by Okina Baba
It’d be nice if I could use Appraisal on skills to avoid issues like this, but I can’t.
One of the conditions of Appraisal seems to be that I can only get info on visible things.
So all the information I have about skills at the moment is whatever the Divine Voice (temp.) is willing to tell me.
Since I can’t see skills in any form, I can’t Appraise them, either. Since the results of my Appraisals are spelled out in my head, this information counts as being “visible,” most likely.
But if I raise my skill level further, maybe skills will appear in my status Appraisal checks, and then I might be able to check them out.
Anyway, there’s nothing else I can do about it until then, so I’ll have to leave the mystery skills alone for the time being.
Now then, since I’ve finally brought down some big game, I figure I should get to eating it.
First, I rebuild my simple home so other monsters won’t attack me while I eat.
Considering how huge the serpent is, I probably won’t be able to eat it all in one go, so I decide to settle down in this area until I finish devouring the whole thing.
Thus, I make these webs a little more carefully than my usual temporary nests.
Today seems to be my lucky day.
My Spider Thread skill, which hasn’t improved in a long time, finally leveled up.
Maybe using it so much during my battle against the snake paid off.
Anyway, now my two main skills, Poison Fang and Spider Thread, have ranked up at the same time.
To be honest, this will probably contribute to my combat capability way more than the base stat increases that come with leveling up.
I’m in a great mood and ready to chow down.
Oh, but before that, I’ll have to get rid of the snake’s scales. They’re way too damn hard for me to eat.
Whew, descaling complete! Wow, that was exhausting. It was a lot more work than I thought it would be.
Since the scales were so hard and firmly attached, it took me a while.
The red stamina gauge, which was restored when I leveled up, dropped by a whole quarter again.
Goes to show what hard work that was.
But now I can eat without reservations! Without further ado, I dig in.
Ew, gross!
It’s crazy bitter. That probably means poison, huh?
Considering how bitter this is, the guy must’ve had some super-potent venom. It probably would’ve been really bad if it bit me, then.
Nice. It tastes awful, but skill-wise, this is a great meal.
It’s been several days since I defeated the snake.
At least, I think so. There’s no real way of knowing how much time passes inside the dungeon.
At any rate, for a while my life was eating and sleeping.
I still haven’t finished eating the snake, and new prey keeps getting caught in my webs, so I can’t move even if I want to. I only planned on taking a short break, but things are getting dire.
At this rate, I’m going to relapse into my life as a shut-in!
I glance over at the mountain of prey I’ve caught over the past few days.
Yeah, a mountain. Mountain… In Japanese, that’s yama… Yamada. Come to think of it, wasn’t there someone named Yamada among my old classmates?
Well, that doesn’t matter now.
Anyway, my prey is piling up into a mountain.
This is the result of systematically disposing of all the prey getting caught in my web.
Back in my first home, I ate my prey as soon as I got it, but I can’t start in on these until I finish eating the snake, which is why I ended up with this enormous pile.
There haven’t been any tough guys that could break through my thread like the snake, so I was able to dispose of them easily.
One of them was a strong-looking level 6, but now it’s just part of the prey pile.
Well, a high level doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be strong.
I’m level 9 now. Level-wise, the same as the serpent. However, the snake had an overwhelming advantage in terms of straight-up battle abilities.
In fact, without my thread, I probably couldn’t even beat a low-level monster.
I’m starting to think that the race of a creature is at least as important as its level. Even at the same level, if one species is superior, then there’s essentially no chance of an upset.
To give an extreme example, even if that giant spider, which is probably the strongest monster I’ve seen, was level 1, I still wouldn’t be able to beat it.
Regardless of our levels, with an opponent that big, no amount of strategizing would stop me from getting crushed in an instant.
So besides the difference in level, there was also a big difference in combat ability between that serpent and me.
That said, three-quarters of the snake’s body has already disappeared into my stomach. Should I look at it as being three-quarters done with the snake or still having another quarter to go? I still have the mounting pile of monster corpses to tackle after this, so it may be better to go with the latter.
With a stockpile this extensive, they may start to rot before I can eat them.
But I do have that Rot Resistance skill, so eating rotting things probably wouldn’t bother me too much.
In fact, it may be better to make myself eat a little to raise my skill level.
Taste?
Considering all the gross poisonous stuff I’ve been eating this whole time, I’m pretty sure I can handle a little spoiled food at this point.
Okay.
Just as I thought, I can’t leave the area until I’ve finished digesting this giant pile of food. If I can just finish the snake off somehow, the other monsters aren’t terribly big, so I’m sure I could manage.
Besides, if I don’t push myself to finish all this, I’m really going to turn back into a shut-in.
I originally intended for this to be improvised housing, but I’ve spent so much time here, it’s getting to be just as big as my previous home.
As I mull over everything, I feel a vibration through my thread. Something is trapped in my web again.
Oh man. Now I’ll have even more food.
I never imagined that I’d wind up in a situation where I have too much to eat.
At any rate, I head over to my catch.
It seems to be thrashing about pretty violently. Maybe I caught some big game?
In that case, my staycation is going to be extended again.
I hope it’s something small. This is a rather ridiculous problem to have.
So I actually caught three monsters. Ah, these guys showed up in a trio at my old home, too.
Does this monster species only travel in threes?
In any case, this may be even worse than catching a big monster. Mostly in terms of meat quantity, that is.
For now, I add more threads to further impede their movements before carrying them away, web and all.
This is a new technique I’ve come up with.
It’s way more convenient than cutting out a piece of the web every time.
Then I build a new web and head back to the center of my home with the monsters in tow.
Oof, all three of them together are heavy. I should’ve taken them one at a time, even though that’s more of a pain.
Heave-ho! Man, this is annoying.
My body hurts a little bit now. In fact, my HP has even gone down.
Dammit! Good thing I have these guys to take out my anger on. That seems a little irrational, but I don’t really care.
And
so: Chomp! Chomp! Chomp!
…What was that?
As I level up, I receive some really mind-boggling information.
Evolve, it said? Does that mean what I think it means? Like in a certain game series where you raise pocket-size monsters?
• Lesser taratect
• Small taratect
>
Wh-whoa. Okay, give me a minute here. Wait just a moment.
Let me think about this. This can be a huge turning point in a person’s life. Although I’m a spider, not a person.
At any rate, I can’t make this choice lightly.
Evolution, huh? Well, that’s cool. Since this is such a gamelike world, it isn’t that surprising to encounter something like this, I suppose. If I start making cracks about that now, I’ll never stop.
So if I’m evolving, doesn’t that mean I’ll power up, too? If the choice to evolve is available to me, there’s no sense in not jumping on the chance.
So. Lesser taratect or small taratect.
Based on the names alone, there doesn’t appear to be that big of a difference. So which is better: “lesser” or “small”?
Oh, if only Appraisal could be used on the Divine Voice (temp.)! Then I could understand the differences easily.
Hmm. Well, maybe I could take a guess?
My guess is that a lesser taratect would be an adult.
It would take small out of my name, after all.
So the flip side to that is that small taratect removes the lesser part. Would I become a superior species?
But since small is still attached, I’d probably still be an immature specimen.
That must be the difference, I think.
In that case, it’s easy to pick one. Small taratect should be the way to go, right?
I don’t want to evolve and stay as an inferior species, after all. Besides, doesn’t small taratect imply that there are more evolutionary steps beyond that? Like losing the small and simply becoming a taratect, for instance.
I don’t know how much I would change by evolving, but at the very least, I’m confident it would make me stronger. In which case I should probably choose the one with more potential for further growth.
A lesser taratect might be able to evolve, too, but I don’t want to choose it on the basis of that uncertain hope.
Besides, I don’t know how big my body will get if I choose to become a lesser taratect, which is scary.
If I evolve into an adult, that’ll probably mean getting a lot bigger.
I don’t think I’ll suddenly have a huge growth spurt as soon as I choose my next form, but I can’t say for sure.
This is a fantasy world, after all, so I can’t rule out the chance of something like: “I’m evolving! BOOM! Now I’m gigantic!”
And if that is a possibility, I don’t want to risk it.
I doubt I would suddenly swell up to the size of that giant spider, but if I get too big to fit in the passage I’m currently in, that would undoubtedly be a problem.
I did see that huge finjicote monster before, but it nearly filled up the ten-foot-wide passageway completely.
It seemed a little difficult to move around like that.
I’m guessing that monster normally lives in a bigger space, and that particular individual happened to go astray into a narrow passage.
So being too big to move around freely is a real possibility here. In which case, it would be best to stick with my current size. That’s another reason to pick small taratect.
Okay. That settles it, then. I’m going to evolve into a small taratect!
Oh, okay. My evolution started pretty quickly.
The Divine Voice (temp.) is always very abrupt, but I wish it would give me a little more time to emotionally prepare for these things.
I mean, this is my big e-vo-lu…tion…
Wha—?! Huh? What?!
Did I fall asleep?
No, it was more like my consciousness suddenly slipped away for a moment or was interrupted for a second or something?
That had to be the effect of evolution, right?
Excuse me, Divine Voice (temp.), if I’m going to pass out when I evolve, a little warning would be nice!
Huh? Am I finished transforming, then?
As far as I can tell, I don’t look very different…
Oh, my self-Appraisal stopped.
Okay, time to examine myself to see what’s what.
Oh! O-oh? Wh-whaat?
My species name changed, so the evolution seems to have been successful.
But level 1? So your level resets when you evolve? Uh, my stats didn’t go down or anything, did they? My status hasn’t changed from “weak,” so I can’t tell. Wait, still weak? Aw, man…
The most worrisome thing is that my red stamina bar looks nearly empty now.
That’s probably why I feel so sluggish and hungry. I must’ve used up a ton of energy mutating, right? Good thing I have such a huge stockpile of food.
In the end, my evolution was successful, but it turned out to be risky business.
I passed out and nearly ran out of energy, after all.
If I get a chance to do this again, I’ll have to make some preparations.
Since I lost most of my stamina thanks to my evolution, I turn my attention to eating.
First, what’s left of the snake.
The large creature took so much work to eat before, but now it goes into my belly with ease.
As I finish off the snake, my Poison Resistance skill levels up.
That makes two levels I’ve obtained for that skill thanks to this snake. Yum, yum.
Before I evolved, that much food would’ve left me full and bloated, but now it has so little effect that I wonder if it vanished into a hole somewhere. It’s like everything I ate just now disappeared.
In exchange, though, my red stamina gauge has recovered steadily.
So even after finishing the snake, my stomach isn’t bloated. In fact, I’m still pretty hungry. My red stamina bar is far from full, too.
Fortunately, I have a whole mountain of monster meat in my current abode.
Before my evolution, I’d been seriously worried about how I was going to eat it all.
Surely this much food would be enough to satisfy even the extra dimension my stomach apparently has now.
So I start to dig in.
I eat. And eat. And eat.
I scarf it down like there’s no tomorrow.
In my previous life, I generally didn’t have much of an appetite, but I guess it wouldn’t be so bad to be a glutton in this world.
I feel like I could take on a competitive eater now! Ser
iously, though, what’s going on with my stomach?
I’ve obviously eaten more than my entire body mass at this point, yet I can still fit more?
For real, though. My stomach isn’t actually connected to a separate dimension now, is it?
I know thinking about it won’t solve anything, but you can’t help worrying when your own body is involved.
I won’t figure out what’s going on no matter how much time I spend fretting about it, and it’s really starting to bug me…
Argh! Don’t think about it! Don’t think about anything, just keep eating!
I eat. And eat. And eat.
And ea… Oops, there’s nothing left.
Huh? Did I seriously eat all that food I hoarded?
…I did, didn’t I? I mean, it’s all gone.
For real?
My belly is still only 80 percent full. That’s what my red stamina gauge says, anyway. So that still isn’t enough to fill me up completely?
Evolution is scary. Mostly in the sense of energy consumption.
If my next one also occurs at level 10, I’ll probably have to start preparing once I hit level 9.
I’m lucky that I happened to evolve under the perfect conditions this time, but normally, it probably won’t go this well if I don’t prepare.
Man, for real, though—I’m so glad I could beat that snake.
If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have made a new home and saved up all this food.
Thanks, snake!
Well, anyway, I’ve recovered for the most part, but my stomach still isn’t full. And since I’ve munched through my entire store of food, there’s no reason to stay here any longer.
Time to escape from being a homebody!
And so I set off once again to continue my aimless journey.
Thank you, second home.
You were only supposed to be a temporary rest stop, but I ended up staying a lot longer than I planned.
Farewell!
I set off in high spirits.
Now, my first order of business is finding more prey to fill me up. After that, well, I’ll probably just roam around randomly as usual, but I do want to try to find the exit of the dungeon if possible.
If I do get a chance to evolve again, I’ll probably wind up getting bigger.
Even this evolution, which didn’t change my appearance much, still had a huge effect on me. This makes it seem all the more possible that with my next step up, I might suddenly turn huge or something.