058 [Kumo] – It’s great to know your opponents strength

Editing/Standardisation: kubor04
Formatting/Extras: APM
Original Translation: Blastron
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Invisibly, I lurk behind the rocks.

A little ways away from the crags I’m currently hiding behind, this guy slowly creeps along. What… is… this thing? If I had to describe it, I’d say it’s like… a really huge fish that grew arms and legs? Naaah, that’s not quite it. I can’t really pin down what I’m getting off of this mysterious life-form.

Well, I don’t actually care about this strange and mysterious creature. Ah, no, I can’t really say that I don’t care. If it spots me, that would suck.

But before that, I have some extremely important news! Yes, the lovely Miss [Appraisal] has outdone herself once again: I can see my enemies’ stats!! Sure, it might just be their health, mana, and stamina, but just that is amazing, right? The success rate isn’t very good, though, since it hits maybe once for every three or four tries, but knowing even just a part of an opponents’ stats is still huge!

Even with just a rough idea of my opponents’ HP, MP, and SP values, I can still get a pretty decent grasp on how strong they are. So, if I see a huge difference in these values, I absolutely should not fight them. My strategy is self-preservation.

So, in the immediate future, fighting this mysterious life-form is out of the question. These stats are ridiculous, you know! 818 hit points? What the heck? If you hit that guy hard enough to kill me twenty times over, wouldn’t it still have health left? This is inflation, right? Oh man, if this weird-looking thing with the stupid-looking face has stats like this, that Earth Dragon has to have 4-digit HP, doesn’t it?

Nai waaaaaaaa.

From what I’ve gathered so far in the last few days, monsters with levels higher than ten are all powerful. These things are what you’d call advanced monsters, I think, that don’t have any evolution past level ten. So, if I see a monster of a species that can have levels greater than ten, I shouldn’t engage it, even if its own level is less than ten. On the other hand, if I haven’t seen a level ten-plus monster in a given species, then it’s probably weak.

What was really shocking, though, was that even some of the small fry I’ve been hunting had crazy-high stats. Some of them even had triple-digit health! Seriouslyyy, I didn’t know you guys were so strooong, and so on. For sure, fighting these things head-on would have been suicide. I’ve been betting everything on my surprise attacks: an entire battle decided in an instant.

Man, now that I think about it, these things I’ve been calling “small fry” are, uh, higher-rank than I am. Wow, my [Spider Thread] must be a really good skill, if it can immobilize these powerful foes without trouble at all. If it wasn’t the case, then, well, I’d probably be dead by now, haha. Stats may be important, but skills are just as important too!

I really want to know what my opponent’s skills are now… if I knew that, I’d have such a great edge in a fight. When it comes down to it, if you took my skills away from me I’d be left with only my speed. If you bring along fire to burn my webs and an antidote to nullify my [Poison Fang], my odds of winning drop to basically zero. Oh maaan, skill countermeasures suuuck. If I fight someone with that level of preparation, I’m basically just straight-up dead!

Well, I don’t really think the monsters down here are bright enough for that. That’s why a weak little monster like me can survive down here. Intelligence is supreme! It’s humanity’s greatest strength.

Hmmm… humanity, though… I wonder how much of this dungeon humans have explored? The only time I’ve seen humans so far is when they showed up to burn down my nest. I’ve seen footprints, of course, but ever since I wound up in those labyrinthine tunnels, I haven’t seen any. Hmm, if this is indeed the world’s largest dungeon, maybe their exploration isn’t making very much progress?

Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m able to eat the monsters down here while humans would have to bring in their own food. If you wanted to explore a huge dungeon like this, you’d need to carry around a huge pile of food. That’s already a huge amount of physical labor required, and on top of that you’d need to fight off all of the monsters down here too. If you had a skill or spell that gave you, say, an inventory screen where you could store all of your stuff in a pocket dimension, that would be a little different, but food is still a pretty big limitation.

Based on this, I think human exploration efforts have probably been limited to the Upper Stratum; and, on top of that, probably just a small section of it. If that’s true, then it makes a lot of sense as to why I haven’t seen very many footprints. If there’s no footprints, it’s out of the explorable range, right?

Hm? Wait a sec… the first set of footprints I found was… back where that huge spider was, in that area with those huge groups of strong-looking monsters? Whoa, that’s in their exploration zone? Even though my mother’s there? …No way, can they defeat that thing?! No way!! If my guess is right, that thing’s got to be about as strong as that Earth Dragon, right? They can defeat that thing?! It’s not impossible? And if it’s not impossible, then wouldn’t that make humans crazy strong?

…I just had a really nasty thought. If humans are strong enough to take out my mother, then I should just avoid the outside world completely. No matter how hard I struggled, I wouldn’t be able to survive. Living down here in the dungeon would be way easier.

Well, for now, let’s just keep on struggling forward, trying to get back to the Upper Stratum. Once I finally manage to get back there, I can find a place where humans won’t go. Wait, no, even if it’s kinda dangerous shouldn’t I go find a human and Appraise their stats, just to be sure? Ah well, it’s not like I’m in a huge hurry. I still have zero clue how to get back up there.