Editing/Standardisation: kubor04
Formatting/Extras: APM
Original Translation: Blastron
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On the first day, I made the simplest workable nest and went to sleep. I can’t really say I slept well, thanks to this backache, but the important part is that I didn’t get attacked overnight, which is a huge relief. Even better, I didn’t die from my injuries overnight! I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I woke up. After checking my health level, it looked like nothing changed; I was still at six HP. I’m kind of disappointed that it’s not recovering on its own, but I’m still happy it didn’t go down, either… well, could be better, could be worse.
On the second day, I devoted basically the entire day to expanding and fortifying my nest. My back was still hurting, but I focused on my task and fought through it. Wasps were buzzing around me a ton, but whenever they came close, I stopped working and kept a watchful eye on them. I’m not used to working under these conditions; constantly being vigilant while I work is really nerve-wracking.
I took whatever spare moments I had to work on nibbling away at that wasp from earlier, so I can keep my stamina up. In this situation, if I run out of stamina, the scales will absolutely tip further towards my defeat. I am extremely dependent on my stamina. Weaving threads relies heavily on my stamina, not to mention my other day-to-day activities. On top of that, I need to make sure I save enough stamina for at least one battle. I don’t know how easily I’ll be able to secure more food after I finish this wasp, so since I’ve committed to this siege-defense strategy, I need to take extra special care of my stamina.
Also on day two, I realized that the level of [Pain Resistance] had gone way up. If I’m remembering correctly, the last time it leveled up it hit level two, but while I was working on building the nest the “Voice of Heaven” chimed in,
<Proficiency has reached the required level. Skill [Pain Resistance – LV6] has become [Pain Resistance – LV7]>
So, it jumped straight to level seven. I don’t have any solid idea why, but if I had to take a guess, I’d say it probably happened while I was asleep. If proficiency in that goes up when you’re in pain, then it makes a ton of sense that it would have gained a bunch of levels while I was sleeping, what with how miserable I was last night and all. If I think back, maybe I did hear the “Voice of Heaven” say something while I was half-asleep.
Well, now that I know it’s level seven, it seems pretty obvious that [Pain Resistance] isn’t actually a skill that alleviates pain; if it was, it would be really strange if I was still hurting this bad at level seven. If I had to take a guess, I’d probably say… It lets me endure pain well enough to keep moving. Honestly, could be better, could be worse. This still hurts a ton, and there still is a limit to how much I can move with these wounds. When I first got this skill, I remember feeling like my pain had immediately gotten better, but maybe that was all in my head.
Before the day was out, I made it up to [Pain Resistance – LV8].
Day three. I’ve completely consumed the wasp I dragged in a few days ago. My nest is about as good as it’s going to get, in these conditions, so it’s time to move onto stage two: namely, hunting until I level up.
There’s a problem, though… how am I going to catch anything? These wasps keep coming close, and I know they know I’m here, but none of them are swooping in to attack. I was really expecting them to throw themselves at me without a plan, but I guess I’m not that lucky.
Well, for now, I should keep an eye on the wasps and wait for a good chance to strike. I tried provoking a few of the ones that came near, but nobody took the bait.
From my observations, I’ve learned a few things about these wasps. It looks like they mostly fly around in groups of about five or six, acting independently of each other. Each group has a leader:
{High Finjegoat – LV 1 – failed to appraise status}
A “High” Finjegoat, huh. Its name implies some sort of superiority, so maybe these are individuals that have evolved. Since they’re level one, that seems pretty likely to me. I also see wasps flying around that are levels eight or nine, right on the verge of evolving; when they do, they’ll probably become leaders as well.
The boss wasps are slightly darker-colored than the regular wasps. That’s basically the only difference; their size and shape are basically the same. [Appraisal] can’t seem to manage to get the stats on these things, but I’d bet that they’re stronger than the ordinary wasps.
Well, I don’t think that even those guys can break through my nest. I think they know it too, which might explain why they’re not attacking me when I’m provoking them. Man, if that’s true, these guys are way smart.
Every so often, an entire group will disappear down one of the corridors at the bottom of the pit; after a while, they’ll come back, bearing fresh prey. Man, those squads look super-efficient. They really are intelligent! There are a few that wander around aimlessly by themselves, though.
You know what’s great, though? There’s monsters down here that these wasps are able to hunt. Everything down here is not, after all, as tough as that Earth Dragon! Things are really starting to look up for me, now that I know that.
There are, however, groups that don’t make it back, so I shouldn’t get too careless. After all, a group that doesn’t come back is almost undoubtedly a group that got wiped out before it could make it back. Even some of the successful groups come back bearing their fellow soldiers’ corpses, so I definitely shouldn’t stop thinking of this as a dangerous kind of area.
Unblinkingly, I continue observing the wasps.
APM - Translation 