsters, that seemed like a flimsy reason.

More likely, the other beasts either avoided the area, knowing a swarm of centipedes lived there, or wandered in accidentally and got eaten.

Considering that even my speed was barely enough to let me escape, it may simply be impossible for slower creatures. They’d try to run but get overtaken in no time, and once they were bitten and paralyzed, tons of centipedes would swarm around them and…

Scaaaaary.

I guess even lesser monsters have ways of compensating for their vulnerabilities.

In terms of pure fighting ability, I’m on the weaker side, too, but if I make a web, I can entrap and defeat monsters stronger than myself.

So just because something seems weak doesn’t mean you can let your guard down.

Let’s just say this little encounter drummed that lesson into me very thoroughly.

I was able to stay alive, anyway, and I did make a snack of more than a few centipedes before that incident.

I earned some levels and stuff, too.

Although, despite all the level-up molting I’ve been doing, I don’t feel like I’m getting any bigger.

Molting normally helps an animal grow larger, doesn’t it?

I mean, technically I am growing in a sense by leveling up, but the size of my body hasn’t changed. After seeing my gigantic mother when I first hatched, I got the idea that I could eventually be that big, too…

But so far, there aren’t any signs of that happening.

Since this world has levels and all, maybe evolution exists, too, or something?

Oh, right, speaking of levels…

After I Appraised that whole army of centipedes, my Appraisal skill level went up.

Is this what they call a lucky break?

For the time being, I take a fresh look at my continuous self-Appraisal results. I didn’t really have time for that during my pursuit by the centipede army, obviously.

What do you mean, “Status: Weak”?! That’s way too vague!

Plus, calling me weak is… Well, I suppose I realized that already. But couldn’t you sugarcoat it at least a little?

The fact that my Appraisal said I’m weak is just more proof that I’m small-fry by this world’s standards.

Sigh… That sucks.

No, wait. Didn’t I just decide that you can’t dismiss something just because it’s not very strong?

I have my thread, after all.

Even if my body is frail, as long as I have my spider thread, I’ll never be defeated, probably. Maybe.

If you look at it that way, I’m not really weak at all, right?

I mean, I’m biased, but I would say I’m actually kinda strong…

I can trap monsters with my thread, gain the upper hand with ambushes, and bite with my poison fangs once my target is immobile.

Yeah. I have to admit, I play dirty. But I don’t have much of a choice, since I’m at such a disadvantage in a fair fight. So basically, I take any help I can get.

I just have to make sure I’m the one setting the pace, playing to my strengths.

Man, if things went that way all the time, I’d never have any problems.

Ugh, so tired. It’s time for sleep.

I’m awake.

I don’t even feel fully rested yet. But my eyes suddenly pop open.

What’s this feeling? I don’t know why, but my intuition is waving huge red flags.

Quickly, I get up and add more threads to my web. Then I notice the source of my premonition.

It’s a massive snake.

It looks thick enough to swallow a human whole without a hitch, and its body is at least thirty feet long.

Basically, it seems strong. Not to mention, level 9.

Up until now, the strongest monster I’ve seen is a level 4. So this is a big jump.

Species-wise, the advantage is clear. That, combined with its superior level, means that if we fight fair and square, I don’t stand a chance.

I break out in a cold sweat. I’m like a frog caught by a snake. Except I’m a spider.

My body is stiffening in fear, but I force it to move somehow. Slowly, I retreat in an attempt to put some distance between us.

But the snake isn’t having any of that.

Heedless of the web between us, its head thrusts forward!

Naturally, it winds up caught in the web. But then, the snake thrashes around and breaks through!

I turn around and dart away, fast as a frightened rabbit. I make my escape through the emergency exit of my hastily built web right as the snake bursts through the first barrier and attacks where I just was.

My instincts warn me to run away. But I don’t.

I see it. The snake is tangled up in the webs.

It could rip up the threads, but it couldn’t manage to free itself completely.

The intact web and the busted one are now tangling together around its body.

This could work! This is the advantage I need.

I latch on to the body of the snake as it writhes around.

The moment I bite down on it, I start producing more threads from my butt. Somehow I break through its hard scales and drive my poison fangs into its body! The snake thrashes more violently as the pain of the venom sets in.

As I entrap it with more thread, it struggles even harder.

The serpent slams my body against the walls and floor time and time again, but I hang on with all of my might and determination!

My yellow stamina gauge is running low. Every time I get hit, my green HP bar goes down, too.

And whenever I make thread, the red general-stamina bar decreases as well.

Once the red gauge runs out, I probably won’t be able to produce any more thread.

If that happens, it’s only a matter of time before the snake escapes its bonds.

I have to beat this monster before that happens. I pour all my energy into biting down and pumping out thread.

The snake’s resistance starts to weaken, slowly but surely.

When my yellow stamina bar is long gone and the red bar is down to only 10 percent, the snake finally lies still.

That’s what happens when you underestimate a weakling!

Wow, that was a lot of stuff.

I guess gaining a ton of experience points when you beat an enemy that’s out of your league holds true in any world.

I even rose two levels.

The snake sure was a strong opponent. If I fought it head-on, I wouldn’t have stood a chance.

It had a strong body and had a strong defense with its protective scaly covering. Judging by the way it burst through my web, its speed was probably high, too. It might’ve even been faster than me.

Plus, snakes equal venom. No doubt that guy was poisonous, too.

Frankly, even when it was caught in my net, the odds of me winning were probably about fifty-fifty.

All my wounds healed when I leveled up and molted, but before that, my HP was dangerously low. I almost ran out of stamina, too. That was close.

But all that risk makes for great rewards.

When I was overhunting the centipedes, I figured I was getting close to level 8, but I never expected to reach level 9 in one fell swoop.

I’m really pleased about leveling up, but my skill levels have risen a lot, too.

It definitely doesn’t hurt to have more Pain Resistance, and Poison Fang is one of my trump cards along with Spider Thread.

When my Poison Fang skill powers up, that means my attack power increases by the same amount.

Or, to put it another way, Poison Fang is still my only method of attacking.

That could come back to bite me if I run into an opponent with high Poison Resistance. No pun intended.

But what caught my eye the most in this round of leveling up was the Night Vision skill.

Yeah. Come to think of it, it did make sense that I would have that skill.

That must be why this dungeon only seems a bit dim to me despite the total lack of light sources.

Now my skill level for that has gone up, and the scenery around me has become totally visible.

So 10 must be the highest level available. There’s no other explanation for this clarity.

Unless 10 just happens to be the max level for the Night Vision skill specifically and not other skills, of course.

Plus, I got a Vision Expansion skill, I think as a bonus for getting Night Vision to level 10. That’s great and all, but to be honest, I have no idea what it actually does.

Judging by the name, you’d think my field of vision would be much wider now, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Well, this isn’t the first time I’ve gotten a skill whose effects I couldn’t understand from the name alone.

It’d be nice if I could use Appraisal on skills to avoid issues like this, but I can’t.

One of the conditions of Appraisal seems to be that I can only get info on visible things.

So all the information I have about skills at the moment is whatever the Divine Voice (temp.) is willing to tell me.

Since I can’t see skills in any form, I can’t Appraise them, either. Since the results of my Appraisals are spelled out in my head, this information counts as being “visible,” most likely.

But if I raise my skill level further, maybe skills will appear in my status Appraisal checks, and then I might be able to check them out.

Anyway, there’s nothing else I can do about it until then, so I’ll have to leave the mystery skills alone for the time being.

Now then, since I’ve finally brought down some big game, I figure I should get to eating it.

First, I rebuild my simple home so other monsters won’t attack me while I eat.

Considering how huge the serpent is, I probably won’t be able to eat it all in one go, so I decide to settle down in this area until I finish devouring the whole thing.

Thus, I make these webs a little more carefully than my usual temporary nests.

Today seems to be my lucky day.

My Spider Thread skill, which hasn’t improved in a long time, finally leveled up.

Maybe using it so much during my battle against the snake paid off.

Anyway, now my two main skills, Poison Fang and Spider Thread, have ranked up at the same time.

To be honest, this will probably contribute to my combat capability way more than the base stat increases that come with leveling up.

I’m in a great mood and ready to chow down.

Oh, but before that, I’ll have to get rid of the snake’s scales. They’re way too damn hard for me to eat.

Whew, descaling complete! Wow, that was exhausting. It was a lot more work than I thought it would be.

Since the scales were so hard and firmly attached, it took me a while.

The red stamina gauge, which was restored when I leveled up, dropped by a whole quarter again.

Goes to show what hard work that was.

But now I can eat without reservations! Without further ado, I dig in.

Ew, gross!

It’s crazy bitter. That probably means poison, huh?

Considering how bitter this is, the guy must’ve had some super-potent venom. It probably would’ve been really bad if it bit me, then.

Nice. It tastes awful, but skill-wise, this is a great meal.

It’s been several days since I defeated the snake.

At least, I think so. There’s no real way of knowing how much time passes inside the dungeon.

At any rate, for a while my life was eating and sleeping.

I still haven’t finished eating the snake, and new prey keeps getting caught in my webs, so I can’t move even if I want to. I only planned on taking a short break, but things are getting dire.

At this rate, I’m going to relapse into my life as a shut-in!

I glance over at the mountain of prey I’ve caught over the past few days.

Yeah, a mountain. Mountain… In Japanese, that’s yama… Yamada. Come to think of it, wasn’t there someone named Yamada among my old classmates?

Well, that doesn’t matter now.

Anyway, my prey is piling up into a mountain.

This is the result of systematically disposing of all the prey getting caught in my web.

Back in my first home, I ate my prey as soon as I got it, but I can’t start in on these until I finish eating the snake, which is why I ended up with this enormous pile.

There haven’t been any tough guys that could break through my thread like the snake, so I was able to dispose of them easily.

One of them was a strong-looking level 6, but now it’s just part of the prey pile.

Well, a high level doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be strong.

I’m level 9 now. Level-wise, the same as the serpent. However, the snake had an overwhelming advantage in terms of straight-up battle abilities.

In fact, without my thread, I probably couldn’t even beat a low-level monster.

I’m starting to think that the race of a creature is at least as important as its level. Even at the same level, if one species is superior, then there’s essentially no chance of an upset.

To give an extreme example, even if that giant spider, which is probably the strongest monster I’ve seen, was level 1, I still wouldn’t be able to beat it.

Regardless of our levels, with an opponent that big, no amount of strategizing would stop me from getting crushed in an instant.

So besides the difference in level, there was also a big difference in combat ability between that serpent and me.

That said, three-quarters of the snake’s body has already disappeared into my stomach. Should I look at it as being three-quarters done with the snake or still having another quarter to go? I still have the mounting pile of monster corpses to tackle after this, so it may be better to go with the latter.

With a stockpile this extensive, they may start to rot before I can eat them.

But I do have that Rot Resistance skill, so eating rotting things probably wouldn’t bother me too much.

In fact, it may be better to make myself eat a little to raise my skill level.

Taste?

Considering all the gross poisonous stuff I’ve been eating this whole time, I’m pretty sure I can handle a little spoiled food at this point.

Okay.

Just as I thought, I can’t leave the area until I’ve finished digesting this giant pile of food. If I can just finish the snake off somehow, the other monsters aren’t terribly big, so I’m sure I could manage.

Besides, if I don’t push myself to finish all this, I’m really going to turn back into a shut-in.

I originally intended for this to be improvised housing, but I’ve spent so much time here, it’s getting to be just as big as my previous home.

As I mull over everything, I feel a vibration through my thread. Something is trapped in my web again.

Oh man. Now I’ll have even more food.

I never imagined that I’d wind up in a situation where I have too much to eat.

At any rate, I head over to my catch.

It seems to be thrashing about pretty violently. Maybe I caught some big game?

In that case, my staycation is going to be extended again.

I hope it’s something small. This is a rather ridiculous problem to have.

So I actually caught three monsters. Ah, these guys showed up in a trio at my old home, too.

Does this monster species only travel in threes?

In any case, this may be even worse than catching a big monster. Mostly in terms of meat quantity, that is.

For now, I add more threads to further impede their movements before carrying them away, web and all.

This is a new technique I’ve come up with.

It’s way more convenient than cutting out a piece of the web every time.

Then I build a new web and head back to the center of my home with the monsters in tow.

Oof, all three of them together are heavy. I should’ve taken them one at a time, even though that’s more of a pain.

Heave-ho! Man, this is annoying.

My body hurts a little bit now. In fact, my HP has even gone down.

Dammit! Good thing I have these guys to take out my anger on. That seems a little irrational, but I don’t really care.

And so: Chomp! Chomp! Chomp!

…What was that?

As I level up, I receive some really mind-boggling information.

Evolve, it said? Does that mean what I think it means? Like in a certain game series where you raise pocket-size monsters?

<There are multiple options for evolution. Please choose from the following.

• Lesser taratect

• Small taratect

Wh-whoa. Okay, give me a minute here. Wait just a moment.

Let me think about this. This can be a huge turning point in a person’s life. Although I’m a spider, not a person.

At any rate, I can’t make this choice lightly.

Evolution, huh? Well, that’s cool. Since this is such a gamelike world, it isn’t that surprising to encounter something like this, I suppose. If I start making cracks about that now, I’ll never stop.

So if I’m evolving, doesn’t that mean I’ll power up, too? If the choice to evolve is available to me, there’s no sense in not jumping on the chance.

So. Lesser taratect or small taratect.

Based on the names alone, there doesn’t appear to be that big of a difference. So which is better: “lesser” or “small”?

Oh, if only Appraisal could be used on the Divine Voice (temp.)! Then I could understand the differences easily.

Hmm. Well, maybe I could take a guess?

My guess is that a lesser taratect would be an adult.

It would take small out of my name, after all.

So the flip side to that is that small taratect removes the lesser part. Would I become a superior species?

But since small is still attached, I’d probably still be an immature specimen.

That must be the difference, I think.

In that case, it’s easy to pick one. Small taratect should be the way to go, right?

I don’t want to evolve and stay as an inferior species, after all. Besides, doesn’t small taratect imply that there are more evolutionary steps beyond that? Like losing the small and simply becoming a taratect, for instance.

I don’t know how much I would change by evolving, but at the very least, I’m confident it would make me stronger. In which case I should probably choose the one with more potential for further growth.

A lesser taratect might be able to evolve, too, but I don’t want to choose it on the basis of that uncertain hope.

Besides, I don’t know how big my body will get if I choose to become a lesser taratect, which is scary.

If I evolve into an adult, that’ll probably mean getting a lot bigger.

I don’t think I’ll suddenly have a huge growth spurt as soon as I choose my next form, but I can’t say for sure.

This is a fantasy world, after all, so I can’t rule out the chance of something like: “I’m evolving! BOOM! Now I’m gigantic!”

And if that is a possibility, I don’t want to risk it.

I doubt I would suddenly swell up to the size of that giant spider, but if I get too big to fit in the passage I’m currently in, that would undoubtedly be a problem.

I did see that huge finjicote monster before, but it nearly filled up the ten-foot-wide passageway completely.

It seemed a little difficult to move around like that.

I’m guessing that monster normally lives in a bigger space, and that particular individual happened to go astray into a narrow passage.

So being too big to move around freely is a real possibility here. In which case, it would be best to stick with my current size. That’s another reason to pick small taratect.

Okay. That settles it, then. I’m going to evolve into a small taratect!

Oh, okay. My evolution started pretty quickly.

The Divine Voice (temp.) is always very abrupt, but I wish it would give me a little more time to emotionally prepare for these things.

I mean, this is my big e-vo-lu…tion…

Wha—?! Huh? What?!

Did I fall asleep?

No, it was more like my consciousness suddenly slipped away for a moment or was interrupted for a second or something?

That had to be the effect of evolution, right?

Excuse me, Divine Voice (temp.), if I’m going to pass out when I evolve, a little warning would be nice!

Huh? Am I finished transforming, then?

As far as I can tell, I don’t look very different…

Oh, my self-Appraisal stopped.

Okay, time to examine myself to see what’s what.

Oh! O-oh? Wh-whaat?

My species name changed, so the evolution seems to have been successful.

But level 1? So your level resets when you evolve? Uh, my stats didn’t go down or anything, did they? My status hasn’t changed from “weak,” so I can’t tell. Wait, still weak? Aw, man…

The most worrisome thing is that my red stamina bar looks nearly empty now.

That’s probably why I feel so sluggish and hungry. I must’ve used up a ton of energy mutating, right? Good thing I have such a huge stockpile of food.

In the end, my evolution was successful, but it turned out to be risky business.

I passed out and nearly ran out of energy, after all.

If I get a chance to do this again, I’ll have to make some preparations.

Since I lost most of my stamina thanks to my evolution, I turn my attention to eating.

First, what’s left of the snake.

The large creature took so much work to eat before, but now it goes into my belly with ease.

As I finish off the snake, my Poison Resistance skill levels up.

That makes two levels I’ve obtained for that skill thanks to this snake. Yum, yum.

Before I evolved, that much food would’ve left me full and bloated, but now it has so little effect that I wonder if it vanished into a hole somewhere. It’s like everything I ate just now disappeared.

In exchange, though, my red stamina gauge has recovered steadily.

So even after finishing the snake, my stomach isn’t bloated. In fact, I’m still pretty hungry. My red stamina bar is far from full, too.

Fortunately, I have a whole mountain of monster meat in my current abode.

Before my evolution, I’d been seriously worried about how I was going to eat it all.

Surely this much food would be enough to satisfy even the extra dimension my stomach apparently has now.

So I start to dig in.

I eat. And eat. And eat.

I scarf it down like there’s no tomorrow.

In my previous life, I generally didn’t have much of an appetite, but I guess it wouldn’t be so bad to be a glutton in this world.

I feel like I could take on a competitive eater now! Seriously, though, what’s going on with my stomach?

I’ve obviously eaten more than my entire body mass at this point, yet I can still fit more?

For real, though. My stomach isn’t actually connected to a separate dimension now, is it?

I know thinking about it won’t solve anything, but you can’t help worrying when your own body is involved.

I won’t figure out what’s going on no matter how much time I spend fretting about it, and it’s really starting to bug me…

Argh! Don’t think about it! Don’t think about anything, just keep eating!

I eat. And eat. And eat.

And ea… Oops, there’s nothing left.

Huh? Did I seriously eat all that food I hoarded?

…I did, didn’t I? I mean, it’s all gone.

For real?

My belly is still only 80 percent full. That’s what my red stamina gauge says, anyway. So that still isn’t enough to fill me up completely?

Evolution is scary. Mostly in the sense of energy consumption.

If my next one also occurs at level 10, I’ll probably have to start preparing once I hit level 9.

I’m lucky that I happened to evolve under the perfect conditions this time, but normally, it probably won’t go this well if I don’t prepare.

Man, for real, though—I’m so glad I could beat that snake.

If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have made a new home and saved up all this food.

Thanks, snake!

Well, anyway, I’ve recovered for the most part, but my stomach still isn’t full. And since I’ve munched through my entire store of food, there’s no reason to stay here any longer.

Time to escape from being a homebody!

And so I set off once again to continue my aimless journey.

Thank you, second home.

You were only supposed to be a temporary rest stop, but I ended up staying a lot longer than I planned.

Farewell!

I set off in high spirits.

Now, my first order of business is finding more prey to fill me up. After that, well, I’ll probably just roam around randomly as usual, but I do want to try to find the exit of the dungeon if possible.

If I do get a chance to evolve again, I’ll probably wind up getting bigger.

Even this evolution, which didn’t change my appearance much, still had a huge effect on me. This makes it seem all the more possible that with my next step up, I might suddenly turn huge or something.

In which case, I’m a little worried about fitting through these small passageways.

If possible, I at least want to move into a bigger area. So the best thing would probably be to get outside. For one thing, if I stupidly make myself enormous inside this dungeon and the exit turns out to be tiny, I may not be able to leave at all.

The only problem is that if I reach the exit, there’s a good chance that I’ll run into humans passing through it.

But in the end, I don’t really want to spend my whole life in this dungeon.

That gigantic spider I saw when I was born was probably around a hundred feet tall, estimating based on my own size, so it could probably barely go anywhere in this dungeon, let alone outside.

If I keep evolving from one form to the next, I’ll probably wind up like that eventually, so I really have to get out of here before then.

That being said, the gigantic spider seemed like a boss monster. Will I really reach the same size someday? I wonder how many evolutions that would take. By that point, I could probably defeat humans without breaking a sweat, huh?

But if I do that now, I won’t be able to get outside!

Part of me is excited at the idea of becoming so enormous, and part of me is deeply alarmed by it. This is a complicated feeling.

AN ADVENTURER’S SOLILOQUY

I was hunting in the labyrinth with my team of adventurers.

Most adventurers go into these mazes to raise their levels. There are monsters outside, but not nearly as many as you can find inside.

In particular, this dungeon had a lot of indigenous monster species, so materials from them could fetch a high price.

Leveling up and collecting resources. That’s why adventurers brave the labyrinth.

“Hey, look at this. It’s a web.”

I looked to where one of my companions was pointing.

There, glowing faintly in the reflected light, was a web of evenly spaced geometric patterns.

A spiderweb—the nest of a spider-type monster called the taratect that’s often found living in the Great Elroe Labyrinth.

“Is there a spider in there?”

“Must be. I’m gonna burn it down.”

Taratects are fundamentally weak monsters.

As long as you’re careful of their poisonous bite, they’re just small-fry.

But occasionally, some of them make webs like this.

These snares are extremely dangerous.

The sticky and durable fibers are very difficult to escape on your own if you’re caught. Apparently, it’s possible if you have high enough strength, but most usually consider escape as impossible.

The easiest way to extract yourself is by burning the web away.

The threads are hard to break with brute force, but they’re extremely susceptible to fire.

My comrade used the end of his torch to set the web aflame.

It blazed up easily and continued to burn for a while.

“Whoa, hey. It’s burning farther into the passage!”

“This is a big nest. You don’t think it’s evolved, do you?”

My friend’s words sent shivers down my spine.

Monsters can sometimes evolve. When they do, they become much stronger than before. The unevolved members of the taratect species are very weak, but when they do mutate, they can become almost impossible to deal with. And that goes double for the ones that make webs.

Once the fire went out, we explored the burned area where the nest had been.

“Hey, look…”

“No way.”

My comrade groaned, and I looked up at the heavens as if for answers. Although, all I could see was the ceiling, of course.

Before our eyes, the bones and scales of an enormous snake were scattered on the ground. Along with the skeletons of several other monsters.

If one creature took all of these down, it would be truly terrifying.

The giant snake skeleton probably belonged to a monster called the Elroe baladorado.

It was a high-ranking monster on the power scale.

“Where’s the corpse of the thing that was living here?”

“It’s…not here.”

“There’s a thread trailing out of the nest over here. It must have gotten away.”

I took a look at the thread my friend had found. It was the kind of fiber that spider monsters constantly produce.

If we followed this, we would find whatever built this nest.

“What should we do?”

“Let’s go after it.”

It would be dangerous to let this thing roam around unchecked.

If it was evolved, we might not be able to beat it, but in that case we’d just run for our lives and report this information to the outside world.

THE FALL

I check how much HP I have left.

The green bar is getting desperately low.

I’m just barely alive. Hanging on by a thread.

How am I going to survive?

I have no idea.

How did it come to this?

Even after evolving, I was still depending on surprise attacks to fight, as usual.

I rose from level 1 to level 2 in a flash.

Apparently, the amount of experience needed for leveling up wasn’t cumulative.

Since I had evolved and gained a level, I thought this might be a good time to develop new tactics and get new skills with my skill points.

It turned out that I’d accumulated a decent number of points, so I was able to get two skills.

The first was Thread Control.

Just as its name suggests, it allowed me to manipulate my thread.

By consuming MP to invoke it, I could move my thread however I wanted. It was a wonderful ability that was perfect for me, since my spider thread is my chief weapon.

However, at level 1, the thread hardly twitched.

Dammit!

Well, it was still better than magic skills that I didn’t know how to use at all, and it should come in handy once the skill level went up.

The second skill…well, that one was a huge mistake.

For someone like me who relies on surprise attacks, enemy detection is of the utmost importance.

Not only for letting me get the jump on other monsters but for making sure I don’t fall victim to a surprise attack myself.

That’s why I acquired a skill called Detection.

Since I got a huge headache whenever I used it, I decided to semipermanently deactivate it for the time being.

And so, I continued my exploration.

Appraisal! Finally! Now I was getting somewhere!

Assuming that the maximum level really was 10, it should be ready to actually help now! Probably!

I held my breath as I checked my self-Appraisal results.

<Small taratect

LV 2

Nameless

Status:

HP: 36/36 (green)

MP: 36/36 (blue)

SP: 36/36 (yellow)

: 34/36 (red)

Average Offensive Ability: 19

Average Defensive Ability: 19

Average Magical Ability: 18

Average Resistance Ability: 18

Average Speed Ability: 348

…What…was…that…?!

What? Whaaat? Whaaaaat?!

Who are you?! You’re not the Appraisal I know! My Appraisal was always more of a useless child who was always disappointing me! It wasn’t a cool, capable beauty like whoever did this!

Where did my real Appraisal go?!

And what was I supposed to do with the Useless! complaint I secretly prepared?!

I was supposed to get my hopes up, find that all I got was a super-pointless new feature, and grumble about it!

Why would you betray me like this?!

Tell me, damn you!

Huff…huff…huff…!

Whoops—got a little worked up there.

I took a deep breath to calm down. Huh…haah…huff. Okay, all better!

Ahh…

Wasn’t this a bit too much of an evolution for my Appraisal skill? The difference was way too extreme…

But this was what I wanted Appraisal to do in the first place.

I wasn’t expecting such a sudden about-face, though.

It was like if a fellow nerd from middle school had the nerve to suddenly revamp their image in high school.

And yes, I’m aware that that’s a really weird comparison.

Anyway, this new and improved Appraisal was actually amazing. I could now read my stats, once a total mystery, at a simple glance. There were even hard numbers, which was sure to come in handy from here on out.

But there was one little problem. Was it just me, or were my stats super-low?

I didn’t have anything to compare them to, so I wasn’t sure how bad they were, but they sure didn’t seem as high as they should for someone who’d reached level 10 and evolved once already.

And then there was the matter of that speed stat.

My speed was ten times higher than my other skills. Weird, right? I know I tend to spec speed, but this is ridiculous.

Well, well, well.

Now I just wanted to compare my stats with those of other monsters.

Although, based on my results so far, the probability that I’d succeed in Appraising their stats wasn’t very high.

In fact, I had yet to succeed at Appraising anything beyond another monster’s level even once.

But since my skill level had risen, it was possible that my success rate went up, too. It was worth a try, at least.

I went on the prowl for monsters and finally found one that looked sort of like a mouse. All right, Appraisal time!

Ah… Just as I’d suspected, Appraising other creatures’ stats was still too hard. Oh well.

Swish, swish, swish… Fwump! Spin, spin, spin. Chomp!

Ooooh. Poison Fang for the win!

Now that I knew how weak my stats were, it was no exaggeration to say that I had no way of attacking without my bite.

So the level of my first and only attack, Poison Fang, was really important.

Anyway, that was just about enough searching for the day.

I fashioned a simple little web on the spot.

Now that my safety was secured, I could eat the mouse…or not. I wasn’t actually very hungry. It wasn’t that I couldn’t eat, but I figured it was better to save it for the morning, when I would probably be hungrier.

So all that was left was to sleep. Oh, and one more thing.

Nyoooom. Tug, tug. Bloop.

No, I wasn’t doing anything obscene. I was practicing my Thread Control.

As a result of my training, I had discovered that I could only control one thread at a time. It moved at about the speed of a snail, too. As long as the thread was touching my body, though, the range in which I could control it was actually pretty large. And the MP consumption was fairly insignificant. The more you know!

For the time being, though, it didn’t have much potential to be helpful in battle.

So, before bed, I figured I’d use up some MP to practice more and see if I could raise the skill level. If I did that, the limitations should improve, too.

Since Appraisal turned out to be a late bloomer, Thread Control could probably become useful by level 6 or so, too.

Although it might take a while to get there.

Anyway, once its level was a little higher, there were some things I wanted to try.

For one thing, I was hoping to bring back my abandoned project of enemy detection thread, since my Detection skill turned out to be useless. Dreaming big, I know.

And they say a watched pot never boils!

Part 4 of 8

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