Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? Volume Chapter 8

Tromp, tromp. My legs are getting heavy.

Part of it is exhaustion from sprinting at full speed for so long, but my shock is the biggest factor.

I lost my beloved home.

Turning into a spider and having to eat nasty food hadn’t perturbed my steely heart one bit, but now there’s a little hole right in the center.

Ah… I knew a time might come when I would be forced to leave my house, but now that it’s a reality, I’m totally in shock.

I had assumed I still had more time, which only made things worse.

At the very least, I’d hoped to stay in that home until I became at least level 10.

Waaah…waaaah…waaaaaah!

All right, that’s enough whining. Time to move on.

First, I have to decide what to do next. There are several options:

Construct my next home in a different location.Keep wandering aimlessly around this dungeon.Try to find the dungeon exit.

That’s all that comes to mind.

From a safety perspective, option 1 is my favorite. However, I feel it may be wise to resist.

Having a home is wonderful.

On top of satisfying my needs for food and shelter, it gives me a life where I barely have to move at all. I would go so far as to say it’s an ideal paradise.

However, if I keep resting on my laurels, I’ll probably end up a totally hopeless basket case.

Both mentally and physically.

If the only hunting I do is from the safety of my own home, I’ll turn into a deadbeat with no ability to deal with any emergencies that might arise.

The current situation is proof enough of that.

At this rate, if I encounter any opponents who can break through my webbing, my only option is to run away.

That’s no good. Not if I’m going to get this depressed every time I have to leave my home behind.

More than anything, I feel the ashes of my demolished home smoldering inside me.

No way. I’m not going to let myself keep running away like this. That’s right: I’m frustrated.

I’m all broken up that my previous house was destroyed and I couldn’t do anything about it. It’s maddening that a part of me accepted fleeing as the natural course of action.

At the time, my only thought was to drop everything and run.

But what do I get now that I’ve actually done so?

Nothing but this horrible shame and regret!

How could I run away again?

There’s no way I’ll be able to live with myself.

I’m not just upset because my home was convenient. It was such an important place to me.

This might be clichéd, but it was a place where I belonged.

I didn’t have anywhere like that in my past life. My “family” was a joke, and I didn’t fit in at school. I liked playing games, but in the end, that was a world of fiction. I didn’t belong anywhere in reality. I existed anyway out of sheer defiance, or at least that’s what I told myself.

I created my spiderweb home by myself, for myself.

It was a place just for me, where I didn’t have to worry what anyone else thought. And now it’s been taken from me. It’s like my very self has been stolen away. If I surrender now, I’ll never recover my pride and dignity.

“Happy just being alive”?

Ha! That was just my idiotic, peace-loving Japanese self talking.

If I have to live without pride, I may as well be dead.

I realize that all too clearly now.

My home is gone. My pride has been injured.

I have to get stronger so that I’ll never disgrace myself like this again.

And if I want to do that, I can’t just hide away in a new home where I can hunt safely.

I have to build more experience through actual combat.

Which means I should either wander around the dungeon randomly or aim for the exit.

Although, to be honest, there isn’t a huge difference either way.

I have no idea where the exit might be. So really, aimless meandering is my only option.

I don’t know much about this dungeon to begin with. Even though I was born and raised here, I don’t even know its name.

I have no idea how big it is or how difficult. I don’t even know the general makeup of the terrain.

Basically, I’m clueless.

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Hmm? I feel like this isn’t the first time I’ve worried about all the stuff I don’t know…

Ah! That’s right, this happened when I got the Appraisal skill, too! I totally forgot I had that.

I wasn’t able to level it up anymore in my home, but now that I’m out and about, I should be able to.

Since it might be a bit more useful if I raise its skill level, I decide to go on Appraising things.

Well, here goes nothing.

Useless as ever, I see.

Ah, but with each step I take, I get more Appraisal results, so my proficiency must be accumulating.

Oof, all that information flowing into my brain at once is kind of discomfiting.

I’ll have to suffer with it for a while until I get used to it, I guess…

And right away, my skill levels up.

It hasn’t even been that long since I started Appraising.

So it’s this easy to raise skill levels when you’re not holing up at home? I’m not sure how to feel about that.

Well, all’s well that ends with a rank-up.

Now, what new information will skill level 3 bring? I waste no time in analyzing myself.

Hey, it shows my level now. Yippee. Sigh… Well, gotta take what I can get, I suppose.

Seriously, though, how high does the level even have to be for this skill to actually be useful? Ugh.

Still, I have to wonder… How strong is my race, “small lesser taratect,” compared to the other monsters in this dungeon?

This idle thought leads to an unexpected response.

Wh…what?

Wait, did I just Appraise the species name in my results? Double Appraisal?

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Ooh. Seems like I discovered a pretty important trick!

Well then, in the spirit of investigation, I decide to try Appraising one more time.

It works! Is this crazy or what?!

So when you Appraise something and get a word you don’t know in the result, you can Appraise that further.

Wow!

The explanations are still pretty short and scarce on information, but once I raise the skill level some more, this could be insanely useful!

I might be able to get a whole chain of info just from Appraising one thing.

Hot damn! Sorry for calling you useless, Mr. Appraisal!

I’ll definitely work hard to raise your skill level from now on!

I wander about the labyrinth, looking for monsters that could make suitable opponents.

Found one.

Farther down the passageway I’m hiding in, I see the outline of my sworn enemy: the frog.

Since I have the chance, I decide to Appraise more-detailed information about it.

Hmm? Wait just a second. There was a very important-sounding key phrase in that description.

This isn’t how I expected to find out my location.

So the dungeon I’m in is called the Great Elroe Labyrinth.

I’ve been wondering what “Elroe” could be, since it’s attached to monsters’ names so often, but I didn’t realize it was the name of the dungeon.

Wait, so this is the world’s largest labyrinth? It must be huge, then. And hold on, how could it connect two continents underground? Does that mean right above this dungeon is the ocean?

Yikes! For real? It must be freaking gigantic.

While I’m at it, I Appraise the names of the two continents.

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Huh. If I’m going to escape, then, it sounds like I should avoid Daztrudia with its high human population, but I don’t exactly see myself having much of a choice there.

In any case, I’ve gotten so wrapped up in Appraising that I almost forgot about the frog.

Its back is turned toward me. So it hasn’t noticed me yet.

Maybe I should launch a surprise attack? …Too late, now it’s spotted me. Dammit!

Hissss!

Maybe I can intimidate it.

Splut!

Huh?!

Hey, what’s the big idea?! You’re not supposed to just spit at me right off the bat!

I mean, that almost hit me!

Splut! Splut! Splut!

Don’t spit a bunch of times in a rowww!

Hey, wait, huh?! I thought I dodged all of ’em! Owww!

Thanks to Poison Resistance, it isn’t nearly as bad as that first time, but it still hurts! Knock it off!

I didn’t expect these things to be so damn bouncy when they’re not wrapped up in my web!

Splut! Splut! Splut!

Cut it out already! Blech! It got me again!

Crap, at this rate I’m gonna get my ass handed to me!

All right! I have no choice but to bust out my special attack!

Splut! Splut! Splut!

I’m not gonna keep falling for the same attack over and over, buddy! It’s obvious by now that you can only fire three of those at a time! Don’t underestimate the observation and evasive abilities of the gamer they once called Skanda! I’m gonna evade your spit attacks!

I lunge at the frog with my claws at the ready!

Crap, it dodged like I figured it would—wait, it just jumped! It’s trying to hit me with its tongue!

Smack! Owww!

There must’ve been acid on that tongue, too—the spot where it touched me is burning!

Ohhh, geez. This is a serious injury.

If I have an HP gauge, I’m probably getting into the red by now.

One more hit, and I’ll be in serious trouble.

Luckily, that isn’t going to happen. The winner has already been decided.

Because my thread was waiting where the frog was about to land.

The trick is simple.

I just laid my silk along the dungeon floor as I dodged the spit attacks.

I seem to have a habit of unconsciously leaving it on the ground as I move anyway.

So this time, I used that to my advantage.

All I did was add some stickiness to the thread trail behind me.

Then, I just had to lure the frog over to that area.

I did so by carefully controlling the speed and angle of my claw attack to send it leaping in the right direction.

I wasn’t expecting it to counterattack in midair, but…

…as soon as it lands, the frog gets caught in my thread.

Doggedly, I jump in to wind more threads around it.

Then I finish it off with my poison bite!

Within moments of receiving my venom, the frog draws its last breath.

Another skill level went up.

That should make my next frog battle a little easier.

Honestly, if I didn’t already have the Acid Resistance skill, the damage I took might’ve been too much for me to survive.

Yeesh, that was close. My body is in a sorry state now.

Two spit attacks and one smack from that tongue were enough to put me on the verge of death.

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The tongue attack was especially bad. The area where it touched me is concave now, and the impact busted several of my legs.

I wasn’t even underprepared this time.

I had kind of figured that if a spider fought another monster head-on without a web, the chances of the spider winning would probably be pretty low.

Still, I think somewhere in the back of my mind was the naive confidence that it would work out somehow or other.

To be honest, it was a lot harder than I thought.

My first real battle was a decidedly narrow victory.

Anyway, with this major injury, I can’t move very well anymore.

I have to make a simple home here and focus on nursing my wounds for now.

The “simple home” is really just a basic little nest.

I leave the dead frog alone for later and start spinning a web.

Ugh. Every time I move, a wave of severe pain streaks through my body.

Oh? A new skill? Sure enough, the pain has subsided a little.

It still really freaking hurts, though.

But either way, this is definitely a good skill to have.

As long as I keep surviving, the skill level will probably go up naturally, so that will be a big help.

Whew. Finally, my temporary home is finished. Now I can catch my breath.

If another monster attacks me right now, I’ll be toast.

Oh well. Since I worked so hard to bring this prey down, I might as well eat it.

Yep. Experiencing my first real battle made me realize it all over again.

I’m soooooo weak!

I don’t think it’s just me; I get the feeling that small lesser taratects aren’t that powerful as a species overall.

Well, I guess it is a “lesser” species, after all. It stands to reason that I’d have low attack power and brittle defense. My speed seems decent, at least, but it still wasn’t enough to dodge that spit attack barrage the first few times.

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So stats-wise, I can’t even outpace a frog.

The only reason I’ve been able to beat monsters without a problem so far is that I had the advantage of my spiderweb traps. Obviously, fighting head-on is not my forte. Now I really understand how much I’ve been depending on my home.

Anyway, this has made one thing clear: I’m not cut out for direct confrontations.

In a face-to-face fight, I’d go so far as to say that everything comes down to whether I can restrain my opponent with my threads or not. In theory, I could just give them a poison bite, but with my lousy stats, I’d probably get smacked down before I could even reach them.

So I’ll have to use my speed to confuse my opponent and then create an opening or set a trap like I did this time to catch it in my silk threads.

Seems like this is gonna be my go-to strategy. Unless I build a trap in advance and lead them to it?

In that case, frogs might be a troublesome opponent for me.

After all, they seemed to favor a “fixed turret” strategy where they stay in one place and attack from a distance.

They don’t move without a reason, so they won’t be likely to jump into my trap on their own.

Sigh.

So many challenges. Now I know my weak points—or rather, I’ve realized that I have nothing but weak points.

But I can’t just give up.

If all I want to do is keep surviving, I could just make a new home.

But that isn’t good enough.

Since I’ve decided I want to live with pride, I can’t depend on that cop-out strategy.

For now, though, I need to rest.

How long is this injury going to take to heal? In fact, will it even heal on its own at all?

Well, whatever. Today has been exhausting. I’m well overdue for some sleep to hopefully recover a bit.

So, on that note, good night.

Zzz. Hmm? Oh man, it feels like I fainted.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what happened.

Ugh, my body still hurts. I guess a wound that bad isn’t gonna heal in one night.

Yawn… Ow, ow! When I try going through my usual stretching routine, sharp pain runs through my broken legs.

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Oof, my two middle right legs are in particularly bad shape. It feels like they might tear right off if I’m not careful.

I’m getting really worried about whether this is going to heal after all.

Boing, boing. Hmm?

One of the threads of my web is vibrating. There’s a monster caught in my little nest!

Usually I would wake up the instant I felt something catch, but it seems like it’s been going on for a while. I must have been sleeping more heavily than I thought.

That’s probably due to all the damage I’ve taken, too.

Aw, man. Those petrifying lizards are tough. Guess I caught another pain in the butt.

What should I do now?

Since basilisks have that petrifying gaze, my web trap won’t save me from turning to stone with a little eye contact. In my current injured state, taking a hit from a petrification attack seems ill-advised.

But I don’t want to pass up on captured prey, either…

Zwoop.

Oh crap, our eyes met.

Nngah! The ends of my feet got petrified! Ugh, fine then! Clearly I have no choice.

Chomp!

Thanks to my Petrification Resistance, I’m turning to stone very slowly.

However, losing mobility in my front legs is gonna be a big problem. It could get really hard to walk if I’m not careful.

Please let this thing die before my leggy bits get frozen!

Apparently somebody heard my plea, because the basilisk runs out of energy when my legs are about halfway petrified.

Mm-hmm, looks like I can still walk, albeit clumsily.

Oh? Whoa! What godly timing!

Okay, okay. The fact that two of my skills leveled up is pretty sweet.

But that isn’t even the best part!

My carapace falls away from my body. I’m molting.

Yes, it’s one of the benefits of leveling up: full recovery via molting!

I wasn’t sure whether the giant dent in my body would heal, but it’s been restored perfectly.

Yahoo! Thanks a lot, basilisk! Also, I’m gonna eat you now!

So, without even trying, I’ve succeeded in fully healing my wounds.

Now I’m ready for another go at exploring the labyrinth!