Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? Volume Chapter 13

I eat.

And eat.

And eat.

It’s bitter.

So bitter.

Bitter, just a little sweet, and sad.

I’ve been proceeding through the Middle Stratum without any incident worth mentioning since my encounter with the self-proclaimed “evil god” D or whatever.

I still don’t really know what that was all about.

The possibility that it was the real thing and not just “self-proclaimed” scares me.

At any rate, since D could read my mind, I know they must be far, far stronger than I am.

If D really did give me the Wisdom skill, they must be an administrator.

But either way, that doesn’t really change anything.

I don’t even understand what an administrator is.

If I had to guess, I’d say they probably manage the skills that exist in this world.

But that’s only a guess, and even if it’s true, I don’t know what the significance is.

Before I acquired Wisdom, it did cross my mind that all these skills and stats were very gamelike, but I didn’t really question it.

This is a parallel world, so I just assumed that’s how things are here.

But if there are “administrators” who manage the skill system, there must be some purpose behind it.

I wouldn’t think that if skills just existed as a natural phenomenon of this world, but when you throw in beings with intentions of their own, I have to assume there’s some deeper reason.

Otherwise, why would someone make such a big, elaborate system?

Ugh, I dunno.

If D really is an administrator, I guess it’s not impossible they’d make this whole thing just for the sake of entertainment…

That would explain all the gamelike mechanics, too.

But no, there must be a much deeper goal far beyond my understanding!

Otherwise, that would mean this whole world exists as a sideshow for D’s amusement.

I don’t like the sound of that.

Who would just roll over and accept it if they found out they’re only a plaything?!

But I do know one thing about D.

The smartphone, the fluent command of Japanese…several signs pointing straight to Japan.

D must be somehow connected to Earth.

In which case, D might also know why I was reincarnated into this world.

If there really is a “next time,” maybe I’ll try asking about it.

Although I have no idea if D will give me a clear answer.

Aside from that, I don’t have enough information to do anything but speculate.

So I have to conclude there’s no point in racking my brains about “D,” “administrators,” and all that jazz any further.

Honestly, it’s not like I can do anything about it anyway.

If beings that can control the skill system want to mess with me, I doubt I could put up much resistance.

Trying to go against an administrator would be like trying to stop a meteor from destroying the earth.

That’s not the kinda thing I can win against.

Not just D, either. The dark guy who showed up in front of me earlier seemed way more powerful than me, too.

Since he used that mysterious language I’d never heard before, I’m guessing he’s a native of this world.

Though since Appraisal didn’t work, I couldn’t confirm if he’s human.

There’s always someone stronger.

And there’s no limit to how far up that goes.

I feel like I’ve been made even more aware of that now.

No matter how much I improve my skills and level up, that’s all just transient power given to me by the “administrators.” If they felt like it, they could take it away anytime.

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Never mind a contest of strength. I wouldn’t even be able to qualify for the game.

Well, there’s no point in worrying about all that now.

I might as well forget about evil gods, administrators, and everything else unless they bother me again.

In the meantime, I’ll just keep concentrating on escaping the Middle Stratum.

And I’m not likely to suddenly lose all my skills and levels unless I get more involved with those guys (I hope), plus there’s no harm in raising them anyway, so I might as well keep doing that.

I can’t quite shake a little bit of anxiety, but this is all I can do, so I might as well do it to the best of my ability.

So I keep walking through the Middle Stratum, working on my skills as I go.

I inspect my skills as I proceed.

The new skills I got from defeating the fire dragon—Dimensional Maneuvering, Dragon Power, and Spatial Magic—are all super-useful.

As I guessed, Dimensional Maneuvering allows me to perform double jumps in midair.

When I activate it, near-invisible footholds appear in the air, and I can dash around by kicking off them.

Since it’s level 1 right now, the footholds are too fragile for me to run at full speed, but once it levels up some, I should be able to move just as freely through the air as I can on the ground.

It does use up my red stamina, but considering its effect, that’s not that surprising.

Dragon Power is an improved form of Wyrm Power. When I activate it, it consumes MP and SP to temporarily increase my stats.

In addition, when it’s active, I can use some of a dragon’s abilities.

Specifically, the magic obstruction effect and breath attacks.

With Dragon Power activated, I can cover myself in the same magic-dispersing power seen in dragons’ scale skills.

Testing out the breath part, I discover it produces some kind of Dark attribute attack.

Neither of them is as powerful as the real thing, of course, but they’re nonetheless quite strong.

Since Spatial Magic is still low-level, I can’t do any useful spells yet.

Once it levels up, I’m sure it’ll be useful, so I’m going to try and level it up over time.

Unfortunately, both Dimensional Maneuvering and Dragon Power consume SP.

Since monsters are still avoiding me like the plague, I’m having trouble getting any food.

That means I can’t recover SP, so I have to avoid using it whenever possible.

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Ultimately, that means even though I got these nice new skills, I can’t level them up at all!

I’m loaded with MP, though, so I’m focusing on skills that use that for now.

Various magic types, Poison Synthesis, Magic Warfare, Evil Eye skills, and so on.

My Shadow Magic skill reached level 10.

The offshoot skill I got as a result was Dark Magic.

Even maxed out, Shadow Magic is still kinda sketchy, so I’m planning to work on Dark Magic instead.

I maxed out Poison Synthesis and Poison Magic, too.

For some reason, they both produced sort of unexpected skills: Medicine Synthesis and Healing Magic, respectively.

I guess maybe it’s true what they say about one man’s poison being another man’s cure or whatever?

At any rate, this means I finally have the means to heal myself.

Up until now, my recovery’s depended on leveling up and HP Auto-Recovery, so being able to heal wounds whenever I want is huge.

That being said, it’s still pretty low-level. And since my HP is full, I can’t test out its effects just yet.

If I get a chance sometime, maybe I’ll reduce my own HP so I can test it.

I also maxed out Heretic Magic.

But you’ll never guess what god-awful skill derived from that.

Taboo.

Luckily, it didn’t level up, but I thought my heart was gonna stop for a second.

Actually, even though it definitely didn’t level up at that moment, it’s hit level 9 at some point without my noticing.

One more level and it’ll be maxed out.

This could be really bad.

A few of my Evil Eyes maxed out, too.

Cursed Evil Eye evolved into Jinx Evil Eye.

This Evil Eye transfers the HP and stuff reduced by the curse over to me.

It also deals more damage than before, so definitely an improvement over the first form.

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I can’t absorb stats or anything, but being able to absorb SP is very cool.

Combined with eating, now I can get even more SP out of enemies!

Paralyzing Evil Eye evolved, too, into Inert Evil Eye.

Instead of simple paralysis, this apparently inflicts an attribute similar to being frozen in time.

With paralysis, monsters could still twitch and squirm a little, but now they’ll be frozen solid.

I’m guessing this is a combination of paralysis and some attribute I’m not familiar with.

Although I can’t say for sure, since I don’t see any attribute like that in the skill list.

Well, either way, I’ve still won as soon as this takes effect, so that just means I’ve gotten that much stronger.

Heavy Evil Eye has leveled up, but I obtained it only a short while ago, so it isn’t maxed out yet.

Instead, since I’ve been using it on myself this whole time, I got a resistance skill to counteract the extra weight.

Unfortunately, this skill is kind of reducing the effectiveness of my muscle training. Dammit.

Lastly, Telescopic Sight.

This ended up evolving into Clairvoyance.

It improves on the effects of Telescopic Sight and adds an X-ray effect.

Now I can see through walls to the scenery on the other side.

However, it’s not quite as cool as the “seeing anywhere in the world” effect you think of when you hear “Clairvoyance.”

In the end, it’s just an extension of Telescopic Sight.

But thanks to Clairvoyance, I’ve started to notice something.

A long slope, climbing upward.

It’s been a long journey.

I’ve gone through a lot of troubles along the way.

But now I can finally settle down.

And leave this god-awful hellhole behind.

Good to see you again, Upper Stratum.

I fell into the Lower Stratum, encountered a dreadful beast, and ran for my life.

I traveled all over the awful hellscape so hot it constantly drained my HP.

I came close to death many times.

But I made it back.

I survived! I made it!