Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? Volume Chapter 2

Time really does fly. It’s already been about a year since we started living in the duke’s mansion.

Our days have been pretty peaceful aside from Deadbeat’s periodic invasions.

After staying in the mansion for six months or so, Mr. Oni enlisted in the demon army with the Demon Lord’s help.

I’m sure he has his own reasons for doing things, and he already looks old enough to be independent, so no one really questions it.

Technically he’s an infant like Vampy, but since he’s a reincarnation, that doesn’t count.

If he wants to be an independent adult, I’m certainly not gonna stop him.

He seems to have learned the demon language during his six-month stay in the mansion, too.

Frankly, I wish Vampy would take a few lessons from Mr. Oni on how to be a little more independent.

How’s Vampy, you ask? Well, she’s driving me nuts.

She’s more emotionally unstable than ever, probably thanks to the effects of the Envy skill.

One minute she’ll be clinging to me like a kid, then all of a sudden she’s mad at me for no apparent reason.

She always seems irritated and won’t hesitate to bite people’s heads off at the slightest provocation.

Um, figuratively, of course.

I know she’s a vampire, but she doesn’t actually bite people.

Even Vampy has enough sense not to do that…I hope.

The scary part is, given how she’s been acting lately, I wouldn’t be surprised if she did start a bloodbath.

The Demon Lord tasked her with picking up the Heresy Resistance skill, but so far it doesn’t seem to be having any effect.

Pretty much the only people who can stop her temper tantrums are Mera and me, but Mera’s not around right now, so it’s become my job to take care of things.

What a pain.

At this point, whenever the maids come running to my room, I just think, Great, here we go again.

Luckily, she hasn’t caused any major incidents just yet, so for the time being, it’s sort of like pacifying a cute kid throwing a fit.

Although her sheer presence has nearly made the maids faint a few times.

Hang in there, maids!

Anyway, aside from minor changes and difficulties like that, my time in the mansion has been fairly peaceful overall.

If you’re wondering what I’ve been doing all this time, I’ve been working on creating a clone.

I want to make a copy of myself in the vein of my old Egg-Laying skill.

Oh, but obviously, I don’t mean I’m trying to literally lay eggs or have babies, okay?

I wouldn’t do anything that crazy and X-rated.

Mostly, I’ve just been making thread, shaping it into a ball, and trying to create a clone inside.

Hmm? What’s that?

You say that’s not really an egg at all?

Whatever. The details don’t matter as long as I get results.

Huh? Am I getting results, you ask?

Heh-heh-heh.

Fine then, I’ll just have to show you the fruits of my efforts over the last year!

Take a good look at my very own clone!

Ta-daaaa! Get a load of this adorable creature!

It’s a single white spider, sitting in the palm of my hand.

Yes, this lovely little creature is a copy of yours truly!

…Cute, right? Isn’t she adorable?

Huh? You want me to quit talking about her cuteness and tell you how strong she is?

…She’s cute!

Super-cute, okay?

Come on, just appreciate her cuteness.

…All right, all right. I admit it.

Right now, cuteness is just about all she has going for her.

Is she a clone or just a mini-me? I don’t know if she’s really worthy of being called a true clone.

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Now, since she is technically a copy of me, she can share her senses with me.

Anything my little mini-me sees or hears gets relayed back to me.

But that’s really just about all she does. She doesn’t have any hidden special features.

Sure, she can bite things and make thread, but none of that is very impressive.

Her thread-making abilities aren’t anywhere near as advanced as mine—they’re practically on the same level as a normal spider you could find on Earth.

The same goes for her bite. It’s not even venomous, so, to be honest, the most it can do is make someone say ouchie. It’s definitely not strong enough to kill anyone.

I actually think that anyone could kill this spider just by stepping on her.

…What do you think, everyone? This is what I have to show for myself after a year of hard work!

Yeah, yeah, go ahead and laugh!

Grrr. But still, it took a lot of effort to even get this far, okay?

Making a clone from scratch isn’t easy, okay?

If you think about it objectively, producing a living thing from a ball of thread is already wild, isn’t it?

When you put it that way, it actually sounds pretty cool.

…Even if my creation amounts to nothing more than a cute-yet-useless mini-me!

But look, she has the ability to think independently, Parallel Minds–style, so she definitely has potential.

I just have to hope that she ends up being useful in the future.

So for now, I’m just gonna yeet my little mini-me into another dimension for safekeeping before someone squashes the helpless little thing.

Yeah. I’ve been using spatial conjuring to store things in an alternate dimension separate from this plane of existence.

There are three major techniques that come to mind when I think of spatial conjuring: teleportation, item box, and dimensional storage.

So this is my take on number three.

My clone-making might not be anything to write home about, but at least my spatial conjuring has noticeably improved.

If it wasn’t already obvious from the whole teleportation thing, I clearly have a knack for spatial conjuring.

Ahhh, I’m so talented, it’s almost scary!

Except for the cloning thing.

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Anyway, I toss that mediocre clone into an alternate dimension.

It’s basically a world of my very own creation, where I make the rules.

I can even control the flow of time in there, at least to a certain extent.

So yeah, it’s basically a hyperbolic time chamber.

Focus on training in here, okay?

In the alternate dimension, my mini-me gives a little salute with one of its front legs.

As if imitating it, the other clones all salute, too.

Yeah, that’s right. Who said I had only one clone?

This storage dimension is practically crawling with them at this point.

They might be weak, but at least they’ll have strength in numbers!

…That’s my excuse for making so many. The truth is, I kept trying to see if I could produce something stronger, and next thing you know, I wound up with a whole bunch of these small-fry.

Once they grow up, though, I’m sure they’ll be super-strong.

So all my efforts haven’t been in vain.

They haven’t, okay?

I keep telling myself that as I close the door to the storage dimension.

* * *

Anyway, unlike those so-so clones, I’ve been making pretty decent progress in other areas.

For one thing, spatial conjuring. As you may have guessed from the fact that I can create alternate dimensions now, I’ve gotten a whole lot better at it.

The speed and accuracy of my teleportation have both improved, and I’ve developed a slew of new dirty tricks that let me make full use of it.

Frankly, a few of them are so crazy that they might be considered overkill.

So I’m basically all set as far as attack methods go.

My defense, on the other hand, still leaves something to be desired.

I can always teleport away as a last resort, but that won’t help me if I get one-hit KO’d by a surprise attack or something.

I’ve gotten better at using conjuring for physical enhancements, but I still can’t bring my defense up to the point where it was before I became a god.

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Especially since the effects deactivate if I’m asleep or anything.

The more I think about it, the more I realize how amazing the stats granted by the system were, since it basically provides perpetual body enhancement.

For now, my goal is to catch up to how strong I used to be and figure out how to keep that active all the time.

As it stands, I’m way too vulnerable when I conk out for the night.

I gotta do something to make sure nobody sneaks up and murders me in my sleep.

Not that I foresee that being a problem anytime soon, with the puppet spiders around to guard me.

But still, there’s no harm in being careful. I have to take precautions wherever I can.

I’ll just keep trying until I figure out a way to do it.

The only problem is, I can’t help but feel that simply raising my defense won’t be enough to help me in the future.

For instance, high defense won’t help you much against my sneaky teleportation attack methods.

And if I can do it, there must be others capable of similar things, as well.

I can’t go around assuming that I’m the only one who’s special.

Which means I have to come up with a way to deal with attacks that ignore defense.

My teleportation attacks are relatively easy to avoid—you just have to cancel them out.

Planning for anything beyond that would be difficult, mostly because I don’t know what else is out there in the first place.

But it’s best to assume the worst in these situations.

Now that I know that the system is a crazy-powerful conjuring, I’m starting to think that I should expect the unexpected in this world.

Especially since D can most likely do pretty much anything.

I wouldn’t be surprised if she could kill me before I could even realize it.

Scary!

I don’t think just raising my defense would be enough to protect me from that.

So what should I do? Well, right now, I’m trying to figure out if I can use egg revival again.

Egg revival is a strategy in which I transfer my consciousness to an egg that I created using the Egg-Laying skill.

Since I was able to use a similar technique to make clones, I’m thinking I might be able to put my actual self into one of those clones, too.

That way, even if my body is mortally wounded, I can still survive.

No reason to fear defense-ignoring attacks once that’s all set up again!

But as of right now, those clones are far from perfect.

If I had to transfer myself into a wimpy body that could easily be stomped to death by any random passerby…

…well, that’s not a very good idea if I want to live very long.

So I think I could pull it off easily enough, but there’s still more work to be done.

Anyway, that’s the current state of my work on the fighting side of things. But yes, I’ve made plenty of other progress, too.

Most importantly, the Evil Eyes.

I’ve been practicing seeing through things by doing everything with my eyes closed for a while, so now I can do it without even thinking about it.

Which means that I currently have my eyes closed by default.

Now I can’t accidentally make eye contact with someone and get gawked at!

Not that I ever made a habit of looking people in the eye in the first place.

Huh? Why, you ask?

Well, you normies might not understand this, but us shut-ins have a really hard time just making eye contact with people.

And holding eye contact while talking to someone is practically impossible.

I know that sounds pretty pathetic, but now all that experience avoiding eye contact has actually come in handy for keeping people from noticing my freaky eyes.

On top of that, since I can see through solid objects now, I’ll never turn a corner and crash into someone ever again.

Not that I was really at risk for that stuff in the first place, since I barely ever leave my room!

But still, x-ray vision is pretty handy.

I mean, that’s basically every pubescent boy’s dream superpower!

I can peek at people’s undies anytime I want!

Not that I’d ever want to.

…Hmm? It sounds like I’m not making very good use of this ability, you say?

Th-th-th-that’s SO not true!

I’m using the crap out of it, all right?!

Besides, now I see just like when I had Clairvoyance and stuff!

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And I can also re-create Evil Eye effects, so now I have super-long-distance Evil Eye attacks.

I still can’t use techniques that are directly connected to the system, like Cursed Evil Eye or Sealing Evil Eye, but I can re-create the effects of Inert Evil Eye and Warped Evil Eye without a problem.

Annihilating Evil Eye? That one’s dangerous, so I haven’t tried it.

But still, if I use Inert Evil Eye to stop an enemy from moving and Warped Evil Eye to twist ’em in space, I can beat most opponents long before they ever get near me.

You could even say that I’m steadily regaining the power I had before I was deified.

I haven’t had a chance to test those powers for real, although I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Hrm. That means it’s peaceful, which is a good thing, right?

But still, I dunno… This “peace” has a very temporary feel to it.

Like, there is some serious unrest hanging in the air right now.

The entirety of the demon territory is practically crackling with tension.

The Demon Lord has been conscripting tons of citizens lately.

Demons have a way smaller population than humans, so they don’t have a lot of people to spare, since population equals productivity.

With a limited population, there’s inevitably lots of different places that end up shorthanded.

And yet, the Demon Lord keeps stealing people from their already diminutive workforce so they can fight in her army. Needless to say, her approval ratings have hit rock bottom.

But the citizens can’t rebel against her.

I mean, she’s the DEMON LORD.

That makes her a pretty big deal to demons. Like, the biggest deal.

And even if they tried, I doubt they’d stand a chance against this particular Demon Lord.

No matter how united they might be, I can’t imagine them ever beating her.

She’s strong enough to cause a natural disaster purely by accident.

But most of the demons don’t fully comprehend how strong the Demon Lord truly is.

So there are bad feelings all around, and they’re reaching a boiling point.

It might not be long before some demons might just try to defeat the Demon Lord and put someone else in charge.

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I’m pretty sure there’s gonna be a coup d’état soon.

Especially since they’ve already gathered enough military strength to start an armed revolution.

How do I know that when I’m always holed up in my room, you ask?

Why, espionage, of course.

Since my survivability and battle readiness are on the rise, my next project’s gotta be gathering intel.

In war, whoever has the most information has the upper hand.

What are the enemy’s numbers?

Where are they located?

Once you know those things, you can plan accordingly.

And if you don’t have any idea what the enemy is doing, you’re already at a disadvantage.

Put another way, simply being aware of things like that gives you a massive edge.

Knowledge is power, as they say.

So I’ve been hard at work gathering info.

Where am I getting my information from, you ask?

From my little mini-mes!

Since they’re spiders and all, they can walk on walls and ceilings, and being palm size, they can easily be snuck into all kinds of places.

And everything these mini-mes hear and see is relayed to me in real time.

Could anything be more perfect for espionage?! I don’t think so!

The only problem is that they’re so weak that they’re very easily destroyed if someone spots them.

You know how I said they’d die if someone stepped on them?

Well, I was speaking from experience…

But even if they do get killed, I personally don’t feel any pain.

And on top of that, no one would suspect that such a small spider was spying on anyone, so it’s not like people get paranoid if they find them. At most, they’ll just assume it’s some new kind of monster or something.

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Which means I can replace them as many times as necessary.

Not that it hurts to avoid being found.

Anyway, I’ve dispatched my mass-produced mini-mes out all over the place.

And just like that, all kinds of information started pouring in.

Everything from rumors among peasants to secret conversations between higher-ups.

I wouldn’t say I know everything that’s going on in the demon territory, but I’ve obtained a pretty substantial amount of information at this point.

Ideally, I’d like to send clones into the human territories and elf villages and stuff, too, but I can’t do that.

I figured it’d be too dangerous right now.

The human territory is ruled by the Church, and the elves are ruled by Potimas.

My poor little mini-mes would be way out of their league.

Besides, the only reason I can use them so freely in the demon territory is because their existence as spider monsters won’t necessarily connect them to the Demon Lord or me.

Even if they’re found, no one would suspect the Demon Lord or me of spying.

But if Potimas or the Church finds a strange little spider, they’ll immediately know what’s up.

And then they’ll come looking to destroy us.

And the poor little mini-mes will be mercilessly crushed without even gathering any information…

So in order to prevent that from happening, I’m going to hold off on assigning the clones any surveillance missions in the human and elf territories until they’re at least skilled enough to avoid being seen or get away safely if they are spotted.

Although I guess I could always let them get caught on purpose and practically declare that we’re spying on the enemy just to make them paranoid.

But that’s pretty risky, and it’d mean losing a perfectly good clone, so I don’t really want to do that.

Even these tiny mini-mes don’t come free, you know. I have to provide the proper materials to make their bodies, and it takes time and energy for them to hatch.

I get my supplies for that in the Great Elroe Labyrinth, where the white spiders provide me with plenty of monster corpses.

It’s not like I wanna eat monsters anymore, but they’re still a plentiful food source that’s rich in nutrients!

So be sure to eat a heaping helping of monster meat every day, kids!

Just watch out for poison!

Eat up, little mini-mes, eat up.

Come to think of it, they’re still technically a part of me, so it does mean that I’m also eating monsters in a way.

At least since they’re in spider form, eating monsters doesn’t seem to gross them out.

If they were human, I have to imagine they’d go on strike due to the sheer grossness of the food I’m providing them. So that’s a near miss.

They’re not spiders for any particular reason.

That’s just the way they came out naturally. If I tried, I’m sure I could give them human bodies instead.

But if I make them without anything particular in mind, they come out as spiders.

Does this mean that deep in my heart of hearts, I still identify as a spider?

I’m not sure.

But it’s not particularly a problem, so there’s no need to think about it too deeply, I’d say.

No matter what, it doesn’t change who I am on the inside.

Compared to finding out that I’m actually just D’s substitute, this is no big deal at all, right?

Besides, human bodies are super-inconvenient!

Why do they only have two legs?!

Obviously, eight legs are gonna be way more stable!

I can barely keep my balance on two.

And since my body-enhancement conjuring is unstable right now, running is a huge pain, too.

It’s like my acceleration can hit full throttle, but my brakes don’t work.

If I had eight legs, I could find a way to brace myself, but two legs? Forget it.

So I got to wondering if there was anything I could do about it, and what do you know, I found a solution.

While I was busy worrying about the whole situation, I suddenly noticed that my lower body had turned into that of a spider.

I essentially reverted to arachne form.

I don’t really know how it happened exactly, but if I just kinda strain my lower body like this—HRRRGH!—I can turn into an arachne at will.

My body is arbitrary as all hell…

As a sidenote, I thought that if I can transform my lower body, then in theory, I should be able to transform my whole body however I want, but it seems like I can only shift into arachne form.

I guess I won’t get to yell This isn’t even my final form anytime soon.

Technically, this arachne transformation is probably some kind of conjuring, but the rune construction or whatever seems to happen subconsciously, like when I make thread. So I don’t really know how I’m doing it.

I guess conjuring is a pretty mysterious art, since I can do things like this without even understanding how it works. But I guess it’s not any weirder than the concept of magic and conjuring in the first place.

At any rate, I guess that means I have some amount of close-combat capability.

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I don’t think that’s going to happen very often, and in fact I don’t really want it to, but it doesn’t hurt to have a physical form I can reliably escape in.

I can transform into an arachne in an instant, so as long as I don’t get taken out before I know what hit me, I should be able to deal with most things.

Hmm? What am I doing about underwear?

Oh, well, I’m not wearing any, of course.

NOT! What kind of idiot do you take me for?!

Of course I’m wearing underwear.

I just store them away in an alternate dimension when I transform.

I’m not giving any sexy fan service when I transform, thank you very much.

I’m as thoroughly censored as a Sunday-morning anime!

And I’ve got ways to counter x-ray vision, too, by the way.

I’m always prepared for anything you might throw at me, especially if it’s something I can do myself!

Heh-heh-heh.

If you want to sneak a peek at me in some sort of lewd scenario, you’ll have to try a lot harder than that!

…Although I hope I don’t run into anyone who actually tries to do such a thing.

Serious opponents only, please.

“I’m coming in.”

“How about you don’t?”

As usual, Deadbeat invites himself to our tea party, and Vampy promptly invites him to leave.

Normally, they’d launch right into sniping at each other from there, but today I actually have some business with Deadbeat, so I’m gonna need them to give it a rest.

Before Vampy can open fire, I raise a hand to stop her.

She stares at me, shocked by my unusual reaction.

Deadbeat looks surprised, too, but then he quickly smirks triumphantly at Vampy.

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That childishness is not a good look, if you ask me.

In response, Vampy… Uh-oh. She’s scowling and grinding her teeth something fierce.

I’ve never actually heard that scraping sound come out of someone’s mouth so loudly.

Uh-oh. Now her lip’s bleeding, too.

That Envy skill is super-scary!

Now, now. Calm down, will ya?

Come on—you’re even freaking Deadbeat out now.

At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before disaster strikes, so I’d better wrap things up quickly and get Deadbeat outta here.

So without further ado, I hand him a letter.

It’s made of my thread and contains my most earnest feelings.

It’s not a love letter or anything like that, though.

Deadbeat looks kinda happy, so I feel a little bad, but…it does say “to the Demon Lord” right there on the envelope, y’know?

Ah, he must’ve noticed that. Now he looks disappointed.

“What the hell is this? You want me to give it to her?”

Yes, exactly. You really can do it if you try, Deadbeat!

I nod an affirmative, and his shoulders slump.

Sorry, pal.

For using you as an errand boy and for getting your hopes up.

But he’s always bothering us, so I feel like I’m well within my rights.

Anyway, go on and deliver that now.

Shoo, shoo!

I wave my hand at Deadbeat to hurry, and he trudges out of the room, slouching sadly.

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Well, that should make Vampy feel better.

“Don’t go giving him the wrong idea like that.”

Or not, I guess?!

Vampy’s voice is low and dangerous, like something rising out of the depths of hell.

No infant girl should ever sound like that.

Look, Sael and Fiel are clinging to each other and trembling with fear!

Riel?

She’s just grinning like an idiot, as usual!

Now, now. Calm down, will ya?

I somehow manage to pacify the sullen bloodsucker, and our tea party comes to an end.

Ugh. I managed to hand off my letter for the Demon Lord, but I feel like I made Vampy’s temper even worse in the process.

I thought having her raise the Heresy Resistance skill would work in the long run, but maybe we need to take some more drastic measures.

Vampy tends to get obsessively attached to the people she knows well.

Especially Mera, to an extreme degree.

We’ve traveled the world together, but we didn’t actually meet a lot of other people.

In other words, Vampy doesn’t have many friends.

So she gets extra attached to—and dependent on—the few people who are close to her.

Not that I’m one to talk, but I do think Vampy needs to meet some new faces.

I mean, I’m a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need friends, but Vampy’s just a kid.

Still, maybe that’s none of my business.

Vampy will be sent off to the academy soon enough anyway.

I guess that means I’m not the only one making plans for the future.