Editing/Standardisation: kubor04
Formatting/Extras: APM
Original Translation: Blastron
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This path I’ve been following is pretty big.
Well, it’s got to be pretty big if those two-and-a-half meter wasps can fly about freely. Even that five-meter praying mantis can move freely, too!
{Elro Greshgard – LV 3 – failed to appraise status}
A swarm of wasps are swarming around a giant praying mantis, who is slashing back at them with the giant sickles on its forelegs. Unlike an ordinary praying mantis, though, this guy has six. Like an Asura. The wasps want to strike from the air, but they don’t want to get in range of those sickles… what a stalemate.
As for me, I’m sneakily observing these proceedings from behind a rock. It looks like neither party has noticed me just yet. It looks like my [Stealth] skill is far more effective than I was giving it credit for! I sneak a peep over my rock in order to activate [Appraisal].
{Elro Greshgard: A praying mantis-like monster that inhabits the Great Elroe Labyrinth Lower Stratum. The attacks it makes with its sickles are extremely powerful.}
Oh! One of the wasps just got bisected by a sickle. Whoooa, those things must be crazy sharp to cut a wasp in half with a single blow! Man, if those things are that ridiculously sharp, they might even be able to cut through my thread! Well, since they haven’t noticed me, I have the great privilege of just being able to sneakily scuttle by as I please.
Oh yeah, before I forget, I should look up these new vocabulary words I got from [Appraisal].
{Great Elroe Labyrinth Lower Stratum: The area between the Middle and Bottom stratum of the Great Elroe Labyrinth. Many powerful monsters inhabit this level.}
Ahhh, I see! These are the lower depths, huh… And there’s even more below me, huhhh… And there’s tons of strong monsters down here, huuhhhhh…
I didn’t want to know any of that.
By the way, I did in fact try looking up the {Middle Stratum} and the {Bottom Stratum}, but all I got was {the stratum in the middle} and {the stratum which resides at the bottom}. Why do I bother, [Appraisal]?
Although, it seems like this is not actually the deepest layer like I thought it was; there’s even more below. I can’t help but imagine that the Bottom Stratum is packed to the gills with absurdly powerful monsters. Ugh, this is, of course, the world’s largest dungeon, and when I think of a dungeon, I think of a place where the monsters get stronger and stronger the deeper in you go. If my current stratum really is filled with powerful monsters, then it’s totally not unreasonable to think that the Bottom Stratum could be crawling with Earth Dragon-class monsters. Just thinking about it gives me the chills.
That’s far away, though. Hmm, if I had to guess, I’d say I probably was in the Upper Stratum before. If humans were able to get in and out, those tunnels must have been connected to the surface somehow. Aaaargh, why didn’t I follow after those footsteps instead of running away! Although, really, even if I did manage to follow them out, I still look like this… Just because I’m a spider, I’d still have to live out my life hunting like a monster.
But yeah, that really has nothing to do with things right now, right? I’ve got to figure out how to escape these lower depths, after all… which would put me in the Middle Stratum, huh. Really, though, I don’t even know if this tunnel connects to the Middle Stratum at all! Maaaan, I really want to avoid that Bottom Stratum.
Oh, another wasp died! It’s not looking good for the wasps. Mantis, you’re way strong! Hmm, isn’t that thing way stronger than a snake? This is weird, I’ve been ranking the snakes as boss monsters… they don’t even compare to that Earth Dragon, though, and if this praying mantis is so much stronger… The snake is plummeting down my rankings. This is pretty obvious, but… those snakes are nowhere near the toughest things on this level, are they?
Well, it’s far too early to tell. It could be that the praying mantis is just way too strong.
…That is also a thought that needs correcting. Immediately after the third wasp was slain, something entirely unexpected happened to the praying mantis. In the blink of an eye, it was crushed between the mandibles of a giant spider.
Uh? Wait, wait… Seriously?
{Greater Taratect – LV 18 – failed to appraise status}
Whoa. Is this what my Mega Evolution looks like? Really?
{Greater Taratect: The evolved form of the spider-type monsters known as Taratect. Their powerful, carnivorous fangs drip with deadly venom.}
Ohhhh! If I keep evolving, is that what I’ll become!? It’s still really small compared to “My Mother”, that super-huge spider I saw way back when, but this thing is seriously over ten meters long! That praying mantis looks tiny now. …Wait, was that thing taken down without the use of thread at all? Just with a bite? Wouldn’t that require a stupidly high offense stat? Mine’s still only 21! How many times am I going to have to evolve to turn into that thing…
Well, I should probably sneak away before I get spotted. Noooo way I can win against something like that.
Alright, I’ve learned one thing today: the Lower Stratum is seriously bad news!! Why do I say that, you ask? It’s pretty obvious!! All these monsters around me are so powerful that I don’t even know if making a nest will be enough to beat them. Like I said before, [Stealth] is the last thread I’m clinging to. Was I too quick to flee, huh? Should I have seriously tried blasting through that swarm of wasps to get out of here, huh? Maaaaan, though, I’m not really feeling that sense of overwhelming doom like I was when that Earth Dragon was nearby, huh…
Although, I do know that there’s monsters down here that the bees actually can kill, so maybe this isn’t completely hopeless after all. Praying mantises and giant spiders are one thing, but the other monsters down here can’t all be that strong, right? If I find a monster that I think I can take, I’ll make a meal out of it, otherwise I’ll just keep using [Stealth] to sneak by. By the way, my red status gauge hasn’t dropped at all! If I can trust this display, I don’t need to worry too much about food for the time being. I should be able to pick my targets freely, acting with the utmost caution. I don’t want to blunder across anything else like the Earth Dragon, after all.
APM - Translation 