So I’m a Spider, So What?, Vol. 1

by Okina Baba

 

 

  Whaaaat?! Of all the times for this stupid trio to show up!

  If it was only one, I could’ve just slipped right past it! How was I supposed to sneak past a row of three?!

  Wh-what am I gonna do?! Come on! Oh god, I don’t even have time to thiiiiink!

  Okay! Sink or swim!

  Still running at top speed, I skittered up the wall!

  Yoooooooo! I did it! I actually did it!

  Wall running successful! I made it over the three monsters!

  I heard a commotion behind me, but I didn’t look back!

  I didn’t know how much time those three would buy me, but I had to make a break for it while I had the chance!

  Sorry about that, you guys. This was just another instance of survival of the fittest. Now, sacrifice yourselves to become my meat shields!

  Bwa-ha-ha!

  By using those monsters, I successfully made it out alive! I probably should have said a little prayer for them as thanks… Wait, huh?

  A break…in the path?

  Wait, wait, wait—another pitfall like the centipede nest?!

  Waaah! No, no, no! I’m running way too fast to stop in time!

  Aaaaaah!

  I was suddenly hurtling headlong into empty space.

  Huh? Oh, wow, what a terribly deep and wide hole. You’d probably die if you fell in here.

  Wait, falling?! I was falling! Noooooo!

  Bungee jumping without a cord? You’ve gotta be kidding me! Wait, a cord? Cord!

  Come on, spider thread, work with me!

  I shot out some thread and attached it to the wall!

  All right, I’m saved— Whoof!

  Ow, that really hurt.

  I had stopped falling, but the recoil slammed my body into the wall at top speed.

  Man, though, I thought I was gonna die.

  Getting chased by a snake and escaping only to fall off a cliff? Not cool.

  Maybe I was being punished for getting so full of myself…

  Oh, I get it. All right, I repent. I’ve seen the error of my ways, so can that loud, disturbing buzzing I keep hearing stop now, please?

 

 

 

 

  Bees.

  It was a group of those giant bee monsters that I’d seen only once before. And there was a whole swarm flying around in this hole.

  Um… Hello there…

  I’m sorry! Please forgive me! For the love of god, don’t look at me!

  There was only one way for me to get away from the bees that were coming to attack me.

  And that way was down!

  I dove again! I was falling, but not like before!

  I made the thread attached to the wall more elastic and used it to go down safely like a real bungee jumper. After bouncing two or three times, I latched on to the wall and attached a new thread.

  Geronimoooo!

  I repeated this process a few more times to get down.

  All right, I reached the ground!

  But the bees were still swarming around above me. I forced my exhausted body to start running again. I had to get out of there as fast as I could.

  But I was a few steps too late.

  A bee landed on me. Then, I felt a sharp pain in my back.

  ?!?!?!?!

  Ow! It stabbed me!

  And something was flooding into my body from the wound, too! Poison!

  I didn’t have any way to combat something that was attached to my back.

  Wait, there was one way.

  I still had hardly any MP left, but there was no time to worry about that!

  I used Thread Control to manipulate my thread and attach it to the bee on my back. Then I wound the thread around it to constrict the monster.

  Heave-ho!

  I grasped the thread and yanked the bee from my back, slamming it to the ground like a judo master!

  I wanted to finish it off right there, but running away was more important!

  I hid myself in the shadow of a rock up against the wall. The giant bees shouldn’t be able to get at me in the small space.

  Sure enough, after buzzing around and scoping the situation out for a while, the handful of bees that were chasing me gave up and flew away.

  I had survived, somehow.

  But I didn’t come out unscathed. I couldn’t see it with my own eyes, but I knew there was a huge hole in my back.

  I only had 6 HP left. The other 30 had been lost in that single attack. It wasn’t surprising. I knew that my defense was somewhat low. If anything, I was grateful to my spider body for being tenacious enough to survive that awful wound at all.

  I was lucky that I had high Poison Resistance, too.

  That thing had definitely injected me with poison when it stung me.

  I had no way of knowing how much of the damage I’d taken was from poison and how much was from the needle, so I didn’t know if my skill had canceled the poison out completely. Still, I had no doubt that if it weren’t for Poison Resistance, I would’ve been dead already.

  I probably wouldn’t be able to move for a while with this wound. I didn’t even know whether it would heal on its own at all.

  Meaning the ideal situation would be to level up and fully recover like last time.

  That being the case, I really wanted to go and get that bee I’d caught and thrown off me, both for food and experience points.

  But coming out from under here seemed like a bad idea.

  Maybe I could stick some thread to it with Thread Control and pull it over here a little at a time?

  Suddenly, I had another sense of foreboding.

  I carefully peeked out from the shadow of the rock.

  There, I saw the tied-up bee struggling on the ground. And beyond it, the shape of another monster approaching it, slowly but surely.

 

  The snake. Did it chase me all that way?!

  No, probably not. It was the same level but probably a different individual.

  Crap.

  There might be quite a few of those snakes around, then, even though they were like boss monsters from my point of view.

  If they found me while I was this badly injured, no way was I getting out alive.

  The snake slithered lazily toward the bee.

  I’m begging you… You can have the bee—just please don’t notice me.

  But in the end, the reptile didn’t do anything to the bee.

  Or, to be more exact, it couldn’t.

  Something ripped through its body at a terrible speed.

  Huh? Did my eyes deceive me?

  To my view, whatever it was had shredded the snake as easily as so much paper. You know, the snake protected by those super-hard scales. The one just about as fast as I was. And it had no time to react.

 

  There it was, calm as could be.

  Contrary to its name, it looked more like a wolf.

  It had four feet that trod on the ground.

  A long tail.

  No wings.

  What I saw there was an imposingly majestic dragon.

  Oh god. My spider’s instincts, my human logic, and the cry of my soul all screamed the same thing in unison.

  Not a chance. There’s no way you could ever beat an opponent like that.

  In fact, I couldn’t even call it an opponent in the first place. From that thing’s point of view, I was nothing more than bait.

  Not even prey. I’d be eaten the moment I entered its line of sight.

  That was how extreme the difference between us was.

  Its high level was barely worth thinking about.

  Regardless of level, that thing w
as out of my league.

  The earth dragon Araba started chewing up the scattered bits of the snake, one by one.

  I desperately tried to silence my breathing.

 

  Shut up! I’m begging you, just keep it down! What am I gonna do if that thing notices me?!

  Once it was done devouring the snake, the dragon ambled away without so much as a glance at the bee.

  Th…thank god.

  I had no idea whether it didn’t notice me or if it did but didn’t care, but either way, I was alive.

  By this time, I had already had more than my share of near-death experiences, but that was almost certainly the worst yet.

  Even just remembering it now is scary.

  No way. If that thing was wandering in this vicinity, I had to get away, stat.

  I looked around.

  I was at the bottom of the hole I’d fallen down. It seemed to be somewhere around three hundred feet in diameter.

  The depth was probably even more than that. I couldn’t really tell how high the cliff was.

  Above me, a huge swarm of bees covered the area like a ceiling.

  I was relieved that they were far away enough that my Appraisal skill didn’t kick in.

  If it had, Appraising a horde like that at once might have knocked me out.

  But if I wanted to return to the area I came from, I would have to go past that swarm.

  While climbing a sheer cliff, no less.

  Not happening.

  I couldn’t fight anything off while I was clinging sideways to a cliff.

  I wouldn’t be able to move quickly or even aim my thread properly.

  My strength was fighting in confined places.

  The bees, on the other hand, could fly around freely in the air.

  There was no way I could win.

  But exploring a place that was home to that beast would be a suicide mission, too.

  There were a few different passages connected to the bottom of the pit.

  Should I risk going down a different path from the one that thing went into?

  I couldn’t. With an injury this severe, encountering any monster at all would spell my doom, even if it wasn’t that dragon.

  Uh-oh. This might be the end of the line.

  So here I am.

  Where did I go wrong?

  How am I going to survive?

  I can’t let it end in a place like this.

  I don’t want to die.

  And so, I start planning.

  AN ADVENTURER’S WITHDRAWAL

  “Dammit!”

  A group of Elroe randanels and an Elroe baladorado got in our way, so we took care of them.

  Just when we thought we’d chased down that taratect, these nuisances had to show up.

  We lucked out and dispatched the baladorado relatively easily while the monsters were fighting among themselves, but the taratect got away while we were busy.

  “What should we do now?”

  “I don’t think we have much of a choice but to withdraw. We can’t chase it any farther now.”

  “You’re right. We’ll have to go back and report it to the adventurers’ guild.”

  I nodded toward my comrade.

  Given its size, the thing was probably pretty young.

  But it still got away from us so quickly. That was no ordinary speed.

  A small-fry monster like a taratect shouldn’t be able to move that fast.

  Obviously, this individual was extraordinary.

  If it was already like this as a juvenile, there was no telling how strong it would become if it evolved into adulthood.

  If we didn’t do something about it before then, it would be too late.

  “We’ll have to withdraw! As quickly as possible!”

  That was the most we could do. We had to return with all haste to report this information.

  That way, higher-ranking adventurers and maybe even the kingdom’s troops could take action.

  With one last glance at where the taratect had gone, we turned and left.

  SPIDER VS BEE

  After the earth dragon left, I took my time meticulously looking over my surroundings.

  No matter how long I looked, though, I still didn’t feel safe. But safe or not, I have to do something, or I’ll be stuck here until I die.

  I use Thread Control to extend a strand toward the bee, which was still restrained on the ground.

  Oof, my back hurts. But I seem to be able to produce my silk without a problem.

  I slowly and cautiously stretch the thread until it finally connects to its target.

  The bee is still struggling, but that doesn’t matter at this point.

  I just have to recover it before another monster gets to it first.

  With every tug, my wounds ache.

  The pain is horrible, but my HP isn’t decreasing any further, so I want to believe I’m all right.

  At long last, I successfully retrieve my prey.

  Immediately, I bite into it with my poison fangs, killing it on the spot.

  Considering how well my venom seems to work even on other poisonous monsters, maybe my Poison Fang and Poison Resistance skills are higher than my peers’?

  Well, that doesn’t really matter right now.

  The real problem is what I’m going to do next. To be honest, exploring this area is probably suicide. It’s possible there are other beasts like that earth dragon, so my chances of survival appear to be dwindling.

  That’s no good. I’ve certainly made it through many a dangerous situation so far, but this is so much more frightening than anything before.

  In normal circumstances, I’m reasonably confident in my fighting abilities.

  Recently, I’ve taken to wandering around the dungeon and using tactics like surprise attacks, but in the end, I’m best suited to making webs and letting prey come to me. I mean, I was even able to take down that huge snake with my simple temporary shelter. So if I put my mind to designing a home specifically for defensive battles, no monster will be able to overcome it.

  Or so I thought.

  That thing will absolutely be able to. Without even batting an eye. That horrifying monster is strong enough.

  Thread, poison fangs, surprise, and speed. My fundamental tactics would be nothing more than party tricks to that dragon.

  They would fall to pieces in the face of such overwhelming power.

  I can imagine it easily.

  In my whole life reincarnated as a spider, this is the second encounter I’ve had with a terrifyingly dominant creature that could crush me with ease.

  The first time, incidentally, was when I saw my giant spider mother (father?).

  The fact that I have no chance of winning is an issue, sure. But even worse is the fact that it’s faster than me.

  Even if something breaches my nest, I can still run away. I’d probably be beating myself up about it like last time, but at least I can escape with my life. With my incredible speed, that was never a problem. But that thing can outrun me.

  If I fight it, there’s no way I can win. And I can’t even manage to escape.

  Truly, if that thing ever lays eyes on me, it’ll all be over in an instant.

  What a distressing creature.

  If I knew a thing like that existed, I would’ve just taken my chances fighting the snake head-on.

  And I have no way of knowing if that’s the only one of its species lurking in this area.

  Scary.

  This is the closest I’ve been to death so far. Frankly, I’m kind of surprised by how frightened I am.

  Despite all the ridiculous experiences I’ve had so far, I never felt any real tension or terror, so I figured I’d left those feelings behind long ago.

  But now I know all too well that isn’t the case.

  The only reason I’ve never experienced this much fear is that none of those other situations even began to com
pare with this one. It’s not that my emotions died, I just had no need for them until now.

  Ha-ha.

  It’s a little late for that realization now. Why couldn’t I have figured that out before I got myself into this situation?

  All right, enough wallowing in regret. It’s time to figure out what I need to do next.

  First, I have to secure some degree of safety.

  It would be useless in the face of that dragon, but I should probably still build a web around this small rock enclave.

  At the moment, I’m physically incapable of leaving.

  So this time, I’m going all in. It‘s time to make my third home here. Then, if possible, I want to lure in and kill some weak monsters like those bees.

  My goal is to level up so that my wounds can fully heal. Until I recover, there isn’t much else I can do. In my current state, one little prod from even the weakest monster would be enough to kill me.

  It’s probably best not to hope that these wounds will heal on their own, too.

  Man, I wish I had some kind of automatic HP recovery skill. But there’s no use grousing about that. I just have to accept my situation and try to pull it together.

  Anyway, my first order of business is making a base around this little spot.

  To be honest, building a nest here probably isn’t the best idea. It’ll just make my presence more obvious, and if a monster like that dragon finds me, I’m toast.

  However, with my severe injuries, I don’t have much of a choice.

  So I just have to try to level up.

  Once I do that and recover from my wounds, I can think about escaping from this dangerous area.

  Should I try to go up through the massive swarm of bees or explore down here despite the danger? Both choices seem like they lead straight to hell.

  However, now that I’ve fallen all the way down this hole, I’m practically in hell already. The only question is whether I live or die here. And at this point, that pretty much comes down to luck.

  As of this moment, I’d say the scales are tipping firmly in favor of me dying. Will my odds keep decreasing, or can I tilt the scales in the other direction?

  Well, at the very least, I’m going to try.

  Fortunately, I at least have enough stamina to make a web. One bee is still very large, so it makes for a solid food source.

  I’m going to have to use every bit of the stamina this bee provides me to make my new home.