So I’m a Spider, So What Vol. 7 — Part 1 of 8

Part 1 of 8

So I’m a Spider, So What?, Vol. 7

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. 7

©Okina Baba, Tsukasa Kiryu 2017

First published in Japan in 2017 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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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: 978-1-9753-0199-6 (paperback)

978-1-9753-0198-9 (ebook)

E3-20230310-JV-PC-COR

Contents

Cover

Insert

Title Page

1 Transcontinental Journey Progress Report

2 Attack on the Ant Hole

3 Ancient Ruins Discovered!

4 Anti-Tank Battle!

5 Unidentified Flying Objects Always Appear Out of Nowhere

6 Live Broadcast from the Leaders’ Meeting

7 Anti-UFO Battle Strategy

Interlude The Vampire Mistress and Her Servant Discuss Machinery

8 Sky Battle! Fantasy vs Sci-Fi

Interlude The Vampire Mistress and Her Servant Discuss MA Energy

9 The Enemy Is Everywhere!

Interlude The Vampire Mistress and Her Servant Discuss Potimas

10 Restraint

Special Chapter The Struggle of the Pontiff’s Ground Forces

11 UFO Infiltration Mission

Special Chapter The Black Dragon’s Space Battle

12 The Bomb Squad’s Explosive Progress

13 Final Boss Walk-Through

14 Unidentified Flying Objects Are the Vehicles of Gods

Final Chapter The Eternal Child’s Soliloquy

Afterword

Yen Newsletter

TRANSCONTINENTAL JOURNEY PROGRESS REPORT

“Okay. Say ‘aaaah.’”

“““““Aaaah.”””””

“Now say ‘eeee.’”

“““““Eeeee.”””””

A chorus of young girls’ voices echoes across the barren wasteland.

They’re not actually singing, but when you hear a bunch of people repeating things in unison, it sort of sounds like a song, doesn’t it?

And no, don’t point out that none of them are human. That’s rude.

Right now, we’re in the middle of a huge wasteland in the cluster of small countries north of Sariella.

When we arrived at the initial destination of our little journey, the capital of Sariella, Vampy and Mera decided to leave their homeland behind and go to the demon territory.

These two were driven out of their hometown by a war with the Word of God religion and Potimas’s machinations.

The fact that they’re both vampires, not humans, probably played a big role in their decision to take things a step further and leave their home behind.

Vampy is a Progenitor who was born as a vampire, and Mera was turned into one when Vampy drank his blood.

If they want to live in the human world without anyone protecting them, they’ll have to hide that fact.

That’s why they decided to follow their protector, the Demon Lord, into demon territory. That decision took guts, if you ask me.

It’s been about a year since they made that decision.

We headed straight north from the capital of Sariella and crossed the border.

It’s been a pretty peaceful journey since we left the capital, without any notable incidents.

In fact, the biggest incident since we started this journey was my Parallel Minds going rogue.

I kept bracing myself for Potimas to attack, but he hasn’t. Things are going so smoothly, it’s almost anticlimactic.

Still, we can’t let our guard down.

Just to be safe, we’ve been avoiding any regular routes where we might be seen, taking the roads less traveled, to the point where there aren’t even any roads.

People don’t normally cross through this wasteland, so it’s a perfect place for us to travel.

It’s easy to see why nobody else is here when you look up at the sky.

Countless black shadows fly about in the air.

Birds? You wish.

Some of them look a bit like birds, but most resemble reptiles.

A bunch actually look like feathered dinosaurs, so somewhere between birds and reptiles, I guess.

The creatures flying through the air are wyrms or maybe even dragons.

They’re the rulers of this wasteland.

Yeah. With that many wyrms and dragons loitering in these parts, it’s no wonder humans don’t set foot in this place.

A single dragon or higher-ranked wyrm could destroy an entire army of humans.

The only people who would be reckless enough to walk into this nightmare territory must either be suicidal or hoping to go down in history as legends.

But we’re neither of those things.

Because we’ve got a demon lord, who happens to be far stronger than any dragon.

If she felt like it, the Demon Lord could probably wipe out all the dragons flying overhead without breaking a sweat.

Dragons can wipe out an entire army of humans, and the Demon Lord can wipe out an entire army of dragons.

This is just getting stupid.

Even power creep should have a limit, if you ask me.

But that being said, we’ve got Vampy and Mera in our entourage.

If we got caught in a cataclysmic battle between the Demon Lord and the dragons, those two might not survive.

Of course, it’s highly possible that the Demon Lord could protect them both while defeating all the dragons. But there’s no need to get into a dangerous situation like that deliberately.

Before we entered the wasteland, the Demon Lord yelled to the dragons, “We’re just passing through!”

I don’t know whether they heard that and understood her or not, but they’ve only been flying around above us the entire time, not paying us any mind.

Maybe they decided to keep an eye on us but not interfere unless they had to.

With that, we get to dodge a pointless battle and avoid the possibility of Vampy and Mera dying.

Plus, this way the dragons won’t have to be totally obliterated.

Fighting wouldn’t benefit either party, so they made the right call there.

And so we’re just walking along normally, not bothering the native wildlife, either.

Maybe crooning as we walk isn’t really normal, but don’t worry about that.

There’s a reason for this chorus, okay?

Otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it.

To clarify, what we’re doing is vocal training.

The baby bloodsucker’s gotten so big, she can barely be called a baby anymore.

Guess you could say she’s evolved into a toddler.

But there’s one little problem.

Since she’s been using Telepathy to communicate this whole time, she’s not very good at speaking out loud.

She’s a little vampire girl with a lisp.

I guess that has appeal for a very specific audience.

Considering her physical age, it’s not that weird for her to have a lisp, but in her case, it could be a bit of a problem.

On top of using Telepathy instead of talking, she’s never screamed and cried like a normal baby, so her vocal cords are close to unused.

It’s led to a vicious cycle: She can’t fix her lisp, so she gets embarrassed and uses Telepathy, which means her vocal cords continue to go unused.

If it keeps up like this, we can’t expect her lisp to simply go away with age.

The solution we hurriedly came up with was these vocal training exercises.

Watching a little toddler traipse through a wasteland while shouting weird phrases is surreal.

But it actually seems to be fairly effective.

For the vocal training and for her stats.

Generally, stats go up more as you utilize them, but there are limits to that.

To really get results, you have to do training that most people will find hard or even painful.

And the Vampy’s starting as a baby, the lowest physical form imaginable.

For her, even just walking is a tall order, which means it made her stats go up like crazy.

I mean, most babies at this age haven’t even learned to walk yet, never mind doing it all day.

No wonder her stats went up so fast at first.

But at this point, since they’re so high, walking alone isn’t enough to raise them much anymore.

Walking for a whole day isn’t even a challenge for her now, making this the perfect time to add another element.

That’s why I’ve got her doing vocal exercises as she walks now.

This training requires a lot of deep inhaling and exhaling, so if you do it while you’re already exercising, it can get really hard to breathe.

It might even be sort of like the high-altitude training some athletes do.

On top of that, I’ve got her practicing what little magic she’s capable of while she walks, and all that multitasking is raising her Parallel Minds skill, too.

That’s the reason our weird little procession is making so much noise as we walk.

Now, have you noticed anything strange about my little update so far?

Bingo. Vampy’s voice alone wouldn’t make a chorus.

As it happens, she’s not the only one participating in this training.

There are four other girls practicing along with her.

Or four monsters, to be exact.

It’s the four puppet spiders, the Demon Lord’s underlings.

As the name implies, they’re spider monsters that control puppetlike dolls.

Their actual bodies are tiny spiders, but they use these puppets made of thread to fight. Pretty crazy stuff.

The thing is, these puppets used to look like the drabbest mannequins. But I’ve done so much magical modding on them that now you’d totally think they were human, at least from a distance.

Once I was satisfied with their looks, I tried my hand at crafting some vocal cords for them, but that ended up being fairly difficult, so I was stuck for a while.

Heh-heh. But I finally got it done!

It was hard.

It was so hard…

But I think I nailed it!

I spent the past year in an endless cycle of trial and error until I finally produced these vocal cords.

Even now, they don’t function all that well.

You’ve gotta make the thread vibrate to produce something that sounds like a human voice, but accomplishing that is no walk in the park.

Even a single syllable takes a lot of effort.

That’s how the puppet spiders started doing vocal training alongside Vampy.

They still seem to have a lot of trouble with even simple sounds, so it’ll probably be a long time before they can speak smoothly. They seem determined though, so I’m sure they’ll get there eventually.

I figure I can keep trying to improve the artificial vocal cords, too.

By the way, the puppet spiders used to get summoned only when the Demon Lord and the others went into town, but these days they’re with us all the time.

Maybe the Demon Lord got sick of summoning and dismissing them over and over.

Whatever the reason, the percentage of girls in this group has certainly skyrocketed.

Congrats, Mera! You’ve got yourself a harem!

Although there isn’t a single normal human girl in the bunch.

I’m a half-human, half-spider arachne; the Demon Lord is…a demon lord; the puppet spiders look cute but they’re still just spiders on the inside; and the baby bloodsucker is a toddler.

Okay, yeah. That’s not much of a harem.

Plus, Mera’s master, Vampy, is always keeping an eye on him, so he has to be careful.

Frankly, if she gets any more attached to Mera, she’ll officially be a crazy stalker girlfriend.

She already starts glaring whenever he interacts with the other girls.

Not to mention, her Jealousy skill level’s been going up.

Jealousy evolves from the Spite skill, and it’s already level 2.

“Sophia, don’t get so worked up, okay? You have to make sure you don’t raise that skill. The Seven Deadly Sins skills can have a serious effect on your mind, so it’s bad news all ’round. Just stay calm, all right? Why is it going up so fast anyway? Those skills are supposed to be really hard to level up…”

That’s what the Demon Lord had to say on the matter.

Apparently, Vampy’s Jealousy skill is a lesser form of the Seven Deadly Sins skill Envy.

The Demon Lord says the Seven Deadly Sins skills are supposed to be hard to level up, but the baby bloodsucker’s making crazy progress.

That can’t be good…

Her poor servant can’t sleep because of the weight of his master’s love.

Hang in there, bud!

Luckily, Mera has a very serious personality and hasn’t shown any interest in relationships with women, so Vampy hasn’t flipped her lid yet.

If Mera was more of a womanizer, we might all be in big trouble.

He’s maintaining a healthy distance between master and servant, even when the bloodsucker keeps shooting him weird looks, so everything seems to be all right.

I mean, she is a toddler, so it’s not like there’s anything to worry about in the first place.

Good thing Mera isn’t a creep who goes after little girls.

Speaking of the non-creep, he’s actually walking silently in front of me right now.

A heavy thudding sound rings out as he walks along, leaving literal footprints in the bedrock.

I’m applying heavy pressure on him with my Repellent Evil Eye. That’s why his feet sink into the rock with every step.

As you may have guessed, this is for Mera’s training.

Mera’s stats are higher than Vampy’s.

It’s only natural, since he’s an adult man who was recently turned into a vampire, while she’s still an toddler.

On top of that, he hasn’t missed a single day of training on this journey, so he gets stronger every day.

That’s why he has to resort to measures like this or his stats won’t go up much.

Even shouting while he walks, the way Vampy and company are doing, wouldn’t raise his stats much.

Plus, he doesn’t need vocal training in the first place.

Hence the Repellent Evil Eye weight training.

This is way more intensive than the vocal exercises, so his stats have been going up at a decent clip.

They’re about as good as the average monster’s at this point.

Compared to his stats, though, his skills have been ranking up preeeetty slowly.

Like, they’ve certainly grown, but when you compare them to my overpowered Pride skill’s high-speed leveling, it’s not very impressive.

But even I’ve hit a bit of a wall.

I haven’t had many chances to fight monsters on this journey, so my level hasn’t gone up, and my stats and skill levels are so high that they barely budge anymore.

If I want to level up at this point, I’d basically have to slaughter enough creatures to wipe out an entire freaking ecosystem.

No wonder my level hasn’t gone up.

Since the Demon Lord and I have a ceasefire now, it’s not that big of a deal, but I can’t help feeling impatient after getting stuck like this.

My ultimate goal is to be strong enough to defeat the Demon Lord or Potimas, but it doesn’t look like I’ll be accomplishing either of those goals anytime soon.

I’ve been working on some strategies to deal with Potimas, so I might be able to hold my own against him, but I still don’t feel like I could take on the Demon Lord.

“Say ‘oooo.’”

“““““Oooo.”””””

At the moment, said Demon Lord is happily leading the chorus made up of the baby bloodsucker and the puppet spiders.

Looks like she’s having a great time.

Kinda easygoing for a demon lord, isn’t she?

If she looked a little older, she could be mistaken for the host of a children’s TV show or something.

But unfortunately, the Demon Lord looks like a little— Huh?! I just got a chill!

Um… I should probably cut that train of thought off there.

That particular topic strikes a nerve with the Demon Lord.

Now she’s looking right at me, with a smile that’s 200 percent scarier than before.

Sorry, sorry. I wasn’t thinking about anything, I swear.

I deeefinitely wasn’t thinking about how the Demon Lord looks like a little kid.

I think I just saw the Demon Lord’s grin widen a little, but I’m sure I’m only imagining things.

Yeah. Let’s go with that.

Oh yikes, now even the baby bloodsucker and the puppet spiders look scared.

Let’s try not to frighten the children, okay?

A thousand pardons, Madam Demon Lord, but I would be most appreciative if you could forget about me and focus on the kids. Many thanks.

I don’t know if my silent plea got through to her, but the Demon Lord goes back to leading the chorus as if nothing happened.

Whew. That was close.

As you can see, my relationship with the Demon Lord hasn’t changed much.

On the surface, we don’t act like enemies, but sometimes we push each other’s buttons.

That’s the kind of tentative situation we’re in right now.

But it’s not like we’re seriously provoking each other.

Once in a while, I can tell that the Demon Lord is testing the waters, trying to figure out how I’m feeling.

My guess is she’s decided it benefits her more to have me as an ally than to kill me, so she’s trying to close the distance between us little by little.

Although it’s hard to say whether that’s working or not.

I mean, I’m definitely down for whatever if it means I don’t have to pointlessly risk my life fighting her, but that doesn’t mean I can trust her completely.

Basically, I think we both want to find a middle ground, but neither of us can quite commit to getting closer to each other.

Vampy, Mera, the Demon Lord, the puppet spiders.

We’re all traveling together with our own thoughts and feelings.

Overall, the journey’s going pretty well.

We haven’t been attacked by the elves like we feared.

But I know for a fact that Potimas isn’t just sitting around twiddling his thumbs.

“So who exactly is Potimas?”

At some point, Vampy finally asks the Demon Lord the million-dollar question.

“A piece of garbage,” the Demon Lord replies immediately.

Okay, you know that’s not what she was asking. (Everyone else likely had the same internal reaction.)

I’m almost sure the Demon Lord is aware of that, too, though.

Oh, but maybe she wasn’t being sarcastic. Maybe that was actually just the first answer that came to mind.

“That’s not what I’m asking…,” Vampy responds finally.

Her expression is priceless: I know is written all over her face.

I guess she’s well aware that Potimas is scum.

I mean, he did kill both her parents and tried to kill her, too.

It’s only natural that she’d want to know more about him.

To Vampy, Potimas is a mortal enemy who killed her parents and plans to kill her next. She has every right to know who he is.

Still, the Demon Lord doesn’t answer right away.

She stays silent for a while, looking pensive.

How much should I tell her?

I’m sure that’s what the Demon Lord was thinking.

I want to know more about Potimas, too, so I wait for the reply.

Since my Taboo skill is maxed out, I have some idea of what Potimas might be.

The Demon Lord was once worshipped by the Goddess religion as the goddess’s divine beast.

But Potimas knows her and even has the nerve to treat her like a child.

Plus, he had a mechanical body, which absolutely shouldn’t be a thing in this world.

If I put together all the pieces, I can guess what he really is.

Still, I’d rather hear the truth from the Demon Lord, who obviously knows the facts.

“All right. White seems interested, too, so I guess I’ll tell you the whole story.” The Demon Lord glances at me, then sighs. “But there’s no going back once you’ve heard this. That guy’s no ordinary villain. He’s a threat to this entire world, as rich as that sounds coming from a demon lord. Once you find out what he really is, you won’t be able to live peacefully in this world anymore. Well, I guess you could, but I’m sure it would weigh on your heart. Now, I can tell you the basic, most harmless facts about him, but that’s not what you want to know, is it? If you really want to learn everything, make absolutely certain you’re prepared to hear what I have to say.”

The Demon Lord’s serious attitude seems to catch Vampy by surprise.

She didn’t ask about Potimas out of casual curiosity, of course.

But she probably wasn’t expecting to hear that the information would change her worldview, either.

Vampy hesitates for just a moment, looks at Mera, and finally seems to make up her mind.

“Please tell me.”

Seeing her determination, the Demon Lord nods once and begins to speak.

“Potimas Harrifenas. That’s his full name. He’s the patriarch of the elves—the head honcho, basically. Elves are one of the demi-human races in this world… Although the only humanoid races are humans, demons, and elves, so I guess the term demi-human might not be appropriate. Now, what’s special about the elves is that their life spans are ridiculously long. Demons live two or three times longer than humans, but elves live more than ten times longer. They grow a lot slower as a result, about half as quickly as humans do. Once they reach their prime, their bodies stop growing, and after that they slooowly start to age. But the aging process varies among elves: Some get older gradually over the years while others barely change at all, then suddenly age very quickly toward the end of their life spans. But either way, they stick around for a ludicrous amount of time.”

These basic facts about elves might be common knowledge to the Demon Lord and Mera, who are from this world, but they’re new to Vampy and me.

Elves existed only in fiction back on Earth.

“Since they grow more slowly than humans, they tend to compensate for that by learning magic. When a body’s still growing, its physical stats are hard to raise, but magic-related stats have nothing to do with the body, so they can be trained whenever. Oh, but you’re an exception, Sophia. Of course your stats are gonna go up, since you’ve been doing this crazy training as a baby.”

The baby bloodsucker screws up her face, unable to respond.

“Once elves become adults, their physical stats can grow normally like a human’s. But by that point, it’s easier to get strong by focusing on magic stats rather than going out of their way to raise their weak physical attributes, so most elves just stick to magic. That’s why elves are generally thought to be better at magic than humans and demons but physically weaker. Doesn’t mean they’re actually all that weak, though.”

Most elves focus on honing their strengths instead of covering their weaknesses, which was how they got that reputation.

“Most elves sequester themselves in a village located in the Great Garam Forest. That forest is swarming with strong monsters, so no normal human could ever reach the village. Even if they did make it, there’s a powerful barrier around the place, so they wouldn’t be able to get in. That’s why people hardly ever meet elves. There are some elves outside the village, of course, but not many, and they don’t really like interacting with non-elves. Even if you see one, they’d probably never talk to you. Elves look down on both humans and demons, ’cause they’re super-stuck-up.”

To summarize, elves have really long life spans, are good at magic, mostly stay in the forest, and don’t like other races.

In other words, they’re not much different from how elves were usually depicted in pop fiction back on Earth.

Could that really be a coincidence?

“Now, all of that is just society’s common knowledge about elves. The rest is the part you guys probably want to know. I’ll ask again: Are you sure you want to hear it?”

Vampy nods silently.

“All right. I guess I’ll talk about the machines first. The concept is probably already familiar to White and Sophia, but it might not be clear to Merazophis. A machine is the crystallization of highly advanced science and technology… No, you probably don’t understand that, either, so I’ll break it down a little more. Basically, it’s a device that can produce magic-like phenomena without using magic. That’s a machine. Get it?”

That was a pretty rough explanation, all right.

I’m not sure if was enough for Mera to get it, but he doesn’t comment, although maybe he’s just being polite.

But I guess it’s not weird to have a hard time explaining machines to someone who doesn’t know the first thing about them.

Even if you tried to start with the basics, that would still require some technical knowledge, so it would wind up taking ages to explain.

It’s not really the point of this discussion, so maybe it was actually for the best to just glaze over it as a mystery object that makes magic-like stuff happen without using magic.

“The elves are the only race in this world with access to these machines. They have all the materials, the knowledge, and the techniques.”

Yeah, I figured.

Potimas’s cyborg body made that obvious.

“As for how advanced their engineering is, it’s probably ahead of Earth at this point.”

Vampy’s eyes widen at that.

I can’t say I blame her. Who would guess that super-advanced technology exists in a world that seems so stereotypically fantasy based?

But Vampy saw Potimas’s cyborg body as well as I did. She must have an idea that this might be the case.

Still, I guess hearing it out loud surprised her.

It must be surprising and confusing if you don’t have prior knowledge like I do. Most people would be shocked by the fact that something like that exists in this world.

…Unless the reasoning wasn’t actually as strange as you had been led to believe.

“So Potimas has been using this technology to operate behind the scenes. But to be honest, I don’t know why he’s targeting you specifically, Sophia. From what I’ve heard, he attacked you knowing you’re a reincarnation, so it’s probably got something to do with that. But I have no idea what he stands to gain from killing reincarnations, so I can’t say for sure. In fact, we don’t even know if he really intended to kill you. I got the impression he was planning something else at first.”

Like the Demon Lord, I have some doubts about Potimas’s motives.

If he wanted to kill Vampy, there were plenty of other ways to do that.

He probably could have killed her regardless of my interference, if that was really all he intended to do.

But since that didn’t happen, he must not have planned to kill her at first.

But knowing that doesn’t mean I have any idea what his original goal was. Potimas’s reasons for going after Vampy are still a mystery.

“Um, why do the elves have technology like that?” Vampy asks.

Yeah, that’s a reasonable question.

In this stereotypical fantasy world, the elves’ machines stick out like a sore thumb.

It’s perfectly normal to wonder about it.

“Weird, isn’t it? This world’s civilizations are way less developed than Earth, but the elves have access to technology way more advanced than anything you’d find on Earth. From your point of view, the elves are probably like O-parts, right?”

O-parts… As in, “out-of-place artifacts,” right? What a fitting phrase.

“But it’s actually the opposite.” The Demon Lord shrugs.

Mera and Vampy don’t seem to understand what she means.

“Technology needs a foundation in order to develop. Without someone bringing knowledge from the future or something, it’s impossible for technology to suddenly advance out of nowhere. People make tools out of sticks, then advance to stone tools, then improve even further with bronzeware. Bronze leads to iron, allowing for more complex tools, which leads to gears, then steam engines, then circuits. It all has to happen in order. So the elves’ technology must have developed like that, too, right? But they couldn’t have done all that alone. It’s not entirely impossible, but they hardly ever make contact with other races, and they don’t have enough land and resources. Elves should barely be able to preserve civilization, never mind advance it.”

Civilizations develop over time, by accumulating history.

No genius stuck in the Stone Age is suddenly gonna skip right to inventing the semiconductor.

In fact, it’d be creepy if that did happen. What would be going on in that person’s head?

“What I’m saying is, the elves couldn’t have developed such complex technology by themselves. There would have to be others who had the same technology. At least, under normal circumstances.”

Mera is the first one to give a gasp of realization.

“I see. So that’s why you said it’s the opposite…?” he murmurs.

A question mark practically appears over Vampy’s head.

…She’s a little dumb, isn’t she?

“That’s right. It’s the opposite. The elves haven’t independently created highly advanced technology. It’s simply that everyone else has moved backward. That’s the reality of this world.”

Finally, Vampy finally seems to get it.

“Long, long ago, this world had technology far more advanced than that of Earth. But they made a grave mistake and headed down the path of destruction. In doing so, they lost all their technology in the process, and everyone but the elves went into a cultural backslide.”

It’s not that the elves are advanced. It’s that everyone else has fallen behind.

That’s why the word “opposite” came up.

The Demon Lord has just revealed part of the truth of this world.

ATTACK ON THE ANT HOLE

This so-called fantasy world is actually a postapocalyptic world.

When Vampy realized this, she looked like she finally understood.

It certainly explains a lot.

Really, if you think about it, there were plenty of suspicious signs.

Especially Potimas’s cyborg body.

Mera, on the other hand, seems to be having trouble digesting this information.

Unlike Vampy and me, Mera is originally from this world, so it’s probably hard for him to keep up with all the new concepts like machines and technology, which he can’t even picture.

Seeing is believing, as they say.

Still, he seems to be doing his best to understand the Demon Lord’s words despite having little basis for it, and it’s not necessarily a big deal if he doesn’t fully get it.

We’re talking about the distant past, after all. It doesn’t really affect us in the present.

…At least, that’s what I thought at first.

The Demon Lord party walks through the wasteland in the dead of night.

When I put it that way, it sounds like she’s leading her troops on a march. But in reality, we look more like a bunch of young girls and one guy. Mera looks the oldest of any of us, but of course the Demon Lord is actually the oldest by far.

I guess in terms of appearance, I look the second oldest after him.

That doesn’t mean I look old, though! I just mean in comparison to the bite-size Demon Lord, the puppet spiders, and the baby bloodsucker!

I’ve got the same face I had in my old life, which means I look like a high school student, okay?!

Seriously, you’d be digging your own grave if you ever told a high school girl she looks old.

By the way, despite my looks, my real age in this world is roughly the same as Vampy’s, so I’m still a minor.

Unlike the Demon Lord, who might seem like a kid but she’s gotta be at least a thousand times the legal age of adulthood!

…What was I talking about again? I got a little carried away there.

As my mind wanders, my attention is suddenly drawn back.

Something’s entered the range of my Detection.

I use Panoptic Vision to peek at whatever it is.

At first, it just looks like an ordinary bird, but it can’t fool my Detection skill.

It’s a mechanical surveillance drone in the shape of a bird.

There’s only one person who would use something like that.

It must be a surveillance device sent by Potimas.

I activate Warped Evil Eye through my Panoptic Vision.

The space around the bird-shaped device warps, twisting and destroying everything within it. Including the surveillance bird.

The Demon Lord glances over at me as she leads the vampire–spider girl chorus.

I nod silently, and she nods back.

The reason I know Potimas isn’t just sitting around is that these surveillance devices have been showing up periodically.

And that’s been going on since we first started this journey after the Demon Lord defeated Potimas.

Every time I destroy them before they can get close.

Otherwise he’d get information about us.

By destroying them, I’m giving away our approximate location, but that would happen anyway if I simply left the drones alone and let them see us.

It’s better to destroy them and keep the amount of information Potimas gathers as low as possible.

Although the ideal amount would be zero, of course.

We’ve been trying our best to keep it that way, y’know?

That’s why we’re using all these routes so far from civilization, to try to keep out of his sight.

But for Mera to sustain himself, we do need to stop by a town or village once in a while.

It’s inevitable that we can’t quite keep completely out of sight in those situations.

Once in a while Potimas seems to lose track of us, and the surveillance drones will stop showing up for a long period of time. But at that point, he usually resorts to sending drones to anywhere we might possibly be just to find us again.

It’s not only Potimas, either. The Demon Lord said the pontiff of the Word of God religion tracked her down with similar methods.

The moment we decided on making the demon territory our destination, the possible routes we could reasonably take were inevitably limited.

No matter how much we try to avoid being seen, we can manage for only so long.

This latest drone was the first surveillance device that’s found us in a while.

I guess Potimas had this wasteland on his radar. Since we’ve been avoiding populated areas, he probably predicted we might come through here and set up surveillance in advance.

Still, even now that he knows roughly where we are, it’s not like he can act immediately.

Judging by his actions up to this point and his words when I ran into him back at Vampy’s mansion, Potimas seems to be the kinda guy who plans carefully before he acts. Also, he’s stingy.

He won’t pick any fights he might lose.

And we’ve got the super-powerful Demon Lord on our side, so he’s not going to come after us without a solid plan.

Especially when he can’t even spy on us successfully with his surveillance devices.

If he does attack us, it’ll be when he’s confident he can win.

That would probably be when he musters enough power to take the Demon Lord down or if something happens to put us in serious trouble.

If Potimas has the military strength to beat us outright, then we’re screwed. The only victory left for us would be successfully running away.

But I don’t think that’s the case.

It wouldn’t be easy to find something that can surpass the Demon Lord’s power, and if Potimas had something like that up his sleeves, he would’ve made his move ages ago.

Since he hasn’t done that, I have to assume he either doesn’t have the power in the first place or he does but he’s reluctant to use it.

The scary thing is that the latter could actually be true. That guy is so stingy that he didn’t want to use his machine gun in our battle because he hates wasting ammo. It’s not hard to believe he’d hold stuff back.

But there’s no point worrying about whether he has some secret weapon or not.

All we can do is be careful and not give him the opportunity to strike.

As long as Potimas thinks it’s too risky to attack us, he’s much less likely to try anything.

If I keep destroying his surveillance drones, it’ll give the impression that we’re not letting our guard down… I hope.

With my Detection skill, I can pick up on anything that’s approaching us before it gets too close, which means we always have the initiative, whether it’s getting the jump on a surveillance bot or a would-be attacker.

Find them with Detection, identify them with Panoptic Vision, and attack them with one of my Evil Eyes.

If it looks like a particularly troublesome opponent, I can just replace attacking with fleeing via Teleport.

Frankly, it’d be pretty tough for an enemy to get near me at this point.

Detection can even sense the signs of an approaching Teleport before it happens.

Sure, maybe a certain Demon Lord has managed to dupe me by moving so fast that Detection doesn’t even have time to notice, but that’s an exception, okay? A rare exception!

Besides, my Detection’s range has improved a lot since then.

At this point, I would notice someone approaching even at demon-lord speed, I think!

Although whether I’d be able to get away in time is another story!

Come to think of it, I could just use the Demon Lord as a decoy while I run away.

But my Detection range is big, and my speed is high as hell, so I’m confident I could escape just about any opponent if I had to.

By the way, the reason that my Detection range improved despite it already being maxed out as part of the mega-broken skill Wisdom is all because I wasn’t using Detection very well, turns out.

Actually, I guess the past tense might not be appropriate there. I’m still not using Detection to its max potential.

Detection is a crazy skill, containing all the Perception-type skills in one.

As a result, though, it’s so high-performance I can’t even process the information that’s coming in all at once.

Just like how humans aren’t really aware of every single thing in their range of vision, my brain subconsciously rejects seemingly unnecessary information, like the number of rocks on the side of the road.

In fact, if I don’t do that, I get a headache from the surplus of information.

But as it turns out, the range is basically limited only to how much information I can process.

In other words, if I’m able to process more, my range expands to match.

But it’s not as easy as it sounds.

My most obviously related skill, High-Speed Processing, is already maxed out. The only option left now is to raise my own innate processing power without relying on skills.

So I have to train my already skill-enhanced brain even further.

It’s like telling an abacus master to get better at calculating!

That’s not the kinda thing you can do in one day.

So I’ve been trying to unconsciously shut out any unnecessary details and focus on picking up only the most important information.

If I feel like it, I can check out the shut-out information, too, but it’s tiring to concentrate that much.

Like right now, for instance. If I really wanted to, I could tell there’s some kind of underground cave here.

Huh? An underground cave?

What’s this doing here?

But right as I finally notice it, Mera steps onto the patch of ground right on top of the cave.

While enduring the pressure of the extra gravity that my Repellent Evil Eye is putting on him.

I can barely manage an “uh-oh” before Mera breaks through the ground and starts to sink.

The thin part of the surface above the cave couldn’t take the extra weight.

The Demon Lord and company stop their reciting and turn around.

Peering down into the rubble, I can spot Mera, without a scratch on him.

With his heightened stats, falling into a hole doesn’t hurt him at all.

But it’s too early to be relieved.

I sense something approaching Mera in the hole.

An ant!

And not just any ant—this one is practically human size.

Turns out this cave is actually part of some ant-type monsters’ nest.

One by one, they start coming toward Mera, the intruder who’s busted into their home.

Still, these ants aren’t particularly strong. Their stats barely break a hundred, so Mera could easily take them alone. Sure, there are a lot of them, but I think Mera can handle it.

Hmm. Maybe I should let him fight the ants alone so he can level up.

But before I can enact my master plan, one of the puppet taratects—Ael, who’s sort of like the eldest sister among the spider siblings—hops right into the hole.

Ael is the most proactive of the puppet spiders and has basically become their leader.

Her tendency to act quickly means she also has a bad habit of stealing the spotlight.

Not to mention the tastiest cuts of meat whenever we’re eating dinner!

In other words, she’s my rival when it comes to mealtime.

But other than that, she’s smart and dependable.

She’s rushing to Mera’s aid right now, for example.

…She is doing it to help him, not just because she wants the experience points, right?

Knowing how crafty Ael can be, it’s totally possible.

Ael lands right on top a giant ant, crushing its head.

Then she unsheathes one of her swords with a slash, instantly slicing another ant in two.

Following Ael’s lead, the other puppet spiders run over to the hole as well.

Riel and Fiel jump in right away, followed by Sael after a moment’s hesitation.

Sael is the total opposite of Ael, a timid sort who’s treated like the youngest sister.

It’s a little worrying that she seems afraid to attack the ants, despite being far stronger than they are.

With that, the slaughter begins.

I mean, the puppet spiders are actually terrifying monsters with stats over a thousand each.

The ants’ stats barely reach three digits, so it’s no wonder they don’t stand a chance.

Sael keeps making frightened noises as she fights, but it’s only because she’s freaking out, not because she’s having any trouble.

The puppet spiders’ blades shred through the ants in no time flat.

As a result, while Mera managed to draw his sword, he didn’t even get a chance to use it.

The four puppet-spider girls high-five on top of the pile of ant corpses. It’s insanely surreal.

I feel a little bad for Mera and his unused sword.

At any rate, I head into the hole to collect the ant corpses.

As I put the bodies away in Spatial Storage, I use Detection to check things out farther belowground.

This ant hole is way bigger than I thought. It’s practically the size of a small dungeon.

The puppet spiders wiped out all the ants in the immediate area, but there are still plenty more deeper inside the nest.

Incidentally, these ant monsters are called efejicotes.

After a moment’s thought, I realize that sounds similar to the bee monsters in the Great Elroe Labyrinth. Those were called finjicotes, if I remember correctly.

Ants and bees… I guess they’re not dissimilar, but still, isn’t that kinda weird?

While I mull over some pointless things, I keep using Detection farther and farther down.

And then I stumble something a little bit intriguing.

“That was unfortunate. You all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine, thank you.”

“Oh good. Wanna come back up, then?”

Mera grabs on to the Demon Lord’s dangled thread and starts climbing.

But I start walking down the path toward the ants’ nest instead.

“Huh? Whiiite? Where’re you going?”

Ignoring the Demon Lord’s call, I keep making my way down the tunnel.

I can sense through Detection that the rest of the party is exchanging confused glances behind me.

But when I don’t stop, they hurriedly chase after me.

“Hey, paaal? Can you hear me, White? Why’re you going that way, huuuh?”

Don’t talk to me right now. I’m trying to focus here.

Hrm. I still can’t reach.

I’m too far away to tell exactly what it is.

I’ll have to go farther down.

I use Earth Magic to create a hole that goes straight down.

This shaft leads somewhere different than the ants’ nest.

I jump right in.

When I land, I’m surrounded by dozens of ants.

I can’t exactly read ants’ expressions, but they seem kinda surprised to me.

Using Cursed Evil Eye, I instantly finish off the ants.

Then, after quickly shoving the corpses into Spatial Storage, I make another hole going downward with Earth Magic.

Rinse and repeat.

At the bottom floor, I kill the queen and her bodyguard ants, but they’re so weak compared to me that they’re barely any different from the regular ants.

“What are you doing, White? I don’t know if you should be randomly destroying ecosystems like this.” The Demon Lord catches up to me, masking her confusion with a wry comment.

It’s not like I particularly wanted to kill a bunch of ants, okay?

They just happened to be in the way, so I took care of them, that’s all.

“Come on. Let’s go back.”

The Demon Lord tries to lead me back up, but I’m not finished yet.

My goal is still farther belowground.

I make another hole with Earth Magic leading below the queen’s area in the bottom of the ant nest.

“Whaaat?”

Realizing that I’m going even farther down, the Demon Lord lets out an irritated groan.

Everyone else seems less fed up with me and more concerned that I’ve lost my marbles.

Either way, I ignore all of them and keep digging farther down.

As she follows me, the Demon Lord’s face gets more serious. I guess she figured it out.

“White, isn’t this…” Her voice is more urgent than before.

Noticing her sudden change in attitude, the others get more serious, too, presumably realizing that I’m not doing this for shits and giggles.

All I do is keep digging deeper into the ground.

The Demon Lord follows me without further comment, with Mera, Vampy, and the puppet spiders close behind her.

Then, after digging for who knows how long, I finally reach it.

There, quite a bit deeper than even the lowest part of the ants’ nest, my destination comes into view.

“Wha…?”

As soon as she sees it, Vampy mumbles in awe.

I gotta admit, I get how she feels.

Because this is something you’d never expect to see here.

I use my Earth Magic to clear away the dirt that obscures it.

In front of us is a door.

A metal door, unlike anything I’ve seen in this world.

It might be possible to find metal doors elsewhere but none will ever be as perfectly crafted as this one.

This world doesn’t have the technology to produce something so advanced.

Much less to install it somewhere so deep underground.

So there we stand, in front of a door that shouldn’t exist.

Out of step with the current level of technology in this world.

The only civilization that could have made this is the one that has long since collapsed.

We’ve stumbled upon the ruins of something made by the ancient civilization the Demon Lord told us about, one that destroyed itself long ago.

ANCIENT RUINS DISCOVERED!

So we’re standing in front of this metal door.

Um… Now what?

I was so focused on burrowing down and finding it that I didn’t really think about what to do once we actually got here.

To be honest, I kinda just want to go back up and forget it.

I mean, this definitely can’t be a good sign, right?

Come on—think about it. The ruins of a supposedly lost civilization? When does that ever end well?

What, are we just gonna waltz on in there in search of adventure and/or hidden treasure?

No, thank you! That sounds awful!

Plus, these ruins somehow evaded my Detection.

The only reason I was able to find them in the first place is because I sensed some weird spot underground where my Detection didn’t reach.

For whatever reason, maybe the materials it’s made out of or whatever, I can’t sense anything in this area with Detection.

That’s what piqued my curiosity in the first place.

This is sketchy. This is reeeal sketchy.

What’re these ruins even doing so far down in the ground in the first place?

Especially underneath this dragon-ruled wasteland!

The very existence of this old civilization is taboo in this world. If the dragons knew about it, they’d probably destroy it or something.

Since they haven’t, that means even the dragons haven’t found this place.

So it’s somehow stayed hidden right in the middle of dragon territory for who knows how long.

Either the dragons are morons or these ruins are that well hidden.

I hope it’s the latter.

Actually, no, I guess it’s bad either way.

If it’s the former, I’d be worried about the fate of this world, and if it’s the latter, then we’re in danger just by being here.

CLANG! In case this wasn’t dangerous enough yet, the Demon Lord literally forced the door right open!

Of course she did.

Knowing the Demon Lord, she can’t ignore the existence of these highly suspicious ruins.

Ugh, guess there’s no getting out of this one.

Especially because an alarm started blaring the moment the door broke!

A loud BEEEEP! BEEEEP! echoes from within, unmistakably the sound of an alarm.

Ignoring the annoying noise, the Demon Lord walks right inside.

Ugh, I guess there’s no turning back.

“All of you, be ready for anything.”

“Miss Ariel, is this…?”

“Yep. Ruins from that ancient civilization. I didn’t think anything like this was still standing, so we’ll have to investigate. There’s no telling what might show up in here, so be on your guard.”

The Demon Lord leads the way, followed by Vampy, Mera, and the puppet spiders.

Left with no other choice, I walk in after them, passing through the broken doors into the ruins.

Weirdly, the inside is a corridor so clean and uniform, it doesn’t seem right to call it ruins.

It’s a very calming design, or at least it would be if it wasn’t for that super-annoying alarm.

Wow, that alarm is really starting to get on my nerves.

Since it’s going off, that means these ruins are still active.

These super-ancient ruins, hidden deep underground, are still running smoothly.

Where’s it getting the energy for that, huh?

Ooh, I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.

As if to confirm my suspicions, the walls suddenly crack open, revealing long, thin cylinders.

Yep, those are definitely gun muzzles. Great! Just great!

Several of these peek out from the walls, all pointing right toward us.

In the next instant, a roaring sound fills my ears.

The muzzles are shooting fire—wait, no, that was the sound of the Demon Lord destroying all of them.

She used thread stretching from each of her fingers, manipulating the strands like whips to break all the gun barrels.

Her speed with the thread was so fast, I doubt anyone but me could see it.

Sure enough, Vampy and Mera are gaping in confusion, clearly unaware of what just happened. Looks like not even the puppet spiders could follow her movements completely.

Quietly, I canceled the spell I’d been preparing.

I could’ve destroyed them all, too, okay?

I only hanged back and let the Demon Lord handle this one, since she’s the oldest, okay?

I didn’t miss my chance because I picked magic and it takes too long to activate, okay?

I’m not mad that she stole the spotlight, okay?

Okay? Okay? Okay.

…All right, I should probably stop getting all worked up over nothing.

The enthusiastic greeting we just received proves only that there’s something here that intruders aren’t supposed to see. That was way too excessive for ordinary defense measures.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure my instincts were right on the money.

But unfortunately, it looks like we’re going to have to confirm that anyway.

Noticing a relatively intact gun among the wreckage, I pick it up to take a gander.

It’s heavy and looks a lot like a machine gun.

Since it’s not operated by people, there’s no trigger anywhere.

BANG! A shock hits my forehead, whipping my head backward.

Apparently, my fiddling caused it to misfire.

Since I have Suffering Nullification, it doesn’t particularly hurt, but I can’t help feeling humiliated for doing something so stupid and angry at the gun for causing the trouble in the first place.

“What’re you doing, White?”

The Demon Lord is staring at me, her eyebrows raised.

Dammit! She saw me do something so cringe!

At first, I was worried Vampy would laugh at me, but she’s too preoccupied with staring at me, her mouth wide-open, shocked that I’m fine after getting shot.

Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense.

Last time, she saw Potimas turn me into Swiss cheese, so she must be wondering why I’m all right now.

But the bullets worked on me then only because Potimas’s mysterious barrier had lowered my defense. Normally, my defense is high enough that they’d bounce right off me.

Sure enough, when I put a hand to my forehead, there isn’t even a scratch there.

Part 1 of 8

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