by Okina Baba
Some unforeseen situation, a change in the environment, the arrival of enemies able to bust through my webs…
More people like the egg thief, or a really strong monster, or—something.
I don’t know when, but I’m certain the time will come eventually.
Everything changes, sooner or later.
So, I figure it’s probably best to prepare for whenever that time might come.
Yeah, I said all that, but this is way too soon! I’m not ready!
The reason for my panic? One of the entrances to my home is going up in smoke before my very eyes.
I had been just starting to doze off when the fire suddenly broke out.
Slowly, inevitably, the home that I made for myself is sinking into a sea of flames.
And this is how I discovered that my spider thread, which I had assumed to be near invincible, is extremely weak to fire.
But where did this fire even come from?
It doesn’t take long to find the answer—a human. There’s a man standing among the flames. Not the egg thief, of course. He’s holding a torch in one hand.
He must have used that to set my home ablaze.
Damn.
I can’t see too well through the flames, but I can spot several more people behind the man.
This fire is no accident. Obviously, they’re on a mission to destroy my webs.
Which would mean that they’re also aware of the spider monster inside—in other words, me.
If I stay here, I’ll either burn to death or get caught by the humans.
Fortunately, the fire hasn’t reached me yet, and if I flee through the emergency exit on the other side, I should be able to escape the people, too.
I take one last look around inside my dwelling.
Since my reincarnation, I’d spent most of my time here.
I worked so hard to make this home.
I’d made many discoveries here, too, and the results had brought joy, sorrow, and everything in between.
This place had kept me safe all this time.
In fact, I might’ve even become more attached to it than I was to my room in my previous life.
That’s how powerful the time I spent here has been.
I start running away from the fire.
The complicated nest of spider thread falls away as I easily cut through it.
The last web.
Once I pass through, I’ll never be able to come back here again.
Once I pass through, I won’t be safe anywhere.
Nonetheless, I push through without hesitation.
I feel an overwhelming urge to look back as I leave, but I resist.
All I can think about now is running away as far as I can.
And so, I’ve been driven out of my home for good.
As an aside, I should note that the adventurers who set fire to my home apparently discovered a large amount of my balls of thread and that egg that I’d left behind.
Luckily, the fire hadn’t reached that far, so they took all of it with them.
I’ve heard that clothing made with that thread fetches an insanely high price.
They say the king of some country or other bought some, and it became a topic of much discussion for a while.
As for the egg, apparently it stubbornly survived the whole ordeal and successfully hatched sometime later.
I didn’t learn any of this until much, much later.
And when I did, my first thought was: I’m so glad I didn’t break that thing open.
THE HATCHLING
Sue and I stared at the thing in shock.
In front of our eyes was one enormous egg.
It was about three feet tall.
I was pretty sure the biggest kind of egg in my former world was an ostrich’s, but this was clearly far larger than that.
That was because the thing inside was a monster.
Unlike in games, the monsters in this world don’t just randomly pop into existence out of thin air.
They reproduce like any other living creature. This egg had come from monster parents.
We were told it had been found in a place called the Great Elroe Labyrinth, and it was a gift to us in commemoration of our Appraisal Ceremony.
A monster egg seemed like a dangerous gift to me, but evidently, if humans raised it from the moment it hatched, a monster could become attached to and serve its human owners.
And this particular creature was about to hatch at any moment.
“You can do it!” Sue murmured encouragingly.
Ever since a few light cracks had appeared in the egg’s surface, the creature inside had been battering it desperately.
The first cracks showed up two days before, so it was proving to be a fairly drawn-out battle.
By now, the cracks had extended all over the surface of the egg.
It looked ready to burst open any moment now.
Sue and I held our breath as we watched the situation unfold.
I was tempted to help the poor thing out, but Anna advised us not to. The baby needed to break through on its own, or it wouldn’t grow up strong and healthy.
“Ah!”
One part of the shell cracked open, and something like a hand burst through.
The limb flailed about, tearing at the rest of the shell impatiently.
And then, from inside emerged a monster resembling a black lizard.
Its eyes met mine. Somehow, they appeared to be almost glittering with happiness.
“It’s so…not cute.”
Hearing Sue’s disappointed comment, the lizard’s mouth dropped open as if in shock.
Did it understand what she said? Of course not, right?
“You think so? I think it’s pretty charming in its own way.”
Back on Earth, there was a sizable gap between reptile fans and haters, but I definitely leaned toward the former.
I would’ve been all about this lizard when I was a young boy.
“Congratulations. So it is indeed a baby earth dragon,” Anna said as she examined the lizard.
As a half elf, she was older and more knowledgeable than her appearance suggested.
And according to her, this lizard was a baby earth dragon.
A dragon! Just the sound of its name was enough to get me excited.
Even adult earth dragons can’t fly, I’ve heard, but still… A dragon is a dragon.
This little guy was definitely gonna be super-strong someday.
I imagined myself riding on the back of a fully grown dragon. Now that’d be nice…
Apparently, a dragon that lived long enough and reached a high enough level would evolve into a naga. Could I raise this one to do that? Probably not.
“If you don’t want it, then I’d be happy to raise it myself. Do you mind?”
“Anything you desire is yours to have, dear brother.”
Man, what was I gonna do about this? I had the feeling that my sister was starting to head down a very weird path.
But it worked out to my advantage this time, so I decided to let it slide for now.
I held the lizard in my arms. It was very docile.
When I patted its head, it responded by nuzzling against me happily.
“I’ll have to give it a name, huh?”
“May I?”
Anna took the lizard from my arms for a moment.
Then she felt around its lower half. The little guy wriggled in protest, but Anna held it too tightly for it to escape.
“It’s female.”
With this confirmed, Anna handed the lizard back to me.
The creature had something of an inconsolable expression as I held it.
“A girl, huh? What kind of name should I give her?”
If it had been a boy, I obviously would’ve given it a really badass name, but a girl should probably have a pretty one.
A cute name probably wouldn’t suit a dragon.
“All right, I’ve got it.”
I ran through a few pos
sibilities in my mind, then settled on the last one.
“I’m going to call you Feirune. Fei for short.”
This was the name of a big area in an online game I used to play in my previous life.
It was a desert area that seemed to go on forever. In the center was a dragon that served as the area boss, and if you beat it, you could get to an oasis.
That oasis was probably the most beautiful location in the whole game, the most sought-after site for screenshots. At night, especially, it looked like a paradise hidden in the middle of the wilderness.
Her black exterior reminded me of that nighttime scene, so it seemed like the perfect name for an earth dragon.
“Nice to meet you, Fei.”
When I called her by name, Fei responded with a happy little coo.
MY FIRST MONSTER BATTLE
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:
1. Construct my next home in a different location.
2. Keep wandering aimlessly around this dungeon.
3. 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.
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?
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.
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!