059 [Kumo] – Tie them up and cut them down

Editing/Standardisation: kubor04
Formatting/Extras: APM
Original Translation: Blastron
Additional thanks goes out to mae and Legit-rikk. Join our discord

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Sneak, sneak.

Left? Clear! Right? Clear! Target acquired, dead ahead!

Ahead of me is a monster that’s kind of like a giant pillbug. Well, it’s got the body of a pillbug, but its head looks more like a rat’s. Is it an insect or a mammal? I want to know. Since it’s pillbug-like, it’s really likely that it curls up into an armored ball when it needs to defend itself. I fought a turtle monster before, and when it retreated into its shell I had a stupidly tough time with it. Well, if I get that pillbug wrapped up in my silk, it won’t be able to curl itself into a ball.

Regardless: Set Casting Net on standby… take this!! Direct hit! [Thread Control] will take care of the rest.

<Condition satisfied. Acquired Title [Thread User].>

<Acquired skills [Thread Control – LV1] [Cutting Thread – LV1] as a result of Title [Thread User]>

<Skill [Thread Control – LV 1] has been integrated into [Thread Control – LV 5].>

<Proficiency has reached the required level. Skill [Thread Control – LV 5] has become [Thread

Control – LV 6].>

Oh? Ohh?! I got another title!! [Thread User], huh? This titillates my inner special snowflake.

Hey, pillbug, listen, something’s come up, should we just wrap this up now? Does that sound like a plan? …No? Too bad. So; [Poison Fang], [Poison Fang], drag you back behind a rock. Yep!

Now, let’s get straight to figuring out what this new title does. For a title like [Thread User], the requirements must be… using threads, right? Hm? Wellll, If that’s the case, it’s kinda weird that it’s taken me this long to actually earn it. There’s got to be some other requirement.

Well, I’ve got it already, so it actually really doesn’t matter what the acquisition requirements are. I’ve got a better question: is this usable? This time, I’m confident: this title will be very useful. Ah, well, I mean, it bumped my [Thread Control] level up, which is already huge! Day after day I’ve been focusing on grinding this thing out, so having it finally level up makes me so, so happy. Just from that alone, this title is worth something.

What’s really caught my eye, though, is this other skill. [Cutting Thread]. Seriously, doesn’t that sound like something a kid that’s way into anime would come up with? But, is this it? A skill that lets me slash at my enemies with my threads?

It… it can’t be!! Cut down by something I did not see… how?! What could have done this?! Urk… is… is this… thread?!

I can make a scene like that happen, right? Hehe. Yeaaah. This is greeeeat!

Well, special snowflake delusions aside, this is obviously a pretty decent boost to my combat abilities. The only real offensive attack I’ve had up until now was [Poison Fang], but now, at long last, my number of usable attacks has increased to two. Furthermore, this is my thread, my main weapon!

Whoops, haha, I haven’t even appraised this or done any experimentation yet, I need to avoid getting ahead of myself here. First things first: Appraise.

{Cutting Thread: Applies the slashing attribute to threads.}

Umf. It does what its name implies. I was seriously a little worried about what I would have done if it was something completely ridiculous instead.

Well, that’s one worry down. The remaining questions are: can I apply this to my [Spider Thread], can I actually figure out how to activate this skill, and how effective is this at level one…

You know what will come in handy right about now? That monster I just brought down. Come, pillbug, be my lab rat!

Step one, spin some webbing. Crank the strength all the way up to maximum, drop the stickiness to zero. I swing it at the corpse of the pillbug while concentrating on the words [Cutting Thread]. Oh! I definitely feel like it activated.

The thread glanced off of the pillbug’s body. Mmm. It’s level one, alright, I guess it can’t put out very much power? Ah, wait, it cut in a little bit! Isn’t this great for a level one skill? The other skills so far have been pretty terrible at level one, so the fact that this can take a piece out of the pillbug’s tough shell makes it a really amazing skill.

Which reminds me, what does this cost? Did it consume any mana? Hmm… my mana hasn’t gone down at all. My stamina… well, thanks to [Overeating], my stamina isn’t going down at all so I can’t really tell if this had any impact. Keeping in mind [Poison Synthesis], I don’t think that it’s possible for there to be anything that doesn’t consume something. So maybe if the actual red stamina gauge didn’t go down by a full point, something internally must have ticked down a little bit. But while I don’t know exactly how much this costs, the actual cost/performance ratio doesn’t seem that bad. On top of that, I’ve got [Overeating] keeping my red stamina gauge filled up, which makes this pretty convenient!

Next step is to see if I can use this with a sticky thread as well. Once again, I swing a thread at the pillbug. Hm? Hmmm. I’m sure I activated it correctly, but it didn’t even leave a mark.

Well, that’s basically what I expected to have happened. From all of the experimentation I’ve done on my thread, I know that there are some limits on how far I can customize each strand. For instance, if I want to max out a thread’s stickiness, it’s really difficult to keep its elasticity. It’s not that it’s impossible, though; it’s just not really effective. It’s like a thread has a number of points that I can assign to its attributes, and I have to distribute them based on what I want the thread to do. So, when I increased the adhesion attribute, I wasn’t able to max out the slashing attribute anymore. Compatibility-wise, mixing those two attributes isn’t impossible, it’s just not a very realistic goal to have.

Seriously, though, [Cutting Thread] is a pretty substantial skill. It’s basically perfect for me. I need to get its level up as quickly as I can.

So, Mr. Pillbug, that’s what’s happening. You died before your time, and now I’m whipping your corpse, but please help me raise my skill level!

And, so, I continued slashing away at the pillbug’s remains with my [Cutting Thread].

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Translator’s notes for this chapter:

1 – The Japanese chapter title is a kanji pun wrapped in a pop culture reference. The theme song for the Street Fighter II anime movie was called “恋しさと せつなさと 心強さと” (Love, Sadness, and a Strong Heart). The first part of the first word is “ito”, which is usually written with the kanji for love (恋) but can also be written with the kanji for thread (糸), which shares the same pronunciation. If that wasn’t enough, the second word was written as 切なさ instead of せつなさ. This actually doesn’t change the meaning at all, since that’s the correct kanji to use in this situation, but it’s deliberately written using kanji (instead of spelling it out in hiragana like in the song title) because the kanji 切 means “cut”.

Honestly, I gave up on this one and put in whatever. The proper thing to do would be to come up with an equally niche American song reference that has equally good punning capacity but, well, fuck it. I’ll fix it if I suddenly think of something (or if someone’s got a really good suggestion!)