by Okina Baba
<[Lifeblood LV 1] has been integrated into [Lifeblood LV 6].>
It looks like I gained a title by defeating the dragon.
“Dragon Slayer? Well, I suppose we’re proper legends now.”
Katia chuckles.
Apparently, everyone who participated in the battle got the title, not just the person who dealt the finishing blow.
“Whew. So we managed to slay a dragon… I didn’t know how that’d go, to be honest.”
Basgath cautiously approaches the earth dragon’s corpse.
“Any of yeh mind if I take this thing?”
“No, please do.”
Monster parts can have all kinds of uses.
Dragons are considered especially valuable.
Since Basgath has a Spatial Storage item, he can carry even the largest of carcasses.
The dragon corpse is sucked into Basgath’s bag.
“Was that the most dangerous monster in the large passage?”
“Don’t be stupid. A big-shot monster like this normally wouldn’t be here at all. The most difficult monster in the large passage oughta be an earth wyrm, a rank below this thing. More than likely, this thing was an earth wyrm that evolved.”
“Yeah. Its level was pretty low.”
“Exactly. I’d bet we didn’t see any other monsters because this guy was runnin’ around eating ’em all.”
When monsters gain a lot of experience, they sometimes evolve.
This means they become a higher-class monster and revert to level 1.
And monsters that have recently evolved become very hungry and belligerent.
The dragon was a low level, and its SP was already reduced at the start of the fight.
That means it had probably evolved not too long ago.
“Dragon Slayer, eh? Guess I only ever fought wyrms with Julius and the others. That’ll make a nice souvenir to show off to them in the next life…”
Hyrince laughs bleakly.
“We were only able to win because you blocked its attack.”
“Blocking was all I could manage. But I guess I did my job as a tank.”
“Yes, very much so. That’s why there weren’t any casualties. Thank you.”
“No need to thank me. It’s what I’m here for. Besides, you’re the one who finished it off. Good job, kid.”
Hyrince ruffles my hair a bit roughly.
“Cut it out, please!”
I laugh as I dodge away from his hand.
Having defeated a powerful enemy, we all start to relax a little.
Then a chill runs down my spine.
I turn around.
Something else returns my gaze.
Eight glittering eyes, looking down at us from on top of a rock.
A monster known as a Nightmare’s Vestige.
There it stands, on top of the boulder.
Its bloodred eyes are fixed on me coldly.
It isn’t particularly large.
But it has a greater presence than any monster we’ve faced so far.
I can’t move.
Neither can anyone else.
It’s like we’re frozen in place, unable to even tremble.
The white spider monster seems to have its claws around our hearts.
“Hero?”
Suddenly, I hear a voice.
But not in the form of sound.
Telepathy.
It wasn’t directed at me.
I just happen to be overhearing it on its way to someone else.
“Hero.”
Then, suddenly, that someone else is here.
Not just here. It’s everywhere.
“Ruler?”
“Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.”
“Cannot be Appraised?”
“Cannot be Appraised.” “Cannot be Appraised.” “Cannot be Appraised.” “Cannot be Appraised.” “Cannot be Appraised.” “Cannot be Appraised.”
“Ruler?”
“Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.”
“Reincarnation?”
“Reincarnation.” “Reincarnation.” “Reincarnation.” “Reincarnation.” “Reincarnation.” “Reincarnation.”
“But they’re weak?”
“Weak.” “Weak.” “Weak.” “Weak.” “Weak.” “Weak.”
“Weak. Weak.” “Weak. Weak.” “Weak. Weak.” “Weak. Weak.” “Weak. Weak.” “Weak. Weak.”
The telepathic voice echoes all around.
Then they appear, on the floor, on the wall, on the ceiling, everywhere.
Red eyes, tons of them.
Then white, filling up my vision.
The bizarre spectacle forces my thoughts to grind to a halt.
No, I have to think.
They’re using language for a specific purpose—they must be.
And one particular word stands out.
“You know about reincarnations?!”
I steady my resolve and speak.
Basgath’s eyes widen, but I had to ask, no matter what.
“We do.” “We do.”
“Of course we do.”
The answer is immediate.
We’re communicating with each other.
These things aren’t monsters that lack intelligence.
“Why do you know that?”
“Master.” “Master.”
“Mother.” “Mother.”
“Is this ‘Master’ a reincarnation?”
“You’ll know soon enough.”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“You’ll find out.”
“You’ll know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Proclamation.”
“Pronouncement.”
“The beginning of the end.”
“The world begins.”
“The world ends.”
The white shadows gradually disappear.
“Please, wait! What does that mean?!”
“You don’t need to know.”
“You’ll die anyway.”
“Everyone will die.”
“Just struggle to survive.”
Implicitly, I felt like they were saying, We’ll let you live until then.
With that, the Nightmare’s Vestiges disappear.
“You fool!”
Basgath’s fist strikes my face.
I accept the punch with resignation.
Basgath tries to strike me again, but Hyrince grabs him and holds him back.
“I told yeh, didn’t I? If yeh see a Nightmare’s Vestige, don’t do anything!”
Even in a choke hold, Basgath is still yelling with rage.
At this rate, he might even shake off Hyrince and come at me again.
“Now, now.” Ms. Oka steps in. “We still got through safely, didn’t we?”
Basgath reluctantly stops struggling.
He still seems angry, but at least there’s no sign he’ll become violent again.
“I’m sorry. I just had to ask.”
“Even if it killed yeh?”
Basgath glares at me.
I don’t know how to respond.
“If yeh want to die, that’s yer choice, boy. But not if yeh get others involved, too. Die alone if that’s what yeh want.”
“Basgath, that’s going too far.”
Ms. Oka scolds him, but I think he’s right.
I made a selfish choice while dealing with the dangerous Nightmare’s Vestiges simply because I was too curious.
Basgath pushes Hyrince away.
Pe
rhaps judging that he won’t strike me anymore, Hyrince releases him.
Immediately, Basgath staggers over to a rock some ways away, leans against it, and slides to the ground.
Looking closer, I realize that his face is pale.
Basgath did say that he encountered the Nightmare a long time ago.
Maybe that encounter traumatized him.
Looking around at the others, I see that Katia and Anna have dropped to their knees, and Hyrince looks a little pale.
Even Fei’s expression is stiff.
Our teacher is the only one who appears calm.
“Are you all right?”
I address Katia and Anna first.
“I can’t seem to stand at the moment.”
“I’m so ashamed…”
They both look almost on the verge of tears.
Judging by the goose bumps on their skin, they are a little grossed out as well as terrified.
Even if they were comparatively small for monsters, we were still essentially surrounded by giant spiders.
It makes sense that the girls would be distressed. I’m disturbed as well.
“If they’d attacked us, do you think you could’ve handled it, Fei?”
“I…don’t think so.”
Fei responds to my question uncertainly.
“One of them probably would’ve been fine, but with such a huge number of them, I’m not so sure.”
“I figured.”
If there was only one, even I might have been able to handle it.
I didn’t Appraise them, of course, so I don’t know their exact stats, but they certainly seemed at least as strong as that earth dragon, if not stronger.
Since Fei was able to hold her own against the earth dragon, maybe she could’ve fought off a Nightmare’s Vestige, too.
But that’s assuming there was only one of them.
Against a group so large that I couldn’t even count them all, winning would probably be impossible.
Which is why carelessly speaking to the Nightmare’s Vestige in that situation was a reckless act that put everyone’s lives in danger.
I have no right to complain about Basgath hitting me.
As our guide, he’s in charge of keeping all of us safe. There’s no way he could let my selfish decision slide.
“You certainly seem calm, don’t you?”
The color starting to return to her face, Katia raises her eyebrows at Ms. Oka.
“Hmm? I wouldn’t say that. Sure, they were cute on the outside, but I didn’t like their tone one bit.”
“Cute…?”
Wow. So she actually did think that.
Ms. Oka always had unusual tastes, even in our old lives.
At the time, I thought it was just for show, but apparently she really does like spiders and stuff.
Surprising.
“By the way, what do you think of what they were saying?”
The Nightmare’s Vestiges spoke in nothing but repetitive riddles.
“I don’t know. We don’t have enough information.”
First of all, what exactly are those monsters we call the “Nightmare’s Vestiges”?
They seemed to know a thing or two about us, meaning they must have a high-level Appraisal skill.
More importantly, they were intelligent enough to understand human language.
Not to mention stealthy enough to gather in such a large number without our noticing.
They also worked together seamlessly, even going as far as using Telepathy.
How could mere fragments be this powerful?
It doesn’t make sense to consider them ordinary monsters.
What in the world are they?
What is their connection to the monster known as the “Nightmare” that was around when they first appeared?
“The beginning of the end. Everyone will die…”
Those ominous, nightmarish words.
They stay in my mind, repeating over and over.
EVOLUTION
Once the arch taratect has been dealt with, I check to make sure my surroundings are safe before I breathe a sigh of relief.
I survived!
Boy, that was rough.
I thought being chased down by Mother was bad enough, but then I got ambushed as soon as I escaped?
Just how badly does she want to kill me?
I mean, she’s seriously out for blood.
If this were a game, it’d get scathing reviews for being too hard.
It’s like if the final boss spawned just as you were entering the first real area, and when you ran away, you got attacked by a bunch of mini-bosses at once.
Unreal.
At this point, my sheer exhaustion outweighs my excitement about surviving.
Both physically and mentally speaking.
I’ve definitely resigned myself to death quite a few times by now, but this was the closest call yet.
I even used Annihilating Evil Eye, which I’d considered off-limits because of its self-destructive nature, on a gamble where my odds of surviving were far lower.
I’ve had my share of situations where a single hit would kill me, but nothing like what just happened, where death closed in on me from all sides.
I think the closest I’ve come before that was when I fell to the Lower Stratum and got stung by that bee, or when I fought Araba.
Being one hit away from a death that could come at any moment is scary, but being slowly backed into a corner with no way out? Waaay worse.
Seriously, no more of that, please.
Well, that crisis is over, at least for now.
My current location is a magma lake about halfway through the Middle Stratum.
Given their weakness to fire, those other spiders won’t chase me this far. I hope.
I mean, even the arch’s HP decreased just by being here, which means any taratects weaker than that would probably die in a flash.
The biggest problem is that weird new puppet spider.
That thing might actually be able to function in the Middle Stratum.
Man, what was up with that freak?
Since it’s nowhere on my evolution chart from Professor Wisdom, it must be some special evolution that’s not part of the normal taratect line.
Maybe it’s a mutation or something? Either way, that’s one ace I wish they’d kept in the hole.
It might not be quite as horrifying as Mother, but since its stats are above 10,000, I definitely don’t see myself winning that fight.
It was bad enough that it prevented me from fleeing and all, but if it had been that thing actively attacking me instead of the archs, I would’ve been in big trouble.
If the archs had blocked the passage instead, while the puppet spider finished me off…
Oh yeah, I’d be dead.
That’s the only miscalculation Mother made.
And it was that tiny error that saved my ass.
That was still the worst predicament I’ve been in yet, though.
So what should I do now?
First of all, I’d like to know what Mother is up to.
I tried checking in with my Parallel Minds that are totally rocking their spirit battle with Mother, but it seemed like there was some blockage partway through.
Our connection hasn’t been cut, but something is interfering with our communication.
My connection with Mother is fading, too.
My guess is that Mother was able to track my actions perfectly because she was using her Kin Control skill to spy on me.
It was when I first noticed that skill’s influence that I decided to use it to launch a counterattack on Mother. It makes sense that it would still be connecting us.
I had let my guard down about it because she couldn’t control me, but she must have been able to use it to watch me.
And if that connection is weakening now, does that mean Mother can’t see me anymore, either?
If that’s the case, then she might attack again if the connection recovers.<
br />
She’d figure out where I am.
But to put it another way, that means she probably doesn’t know where I am right now. Maybe I can relax a little.
This is all just an educated guess, though, so I’d better not put too much faith in it.
Still, maybe this means I shouldn’t use Clairvoyance to check on Mother.
I’m afraid it’d attract her attention.
For now, if I just stay put, it should buy me a few days at least.
If my Parallel Minds can defeat Mother in that time, then it’ll all be over.
Even if not, I don’t stand a chance of beating her in person. Running away is my only option.
Now I know how criminals feel when they’re on the run.
I’m scared of the spider police.
Well, let’s just focus on what I can do for now.
When I defeated the arch earlier, I went up to level 30.
And now the words Evolution Available have appeared in my status.
Heh-heh-heh. That’s right. I can evolve again!
This is the last step I need before my evolutionary goal, arachne.
I have only one option: Zana Horowa.
As far as I can tell from the evolutionary tree, this species is on the same level as Mother.
Still, considering my evolutions so far, I’m guessing my stats aren’t going to suddenly jump way up or anything.
Just evolving won’t suddenly make me Mother’s equal.
For one thing, even if our species are on par with each other, Mother is level 89.
I’d have to evolve and grind my way up to level 89 to compete with that.
Still, if I evolve, my stats will probably go up at least a little, and maybe I’ll get some new skills, too.
Although at this point, the only skills I’ve gotten from evolving are things like Rot Attack and Annihilating Evil Eye, which are super-strong but do tons of damage to me, too!
I’ll be totally unprotected when I evolve, but all the other monsters in the area ran off somewhere while I was beating the crap out of the arch, so that isn’t a problem.
Not so long ago, it was a life-threatening risk to evolve here, but now monsters all run away from me of their own accord.
That kinda sucks, in that it makes it difficult to secure food, but at times like this, I’m grateful for it.
Let’s get evolving!
Yes.
My consciousness…doesn’t fade like it normally would.