So I’M A Spider, So What — Part 5 of 8

Part 5 of 8

Nyoooom. Tug, tug, tug. Blooooop.

With the increased level, the thread’s range of motion improved a little.

It still wasn’t enough to be useful in a pinch, but it was visible progress, so maybe it’d reach the point of practicality earlier than I expected.

I still had plenty of MP, so I decided to keep pushing for more proficiency.

Yaaawn… Ahhh, that was a good night’s sleep.

In the end, I had stuck with my practice until I was almost entirely out of MP, and I’d managed to raise my Thread Control skill to level 3.

I had actually planned to keep grinding proficiency until my MP was completely gone, but as I started running low, I got a bad feeling about that.

I couldn’t tell you why, exactly, but my instincts told me it would be dangerous to have no MP, so I decided to stop before I hit that point.

After one night’s sleep, my MP fully recovered.

Great. In that case, it should be fine to practice Thread Control before bed every night.

Hey, wait a minute. Since I was already fully recovered, couldn’t I do it in the morning, too?

I didn’t normally use my MP anyway, so if it was going to recover over time, why not let it accumulate while I hunted?

Yeah. That seemed more efficient to me.

If anything went wrong, I could just switch to once a day starting tomorrow, but I figured I might as well try.

And so, I practiced Thread Control. When my MP was just about depleted…

…there was a message from the Divine Voice (temp.).

Nice, nice. Easy enough.

Since my MP was getting low, I couldn’t check how much the range of movement had improved, but I figured level 4 should make for decent growth.

It probably still wouldn’t be any use in combat, but maybe I could at least experiment with making protective clothes with it in my temporary home or something. I was starting to look forward to the evening.

Anyway, it was breakfast time. Luckily, I still had that mouse monster from the day before, so my main course was good to go.

Hmm. Crap.

Eating didn’t recover my MP at all. I kind of figured as much, but still.

However, ever since my evolution, I’d been in good shape.

This was a sign of good things to come. It was like the universe was telling me that it was my time to shine.

Heh-heh-heh. Nothing can stop me now! Hee-hee.

All I had to do was keep getting stronger and making my way through the labyrinth.

I knew this dungeon was unnecessarily huge, so finding the exit was more of a long-term goal.

Anyway, it was time for another day of being my best self! Ha-ha.

Doot-dee-doo… I explored the maze in a great mood.

I mean, with the great shape I was in, none of the monsters in the area could hold a candle to me.

As long as I noticed them before they noticed me, I could beat just about anyone with a surprise attack!

And if not, well, at this point, I might be strong enough to win a fair fight, right?

My evolution probably made me a lot stronger, and my skill levels were getting pretty high, so I probably wouldn’t embarrass myself like that time with the frog.

I mean, I wouldn’t say I was certain I would win, but my confidence was building that I could hold my own, at least.

The thing with the Detection skill was kind of a shame, but still, I was feeling a little chipper thanks to evolving, so…

Come at me, bro! Just kidding.

Huh?

Why did I have such an ominous feeling all of a sudden?

It was like my instincts were screaming at me to get out of there immediately.

I turned around slowly.

Not far down the long, straight path I’d been following, a group of men dressed like adventurers were chasing me.

Oh crap. Humans!

And they were unmistakably locked on to me!

But it was probably nothing my newly evolved self couldn’t handle, right?

Yeah right, idiot!

What do you mean, level 29?!

Even if you count me as being level 12 total, that’s still more than double!!

And six humans around that level?! I didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell!

Run!

Ah, a fork in the road.

Right or left? Let’s go with…right… Wait, hmm?

I glanced down the path on the left.

Are you for real?!

It was a lower level than the snake I fought before, but still, how was I supposed to beat one of those if it wasn’t wrapped in webs?!

Oh god, a snake in front of me and humans behind me?!

And both parties were totally staring right at me!!

Run away! Down the passage on the right! No way was I taking on a deadly human-monster combo!

What idiot was all, “Come at me, bro”?! Me, that’s who!

Nope! No way!

That snake was more like a boss battle than an ordinary mob!

Are you telling me those guys spawned just as often as normal monsters?!

And why were humans choosing now to chase me?!

Waaaaah!

What were all those noises behind meee?! Too fast! How were they able to keep up with me?! My speed was 348, you know!

I thought that was the one area where I was better than other monsters! Who the hell did they think they were, keeping up with me like that?!

Geh?! More monsters in front of me?!

Whaaaat?! Of all the times for this stupid trio to show up!

If it was only one, I could’ve just slipped right past it! How was I supposed to sneak past a row of three?!

Wh-what am I gonna do?! Come on! Oh god, I don’t even have time to thiiiiink!

Okay! Sink or swim!

Still running at top speed, I skittered up the wall!

Yoooooooo! I did it! I actually did it!

Wall running successful! I made it over the three monsters!

I heard a commotion behind me, but I didn’t look back!

I didn’t know how much time those three would buy me, but I had to make a break for it while I had the chance!

Sorry about that, you guys. This was just another instance of survival of the fittest. Now, sacrifice yourselves to become my meat shields!

Bwa-ha-ha!

By using those monsters, I successfully made it out alive! I probably should have said a little prayer for them as thanks… Wait, huh?

A break…in the path?

Wait, wait, wait—another pitfall like the centipede nest?!

Waaah! No, no, no! I’m running way too fast to stop in time!

Aaaaaah!

I was suddenly hurtling headlong into empty space.

Huh? Oh, wow, what a terribly deep and wide hole. You’d probably die if you fell in here.

Wait, falling?! I was falling! Noooooo!

Bungee jumping without a cord? You’ve gotta be kidding me! Wait, a cord? Cord!

Come on, spider thread, work with me!

I shot out some thread and attached it to the wall!

All right, I’m saved— Whoof!

Ow, that really hurt.

I had stopped falling, but the recoil slammed my body into the wall at top speed.

Man, though, I thought I was gonna die.

Getting chased by a snake and escaping only to fall off a cliff? Not cool.

Maybe I was being punished for getting so full of myself…

Oh, I get it. All right, I repent. I’ve seen the error of my ways, so can that loud, disturbing buzzing I keep hearing stop now, please?

Bees.

It was a group of those giant bee monsters that I’d seen only once before. And there was a whole swarm flying around in this hole.

Um… Hello there…

I’m sorry! Please forgive me! For the love of god, don’t look at me!

There was only one way for me to get away from the bees that were coming to attack me.

And that way was down!

I dove again! I was falling, but not like before!

I made the thread attached to the wall more elastic and used it to go down safely like a real bungee jumper. After bouncing two or three times, I latched on to the wall and attached a new thread.

Geronimoooo!

I repeated this process a few more times to get down.

All right, I reached the ground!

But the bees were still swarming around above me. I forced my exhausted body to start running again. I had to get out of there as fast as I could.

But I was a few steps too late.

A bee landed on me. Then, I felt a sharp pain in my back.

?!?!?!?!

Ow! It stabbed me!

And something was flooding into my body from the wound, too! Poison!

I didn’t have any way to combat something that was attached to my back.

Wait, there was one way.

I still had hardly any MP left, but there was no time to worry about that!

I used Thread Control to manipulate my thread and attach it to the bee on my back. Then I wound the thread around it to constrict the monster.

Heave-ho!

I grasped the thread and yanked the bee from my back, slamming it to the ground like a judo master!

I wanted to finish it off right there, but running away was more important!

I hid myself in the shadow of a rock up against the wall. The giant bees shouldn’t be able to get at me in the small space.

Sure enough, after buzzing around and scoping the situation out for a while, the handful of bees that were chasing me gave up and flew away.

I had survived, somehow.

But I didn’t come out unscathed. I couldn’t see it with my own eyes, but I knew there was a huge hole in my back.

I only had 6 HP left. The other 30 had been lost in that single attack. It wasn’t surprising. I knew that my defense was somewhat low. If anything, I was grateful to my spider body for being tenacious enough to survive that awful wound at all.

I was lucky that I had high Poison Resistance, too.

That thing had definitely injected me with poison when it stung me.

I had no way of knowing how much of the damage I’d taken was from poison and how much was from the needle, so I didn’t know if my skill had canceled the poison out completely. Still, I had no doubt that if it weren’t for Poison Resistance, I would’ve been dead already.

I probably wouldn’t be able to move for a while with this wound. I didn’t even know whether it would heal on its own at all.

Meaning the ideal situation would be to level up and fully recover like last time.

That being the case, I really wanted to go and get that bee I’d caught and thrown off me, both for food and experience points.

But coming out from under here seemed like a bad idea.

Maybe I could stick some thread to it with Thread Control and pull it over here a little at a time?

Suddenly, I had another sense of foreboding.

I carefully peeked out from the shadow of the rock.

There, I saw the tied-up bee struggling on the ground. And beyond it, the shape of another monster approaching it, slowly but surely.

The snake. Did it chase me all that way?!

No, probably not. It was the same level but probably a different individual.

Crap.

There might be quite a few of those snakes around, then, even though they were like boss monsters from my point of view.

If they found me while I was this badly injured, no way was I getting out alive.

The snake slithered lazily toward the bee.

I’m begging you… You can have the bee—just please don’t notice me.

But in the end, the reptile didn’t do anything to the bee.

Or, to be more exact, it couldn’t.

Something ripped through its body at a terrible speed.

Huh? Did my eyes deceive me?

To my view, whatever it was had shredded the snake as easily as so much paper. You know, the snake protected by those super-hard scales. The one just about as fast as I was. And it had no time to react.

There it was, calm as could be.

Contrary to its name, it looked more like a wolf.

It had four feet that trod on the ground.

A long tail.

No wings.

What I saw there was an imposingly majestic dragon.

Oh god. My spider’s instincts, my human logic, and the cry of my soul all screamed the same thing in unison.

Not a chance. There’s no way you could ever beat an opponent like that.

In fact, I couldn’t even call it an opponent in the first place. From that thing’s point of view, I was nothing more than bait.

Not even prey. I’d be eaten the moment I entered its line of sight.

That was how extreme the difference between us was.

Its high level was barely worth thinking about.

Regardless of level, that thing was out of my league.

The earth dragon Araba started chewing up the scattered bits of the snake, one by one.

I desperately tried to silence my breathing.

Shut up! I’m begging you, just keep it down! What am I gonna do if that thing notices me?!

Once it was done devouring the snake, the dragon ambled away without so much as a glance at the bee.

Th…thank god.

I had no idea whether it didn’t notice me or if it did but didn’t care, but either way, I was alive.

By this time, I had already had more than my share of near-death experiences, but that was almost certainly the worst yet.

Even just remembering it now is scary.

No way. If that thing was wandering in this vicinity, I had to get away, stat.

I looked around.

I was at the bottom of the hole I’d fallen down. It seemed to be somewhere around three hundred feet in diameter.

The depth was probably even more than that. I couldn’t really tell how high the cliff was.

Above me, a huge swarm of bees covered the area like a ceiling.

I was relieved that they were far away enough that my Appraisal skill didn’t kick in.

If it had, Appraising a horde like that at once might have knocked me out.

But if I wanted to return to the area I came from, I would have to go past that swarm.

While climbing a sheer cliff, no less.

Not happening.

I couldn’t fight anything off while I was clinging sideways to a cliff.

I wouldn’t be able to move quickly or even aim my thread properly.

My strength was fighting in confined places.

The bees, on the other hand, could fly around freely in the air.

There was no way I could win.

But exploring a place that was home to that beast would be a suicide mission, too.

There were a few different passages connected to the bottom of the pit.

Should I risk going down a different path from the one that thing went into?

I couldn’t. With an injury this severe, encountering any monster at all would spell my doom, even if it wasn’t that dragon.

Uh-oh. This might be the end of the line.

So here I am.

Where did I go wrong?

How am I going to survive?

I can’t let it end in a place like this.

I don’t want to die.

And so, I start planning.

AN ADVENTURER’S WITHDRAWAL

“Dammit!”

A group of Elroe randanels and an Elroe baladorado got in our way, so we took care of them.

Just when we thought we’d chased down that taratect, these nuisances had to show up.

We lucked out and dispatched the baladorado relatively easily while the monsters were fighting among themselves, but the taratect got away while we were busy.

“What should we do now?”

“I don’t think we have much of a choice but to withdraw. We can’t chase it any farther now.”

“You’re right. We’ll have to go back and report it to the adventurers’ guild.”

I nodded toward my comrade.

Given its size, the thing was probably pretty young.

But it still got away from us so quickly. That was no ordinary speed.

A small-fry monster like a taratect shouldn’t be able to move that fast.

Obviously, this individual was extraordinary.

If it was already like this as a juvenile, there was no telling how strong it would become if it evolved into adulthood.

If we didn’t do something about it before then, it would be too late.

“We’ll have to withdraw! As quickly as possible!”

That was the most we could do. We had to return with all haste to report this information.

That way, higher-ranking adventurers and maybe even the kingdom’s troops could take action.

With one last glance at where the taratect had gone, we turned and left.

SPIDER VS BEE

After the earth dragon left, I took my time meticulously looking over my surroundings.

No matter how long I looked, though, I still didn’t feel safe. But safe or not, I have to do something, or I’ll be stuck here until I die.

I use Thread Control to extend a strand toward the bee, which was still restrained on the ground.

Oof, my back hurts. But I seem to be able to produce my silk without a problem.

I slowly and cautiously stretch the thread until it finally connects to its target.

The bee is still struggling, but that doesn’t matter at this point.

I just have to recover it before another monster gets to it first.

With every tug, my wounds ache.

The pain is horrible, but my HP isn’t decreasing any further, so I want to believe I’m all right.

At long last, I successfully retrieve my prey.

Immediately, I bite into it with my poison fangs, killing it on the spot.

Considering how well my venom seems to work even on other poisonous monsters, maybe my Poison Fang and Poison Resistance skills are higher than my peers’?

Well, that doesn’t really matter right now.

The real problem is what I’m going to do next. To be honest, exploring this area is probably suicide. It’s possible there are other beasts like that earth dragon, so my chances of survival appear to be dwindling.

That’s no good. I’ve certainly made it through many a dangerous situation so far, but this is so much more frightening than anything before.

In normal circumstances, I’m reasonably confident in my fighting abilities.

Recently, I’ve taken to wandering around the dungeon and using tactics like surprise attacks, but in the end, I’m best suited to making webs and letting prey come to me. I mean, I was even able to take down that huge snake with my simple temporary shelter. So if I put my mind to designing a home specifically for defensive battles, no monster will be able to overcome it.

Or so I thought.

That thing will absolutely be able to. Without even batting an eye. That horrifying monster is strong enough.

Thread, poison fangs, surprise, and speed. My fundamental tactics would be nothing more than party tricks to that dragon.

They would fall to pieces in the face of such overwhelming power.

I can imagine it easily.

In my whole life reincarnated as a spider, this is the second encounter I’ve had with a terrifyingly dominant creature that could crush me with ease.

The first time, incidentally, was when I saw my giant spider mother (father?).

The fact that I have no chance of winning is an issue, sure. But even worse is the fact that it’s faster than me.

Even if something breaches my nest, I can still run away. I’d probably be beating myself up about it like last time, but at least I can escape with my life. With my incredible speed, that was never a problem. But that thing can outrun me.

If I fight it, there’s no way I can win. And I can’t even manage to escape.

Truly, if that thing ever lays eyes on me, it’ll all be over in an instant.

What a distressing creature.

If I knew a thing like that existed, I would’ve just taken my chances fighting the snake head-on.

And I have no way of knowing if that’s the only one of its species lurking in this area.

Scary.

This is the closest I’ve been to death so far. Frankly, I’m kind of surprised by how frightened I am.

Despite all the ridiculous experiences I’ve had so far, I never felt any real tension or terror, so I figured I’d left those feelings behind long ago.

But now I know all too well that isn’t the case.

The only reason I’ve never experienced this much fear is that none of those other situations even began to compare with this one. It’s not that my emotions died, I just had no need for them until now.

Ha-ha.

It’s a little late for that realization now. Why couldn’t I have figured that out before I got myself into this situation?

All right, enough wallowing in regret. It’s time to figure out what I need to do next.

First, I have to secure some degree of safety.

It would be useless in the face of that dragon, but I should probably still build a web around this small rock enclave.

At the moment, I’m physically incapable of leaving.

So this time, I’m going all in. It‘s time to make my third home here. Then, if possible, I want to lure in and kill some weak monsters like those bees.

My goal is to level up so that my wounds can fully heal. Until I recover, there isn’t much else I can do. In my current state, one little prod from even the weakest monster would be enough to kill me.

It’s probably best not to hope that these wounds will heal on their own, too.

Man, I wish I had some kind of automatic HP recovery skill. But there’s no use grousing about that. I just have to accept my situation and try to pull it together.

Anyway, my first order of business is making a base around this little spot.

To be honest, building a nest here probably isn’t the best idea. It’ll just make my presence more obvious, and if a monster like that dragon finds me, I’m toast.

However, with my severe injuries, I don’t have much of a choice.

So I just have to try to level up.

Once I do that and recover from my wounds, I can think about escaping from this dangerous area.

Should I try to go up through the massive swarm of bees or explore down here despite the danger? Both choices seem like they lead straight to hell.

However, now that I’ve fallen all the way down this hole, I’m practically in hell already. The only question is whether I live or die here. And at this point, that pretty much comes down to luck.

As of this moment, I’d say the scales are tipping firmly in favor of me dying. Will my odds keep decreasing, or can I tilt the scales in the other direction?

Well, at the very least, I’m going to try.

Fortunately, I at least have enough stamina to make a web. One bee is still very large, so it makes for a solid food source.

I’m going to have to use every bit of the stamina this bee provides me to make my new home.

From there, it’ll all depend on my skills and my luck.

On the first day, I made as basic a web as possible and went to sleep.

I can’t say I slept very well, thanks to the pain in my back, but at least I didn’t get attacked in my sleep.

Aside from the possibility of attack, I’d also been worried that I might die of my injuries while I passed out or something, so I was extremely relieved when I woke up safely.

My HP was still at 6, the same as before I went to bed.

I didn’t know whether to be disappointed that it didn’t recover or relieved that it didn’t go down any further.

I spent the entirety of the second day expanding the web.

Thanks in no small part to the pain in my back, building this home was proving more difficult than I expected.

Since bees kept buzzing too close for comfort, I often had to stop working and take cover.

Unlike my previous construction projects, I had to be on the lookout while I set things up, and it wore on my nerves.

When I had a moment to spare, I worked on eating the bee from yesterday little by little, to make sure that I didn’t run out of stamina. In this situation, I couldn’t afford to risk getting any closer to death than I already was. Stamina, especially, was critical to my survival. I needed it to create thread and even move around. So at the very least, I had to take care to save enough stamina for at least one fight.

On top of that, I didn’t know when I’d manage to get food next after this, so I had to be very careful about managing my stamina in case I became locked in a war of attrition.

As I was working, I found out that my Pain Resistance skill had jumped up by quite a few levels.

Last I remembered, it had only gone up to level 2, but in the middle of making my webs, the Divine Voice (temp.) spoke:

So now it was suddenly level 7.

I have no idea how that happened, but my guess is that it went up while I was sleeping.

It certainly wasn’t a comfortable sleep, so if the only condition for increasing proficiency in that skill was feeling pain, there was a very good chance that I’d built up plenty during the night.

In retrospect, I did feel like I heard the Divine Voice (temp.) speaking in my dreams.

It turns out the Pain Resistance skill doesn’t actually relieve you of discomfort like you might expect.

It had progressed all the way to level 7 now, but it didn’t seem like the pain was any duller than before. Eventually, I figured out that its effect might be more along the lines of “allows you to move around while enduring pain.”

Honestly, what the hell.

It didn’t hurt any less, and while I could move, at least, my options were still limited.

When I first got the skill, I felt like the pain let up a little, but maybe I was just imagining it.

By the end of the day, my Pain Resistance skill had gone up to 8.

The third day.

I finished eating the bee I’d caught. I also expanded the webs of my nest about as much as possible, so now it’s time to move on to the next stage. Namely, hunting to raise my level.

The question is, how am I going to capture prey?

The bees come pretty close, but they must be cautious of me or something, because they haven’t actually attacked.

I had hoped they’d just charge right at me without thinking, but things haven’t gone so smoothly.

For the time being, I peer up at the bees as I wait for an opportunity.

I’ve tried indirectly provoking the ones that come nearby, among other things, but they still don’t come at me.

As I observe the bees, I notice a few things.

First of all, they generally seem to form groups of five or six. Each squad acts individually.

And the squads have a leader.

A more advanced finjicote.

Judging by the name, it’s probably a stronger species, maybe even an evolved form.

Most of them are level 1, so that seems like a strong possibility.

Among the normal bees, there are some at level 8 or 9, not far from the level threshold, so presumably they could become leaders of their own squads once they evolve.

This captain bee is a bit darker in color than the regular ones. That’s essentially the only difference; their size and shape are the same.

Since the status Appraisal failed as usual, I can’t be sure, but it’s probably safe to assume that their stats are higher than the basic bees.

Eh, probably still not enough to cleave through my web, though.

They probably realize that, too, which would explain why they aren’t making any unnecessary passes at me.

In that case, these bees might be pretty smart.

Occasionally, a squad would break off and disappear into one of the passages at the bottom of the hole.

After a while, they would come back with some defeated prey. That seems to be how they hunt: in efficiently organized groups.

So they really are clever creatures.

There are a few outcast bees that seem to act on their own, though.

More important, the ability of bees to hunt monsters down here is vital information.

That means that not everything here is as freakishly strong as that earth dragon.

Just that little tidbit makes me feel slightly better.

That said, not all the squads come back, so I can’t let my guard down too much. The fact suggests that some monsters out there can turn the tables on the bee groups. Some of the hunting parties that do return are also carrying the corpses of their comrades, so there’s no doubt this is a dangerous area.

I continue observing the state of the bees for a while.

Just as I start considering catching a few z’s, I get a message from the Divine Voice (temp.).

My Pain Resistance skill leveled up again.

I didn’t even realize it had gone from level 8 to 9. That must have happened while I was sleeping again.

The name of the skill changed to “Nullification,” too, and the level counter is gone. I must’ve reached the proficiency cap.

After Night Vision, this is the second skill I’ve maxed out.

And it seems like Night Vision was at a high level to start with, meaning this is the first time I’ve raised a skill all the way to level 10 on my own.

Although I’m honestly not sure if it’s worth all the excruciating memories I made in the process.

Well, the derived skill seems likely to actually ease the pain, so that’s nice. Not that Pain Resistance was useless, exactly, but still.

At level 1, there isn’t much of a change. The stinging in my back is as persistent as ever.

If I raise this skill’s level, the pain might get a little easier to bear, so I just have to hope that it rises while I’m sleeping.

So without further ado, I go to bed.

The fourth day.

I’m slowly beginning to run low on stamina, so I’ll probably have to take some kind of action soon.

My target is one of the solo bees. The risk of challenging a whole group is too high.

I don’t necessarily think I have no chance to win. But it’s far better to err on the side of caution here.

If there are multiple enemies involved, all kinds of unexpected problems could arise. In that respect, it’s easier to take on a loner.

Since the outcast bees don’t have a captain, their comprehension abilities aren’t that strong. Based on my observations from the day before, some individuals willingly venture into narrow tunnels the groups would never approach.

Most likely, the one bee I did catch in my web was a loner that had gone astray in a strange passage and gotten lost.

But then again, I can’t imagine that guy made it all the way from this place to my previous nest, so there was probably a different hive closer to that area.

The prodigal bees I’ve been observing don’t seem very smart. In fact, maybe they failed to join the groups for that very reason and resigned themselves to a life of solitude.

Anyway, I think it may be easier to provoke them into attacking me.

But I don’t plan on using such a luck-based approach.

Instead, I take out the new weapon I devised yesterday.

It’s a thread with a hardened ball of stickier thread attached to the end. I call it the Morning Spider!

Heh-heh-heh. I’m going to use my strength and my Thread Control to swing this thing at a bee in midair.

I’m probably—no, almost definitely—going to miss.

But that’s fine.

It should be enough to get my target to recognize me as hostile. After that, it should come down to attack me on its own, I hope.

If I hit it, great. If not, as long as I can get it to look my way and see me as an enemy, I’ll count that as a win. After that, I just have to hope that it’ll approach my web.

Judging by the way things went yesterday, the outcast bees will come down to check out what’s going on around my home every so often, so it should work out.

While I’m waiting, my new Pain Mitigation levels up.

Huh? This seems like a slow rate of improvement compared with Pain Resistance. I thought it might at least go up to level 5 in my sleep, but it hasn’t changed much at all.

However, now that the level has risen, it’s clear the skill is working.

So Pain Mitigation really does mitigate pain. Thanks to that, the throbbing in my back is a lot easier to bear now.

It’s a pretty bad wound.

I applied some first aid by bandaging it with Thread Control, but there’s still a gaping hole in my back.

If I were still human, I know I would’ve died from an enormous gash like this.

Did I survive it because I’m a spider or because I’m a monster? Either way, it’s such a serious injury that it’s a miracle I’m alive at all.

I’ve used Thread Control before to clean it on occasion, hoping to clear out some of the poison while I was at it, but it hurt so much that I thought I was gonna die.

I have to level up as soon as possible to heal. If I leave it as is much longer, it’s gonna get worse sooner rather than later.

Festering, necrosis, bacterial infection… I need to do something before any new symptoms appear.

And now, finally, my chance has come.

One of the outcast bees is headed my way.

There aren’t any others around. If there were, it’s possible they’d rush to the outcast bee’s aid.

Since that isn’t an issue right now, this is a great opportunity.

I swing my Morning Spider around and around.

Concentrate…concentrate…

Take aim, aaaand…now!

Whoa, I hit it. And I even got a skill at the same time.

Ooh.

I hadn’t expected to land a hit, but the Morning Spider managed to smack straight into the bee’s body.

Without hesitation, I use Thread Control to wrap the thread around the bee right away. Then I politely invite it into my nest. And introduce it to my venomous fangs.

Okay.

That went as well as it possibly could have, start to finish. Maybe my luck is starting to turn around.

No, no, no.

I can’t get carried away. That overconfidence hasn’t gone well for me in the past. I have to stay humble.

I take the first step forward by digging into my first meal in a while.

Now then, time to eat.

For the moment, I’ve secured some food. Given the size of the bee’s body, I can stave off hunger for at least a few days with this. Now I don’t need to worry about stamina for a while.

Which means I have more options.

And my choice is to expand my nest further. In an upward direction.

I really don’t want to explore down here. It isn’t a matter of whether I can or can’t. I just don’t want to.

Nope. I’m scared of the dragon. So that’s a hard pass.

Which is why I’ve decided that I’m going to somehow climb back up to the passage I fell down from.

To that end, I have to find a way around those bees.

If I try to just climb the wall normally, the fliers will get me right away, so I need some kind of plan.

My strategy is to simply keep extending my webs upward.

Well, I don’t know if it’s a strategy so much as an ill-defined attempt to bulldoze my way through the problem.

I mean, I am a crafty sort, if I do say so myself. But I can’t think of any other way to get back up there.

Of course, there are a lot of disadvantages to this plan, too.

For one thing, making more webs will exhaust my stamina.

And unlike normal, I have to build up along a cliff face this time.

Since the circumstances are different, I don’t know how much extra stamina it’ll take.

This is probably going to end up being a pretty big nest, so the lone bee I currently have on hand won’t provide enough energy for the whole project. So I have to find a way to boost my supplies.

On top of that, I might end up having to fight bees for reasons other than dwindling food stores.

They’re ignoring me for the moment, but if I keep expanding my nest upward, I’ll eventually encroach on their main territory.

It’d be an airspace violation. There’s no way of knowing whether they’ll let that slide.

Worst-case scenario, it’s entirely possible that hundreds or even thousands of bees will attack me all at once. What a nightmare.

Obviously, no volume of web would be enough to protect me against numbers like that. And the bees aren’t the only thing I have to worry about.

For the moment, no other monsters have been showing up at the bottom of this pit.

Just that first snake and the earth dragon.

But if that dragon happens to wander by again…

Last time, I was able to wait it out by hiding under rocks, but if I’m expanding my nest, I’m going to draw attention whether I like it or not.

And if I catch that thing’s eye, it’s all over.

Even now, I’m afraid the behemoth might show up at any moment.

In other words, while success would mean escape from this dangerous hellhole, it’s still an extremely risky strategy.

But it doesn’t look like I have any other choice.

Even if I do, nothing’s coming to me right now.

And so, I make up my mind. Time to expand my nest!

First, the foundation. You can’t make a house without a solid base. It’s even fair to say the foundation is what makes or breaks a home.

And what better rock to use for construction than…this one!

My first refuge down here.

The stone rests right up against the wall and is pretty hefty: about twenty feet tall and fifteen feet wide. I’ve decided to use this as the support for my extension.

So far, my webs take up the space between this rock and the wall and a little ways beyond.

First, I seal up the space between the rock and the opposite wall with more thread. Then, I add another strand diagonally from the top of the rock to the wall. Next, I connect the wall and the rock with more webbing, using that diagonal as a guideline.

Now my foundation is complete.

All I have to do now is build upward from there, one step at a time.

I proceed with my work little by little, pausing to snack on the bee for stamina on occasion.

Along the way, I sometimes notice one bee squad or another watching me, but they still don’t conduct any assaults.

Apparently I’m not in their attack range just yet.

Once I finish eating the bee, I decide to call it a day and get some rest.

It’s now day five.

The pain seems to have let up considerably. My HP is still 6.

Since it hasn’t recovered at all, my Pain Mitigation skill must have risen while I was sleeping.

Not being in agony is a nice change.

I’ve been able to work this whole time thanks to my Pain Nullification skill, but the weakening of the pain still makes a huge difference.

Of course, the sensation hasn’t gone away completely, and the injury hasn’t healed, but still. It’s definitely easier.

I never suffered an injury this severe when I was a human.

Up until my reincarnation, the most painful experience I’d ever had was when I stubbed my little toe on the corner of a door. Man, that hurt.

But it was nothing compared to a gaping hole in my back.

Since I’m starting to feel a bit better, work is progressing smoothly.

Along the way, another outcast bee comes along. But one of the squads is pretty close by, too. Hmm.

As an experiment, I decide to take a swipe at it. I want to know whether the nearby group will react if a stray gets attacked. If they do, I’ll immediately retreat deep into my nest. And if they don’t react, I’m good to go.

I take a swing with the Morning Spider.

Take aim, aaaand…now!

Oh, I got it.

Wow. Am I amazing or what?

I hadn’t expected to hit anything at all with this, but now I’m two for two.

Me, the one who came in dead last in my grade for the softball toss during our physical fitness test…

Oops, I was so surprised that I forgot to watch the main bee group’s reaction.

The bee squad is…over there. Hmm. No reaction. So if I savage an outcast bee, the others won’t come after me.

Is it just me, or is that a little heartless?

I guess maybe you have to be a little cold-hearted to survive in the wild…

Well, if they aren’t going to attack, that’s a win in my book. Now I can pick off the stragglers to my heart’s content. I practically cackle to myself as I collect my prize and finish it off with my venomous bite.

As I hunt yet another vagrant bee (I’ve lost count at this point), I hear the voice I’ve been waiting for.

The moment of my long-awaited level-up has arrived.

My skin promptly peels away from my body.

Though I can’t see it, I can feel the large hole on my back closing itself up.

Huh? For real?

Ooooh. Now this is unexpected.

Wait, so does the full recovery with each level-up count as auto-recovery?

I’m totally thrilled, but if I could offer one comment of constructive criticism, I’d rather I’d gotten that skill a little sooner…

Then I wouldn’t have had to suffer so much this whole time. But you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. The only proper reaction is to celebrate finally leveling up and clearing away so many of my worries.

Honestly, that was a close call. Just as I’d originally feared, my HP had started to go down.

When it first dropped from 6 to 5, I felt the certainty of death looming over me.

After that, it continued to slowly ebb, and by the time I leveled up, it had whittled itself down to 3.

That was seriously close.

Thank goodness I suppressed my anxiety long enough to focus on shooting down those bees.

The hunt is going smoothly. Surprisingly, my long-distance attacks with the Morning Spider hit the mark every time.

I can’t get over it. Is this another benefit of my spider body?

Probably thanks to that, I gained two new level-1 skills: Throw and Hit. Both of them would probably make my Morning Spider attacks even better.

And with this latest level-up, three of my skills powered up, too.

I don’t really know what any of them did, but if they leveled up, I must be earning proficiency for them somehow, so it’s possible that I’m benefiting from them without even realizing it.

Well, it certainly can’t hurt to level them up, I guess. Although the Overeating one does get on my nerves…

As I work on my webs and hunt more bees, I make enough use of my Spider Thread and Thread Control that they rank up as well.

The Spider Thread skill now stands at level 8, and Thread Control at level 5.

The latter is definitely more useful than I originally thought.

At level 5, I can manipulate threads with vastly superior speed and precision.

Picking up that skill was a great decision.

Pain Mitigation is level 5 now, too, which makes life even easier.

The good thing about this skill, besides the obvious benefit of less pain, is that even if I don’t feel the discomfort, I can still tell when I’m in a dangerous situation.

Pain has a function, after all, as a signal alerting you to threats or poor conditions. So if you can’t feel it, you won’t know when your body is in danger, but with this skill, I can still tell how deep or severe a wound is even if I’m immune to any of the sensations it would normally cause.

It’s hard to put an intuitive impression like that into words, but if anything, I’d say it’s like I have an awareness of unease or aggravation or something from the wound.

Anyway, thanks to that, there’s no disadvantage to the dulled pain.

That being said, the skill is still only level 5, so it’s not like pain is completely absent.

Now that I’ve leveled up, I figure I might as well see how much my stats have changed.

<Small taratect

LV 3

Nameless

Status:

HP: 38/38 (green)

MP: 38/38 (blue)

SP: 38/38 (yellow)

: 38/38 (red)

Average Offensive Ability: 21

Average Defensive Ability: 21

Average Magical Ability: 19

Average Resistance Ability: 19

Average Speed Ability: 369

Oh-ho-ho.

My HP, MP, and SP went up 2 points each, as did my attack and defense, and my magic and resistance went up 1 point each.

And then there’s my speed. What’s up with you, Speed? I think it was 348 before. So it went up 21 points?

That’s a little weird, no?

Kind of a big leap compared to my other stat increases, if you ask me…

I mean, my speed bonus for a single level-up is the same as my total for attack and defense? Is this for real?

Never mind that it’s greater than my magic and resistance… What the hell?

Oh well. I decide to turn a blind eye to the ridiculously lopsided nature of my stats. It’s a little too late for that now, anyway. I finally got my wish of leveling up and fully recovering, so now it’s time to focus all my efforts on escaping.

While I was injured, I obviously worked more slowly, and I had to be extra-cautious as well.

So from now on, I’ll hunt stray bees whenever the opportunity presents itself, maintaining a steady supply of stamina as I expand my nest.

Right now, my webs span about a quarter of the distance to my goal. There’s still a long way to go.

The bees still haven’t made any efforts to wage war on me, but I don’t know how long that will last. With this in mind, I have to make sure to maintain enough strength to fend off possible bee incursions while I carry on construction.

Still, it’s proving fairly difficult.

Just as I guessed, building up a wall is a lot harder than doing it along the ground, so the higher I build my webs, the harder the work becomes.

I have to stretch thick strands from the foundation rock to serve as a base, then secure those with more threads all over the place.

And this is what it’s like just a quarter of the way up; it’s only going to get harder from here on out.

Nevertheless, I have to do it. I don’t know when the earth dragon might pop up again. I need to get out of here before that happens.

In the worst-case scenario, I may have to abandon the nest partway up and hope that my speed will be enough to push through.

It doesn’t seem like a great option, but if it comes down to a life-or-death situation, I won’t have much of a choice.

In the hopes of avoiding that particular scenario, I do my best to keep building.

I think the time has finally come.

One of the bee squads is flying right toward me.

This wasn’t the attitude of the teams that would periodically buzz by to keep an eye on me. Without a doubt, these guys are coming to fight an enemy.

At this point, my nest is about halfway up to my target position.

When I initially got this far, the behavior of the bees started shifting gradually, but apparently they’ve finally decided they can’t leave me be any longer.

But it was still only one squad.

I’m not sure whether the bees are underestimating me or if this squad is just a scouting party while the rest hang back to see what’ll happen.

At any rate, they’re sorely mistaken if they think a single squad can beat me now that I have a nest.

I ready my Morning Spider.

The nest is made up of standard mesh-shaped webs, but I’ve left gaps large enough to throw a Morning Spider through.

The gaps aren’t nearly large enough for the six-foot-long bees to enter, though.

My opponents can’t get past my web, but I can attack them from inside as much as I please. Though they could also just fly away whenever they want, so we’ll call it even.

The two level-5 squad members fly toward me.

Hmph. As if two at once would be enough for my defenses.

My Spider Thread skill is level 8. Even at a low level, my thread was already impressively sturdy, and it’s only gotten stronger with every level since then.

Sure enough, the two bees contact the surface of my nest and are promptly tangled up in the unbroken thread. Despite their mass and speed charging in, my nest didn’t take a single bit of damage. It’s totally unshaken, literally and metaphorically.

The threads I used to make it are highly durable, with rubberlike elasticity for shock absorption. When a certain amount of weight is applied, the threads flex and soften the impact.

The two bees’ bodies weren’t enough to trigger that. In other words, my web withstood the full power of their attack on the basis of its durability alone.

It’s not that the bees’ attack was particularly weak.

As far as I could tell from my observations, these bees are actually rather strong.

I’ve even seen a squad haul back a snake as one of their victims.

They have plenty of advantages: unilateral attacks from the air, venomous needles, and powerful physiques.

Under normal circumstances, they’d be a considerable threat.

Because they stay airborne, most attacks can’t reach them, and they can easily make a preemptive strike.

But that’s exactly why they’re weak to anti-aircraft-style attacks. If you ask me, the success of my Morning Spider attacks has as much to do with their lack of vigilance as it does with my good aim.

Still, in a normal fight, a bee is a formidable enemy. But only normal fights.

My trump card—my home—is not normal.

It has abnormal defensive power, adhesiveness, and my extraordinarily good strategies.

I’m sure these insects have never seen combat tactics like this.

After all, I’m combining all the strengths of a spider with the intellect of a human.

For the time being, I ignore the two bees that rammed into my web and are now stuck. I toss my Morning Spider toward the other three, who still haven’t fully processed the situation.

The leader bee, unable to dodge in time, receives the attack straight to the face. After all, it’s always best to aim for the head first.

Letting the centrifugal force and gravity do most of the work, I swing the leader bee down toward the bottom of my nest.

And just like that, I’ve eliminated their captain.

Without their team leader, the two remaining bees of the squad hang frozen in the air with no idea what to do.

Works for me.

I swat down the higher-level one first with my trusty Morning Spider. As it watches, the last bee finally comes to its senses, but its next tactic is very poorly thought out.

I don’t know what it hopes to accomplish, but it simply launches its whole body right at me.

Did you not see what happened to the first two guys, pal?

At any rate, the desperate attack obviously doesn’t reach me, and the final bee crashes tragically into my web and stops moving.

Well, that’s almost disappointing.

When I first fell down here, those enemies were terrifying, but now that I have my nest, they can’t even touch me.

Considering that three body slams haven’t been enough to even shake the surface of my web, I doubt they’ll be able to reach me no matter how many come at me.

I’ve just proven how strong my webs are.

Compared to the defensive capabilities of my silk, the attack power of the bees wasn’t nearly high enough for a breach.

Honestly, I imagined my home would at least take enough damage to require repairs, even if they didn’t break completely through.

Part 5 of 8

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