o I’m a Spider, So What Vol. 16 — Part 1 of 9

Part 1 of 9

So I’m a Spider, So What?, Vol. 16

Okina Baba

Translation by Jenny McKeon

Cover art by Tsukasa Kiryu

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

KUMO DESUGA, NANIKA? Vol. 16

©Okina Baba, Tsukasa Kiryu 2022

First published in Japan in 2022 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through TUTTLE-MORI AGENCY, INC., Tokyo.

Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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First Yen On Edition: June 2023

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Baba, Okina, author. | Kiryu, Tsukasa, illustrator. | McKeon, Jenny, translator.

Title: So I’m a spider, so what? / Okina Baba ; illustration by Tsukasa Kiryu ; translation by Jenny McKeon.

Other titles: Kumo desuga nanika. English | So I am a spider, so what?

Description: First Yen On edition. | New York, NY : Yen On, 2017–

Classification: LCC PZ7.1.O44 So 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017034911

ISBNs: 978-1-9753-5218-9 (paperback)

978-1-9753-5219-6 (ebook)

E3-20230520-JV-NF-ORI

Contents

Cover

Insert

Title Page

Ariel 1

White 1

Shun 1

Balto

Sophia

Kusama

Phelmina

Merazophis

Kunihiko

Asaka

Wrath

Filimøs

Shun 2

Ariel 2

Dustin

Hyrince

Ronandt

Fei

Shun 3

Dark Dragon Reise

Ariel 3

White 2

Everyone’s Ever After

Epilogue

Afterword

Yen Newsletter

“Now, since some of you don’t know what’s going on, let’s review, shall we?”

I begin addressing everyone gathered in front of me.

We’re in a wide-open area about a thirty-minute walk from the town closest to the Great Elroe Labyrinth.

I took in all the people who were in the elf village and sent them flying here with the spaceship I requisitioned from the elves.

The people present are members of the demon army and reincarnations.

Obviously, I didn’t save a seat for the survivors of the imperial army.

I need to get these people to hear me out so the demon army and reincarnations can choose what to do next.

But that’s got nothing to do with the imperial army.

I sent them straight to the nearest city.

“First of all, to set the stage, this world is on the brink of destruction. You can thank Potimas and the idiotic humans who went along with his plans for that. And, as you may have guessed from my use of the present tense, we haven’t gotten the world out of danger just yet.”

That’s the major premise of this whole thing.

Potimas popularized the use of MA energy.

It was like a dream come true: an all-purpose energy with the power to make humanity evolve.

But they should never have tampered with it. In truth, MA energy was really the life force of the planet itself, and the more people used it, the closer the planet came to death.

“Now, right before the planet finally fell apart, Güliedistodiez—who was only one small god at the time—made a deal with the much more powerful god D and got the life support known as the system put into place. You can see the details regarding how the system works if you look at your Taboo skill.”

The system takes the growth, skills, and stats that people gain by fighting, collects them all when that person dies, and puts them toward the revitalization of the planet.

Which means the inhabitants of this planet have to fight.

That’s also why they were split into humankind and demonkind and made to perpetutate an endless war.

Demons are really humans who evolved with the influence of MA energy.

Although the demon race is declining, they can’t stop fighting, because they have to atone for using up so much MA energy.

And it wasn’t the fault of their ancestors, either. They have the very same souls that have continued to be reborn over and over.

Though they lose their memories each time they’re reborn, the souls are still trapped in this world, forbidden to return to the regular cycle of death and rebirth until the planet’s reconstruction is complete.

That punishment applies not only to demons, but to every living thing in this world.

“It’s been many long years since the system was created. But we haven’t been able to completely rebuild the planet.”

We couldn’t do it. We still can’t!

At this point, it’s no longer possible to complete the process without sacrifices.

“Lady Sariel, who serves as the core of the system, is reaching her limit, and soon she’ll disappear completely. On top of that, the human souls that have been reborn again and again are wearing thin. As time passes, there will probably be fewer and fewer souls that even can be reborn.”

This world doesn’t have much time left.

“So now everyone has to make a choice. Who dies? A god? Or all of humanity?”

That’s where the world quest comes in.

“Personally, we decided the humans should die. To save Lady Sariel, even if we have to sacrifice more than half the population of the planet to do it.”

A significant shudder runs through the audience at that.

Can’t say I blame them.

We’re trying to save a single individual by obliterating over half the population.

Based on numbers alone, you couldn’t possibly claim that’s a fair exchange.

There’s a saying that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. By that logic, any politician would surely prioritize the many over the few.

My choice is the opposite of that. It doesn’t seem like the right one, does it?

But I’ve been aware of that from the start.

I decided long ago to cast aside all concept of right and wrong in order to fulfill my selfish desires.

“Of course, I never expected humanity to accept our choice. That’s why we made our moves behind the scenes. All that was left was to destroy the system before anyone figured it out… But apparently D didn’t like that idea.”

I shrug.

Nobody would roll over and die just because you told them to.

I know I certainly wouldn’t, and someone like White would fight back tooth and nail.

No one wants to die. That’s a totally normal part of being alive.

Potimas’s determination may have been on an extreme end of the spectrum, but even ordinary people don’t want to die.

No normal person would offer up their life for someone else’s sake.

Anyone who would definitely couldn’t be considered normal.

So I knew perfectly well that no one would approve of our actions.

Taboo hadn’t been installed in everyone’s minds like it is now, so even if I had shouted the unpleasant truth about humanity at the top of my lungs and declared that I was doing this to save Lady Sariel, the people would only believe what they want to believe.

No doubt there would’ve been a chorus of “That can’t be true!” “Don’t be ridiculous!” thrown back in my face.

Just as no one wants to die, no one wants to admit to sins they don’t know they’ve committed.

After all, our claim is basically “You people must die to atone for the terrible sins committed in your past lives.”

That would never fly with people who couldn’t even remember those past lives.

In a way, you could say that installing the Taboo knowledge in everyone’s minds and making them remember all that was a positive for us.

Not that I’m grateful to D for that, since it had the much bigger downside of telling everyone about the consequences of destroying the system, which we were trying to keep secret…

Based on what I’ve gathered from White and Gülie, D intervened for the sole purpose of keeping things interesting, but that just made things needlessly complicated for me.

I mean, if D hadn’t gotten involved, we definitely would’ve won by now.

If we could have just kept the consequences of destroying the system under wraps, Gülie and Dustin wouldn’t have tried to stop us, and we could have achieved our goal.

But nooooo, that would’ve been way too boring for dear old D.

Instead, we’re now caught up in something we have no way of predicting the outcome to.

Not to mention, the rules put us at one hell of a disadvantage.

But let’s ignore the rules for now.

Right now, what I need to explain most urgently is what we’re trying to do.

“First things first, our goal is the absolute destruction of the system. The idea is to use the energy that runs this massive conjuring known as the system to rebuild the planet instead. The big upside is that the planet would be restored, and Lady Sariel would be set free when the system she’s trapped inside is destroyed.”

It’s a win-win. The planet would be restored, and Lady Sariel would be set free…

…Unfortunately, Lady Sariel is already past the point of saving.

Even if we freed her now, we couldn’t keep her alive.

At best, we could avoid her total destruction by sending her soul back into the cycle of death and rebirth, and entrusting the rest to the next generation.

But there’s probably no need to mention that part.

“The downside, as you already well know, is that about half the population would die. The destruction of the system would mean that the accompanying skills and stats, and the energy that creates those, would be taken away by force. Anyone who can’t handle the impact of that, or whatever you want to call it, would die on the spot. Also, the impact in question would be bigger, based on how many skills a person had, or how high their stats were.”

The worst-case scenario would be that the soul gets destroyed and can never return to the cycle of death and rebirth, but I’ll leave that part out, too.

While there’s a big difference between regular death and the destruction of the soul, I don’t think they’d get it, even if I explain it to them. Honestly, even I don’t fully understand it.

Either way, it means the end of one’s current life. I doubt the rest makes much of a difference to anyone who’s alive.

But that’s also why I’m not going into detail about Lady Sariel, either.

Nobody’s going to agree to letting half of humanity die to save someone who we already know is going to die anyway.

“The other downside is the disappearance of the system itself. That means skills and stats will all disappear. Many things that the existence of the system made convenient won’t be possible anymore. Since skills and stats are such a big part of everyday life, it’s pretty easy to imagine that the system’s disappearance would immediately present some major challenges.”

Skills and stats are really just methods of obtaining energy for restoring the world.

But over the years, they’ve become integral to the human experience.

Stats are useful for physical labor, speedy delivery, and so on.

And there are more skills than you can count at this point, being used in all kinds of ways.

If they disappear, the people who depend on them will be in trouble for sure.

But wait, there’s more…

“It’s not just humans who will lose their skills and stats. Monsters will, too. And I suspect monsters are even more dependent on their skills than humans.”

Humans aren’t born with skills; they acquire them as needed. So while they’d be inconvenienced if they lose their skills, they probably wouldn’t die.

But monsters are born with skills that they need to survive.

Like the Swimming skill for monsters that live underwater, or the Fire Resistance skill for monsters that live in hot climates.

I can only imagine what’ll happen if they lose those…

Maybe their survival instincts and natural adaptability would kick in, or something.

But if we’re being realistic, a lot of them would die.

And that doesn’t just apply to monsters whose skills help them adapt to the environment. A lot of monsters would also become significantly weaker if they lost their stats and skills.

Then the ecosystems would be thrown way out of balance.

Prey animals might be driven to extinction, harmless monsters might turn savage… Any number of things could go wrong.

“So yeah, it’d be total chaos, more or less. Half the population will die when we destroy the system. And the other half will die off in the chaos that ensues. That’s my estimation. For human losses, that is.”

In the worst case, I think it could be even higher than that, but I’m hoping the surviving humans can work together to prevent that sort of outcome.

That might be irresponsible of me to hope for. But I don’t have the strength to live much longer while still being useful.

As selfish as it is, I don’t really care what happens to the world once we achieve our goal.

All that matters is the end result.

“On the other hand, if you don’t choose our approach… If you choose to side with Dustin and the Word of God…these sacrifices won’t happen. Life will continue as it is now…at least, I think so.”

I corrected myself at the last minute.

Because I have no idea what Dustin and his people are planning to do from here on.

“To be honest with you, I don’t know what Dustin and the others are thinking. But based on what was said during the world quest, I’m guessing he’s got something up his sleeve.”

Otherwise, they wouldn’t be opposing us like this and offering the options of saving people or saving a god.

There’s no proof that the depleted souls of humanity would be saved if they just keep up the status quo and go on saving energy.

So the implication that abandoning the goddess will somehow save humanity probably means that they’ve got some kind of plan, too.

“I don’t know what that plan might be. So I can’t tell you the positives and negatives from their perspective. For all I know, they might even have some groundbreaking plan that would get the world out of this mess with far fewer sacrifices than our plan. But since we were given the choice of either saving a god or saving all people, it’s safe to assume that their plan doesn’t favor Lady Sariel. So there’s no point.”

Lady Sariel is my top priority.

“I will save Lady Sariel, no matter the cost. That’s what I’ve been striving for all this time. So I have no intention of changing course now.”

I’m going to see this through, even if I have to sacrifice more than half of humanity to do it.

“Now, that should be enough for you to understand our position. Next we’ll go over the rules again, and discuss the conditions for our victory.”

I think my explanation has made my stance clear to the audience.

“Firstly, as I’ve been saying this whole time, our goal is to destroy the system. Let’s assume their goal is to stop us.”

It’s possible there’s more to the other side’s goal than just that, but there’s no point in worrying about it when we have no way of knowing.

All we can do is aim to achieve our goals.

“And as it happens, the destruction of the system is already underway.”

The audience murmurs in surprise at that.

I wave a hand to calm them down and continue.

“That doesn’t mean it’s going to be destroyed any minute now, though. A job that big can’t be accomplished in such a short span of time. For reference, it’s sort of like demolishing a huge building, you know?”

It takes time to properly destroy a structure that big.

We’ve had to slowly dismantle the giant conjuring known as the system while saving up energy to put into restoring the planet.

It’s not the kind of thing you can just blow up with a controlled explosion. It takes time.

“Naturally, the other side is going to try and stop us. So we need to focus on defense until the system’s destruction is complete.”

Basically, we’re on defense, and they’re on offense.

“In fact, they’re already in the process of trying…”

White and Gülie’s battle is already underway, for one thing.

I’m sure Dustin is already hard at work behind the scenes, too.

“Like they announced in the world quest, the god of black and the god of white have already begun their battle. By the way, the god of white is on our side. Oh, and even though it’s begun, it’s not gonna end right away any more than the destruction of the system. So don’t freak out.”

A battle between gods is one of attrition.

It’ll take a pretty long time before a winner is decided.

Especially in the case of White and Gülie.

White has got ridiculous survival abilities, yet her attacks are on the weak side for a god.

She’s the type to stubbornly stay alive and slowly chip away at her opponent.

I don’t know what Gülie’s power is like exactly, but I just know White won’t go down without a fight.

First of all, she’s so tough that I had to give up on destroying her even before she became a god.

“They’re probably fighting in an alternate dimension, so we can’t interfere with their battle directly.”

Not that any of us could probably do much to affect a battle between gods anyway.

They’re on another level entirely.

“But the world quest has given us a means of indirectly affecting the battle.”

Namely, by praying.

You can pray to one of the gods and send power to them.

I imagine the power from each individual prayer is quite small.

But if it comes from every living person in this world, it’ll add up to a lot.

Every vote counts, or something like that.

As a result, even the most powerless people now have a means of affecting the outcome in a way that matters.

In other words, all of mankind can participate in this fight.

“To put it bluntly, the outcome of this battle is now directly linked to which side emerges victorious.”

Both White and Gülie are too far apart from anyone else in terms of power.

They’re each strong enough to wipe out the other’s army of followers all on their own.

At my strongest, I might’ve been able to at least put up a decent fight against Gülie… Not so much in my current state, though.

On top of that, White is the one in charge of destroying the system.

If we lose her, we won’t be able to accomplish that anymore.

So basically, whether White wins or loses also decides whether we win or lose.

“Which means our side just has to pray for White’s victory. In more ways than one.”

Despite my best efforts at humor, nobody cracks a smile.

…I bombed that one.

“So, anyway, you might think that means there’s nothing else we can do, but you’d be wrong.”

I keep talking as if I didn’t just totally bomb.

They’re all still listening with serious expressions, which must mean most of them didn’t even notice!

“If White loses, it’s over for us. But even if she wins, they still have ways of keeping the system from being destroyed. Unfair, isn’t it? So we’ve got to put a stop to that.”

At a glance, the rules make it seem like this is a fair fight, since anyone can participate.

But in reality, we’re actually at a pretty big disadvantage.

One reason is the conditions for victory.

If White goes down, we officially lose, yet if Gülie is the one who loses, their side will still have another chance at victory.

“Their play is interfering with the system directly. People with the special Seven Deadly Sins or Seven Heavenly Virtues skills have something called ruling class privileges, and only those who have gone through a process called establishing ruler authority have the ability to access the system. By doing so, they can prevent the system’s destruction.”

The conditions for this are really quite strict.

First, you have to have a rare Seven Deadly Sins or Seven Heavenly Virtues skill.

On top of that, you have to apply to have your ruler authority established, and get that request granted.

Possessing the skill alone isn’t enough.

Incidentally, the method of applying is written in Taboo.

In other words, you need to have a Seven Deadly Sins or a Seven Heavenly Virtues skill, and max out Taboo on top of that in order to have any way of getting ruler authority.

Although I guess someone else with maxed-out Taboo could teach you how to do it.

White used this loophole to make Natsume get ruler authority.

But at any rate, that means there are fourteen people at the most who have access to ruler authority—a difficult hurdle for sure.

That’s true even now that all of humanity has Taboo installed.

Except in a way, the numbers don’t even matter, since one of the few people with that authority happens to be the Word of God pontiff, Dustin: the leader of the opposing side.

All Dustin has to do is stop the system’s destruction himself.

“That being said, just having ruler authority doesn’t mean you can stop the destruction of the system whenever you want. You have to go to a specific place where you can interface with the system directly. And that place happens to be in the deepest part of the Great Elroe Labyrinth.”

Deep at the bottom of the Great Elroe Labyrinth is the door to the system’s core, where Lady Sariel is sealed away.

The entire labyrinth is really a path to that place, and at the same time, a fortress that protects it.

“In other words, our job is to prevent anyone from their side with ruler authority from approaching that place.”

Dustin is definitely going to come here.

In which case our role is defending the labyrinth to prevent Dustin from getting to its heart.

White’s victory.

And the defense of the Great Elroe Labyrinth’s core.

It’s only when we achieve both those goals that we can claim victory.

To put it another way, their side only needs to prevent one of those two things to win.

In that way, these rules obviously put us at a disadvantage.

But the biggest disadvantage to our side is probably the ability for everyone to interfere in White and Gülie’s battle through prayer.

Nobody wants to die. Of course, more people are bound to pray for Gülie.

The rules are fair in that they allow anyone a chance to decide the future, but unfair to us in that they put our side at a considerable disadvantage.

Even so, we’re the ones who are going to win.

“Now that you’ve heard all this, it’s up to you to decide.”

A murmur of surprise runs through the crowd.

No doubt they were expecting me to tell them to side with us.

But I don’t trust anyone except me and mine.

I’m not going to ask someone to have my back when I suspect they might stab it.

“We’ll defend the Great Elroe Labyrinth ourselves. From this point on, anyone who sets foot in the labyrinth will be considered an enemy and taken down on sight, no matter who it might be. So if you want to side with us, I’ll ask you to do it from outside the labyrinth.”

I can’t let anyone who may or may not be an ally get close to the finish line.

“We’re heading to the Great Elroe Labyrinth now. To be perfectly honest, we’ll have our hands full too much to offer you guys any more help. So you’ll have to decide what to do for yourselves, and take independent action accordingly. I won’t blame any of you for whatever happens, even if you turn against us. No matter which side wins, I intend to accept that as the will of the world.”

At this point, we’ve got bigger fish to fry than pointing fingers.

It’s not like either side is right or wrong.

We just want to protect different things, that’s all.

No hard feelings, if you ask me.

“That’s it. I wish all of you good luck.”

With those words, I ended my speech.

“Well, there you have it. Good luck.”

…What?

There I have what, exactly?!

You can’t just tell me that in the middle of a battle and expect my mind to not go blank!

Here I am, in the middle of an ultimate showdown with Black, and D suddenly starts blabbing at me telepathically!

Yeah, I heard the details about the world quest.

I didn’t hear the very first notification, but the ones after Black and I started fighting came through to me.

So I’ve got a handle on the rules to this world quest thing.

I’m sure Black does, too.

He seems to have heard the Demon Lord’s and the pontiff’s speeches as well.

Generally, that sort of notification uses the system to broadcast to the entire world. It’s actually kind of weird that I could hear it, too, since my connection to the system is cut off.

Then again, D is the one who sent out the notification, so, y’know…

I’m sure making it so I could hear the announcement too was child’s play.

Although that also means she must have meddled with me so that I could hear it…

While she didn’t attack me or anything, the fact she was able to easily slip past my defenses and awareness and all that certainly is a painful reminder of how much more powerful she is than I…

Ugh, but enough about D for now. No point in dwelling on it.

At any rate, the long and short of it is that both Black and I were able to hear the Demon Lord’s and the pontiff’s respective speeches.

Which definitely put both of us in a “we gotta do this, let’s go!” mood.

And then, just as we’re both raring to go—a sudden communication from D totally takes the wind out of my sails!

No waaay.

She must have timed it like that on purpose, right?!

Between the world quest and this little extra comment, she sure is interfering a lot for someone who claims to be a passive observer.

Just keep your nose out of it already…

In the midst of all this madness, Black has stopped moving, too.

It’s the perfect chance to attack, except I’m at my wit’s end myself… Let’s just call a temporary cease-fire for now.

“Then again, I suppose that might be difficult to accept right away. I’ll answer any questions you might have.”

D offers a tiny ounce of kindness, probably due to the fact that Black and I have both frozen in place.

I wish she would’ve expressed that kindness by not complicating this whole mess instead.

“You said you distributed Taboo to all of humanity, did you not?”

“I did.”

Ah, Black’s got his face in his palm now.

Can’t say I blame the guy.

Taboo had some pretty upsetting information, even for an outsider like me. Does that mean the rest of the world was a screaming hellscape when it hit?

No, forget the past tense—it might still be a hellscape even now.

“Taboo is technically a skill, though. Where exactly did that energy come from?”

Oh, hey! That’s a good point!

Taboo is a skill of sorts, which means it includes the corresponding amount of energy.

So it must have taken a huge amount of energy to distribute that to all of mankind.

That would be using up way too much of what little this planet has left!

“Not to worry. I provided that out of my own pocket.”

Phew. That’s a relief.

…Relief?

Out of D’s pocket?

You’re telling me D, of all people, put up some of her own energy for this world’s sake?

“Although I will say the energy I provided originally belonged to this world anyway.”

D drops a bombshell that lays waste to my doubts.

Energy that used to belong to this world?

And where did that come from exactly?

“It’s from the explosion that created the reincarnations in the first place.”

…Okay, is she secretly still reading my mind or what?

According to D, she stopped being able to read my thoughts when I became a god, but I dunno…

Well, whatever.

The explanation about this energy is more important right now.

The explosion that created the reincarnations must be the one that happened in the classroom on Earth.

The one that was apparently caused by the previous hero and Demon Lord.

That little number drained a bunch of this world’s energy, and the students who got caught in the blast were reincarnated into this world.

But that attack was intended to kill D, or specifically an administrator.

Wouldn’t the energy have all been expended in the process of the attack?

“Don’t you think that an attack intended to kill an administrator—a god, really—ought to have the power to destroy more than just a single classroom?”

…Well, when you put it that way.

The attack was indeed meant to kill a god.

Now that I think about it, it’s odd that it only had enough juice to blow up one classroom.

An attack like that wouldn’t even kill an Araba-class dragon, never mind a god.

And yet it drained a massive amount of this world’s saved-up energy.

The power of the attack and the amount of energy it consumed don’t add up.

“In other words, I collected the surplus energy and kept it stored away for safekeeping.”

Ah, Black staggered a little.

Can’t blame him for getting a little dizzy, either.

The attack on D was perpetrated by the second-to-last hero and the last Demon Lord before the current ones.

It was originally intended to target Black, except the goddess Sariel forcibly redirected it to D, which led to fun consequences like the reincarnations being born into this world and a massive amount of energy being lost.

And Black has always felt really guilty about how things went down.

So it’s no surprise that he would be distressed to learn that D had secretly pocketed all that energy.

Still, this is actually great news.

It means that some of the lost energy, though I’m sure not all of it, has been restored to this world.

…If you overlook the fact that it was used for Taboo, anyway.

Just then, Black jerks upright, as if he’s just realized something.

“Wait! You said all of humanity?! So if the system was destroyed in the present conditions, what would happen to them?! Taboo is a skill, too, isn’t it?!”

Oh yeah. That’s another good point.

Taboo is a skill all right.

The moment the system is destroyed, all skills will be torn away not just from humanity, but from all living things.

Our estimate is that approximately half of humanity will die of the shock.

Some of them won’t just die, either. Their souls will probably be destroyed.

And the more skills you have, the higher your chances of dying.

Since Taboo is a skill, too, tacking that on to all of humanity must mean…

“Even more humans will die as a result, I’m sure.”

Yep, there it is!

Ah, Black fell to his knees.

Um…yeah, well, y’know. Hang in there, buddy.

“No need to be alarmed. All you have to do is to win and prevent the system from being destroyed, and none of that will matter.”

Wait a sec.

That would mean I lose, though.

You’re just gonna give Black even more motivation!

“Oh, and that reminds me. Even if you do win, I won’t come for revenge or anything, don’t worry.”

Black’s head whips up at that.

“But you said that you would never allow any harm done to your kin.”

“Well, I know I said I was going to make her my kin, but we haven’t officially made any such contract yet. Which means that while I’ve made an unofficial offer, she isn’t technically my kin yet.”

Uh…right.

Yeah, makes sense.

There’s not really any connection between me and D just yet.

“If she falls here, then so it goes. It simply means that she was not worthy to become my kin, that’s all.”

HEY!

…No, listen, okay?

It’s not like I wanted to be D’s kin or anything, y’know? Definitely not, okay? It’s just, when you put it that way, y’know? I can’t help but get a little mad, okay?

Heh. Heh-heh.

Now you’ve gone and said it.

Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha…

In the end, I just can’t afford to lose.

Now both of us have even more reasons that we have to win.

I face off against Black again.

“Now I have nothing more to fear. This is not personal, you understand. In fact, I am more grateful to you than anything. And yet, even so, I must defeat you.”

While Black declares his renewed determination, I simply beckon him in silence.

“Let us begin!”

And so, our battle resumes.

“Be sure to entertain me.”

…With an evil god spectating on the sidelines.

What a pain!

Two shadows leap and bound between tall, futuristic buildings.

One is Black.

The other is me.

My lower half is in spiderlike arachne form, hopping effortlessly from one building to the next.

Arachne form increases my jumping ability, of course, and I can use the eight legs to run up buildings and such, making it ideally suited to this kind of movement.

And if I use my threads on top of that, I can even do tricky maneuvers like changing directions in midair and easily crossing greater distances.

Bweh-heh-heh.

Bet you regret not making our battlefield an empty plain or something!

You’re kidding yourself if you think you can outmatch a spider in an area with tons of obstacles!

While I’m cackling inwardly, I suddenly sense something closing in on me at an alarming speed.

Whaaat? You can really match my speed?

As I turn around in surprise, I see a car flying toward me.

A caaaar?!

I dodge it in a panic.

Whew. That caught me off guard.

I wasn’t expecting a car, of all things…good thing I dodged it on instinct.

This really is a parallel world, huh?

It’s got flying cars and everything.

While I’m thinking such stupid thoughts, things suddenly get darker all around me.

What the—?! I look up and see the sun nearly blocked out by a building flying right at me.

A buildiiiing?!

I make myself scarce, in an even bigger panic, and the building crashes down directly behind me.

There’s a tremor in the ground and a loud crash, followed by a cloud of dust.

Um, excuse me.

Don’t you think this is a little too grandiose?

A car is one thing, but flying buildings?

That’s a parallel world for you.

It totally turns everything I thought I knew upside down.

But y’know, just because this is a parallel world, doesn’t mean you have to go that far.

Isn’t this a little much?

My face twitches a little as I stare upward.

Now there’s a whole bunch of buildings floating in the air.

The same set of buildings I was hopping all over just moments ago.

Well, that’s weird. Why would those be floating in midair? Golly, what a mystery.

…Yeah, there’s no time to react like that!

I start zooming away as fast as I can, at the same moment that the floating buildings start flying toward me.

Each one has an insane amount of mass, and now they’re speeding toward me like bullets.

GAAAAAAH!

Hang in there, leg muscles!

Not that I know whether spider legs actually use muscles to move or not!

Just move as fast as you can, feet!

We’ve gotta get away from these things!

There are intermittent booming sounds from behind me, shaking the ground beneath my feet each time.

Normal buildings would be one thing, but this is a world Black created.

I can’t assume that buildings here are ordinary.

Even I would probably take a lot of damage if I got hit by one of those.

…I mean, not that I wouldn’t take damage f rom an ordinary building, you know?

Seriously, though! What kind of crazy person does something like using buildings as bullets?!

Hmm? Who am I to talk when I used meteors as bullets, you say?

Look, I don’t see what that has to do with it.

Besides, this is Black’s dimension, all right?

And yet here he is pulling up buildings and throwing them around, causing all kinds of environmental destruction—or rather, dimensional destruction. It’s like messing up your home with your own two hands.

I dunno how he can stand it.

I could never do something like that.

Now, maybe it’s because I’m distracted by emotions I don’t really understand, like pathos and admiration, or maybe it’s because I’m too focused on running away. Either way, I’m a second too late to react when the space in front of me warps abruptly.

Black leaps out from the tear in space.

Tch! He got the jump on me?!

Normally, teleporting would be a bad move.

In a battle between spatial conjuring masters, teleportation takes too much time.

Admittedly, for me, activating teleportation probably takes less than a second.

But that’s still too long.

It leaves space for your opponent to interfere.

The teleportation rune is complicated enough to begin with. Mess with it a little, and it falls apart.

Then your teleportation fails.

If you were just moving an object, that wouldn’t be such a big deal. If you’re teleporting yourself, on the other hand, then the risk is a whole lot higher.

Worst case scenario, you might even get sucked into a gap between dimensions and be gone forever, or something equally terrifying.

Of course, I have certain safeties in place to keep things from going too horribly wrong. But depending on what the other person does to mess with my spell, there’s no guarantee disaster wouldn’t still happen.

Which is why teleporting would usually be a bad move in a battle between gods…unless you use giant buildings as a distraction to get the jump on the other person.

I mean, yeah, a bullet hell with entire buildings as the bullets is definitely enough of a decoy—way too much, if you ask me!

Black’s hand is gripping a sword as it closes in.

I’m in big trouble if that thing hits me.

I dodge to the side with almost unnecessary vigor, avoiding the sword slash.

“You won’t escape!”

But another building comes careening down at me right away.

Oh, come on! Buildings aren’t supposed to rain out of the sky!

What’s happening here, a natural disaster?! So this is the power of a god?!

I gnash my teeth in frustration at the sight you would normally only find in an overblown battle manga, and use my threads to catch the building.

And yes, even I have to admit that a spiderweb strong enough to catch a falling building is pretty overpowered, too.

But I’m not just gonna catch it!

I’ll send it right down toward Black’s head!

Take this! Building Dodge-and-Drop!

Speak softly and carry a big building, like they say!

Enjoy getting crushed by your own stupid building attack!

SLAAAASH! The building gets sliced neatly in two.

…Right. Yeah.

No, I knew an attack like that wouldn’t be enough to take down Black, okay?

It’s just, watching someone cut a building in half is kinda, y’know…

Can’t you leave that stuff in the realm of battle manga?

But complaining in my inner monologue isn’t going to make Black stop, of course. His sword comes thrusting toward me.

I jump back with another exaggerated dodge, escaping the sword’s range.

That sword is bad news.

I can sense some crazy energy coming off it.

If it cuts me, I’m guessing it’ll damage the energy within me, not just my body.

A battle between gods is mainly an energy-based war of attrition.

Whoever can waste more of the other’s energy is the victor.

Getting hit with enough force to cut a building in two wouldn’t be a big deal in itself, since I could just heal the physical damage.

But the amount of energy in that blade is more destructive than just that.

Most likely, it’s not just physical destruction. It can probably erode my energy, too.

I’m already at a disadvantage here. I can’t afford that kind of hit.

…Still, that’s got to require a lot of energy for Black to use it, too. Yet he’s busting it out without hesitation.

Attacking requires energy, too.

If you use too much energy on attacks, that alone could run you out of gas if you’re not careful.

So I always figured you were only supposed to use lots of energy on an attack at a critical moment when you know it’s really gonna count.

But here’s Black throwing energy around like it grows on trees.

That sword probably uses the most, but floating buildings and even just maintaining this dimensional space have gotta cost a fair amount of energy, too.

So why does it almost seem like he’s actually gaining energy, not losing it?

…No, it’s not just my imagination. His energy is growing.

Damn it aaaall! This must be the effects of those stupid prayers!

The rule is that people can pray for one god or the other, and give them just a little bit of power.

That’s gotta be why it seems like Black’s energy has been increasing for a while now.

Just as I suspected when I first heard the rules, Black’s definitely getting more prayer power.

Oof. My lack of popularity is painfully clear…

B-but that doesn’t bother me at all!

I’m a natural-born loner, baby!

I don’t need approval from the masses to win this whole damn thing!

Or at least, that’s what I’m telling myself…but this is looking pretty grim, isn’t it?

We’re fighting in a dimension of Black’s creation.

This futuristic city, not quite like anything on Earth, is probably based on what this planet looked like before the system was made.

It might even be the city where Black and Ariel met.

…Though if that’s the case, it’d be kinda tasteless to chuck buildings at me from such a precious place, don’t you think?

Well, either way, we’re on Black’s turf.

He created it, so he has the advantage here.

It was a mistake to let him drag me into his home field when the battle first started, or at least a miscalculation.

Except really, it’s all D’s fault for announcing that stupid world quest from out of nowhere!

I bet the reason I didn’t hear that first announcement initially was to delay my reaction, too!

That’s the only explanation I can think of for why I was able to hear the rest of the announcements, but not the very first one.

Damn that evil god! Always finding ways to put me at a disadvantage!

Now he’s got a serious head start on me.

I glance around.

Countless white spiders are still eating away at the space, trying to consume the city itself.

It’s like this three-dimensional space is in a two-dimensional picture spotted with holes.

As odd as it looks, the spider-eaten sections make up less than 10 percent of the whole scene.

It’s basically a power map of mine against Black’s.

I’ve got less than 10 percent, and the other 90-plus percent is all his.

Should I say my side has got nearly 10 percent, or not even 10 percent yet?

Either way, as long as Black’s field has the advantage, I can’t go on the offensive.

I can’t afford to attack.

I’ve gotta stay on the defensive and hold out, or I’ll drain all my energy and go down without ever getting in a proper counterattack.

Right now, I just need to endure his attacks, keep eroding away at his field, and overwrite it with my own field.

Once the power distribution on the map reaches fifty-fifty, then I should finally be able to fight back.

But as hard as my little clones are working to spread my influence over the field, the results aren’t much to write home about.

That’s mostly because the resistance against them has gotten even stronger since Black started getting more energy from the outside.

It’s not enough to push them back entirely, but it’s certainly slowing their progress almost to a halt.

At this rate, I’ve gotta be ready for this to take a very, very long time.

I have to withstand Black’s barrage of attacks until the balance of the field evens out.

Ughhh, this suuucks…

But it’s not like Black has it easy, either.

Since I’m still managing to encroach on his field, that means my spatial conjuring is stronger.

He’s got control over the battlefield for now, but if the power distribution map shifts in my favor, I’ll be the one with the big advantage.

Then he’d be forced to go on the defensive instead, while I’d swap onto offense.

And since my spatial conjuring is superior, Black will have no way of getting the advantage back if I manage to pull off the switch.

He knows that, too, which is why he’s pulling out all the stops to try to pull off a win before I can overwrite the field in my favor.

Otherwise, I can’t imagine why he would use such an obviously energy-sucking weapon like that sword, even if he is getting extra energy from the outside.

I bet that thing uses up energy as fast as he can receive it.

Except it still looks like his energy is increasing slightly…which means he must be getting a whole hell of a lot at once.

Still, there has to be a limit to how much energy he can receive.

Since it’s limited to the total population of mankind, that means there’s a ceiling on the amount of energy they can provide, too.

Hopefully, the amount of energy he’s receiving will decrease over time.

In that respect, the longer things drag on, the more Black is at a disadvantage.

Time is on my side.

With each minute that passes, the situation will slowly turn in my favor.

Of course, that’s only if I can keep fighting in tip-top shape the whole time, though.

I mean, think about it.

As impressive as my endurance might be, if I get injured, obviously I won’t be able to fight at full strength anymore.

In the case of a battle between gods, physical wounds can be healed instantly. It’s the energy you lose that can’t be recovered.

Even if I appear completely unharmed, I won’t be able to pull off a comeback if I start running low on energy.

One major hit could drain tons of my energy, and then I’d be in big trouble.

I don’t think a single slash from that sword would be a fatal wound…at least, I sure hope not.

But just ’cause it won’t kill me doesn’t mean it’d be no big deal.

I don’t know how much energy I’d lose if that sword hits me; ergo, it’s better not to let it touch me at all.

One hit might even drain enough of my energy to make a turnaround totally impossible.

So I really wanna avoid all of Black’s attacks until I can overwrite the field.

On the flip side, he wants to damage me before that happens and nip my attempted comeback in the bud.

Can I withstand the onslaught, or will Black manage to land enough hits to stop me?

That’s about the shape of things right now.

I’ve got a long haul ahead of me if I want to win, and if I get distracted for even a second, I could lose the whole damn thing.

So Black has the home field advantage, and I can’t even afford to take a single hit—how is that fair, huh?!

No waaay.

How come he gets the upper hand, yet I’m the one starting with a major handicap?

Seriously, no waaay…

I dodge Black’s sword as it swoops toward me.

Then his mouth opens, and a breath attack blasts out.

Don’t use Dragon Breath while you’re in human form!

I mean, I know he can do stuff like that ’cause he’s really a dragon, but still!

And sure, I could do it, too, if I wanted to, but come on!

Using a breath attack in human form just plain looks weird, okay?!

Although it’s certainly effective at catching me by surprise!

And yes, it did hit me, if you must know!

My human upper half gets blown to smithereens just like that.

But I’ve still got my spider lower half, and I can grow back the human half easily.

Yeah, I’ll have to spend some energy to do so, but it’s a tiny amount in the grand scheme of things.

In terms of damage, ’tis but a scratch.

Well…a scratch that destroyed my whole upper body.

The way visible damage doesn’t equate to actual damage is one of the annoying, or at least confusing, parts about a fight between gods.

It makes it hard to tell who’s got the upper hand at a glance.

Take that last attack, for example—we probably both used about the same amount of energy, even though my body is the one that got wrecked by that breath attack.

While I used energy to restore my destroyed upper body, Black used energy to attack in the first place.

In a battle of gods, whoever uses up their energy first loses.

It takes energy both to attack and to defend, so the person who’s on the offensive isn’t necessarily the one who’s winning.

Either way, you’ve got to carefully calculate how much energy each move is going to take.

In my case, it didn’t make a huge difference whether I took a hit from that breath attack or not. So rather than dodging it in a panic, I chose to let the attack hit so I could stay on my toes in case he followed up with an attack from that sword.

And sure enough, here it comes!

I evade Black’s sword slash easily.

Part 1 of 9

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