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

---

Haaah. Centipedes are scary. Seriously, what just happened? Man, that swarming mass of violence struck fear into my heart. Ugh. I’m beat. My yellow stamina meter, which shows my short-term energy, ran out, but I kept running and running. My legs are trembling! I should really call it quits for today.

I turn around one more time, just to see if the centipede brigade has caught up to me. Good, all clear, all clear. I string up my threads, and put together another simple home. As soon as I feel like I’m safe within my webs, all of the strength leaves my body.

Ahh, well, that was pretty traumatic. They’re pretty weak one-on-one, but if there’s that many of them? Seriously dangerous. Plus, those things can paralyze me! If one of them managed to bite me just once, I’d fall prey to their paralytic venom. All that’s left after that would be to drag my immobile body back to their nest and slowly devour me. Even just thinking about it is awful.

I really should have been asking myself why there were so many centipedes around here. I mean, not just that, but, why wasn’t I wondering where the other monsters were? Centipedes are weak as hell. These guys make such good prey! Why didn’t I think it was odd that there weren’t any other predators feeding on these guys? Maybe they didn’t want to eat centipedes because of the paralytic poison, but, seriously, this is a dungeon filled with poison-attributed monsters. That’s a pretty flimsy excuse.

So, either all of the other monsters around here know to steer clear of the centipedes, or the centipedes used their numbers to sweep in and murder any intruders. My speed’s at the level where I was just barely able to escape, but that might be way trickier for the other monsters. Getting bit while running away, and then getting set upon by uncountable centipedes? Way. Too. Scary. to think about.

Us weak monsters need to come up with ways to work around our weaknesses, if we want to survive. I, for instance, really suck in a straight-up fight, but I can kill things way stronger than me once I’ve got them trapped in my webs. It’s because I’m so weak that I can’t afford to slip up. I think I’ve learned my lesson, this time.

I’ve somehow been able to live pretty securely as of late, and, really, these centipedes are tasty. Thanks to all that, grinding up my level has been remarkably easy.

Oh, that reminds me! When I accidentally appraised the entire centipede brigade at once, [Appraisal]’s level went up! Talk about a lucky strike, seriously. Well, first off, I should take a closer look at the [Appraisal] results that I’m constantly pulling up on myself. I didn’t really have time to do that while I was being chased by that centipede swarm.

{Small Lesser Taratect – LV 7 – no name}

{Status: Weak}

Are you kidd… “Status: Weak”?! That’s way too harsh! I mean, I know I’m weak, but still… could you maybe try being a little less blunt! Man, if [Appraisal] is calling me weak, then I guess that really does mean that I’m weak in the eyes of the world. Haaaaaah. I slump defeatedly.

Wait, no, wasn’t I just thinking that I couldn’t let myself get careless, even around weak enemies? I have my [Spider Thread]! Sure, I might be physically weak, but my thread is strong! Defeat isn’t in my vocabulary, if I’ve got my thread. So, seriously, why are you calling me weak? I might be a bit biased, but I’m pretty strong if I can gain an advantage! Whether I lure them into a webbed trap or sneak up on them from above, immobilizing my opponent and finishing it off with my [Poison Fang] is painless. Yeah. I fight really dirty. It’s interesting, though, to see just how quickly I go back to being weak once I’m confronted face-to-face.

Really, the problem is figuring out how to keep everyone playing on my terms. If I let my opponents set the pace of the fight, all of my advantages are worthless. Ah, well, it’s not a big problem if I can manage to keep control of things every time, you know.

Well, I’m tired, I’m going to get some sleep.

I’ve woken up. I’m still weighed down by fatigue, but I’ve woken up nonetheless. What is this… sensation? I don’t really know, but I’ve got a bad feeling about it.

I hurriedly get up and run over to start adding additional threads to my simple home. There, the source of my troubles is revealed.

{Elro Baldarad – LV 9 – failed to appraise statistics}

It’s a colossal snake, big enough around to swallow a person whole, and at least ten meters long. By looks alone, it’s strong. Plus, it’s level nine. This is the first time I’ve seen a monster that’s higher level than me. Actually, this is the first time I’ve seen a monster that’s this high-leveled at all! The highest so far has been level four, and in one jump that number’s gone up to nine.

It’s obviously higher up on the food chain than I am, and its level is higher too. I’ve got no chance at all if it comes to a fight. I’m seriously breaking out in a cold sweat.

I’m frozen like a deer in the headlights. Er, like a spider in the headlights. My body is rigid with fear, but I somehow make myself move. I slowly back up, putting some distance between myself and the snake.

The snake doesn’t just let that happen.

Paying no heed to my webs, it thrusts itself forward! It, of course, gets stuck, but it writhes around, tearing my webs from the walls! I turn around and start running as fast as I can. I slip through the gaps in my simple home to the outside, but in an instant the snake is right behind me, tearing at the webs I just passed through.

My instincts are screaming at me to flee. I don’t think I will, though. I saw it. The snake is getting tangled in my webs. It may be able to break them down, but it can’t get them off of it completely. Now, it’s got the remnants of the first set of webs clinging to it, in addition to being caught in my second set.

I can do this! This fight is on my terms.

I leap onto the snake as it writhes. I immediately start biting at it, while simultaneously spewing more threads from my rear. I somehow pierce through its thick scales, and hit it with my [Poison Fang]!

The snake starts thrashing as the poison courses through its body. Even though I’ve bound it with so much thread, it’s able to fling itself about with a ton of force! I’m flung against the walls and the ceiling over and over, but I pull through and keep fighting with raw grit and will!

My yellow stamina meter is draining, and my green health meter goes down every time I’m flung against the wall. My red stamina meter also seems to be decreasing with every thread I release. If that runs out, I probably won’t be able to release any more threads. It’s only a matter of time, then, before the snake will be able to tear itself free. I have to beat it before that happens.

I keep biting and spraying threads with reckless abandon. Gradually, gradually, the snake’s struggles grow weak. I’ve long since exhausted my yellow meter, and my red meter is down to about ten percent, but the snake finally stops moving entirely.

Just because I’m weak, doesn’t mean you can take me lightly!

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

---

Today, like every other day, I’m hunting centipedes. Maaan. It’s Centipede Heaven, here! They look pretty gross, but they’re really pretty awesome prey if you don’t look at them too closely. Well, my sensibilities really aren’t so delicate. I think their rustly little legs are actually kind of charming. Centipedes are the best!

My [Paralysis Resistance] skill is up to level three, and I’m going to hit level eight soon, right? Seriously, thank you, little buddies.

Just now, I tried to see if I could take two of them on at once, and I did remarkably well, considering. The first one I did in with a sneak attack, but the second I had a pretty tense battle with. In a straight-up fight, centipedes seem to be remarkably quick! Hah, well, not as quick as me. It looks like their attacks are largely limited to biting. Their paralytic venom would probably do me in if I were to get bitten… but, y’know, if I don’t get hit, there’s no problem at all. As long as I’m wary of the bite, everything else is easy. I’ve finally found an entire race of beings weaker than me!

It looks like it’s not just sneak attacks that are effective against these guys. I can hit them straight-on too! MwahahaHA! I’m so STROOOONG! I almost can’t stop laughing.

They’re also super-easy to eat, which is awesome. They may look huge when they’re still rustling around, but the actual volume of meat inside is surprisingly small. One of them is enough to sate my appetite in the short term, but is nowhere near enough to fill me up entirely. Thus, I’ve been eating every scrap of every centipede I’ve encountered, leaving nothing behind. Waste not, want not. I’m a pretty frugal person, so I understand well that waste is the greatest of sins. These centipedes are great, though, since I can eat the entire thing and not need to worry about wasting anything.

It’s really quite nice of the centipedes, to be born solely for the purpose of filling my belly! Eheheheheh. I’ve been living my life super-cautiously until now, so it really can’t hurt me to have some fun once in a while?

Humming and exploring, humming and exploring~! Well, I don’t really have any way to hum for real, so I was just humming in my head. …Vocal cords aside, do I even have a nose to begin with? Ah, well, doesn’t matter.

Oh? Looks like the path forks here. Neither of them look much like a dead end though.

It’s a little weird. This labyrinth is enormous, and I haven’t seen a single dead end! While I’ve been exploring the labyrinth, I haven’t hit any parts of a path where I needed to think about turning around. It’s great to know that I’m not going to run out of corridor if I’m being chased by something, but thinking about how huge this dungeon must be just makes me sigh.

What if this world, this entire world, is just one big underground dungeon? I don’t think that’s the case, but I’ve certainly not been able to find an exit, much less leave and take a look at the outside myself. It really could be true.

I’m sure that the outside world exists, but even so, there’s a chance that my ineptitude could wind up making me live out my entire life in this dungeon. If that’s the case, I’d really like to die of old age while searching for the exit, but it’s way more likely that I’ll end up dying prematurely. Hm, I was just thinking about old age, but I have no idea what my natural lifespan actually is. Just based solely on size, might I live only about as long as a large dog? At the very least, I’d like to live longer than I did in my previous life.

Well, let’s put these useless thoughts aside.

The path forks at the top of a huge cliff. Before me, an enormous cavern yawns. Has my journey through these maze-like tunnels finally come to an end? I wonder what’s next! I really hope it’s not a super-dangerous zone like the one I was born in, with all of the cannibalism and the giant spiders and the huge crowds of monsters. It doesn’t matter how long my lifespan is, it’s not enough to deal with all of that.

Ah, anyhow, what should I do now? I quickly glance down into the pit.

{Elro Ferekt – LV 2 – failed to appraise statistics}

{Elro Ferekt – LV 2 – failed to appraise statistics}

{Elro Ferekt – LV 2 – failed to appraise statistics}

{Elro Ferekt – LV 2 – failed to appraise statistics}

{Elro Ferekt – LV 2 – failed to appraise statistics}

{Elro Ferekt – LV 2 – failed to appraise statistics} and so on, and so on.

<Proficiency has reached the required level. Skill [Appraisal – LV4] has become [Appraisal – LV5]>

Grrk! My… head… HURTS! Information from [Appraisal] blasts into my brain like a punch to the face. Whoa, I almost passed out. That was bad, that was bad. If I overdo it with [Appraisal], I’ll get too much information for my brain to handle, leaving me with a monstrous headache. Well this is useful information to have, now isn’t it! Fainting would have only been natural.

……Hang on, I was too busy not passing out, what did [Appraisal] tell me?

I deliberately look over the edge of the cliff. Yeah, it’s a cliff, but it really only looks like it’s one meter deep. The cavern before me is pretty huge, but it really doesn’t feel like a vast, empty space. After all, it’s completely covered in centipedes.

Whaa?!

What what what what what what?!?! Centipedes! Centipedes!!!! All I see are centipeeeeeeedes!!!! This is disgusting! This goes beyond just gross, this is straight-up disgusting.

Hmm? Centipedes, might I ask what you are looking at? Me? I can’t imagine why you’d all be looking at…

I need to get out of here. I must become the wind! Quickly, from whence I came!

Rumble Rumble Rumble Rumble Rumble!!

Eeeeeeek! They’re chasing me! They’re chasing me! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!! I got carried away!!! Forgive me! Seriously, please!! Forgive meee!

My yellow stamina meter is empty. Ugh, it hurts to keep going, but if I stop, I die!! I don’t care if it hurts as bad as dying, I must! Keep! Going!! In place of my yellow meter, the red one starts to slowly decrease.

In the end, although it cost me about half of my red stamina bar, I escaped the army of centipedes.

Man, I seriously thought I was going to die.

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

---

My explorations of this labyrinth are going fairly well. In fact, everything’s going so well that I’d be laughing out loud if I had lungs. This part of the labyrinth seems to be the territory of the centipedes, so there’s a lot of them here. They’ve been super accommodating in helping me gather XP! Their reaction times are extremely slow, so I’ve had no problems at all catching them with my sneak attacks. Whether it’s from behind or above, my victory is almost always assured. Thanks to that, defeating them is easy!

I’ve killed a ton of these so far, and my level has gone all the way up to seven. Unfortunately I didn’t receive any level-up bonuses to my skills, but constantly eating this paralytic meat has brought my [Paralysis Resistance] up to level 2. This place is great! I can farm up XP, and I can even work on leveling my ever-useful [Paralysis Resistance]. What an excellent hunting ground.

Of course, it hasn’t been 100% perfectly easy. I’m still diligently trying to gain more practical combat experience, so I’ve been experimenting with variations on my sneak attack.

The biggest weakness of my threads is that I can only release it from my bottom. As such, if I want to stick any web onto my opponents, I have to point my butt at them. I have to pose propped up on my two hind legs and stick my butt way out, or otherwise face directly away from my opponent. This is, of course, a very vulnerable position to be in, so in order to compensate I’ve been either attaching my thread while I’m already on top of my enemy, or I bombard them with it while I jump overhead.

Even still, those are still pretty dangerous methods. Sure, if my threads hit, then my victory is basically set in stone. However, if I miss… there’s a huge chance it will seriously backfire. If I’m on top of my opponent, dodging their counterattacks is extremely difficult; likewise, if I’m soaring through the air, I’m at serious risk of being shot down like my idiot brother did back then. It’s not quite what you’d call a “high-risk, high-reward” strategy.

Well, once I’d acknowledged the problem, the next step was to come up with some new strategies to keep myself safe against enemies I can’t get my threads attached to. The solution is this, my new weapon: the portable web! Basically, I’ve got a tiny little web stretched between my forelegs. It gets rid of the vulnerable-pose problem, since I can easily hit with it while charging forward. Now that I no longer need to stick my butt out in that unbelievable stance to get my opponent stuck, this is going to be way easier.

Of course, there are drawbacks. While I’ve got one of these webs on standby, my forelegs are otherwise useless. Yeah, I’ve still got six more legs, but it’s still pretty inconvenient. The other problem is that I have to make these well in advance. Well, luckily for me, I’m a pro at building nets, so it wouldn’t be that bad.

This is quite a magnificent low-risk, high-reward tactic!

I tried a bunch of other things, but all of them ended in failure.

I wanted to come up with a strategy to protect me against the sneak attacks of others, so I dug up my old idea of an enemy-detecting thread. The basic idea is to have a whole bunch of invisibly-fine threads floating in the air. If they were to catch on something, like, say, an enemy, I’d feel the vibration and be able to react. This is a similar idea to how I had a bunch of fine threads strung up in and around my home, but, in practice… there’s a few differences between stringing something up and letting it float around.

My unattended seeker-threads had the unfortunate tendency to bump into either themselves or the wall. Of course, this caused them to constantly vibrate, one after another, which wound up being a huge distraction. I could probably sort it out in my head if I were to concentrate hard enough, but then I wouldn’t be paying attention to anything else, which is really putting the cart before the horse. For now, I have to put my plans for an enemy-seeking thread aside.

Next, I wanted to try making myself some silken armor to try to shore up my terrible defenses. The results, I have to say, were awful. It’s not like I can’t make any clothing, but wearing it is basically impossible. I’m a spider, you know? I don’t have usable hands like I did when I was a human, and my body’s got a really weird shape to it, so no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t figure out how to get anything on.

How about just wrapping myself in thread, you ask? That’s also no good. I can certainly get a bunch of thread wrapped around me, but unless I do it perfectly, it’s probably just going to wind up getting tangled around me and restricting my movements. My speed is my greatest asset, you know? If I were to do it, I’d have to wrap myself up super carefully… which doesn’t work for the same reasons that make it impossible to wear normal clothes in the first place.

Even still, if I somehow managed to get some sort of armor on, it’s useless if it’s not something I can take off easily. When I eat, for instance, my body tends to inflate. If I’m wearing any sort of restrictive clothing when I start swelling up like a ball, wouldn’t that be extremely painful?

Things might be a little bit different if I could borrow someone’s time to help me get in and out of my armor, but without human hands or even the ability to see most of my body, I’m going to have to abandon this idea.

Ummf. Now that I’m thinking about it, being a spider has its pluses and minuses. I can leap through the air and cling to the walls, but not having hands seriously puts a huge damper on my abilities. Human hands are superbly useful. I now understand this from the bottom of my heart.

Incidentally, all of this experimentation didn’t get my [Spider Thread] skill level up at all. Yeah, as I thought, a high-level skill has much higher proficiency requirements for advancement. Well, it’s not like I can really spend a bunch of time meaninglessly spewing out thread, like I was doing back in my home. Running around outside is way more dangerous than the safety of my home, so I want to make sure I’m in top form at all times. I could only really experiment as much as I did because there’s plenty of food around here in the form of centipedes.

This round of experiments was fraught with failure, but quite a few valuable things. In the future, I’ll keep an eye out for even more opportunities to try some new things out.

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

---

<Proficiency has reached the required level. Skill [Appraisal – LV3] has become [Appraisal – LV4]>

Oh, finally! [Appraisal]’s level went up! The information barrage hasn’t really been making me woozy lately, so this is great timing. Now, what will you show me this time, [Appraisal]? 

{>Small Lesser Taratekt – LV 6 – no name}

Huh? There’s… no change? No, wait, underneath my species name, there’s a few horizontal colored lines. What are these…?

{HP Gauge}

I unintentionally Appraised the green line on top, so now it’s quite obvious what it represents. “HP” is an abbreviation that shows up in so many video games, after all. It stands for “hit points”, but what’s important is that it’s a representation of my physical health. When I take damage, they’re depleted, and when I run out, well, game over. This new meter has appeared in my Appraisal results!

This is a pleasant surprise! Until now, I’ve had to estimate how much damage I’d taken in my head, and didn’t really have any other good way to check. Now, I’ve got a health bar, so I can tell at a glance what my condition is like!

Right now, my health bar is just about full. It looks like it might be a little bit decreased: at the very right of the bar, there’s a short little black section. Ummmm… I really would like to figure out how to get actual numbers out of this, but even still, this is a real luxury.

Now, under my health bar are three more bars. Let’s start by checking out this blue one, immediately below my HP.

{MP Gauge}

Ah, that’s to be expected. If there’s HP, there’s got to be MP. This must be showing how much magic power I have available! Of course, since I have no idea how to cast any of my magic, it’s not like I really care… It probably only goes down when you cast a spell, and since I have no spells to cast, this is probably never going to drop.

The real puzzle is the identity of these last two bars. One’s yellow and the other’s red, and they’re arranged so closely together that they almost look like one bar. I have no clue what these could possibly represent! Welp… Appraise.

{SP Gauge}

Hm? SP? Skill Points? Hmmm? Why would I need a bar for those? Wait, I’m jumping to conclusions again. This probably isn’t for skill points. SP is an abbreviation, but I have no good ideas of what it could stand for. Well, let’s go ahead and Appraise “SP”.

{SP: Stamina points.}

Oh? Aaaah! It really isn’t skill points, but a different word with the same first letter! That’s way too confusing.

Hoofh. Even so, “stamina”, huh. Is this the physical equivalent of my mana bar? Is it going to go down when I exercise? Hmmm? Wait, why are there two meters for it, and why is the yellow bar on top full up while the red one on bottom already has a third of it missing? What’s the difference? Let’s try running “stamina points” through [Appraisal].

{Stamina points: points that are consumed through exercise.}

Ah, yep. I still don’t get it. Ohh, well, if I keep an eye on it, I’ll be able to figure it out eventually, right? If I can, I should try to figure out how to keep this [Appraisal] notification open so that I can always see my health bar. Maybe I can set [Appraisal] to continuously cast on myself… like… this? Ah, yeah! Not bad, if I do say so myself. Now I can always look to see how much health I have, unless I take it down voluntarily. This is seriously convenient!

Although… it really is convenient to see my own meters… but isn’t seeing my enemy’s HP and MP going to give me a ridiculous advantage? I can look at its health to figure out how many more hits it’s got left in it, and if it’s a magic user I can keep an eye on its MP so that I can figure out when it’s my turn to strike. It’s not like I’ve found any magic-specialized monsters so far, though. Regardless, being able to know even a tiny bit of the opponent’s stats is a huge advantage in combat! Ah, [Appraisal], how could I have doubted how god-tier OP you were? Heheheh. I saw this coming! I deliberately picked up such a useless skill because I knew it was going to grow into something wonderful. Of course I knew it was going to be useless from the start! You can’t prove otherwise!

Well now, eyes forward, marching, marching. Oh! Found a monster.

{Elro Ferekt – LV 3 – failed to appraise statistics}

I would like to retract my previous statement. This is useless after all! How did I make such a serious mistake…? Ugh, I’m such an idiot for getting my hopes up.

Regardless, here’s another centipede. What to do? Hmm. A sneak attack might not really work. It hasn’t spotted me yet, but it’s facing this way, so I’m not going to be able to get behind it.

Wait, I just had a brilliant idea!

I stealthily creep up the wall and make my way towards the ceiling. Having a spider’s body sure is convenient sometimes! Oop, hanging upside down on a ceiling is actually pretty tricky. It’s not that bad, though, if I brace myself well I’m in no danger of falling.

Like this, I slowly creep along the ceiling. You can do it, legs! …Hm? Oh, my stamina bar is going down! No time for that now, though, I have a plan to concentrate on.

I arrive over the unsuspecting centipede. All right! I’m so close, yet he doesn’t see me. I stick a thread to the ceiling, and slowly descend until I’m right behind him.

Then I leap! The centipede tenses up in fear, but it’s far too late! I spin it around and around, rolling it up in my silk, and then I go in for the kill! Chomp! Ahahaha! How do you like my new strategy, codenamed “look out, I’m right above you”?! I’d say it’s a pretty overwhelming success!

Well, once again, time to eat.

Umf. As I eat, I go back to contemplating my stamina bar. While I was clinging to the ceiling, the yellow bar was steadily decreasing. When I braced myself, the rate of change went down a little bit. Now, though, it’s completely back up to full. Hm?

<Proficiency has reached the required level. Acquired skill [Paralysis Resistance – LV1]>

Oh… oh!! Centipede, you were hiding a paralysis attack from me?! Man, if my sneak attacks hadn’t worked, these fights would have been way tougher. I’m going to have to be more careful next time.

Hm? Hmmmm? Doesn’t it look like the lower red part of my stamina bar is increasing? I remember it being about a third of the way empty, but it’s slowly been creeping back up. It’s only a quarter empty now. Why, I wonder? Why would my stamina start increasing…?

…Oh, yeah, I ate something. Aha! That’s it! I see, I see! I think I understand a little bit.

To summarize, it looks like the red bottom bar represents how much overall energy I can muster in the long term. That means the yellow one on top represents my short-term stamina?

To test it out, I took off running at full speed, causing the yellow bar to start draining very quickly. It soon ran out completely, perfectly coinciding with me exhausting my last bit of strength.

Wheeze, wheeze.

Ugh, going for a run immediately after eating, I must be some kind of idiot. My stomach really hurts. Seriously.

This clinches it, though. The yellow bar is my instantaneous energy reserves. If that runs out, I’ll be left here trying to catch my breath. It seems to recover just as quickly as it’s depleted, though. After I got my breathing under control, it started filling right back up.

So, the red bar on the bottom must be my overall endurance. After all that running, it went down just a little bit. Man, I don’t know what would happen if my endurance meter hit zero, but it can’t be good. Maybe I won’t be able to move at all, and that’s one of the least punishing things that come to mind. It looks like it’s recovered via eating, but I’m definitely going to need to keep an eye on this.

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

---

I feel warm, almost like I’m submerged in pleasant water. I drift, wrapped in this warm embrace, and feel at peace. After a while, this comes to an end, and I’m pushed through a tiny hole into the outside world. I feel uneasy about being pushed out of that warm, safe place, but once I’m out, the world seems to open up before me.

This is my oldest memory.

“Your Highness, please come down from there! You’ll catch a cold.”

As I sit at the window, gazing outside, a maid calls out to me. Just as she says, it is quite cold out there. Everything outside is covered in a thick blanket of snow. Watching the snow fall is quite a pleasant way to pass the time, but it seems like I’ve been sitting here for quite some time. Recently, I seem to lose track of time easily when I’m concentrating.

“Alright, there, up we go!”

The maid picks me up and sets me down on the bed. The bed is huge, almost too big for just one person, but there’s already another person here: a very young baby, sleeping pleasantly and soundly. This crib seems to have been custom-made so the two of us could sleep comfortably next to each other.

By now, it should be quite obvious: I am a baby.

It may seem strange for a baby to be able to think so clearly, but I possess all of the faculties that I had in my previous life. I had been a perfectly ordinary, unassuming high school student, but something happened and before I knew it I was suddenly a baby.

It looks like this is reincarnation: the thing where a dead person is reborn as another. This, of course, means that my previous life is over. The last thing I remember was sitting in Japanese Literature. I watched a hole open up in the empty air of the classroom, and then my memories abruptly cut off.

Holes in spacetime do not generally tend to appear on Earth. That’s probably what killed me. Then, for some reason, I was reincarnated with my memories from my previous life.

If you were to ask me if I had any regrets, I really couldn’t say that I didn’t. Far from it, really. I was still in the height of my youth. I wanted to hang out some more with my friends, and I never got the chance to try dating a girl my age. My parents, my grandparents, I died before any of them. I’ve left them with such a heavy burden. I get depressed whenever I think about how I’m never going to see them again.

I’m worried about what happened to everyone else at school after I died. I remember a huge explosion when that crack opened up in the air. It certainly killed me, but what about everyone else? Kyouya and Kanata… my neighbor Hasebe… did everyone die along with me? If I think about it, that’s really scary. That morning, I greeted them like it was no big deal, but now I’ll never be able to see them again.

Ever since I was reincarnated, I’ve been fighting my way through the uneasiness that has been gripping me. Of course I would be uneasy: I was suddenly reborn as a baby, with no knowledge of how I had gotten here. Furthermore, I wasn’t reborn in Japan. I wasn’t even reborn on Earth. This is another world entirely.

This took me a little while to figure out. I didn’t understand anything they were saying, and I haven’t been outside this nursery very much, so there’s many things that it’s taken me a while to learn. At first, I thought that I was in some European country. Then, however, I saw someone use magic, and it was immediately obvious that I had thought wrong.

This world has magic. The first time I saw it was when a high-ranking priest came to bestow a blessing on me. My body was wrapped in a sparkling light, and an overflowing strength welled up within me. You might think that it was a trick, or my imagination, but this was of a level that couldn’t be covered by such a trivial explanation. It would be way too hard to fake what I felt then.

I was excited about the existence of magic as soon as I found out about it. Even still, after the initial excitement faded, I was back to being uneasy. Am I going to be able to make it in a world of magic? I was an extremely ordinary guy in my previous life. Back in Japan, this didn’t cause me any problems, but this world might not tolerate such an ordinary person. Am I going to be able to live up to what’s expected of me? I don’t know, and it’s making me nervous.

I desperately set to learning the local language. Not being able to understand anyone around me was even worse than I had ever imagined. I had no idea what anyone was saying. I never thought I could ever feel so helpless and alone. I felt so isolated, like I was the only person in the world.

The uneasiness from being reborn into another world, from not knowing the language, from not knowing if I’d be able to survive, all of these compounding fears weighed heavily on me. I was saved, though, by the baby girl peacefully sleeping next to me. My sister, born of a different mother. She has no worries at all, sleeping peacefully as if nothing in the world could possibly go wrong. Well, it’s only natural for a baby. Babies can’t do anything without help, and must rely on others to take care of them. A real baby is such a fragile existence. The only reason why I’m so worried is because of all of the memories I’ve brought with me from my previous life.

That’s when I realized. I have all of this experience from before, so I should undoubtedly be stronger, mentally, than my sister. Yet why was she sleeping so peacefully, when I was so burdened by worry? I’m this kid’s big brother, and an older brother shouldn’t make his little sister worry. I need to be an awesome big brother that she can look up to.

I may have just been putting on a brave face for my sister, but I found myself worrying less and less. My troubles haven’t all gone away, but now I have something to hold on to: I want to protect my helpless little sister.

I’ve focused on learning the language and, little by little, have come to understand what people are saying around me. I wanted to be able to move around as soon as I could, so I flailed my little baby limbs around to gain strength. Thanks to that, I learned to crawl far earlier than most babies. I kept my motivation up by remembering that I was going to be the kind of older brother that my sister was going to want to brag about.

Thus begins the story of the fourth prince of the Analeit Kingdom, Schlain Zagan Analeit.

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

---

Beating that turtle was tough! Even after I managed to flip it over, I tried to bite it to death, but that jerk retreated into its shell! I almost got my fangs pinched off when it sucked its head in. Of course, with my pathetic strength, I had no way to yank it back out, so I had to kind of just let poison dribble from my fangs into the head hole. That certainly got its attention! It shot its head back out of its shell, thrashing wildly, and I sunk my fangs into its helpless neck.

Then, I got to see what turtle tastes like. It was the first time ever since I was reborn that I’d gotten to taste meat that wasn’t poisonous! It was chewy, and didn’t taste very good.

Umf. I didn’t get hurt this time! I was able to dodge every single one of my opponent’s attacks. Of course, that turtle just kept charging me over and over like an idiot, and it’s not like it was very fast at all, so I had all the time in the world to get out of the way. It’s not like I’m some grand master at evasion, I just faced an opponent that was perfect for me.

Hmmmm. Although, I kind of feel like I’m definitely faster than I was before. I know that all of my stats go up when I level, but I really don’t feel much of an effect on most of them. My speed, though, has definitely and notably increased. Compared to when I was fighting the frog, I’m way faster. Looks like us Taratects are extremely specialized in speed! Nevertheless, fighting purely via evasion is impossible.

Yeah! My speed and my threads are my greatest weapons. With these two, there’s one strategy that’s exactly tailored to me: sneak attacks!

Hm? That’s cowardly? Cowardice means jack shit in a life-or-death fight! Think of this like a preemptive strike. That’s not cowardice at all! Well, a preemptive strike does tend to decide the course of a battle.

What? I’m not going to get any useful combat experience? This is most certainly combat! You upon your lofty throne could not possibly understand it!

Well, I say that I’m going to try sneak attacks, but there’s only like a fifty-fifty chance I can actually pull it off, right? We’re in a danger zone! The other monsters aren’t just blithely wandering through, they’re going to be on the lookout for danger. If I can actually pull off a sneak attack, I stand to gain a lot… probably. If it fails, though, then I’m going to have to make a lot of really snappy decisions based on how the situation unfolds.

The big problem is any other monsters that could rip off my threads like the turtle did. Seriously, the threads I had thought were impervious to all but flame can be torn off? My [Spider thread] skill is level six. It’s the highest skill I have! Tearing through my thread basically equals defeating me. I’m really glad that turtle was such a good match with the rest of my abilities. Other monsters, though. Just the thought of other web-ripping monsters is terrible. Granted, I may have been over-relying on my threads a little bit. I’m going to keep this idea at the edge of my thoughts from now on.

After that, I wandered through the labyrinth for a bit, but didn’t find any other monsters. I’m getting sleepy, so I’m calling it for today. Time to retire to my simple home.

Ah, the breaking of the dawn! …Well, uh, I don’t actually know if it’s morning or not, but, uh, I’m awake now. Resuming my explorations. Seriously, though, this dungeon really is extremely huge. I’ve been wandering around ever since I got myself lost in this labyrinthine section, and there’s no sign of escape. Whenever I hit an intersection, I always take the rightmost fork. I remember hearing that keeping your right hand on the dungeon’s wall is a great way to keep yourself from getting lost. It’s easier to retrace your steps if you’re following a rule, anyway. Plus, I can always follow the trail of silk that I keep unconsciously leaving behind me as I walk.

I continue to steadily step through these labyrinthine corridors, but there’s no sign of the exit. I keep [Appraisal] running in the background, but all it’s saying is the usual: {labyrinth wall} and {labyrinth floor}. I don’t really have any accurate way to measure my distance, but if I were to low-ball an estimate, I’d say I’ve walked several dozen kilometers so far. Ugh, now that I’m thinking about it, that really is seriously far! If I were still a human, walking this kind of distance would just straight-up kill me.

Ah, here comes today’s first prey. Oooh, and it’s a kind I’ve never seen before! It looks kind of like a centipede, with its many rustling legs. First off: [Appraisal].

{Elro Ferekt – failed to appraise statistics}

Hm? Failed? Ahhh, the level is missing! Huh, looks like [Appraisal] can fail! It’s my first time seeing this happen. Well, it’s not like it failing gave me any less information than what I usually get, so it doesn’t really matter for now.

Ah, wait, hold on, hold on. Could it maybe have failed because our levels are too different? If that’s the case, this centipede would have to be way stronger than me. Hmmm? I’m not really getting that kind of feeling off of it, though… maybe level differences don’t have any effect on [Appraisal] at all? That’s all well and good, but if it’s really just a case where it’s hiding its true skill…?

…Man, even if I keep waffling, there isn’t really any excuse. Being a woman is all about courage, right? Are we going to do this?!

Without making a noise, I quietly creep behind my foe. Slide, slide, slide. Greetings! Die!

My sneak attack was a complete success. It was such a complete success that it was almost an anticlimax. All of that worrying I had been doing about the centipede being crazy tough was all in my head. It wasn’t able to rip apart my webs like the turtle could, so I was able to tie it up without any problems. Then I bit it with my [Poison Fang] until it stopped moving.

You’d think you know how disgusting centipedes would taste just from looking at them, but this is seriously gross. On top of that, it’s got some weird poison, so after eating it I feel kind of weird. My entire body feels kind of… stiff.

Argh! Ever since I was reborn as a spider, I haven’t gotten to eat a single delicious thing! This is seriously a first-world problem, but I want tastier food. Aaaaah, someone, anyone, even a Cup Noodle will do!

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

---

Ahh, it feels good to be back up to full. Oh man, I had completely forgotten that leveling up comes with a full heal attached.

Well, I don’t think I’ll be able to rely on level ups all the time. I just leveled, so it’s probably going to be a while before I do so again. If I let myself get as injured as I just did every time I fight, it’s pretty obvious that my wounds are just going to keep piling up. Hmm, if I hide away in a simple home like this every time I get wounded, maybe…

Yeah, no, that’s not happening. That would just be reverting back to old habits.

…I say that, but I really need to figure out how I’m solving this problem. I just leveled up, but it’s not like I suddenly got way stronger. I’m fully aware of my own weaknesses as a fighter, so I really think that I can find a way to win if I just put my mind to it. Suicidally diving straight into combat without a plan would be like diving straight into the Sanzu River(TL.1). …Hm, now that I think about it, I died, and was reincarnated, but I don’t recall crossing that river…

Well, in the end, do I have any other options? Ideally, I’d like to never get wounded ever, but I am, alas, not afforded that luxury. Not only that, but I can’t guarantee that I’m even going to win my next battle!

That frog fight was one bad move away from being extremely awful. What would I have done if the frog hadn’t jumped into my web? I really don’t want to think about it. It’s hard enough to just barely survive a life-or-death struggle like that, let alone trying to do so without taking any damage at all. That’s a hurdle I don’t think I’d be able to clear.

Hmm, well, wait. That might not be a good line of thinking. Isn’t getting hit extremely dangerous? I don’t think my paper-thin defenses are going to be able to stand up to anything in a real fight. Yeah, this is seriously bad.

Compared to all the other monsters I’ve encountered so far, these frogs don’t seem to even be particularly dangerous.

Yeah, I’m well aware that they are extremely dangerous to me; I fought one just now! If you just look at them, though, they don’t look dangerous at all. If you ignored all of the bright “hey I’m poisonous don’t eat me” markings, these things wouldn’t be even the slightest bit threatening. Heck, if it didn’t have the poison going for it, there’s a ton of things out there that could just straight-up crush it through raw, superior strength. Yet, with one single hit from that tongue, I was brought to the brink of death.

If I ran into anything stronger, would I be able to take any of their attacks without dying at all?

No way. If I got hit by anything that strong, I’d be lucky if an injury is all I got.

What should I do? I don’t have a single countermeasure. My defenses are all but useless! I should absolutely be working under the assumption that I am going to die if I get hit at all. So, shouldn’t I just dodge everything that comes at me? It’s so simple! Ah! Ha! Ha! Ha! Just like one of my impossible games!

In my previous life, my dodging skills in video games were straight-up godly. I only got to that point, though, because of the many, many hours of practice I put in. Let me be perfectly clear, though: I learned through failure. I died a ton before I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. I would charge in and survive as long as I could, just so that I could memorize a little more of the enemy’s attack patterns. Once I had eventually gotten it down, though, then I could pull off my dodge-focused gimmick character with my eyes closed. Conversely, though: if it’s an enemy I hadn’t seen before, I had to start back at square one.

You really could compare the way I am now to my MMO playstyle. Just like back then, I’ve effectively got almost all of my stat points dumped into speed, a few into damage, and the rest left at their starting values. With paper-thin defenses and no way to deal with a threat at range, it really isn’t a very practical way to build a non-gimmick character. Now, of course, I have to put up with this ridiculously disadvantageous build in real life.

First off, there’s tons of ways that reality doesn’t quite match up with a game. Let’s take moving, for instance. In a game, all I needed to do was move my fingers a little bit to push a button, but in reality I have to move my entire body! My field of view is also way more constrained in reality than what I could see on my monitor. Most importantly, though: unlike in a game, I’m constantly terrified that a fight might end in my painful death.

Hm? It doesn’t seem like I’ve been terrified, you say? Don’t be ridicul… oh, hm, have I really not…? Hmmm? Let’s, uh, let’s forget about that last bit.

Yeah. In any event, this reality is very different than a game. I’m not going to be able to play the same kind of dodge gimmick character, since there’s no way I’m going to be able to die over and over to make it work. Of course, I say there’s no way I can make it work, but, really, I don’t have any other ideas.

Ummf. Really, I have too few cards in my hand of skills. I’ve got [Spider Thread], which is very versatile, but [Poison Fang] has basically just one way to use it. [Appraisal]… well, I continue to hold out hope that [Appraisal] will be useful once I get its level up! My Resistances are certainly useful, but that’s mostly because my basic defenses are so weak. All that’s left are the two skills I don’t have any idea how to use: [Heresy Magic] and [Taboo].

The “Magic” part of [Heresy Magic] brings to mind images of long-ranged spell attacks, but I have no idea how to use it. Aaaagh, I seriously need a tutorial! Seriously, if you’re going to give me a skill, at least tell me how to use it! In a lot of fantasy settings, isn’t just focusing on a spell enough to cast it? Man, it would be great if it were that easy. Ahhhhh… ha. Well, it’s not like complaining is going to make an explanation appear.

I peek out from behind a crag.

{Small Rock Turtle – LV 2}

Yeah. It’s a turtle with a rock on its back. It’s certainly quite large, but I don’t think it’s any much larger than a Galapagos tortoise. Really, compared to the other things I’ve seen so far, this really doesn’t make a strong impression. Oh, wait, didn’t its name say “Small”? Is this a… baby?

{Small Rock Turtle: The juvenile form of a Rock Turtle.}

Ah, is that the case? I see! This is a child, you say? I definitely do not want to meet its mother.

Well, then, shall we get started? It doesn’t seem like my opponent’s noticed me just yet… so! Let’s get right in with a sneak attack!

I leap out from behind my crag and charge in at full speed. I leap onto the turtle’s rocky shell, and stick it with my [Spider Thread]!

Nwhooa! It threw me off! My threads still managed to get attached quite firmly, though. The turtle’s stuck in plac— aaaaAAAAAAAH!

The turtle snapped my threads and is charging straight at me!

Wha?! Retreat! Retreat! I jump to the side right before it hits.

Crash!!

The turtle charges forward until it hits the wall with a spectacular impact. Whoooooah. If I had gotten hit by that, I’d have gotten pancaked, right? Really, this is the first time I’ve seen a foe that can tear through my webs. This is bad, right?!

The turtle spins around to face me. Another charge! I dodge it! Crash! Another! I dodge! Crash!! Another!! Agh! That’s enough!!

As I dodge the latest charge, I leave a thread behind to catch the turtle’s leg. It trips and falls, but the momentum from its charge sends it tumbling. It lands on its back! Like this, you’re going to have a hard time getting back up, aren’t you, turtle? Heh, as if I would even let you try.

Chomp!

Sure, if I had gotten hit, I’d have died… but if I don’t get hit, there’s no problem!

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

---

<Proficiency has reached the required level. Skill [Acid Resistance – LV2] has become [Acid Resistance – LV3]>

My skill leveled. With this, it’ll be a little bit easier to take down the next frog I come across. To be quite honest, if I didn’t already have resistance, I think I would have gone over my maximum HP.

That was close! My body is practically in tatters. I got hit by that frog’s spit twice and his tongue once, and just like that I’m on the brink of death. That tongue attack, though. Way too dangerous. A good chunk of my abdomen was straight-up caved in by the impact, and the sheer force of it rendered a few of my legs useless.

It’s not like I walked into this unprepared or anything. I already knew that a straight-up fight against another monster was going to be way less likely to work than luring them into my webs. Even still, somewhere, in a hopelessly naive corner of my heart, I had thought that I’d be able to win it anyway. I’m way too exhausted now.

Well, I don’t think I’m going to be able to get very far with my body in this state. I should build a very basic home here, and focus on letting my wounds heal.

I leave the slain frog where it is, and start to weave my webs. Ow. Just moving around causes pain to stab through my body.

<Proficiency has reached the required level. Acquired skill [Pain Resistance – LV1]>

Oh? A new skill? Ahh, it feels like the pain is lessening just a little bit. It’s still extremely painful, though. This is a pretty useful skill, though, you know? If I somehow manage to keep on living, even in this state, I’ll keep getting proficiency. Small favors, huh.

Hoooof. At any rate, my basic home’s done. Now I can finally rest. If I were any other kind of monster, I’d be wiped out if something happened to come along.

Ahhhh, well, I’ve still got my hard-won prey here to eat. Let’s dig in.

I just barely scraped through my first real fight. Eh? What about that fight with my brother? I can’t really call that a fight, you know. Doesn’t count. Getting some real combat experience has made one thing pretty freaking obvious, though.

I’m WEEEEEAK!

Yeah. It’s not just that I as an individual am weak, but I think the entire species of Small Lesser Taratects are weak. Well, we are an inferior breed, after all. Our attacks are weak, and our defenses fragile. Our one good quality seems to be our speed, but even that isn’t good enough for me to be able to dodge all of that frog’s saliva attacks. Looks like my base stats aren’t even close to a low-level frog’s.

I hadn’t really had any problems killing enemies until now, thanks to my spiderweb traps. This straight-up fight, though, was a mess. I’m really starting to understand just how much I was using my home as a crutch.

Even so, one thing is very clear. Frontal assaults are impossible. If I have to fight head-on, everything hinges on my ability to snare my foe with my [Spider Thread]. My only other real option is trying to get in close and bite them with my [Poison Fang], but my low stats make that impossible. I’d be cut down before I could get in a single attack.

With my speed, I can dance around my foe and strike when they slip up. I could also lay traps as I dodge and bait them into it, like I did just now. These will be the foundation of my strategy. Ooh, if I have enough forewarning, I could set traps in advance and lure them in.

Now that I think about it, I’m not at all suited to go against these frogs. With all of those ranged attacks, they’re like a machine gun emplacement. There’s no real need for them to move, so they’re not going to jump into a trap of their own accord. Ugh, it really sucks not having a long-ranged attack. I could theoretically throw my threads at them, but the range is short and, worse, it might make them more mindful of my threads. I’ll just keep that one in reserve. I should really come up with a good countermeasure for long-ranged attacks before I have to face them again.

Haaagh. I’ve got way too many problems. I’ve come face to face with my weaknesses… my enormous pile of weaknesses. Well, I can’t really give up here, now, can I. If I just wanted to live, I could build a new home and hide there. But that won’t do at all. I’ve decided that I will live proudly! I’m not going to take the easy way out like that.

But, for now, I should take it easy. How long will it take for these injuries to heal? …Rather, are they even going to heal on their own? Maaaan, I wish I actually was a game character. Then I could heal all of my injuries with one night’s rest.

Regardless, time to sleep. Today was exhausting, and I need to get plenty of rest if I want to have any chance of getting better. So, with that, good night.

Zzzzz. Hmmm? Aaahhhhhhh, I slept well! …I say that, but it really feels less like I slept and more like I just passed out. Ergh, everything’s still sore. I guess injuries this severe aren’t going to heal themselves overnight.

Yaaaaaw– OWOWOWOW! I tried to stretch as I usually do, but moving my legs sent spears of pain running through them. Uuugh, my middle two right legs have it the worst. If I’m not careful, are they going to break off? Man, I’m really starting to get worried about my prospects for recovery.

Tap, tap.

Hm? My webs are vibrating… wait. Whoa! Even this basic web managed to catch something overnight! Man, the vibrations along my web usually wake me up as soon as something gets caught, but it looks like I was out absolutely cold. Maybe it’s because of how beat up I am.

{Elroe Basilisk – LV 4}

Whoa, if it isn’t the petrifying lizard. Looks like I’ve caught yet another dangerous creature. What should I do… That thing has a petrifying gaze, so even though I’ve got it immobilized, it can still turn me to stone if our eyes meet. With such awful injuries, wouldn’t petrification be extra-awful? …Well, it’s not like I’m going to set my all-important prey free.

Blink.

Ah, shoot, it opened its eyes! Nnngh! The ends of my legs are turning to stone! Aaaagh, fine! If it’s come to this, I have no choice!

Chomp!

Thanks to [Petrification Resistance], the rate of petrification is slow, but losing my one good foreleg is extremely bad. If I can’t stop it before that happens, walking is going to be next to impossible. Please, I beg of you, die! While my leg can still move!

Slump.

As if in response to my prayers, strength leaves the basilisk’s body while my leg is only half-fossilized. Ummmmf, walking on this isn’t going to be impossible, but damn, it’s going to be tough.

<Experience has reached the required level. Individual Small Lesser Taratect has increased from LV5 to LV6.>

Oh? Ohhh?! What godly timing!!

<All basic attributes have increased.>

<Skill proficiency level-up bonus acquired.>

<Proficiency has reached the required level. Skill [Poison Fang – LV4] has become [Poison Fang – LV5]>

<Proficiency has reached the required level. Skill [Petrification Resistance – LV2] has become [Petrification Resistance – LV3]>

<Skill points acquired.>

Okay, okay! Two skills leveled up, which is great. But that’s not why I’m happy…!

The skin starts to peel off my body. I’m molting. Thanks to this miraculous level-up, I’m literally shedding my injuries away! Even the huge dent in my abdomen that I was worried about has been completely fixed! Ya-HAAA! Basilisk, thank you! Thank you! Now, time to eat!

Even if I can’t just sleep at an inn to get my hit points back, leveling up is almost as good.

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

---

<Proficiency has reached the required level. Skill [Appraisal – LV2] has become [Appraisal – LV3]>

Aha, that leveled up pretty quickly! Not very much time has passed since I started spamming [Appraisal] everywhere. This got way easier once I stopped being such a shut-in… Man, I’ve got some serious mixed feelings about this.

Well, regardless, it leveled! This is the best thing I could have hoped for. Now then, now then, what shall level three reveal? I immediately try to appraise myself.

{Small Lesser Taratect – LV 5 – no name}

It’s showing my level! Yaaaay… …hahhh. Well, a plus is a plus, but… at what point is this skill going to actually be useful?

Mmm. Really, I have no idea how strong my species is supposed to be. Compared to everything else in this dungeon, how strong is a {Small Lesser Taratect}?

As soon as I finished that thought, new information popped into my brain.

{Small Lesser Taratect: A Taratect hatchling of an inferior breed.}

What… was that? Did… did I just appraise the name of my species, which I got from [Appraisal]? Did I just double-appraise?! Oooh. Did I just discover a really important little trick to this skill? Let’s test it, let’s test it! I activate [Appraisal] once again.

{Taratect: A species of spider-like monster.}

It worked! This is amazing! If [Appraisal] spits out some new word that I don’t know yet, I can appraise it! Ahaa!! Sure, the explanation is pretty short, and it’s definitely not giving me all of the information, but if I keep leveling this up, it’s going to be crazy good, isn’t it?! Just appraising one thing will let me pull up fact after fact! Ha-HA! Mister [Appraisal], I’m sorry for saying you were useless! I will put my full efforts into leveling you up!

Now then, once my [Appraisal]-driven high wore off, I eventually became aware of two fairly important problems. Specifically: I’m hungry! And tired! That’s basically it. It makes sense though; I fled my home at top speed and have been wandering the dungeon ever since, so it’s only natural that I could use a snack and some sleep.

It’s not like I can’t deal with it for a little while longer, but eventually I will need to eat something and find someplace to sleep. Both of these tasks share the same stumbling block though: other monsters. If I want to eat, I need to find a monster, kill it, and eat it. Conversely, if I want to sleep, I need to find a place where monsters can’t find me. This is a real catch-22. Mmm.

Ah! There might be a solution to both of these problems: when it’s time for me to go to sleep, I’ll put together a much simpler home and sleep in that. That will kill two birds with one stone: I’ll be able to sleep in relative safety, and if a monster blunders in and gets stuck, I’ll get breakfast for free.

It’s just that… a little while ago, I said that I wanted to do as much hunting for my food as I could manage. Building a simple home to sleep in is basically mandatory, but while I’m awake I really should try to find a battle. Ultimately, my temporary home shouldn’t be for the purposes of hunting. It should pretty much just be a safe place to get some sleep. Ah, well, if something gets caught in my web, I’m not going to refuse to eat it, haha.

Until then, let’s keep wandering around the dungeon in search of a monster!

Found one!

{Elroe Frog – LV 3}

It seems that I’m destined to find nothing but frogs: at the end of the hallway I’ve been sneaking through, I can see yet another one of the things. It’s got its back turned to me, at the moment, and it doesn’t look like it’s noticed me yet. Could I maybe kill it with a sneak attack?

Of course, as soon as I think that, it spots me. Tch.

Hisssssss!

I start off with intimidation.

Ptoo!

Wha-!? Hey, you, don’t just suddenly shoot your acid at me! I was barely able to dodge that!

Ptoo! Ptoo! Ptoo!

Don’t keep shooting!! Ahh, aaah, ooof! I can’t dodge all of these! Ow! Oww! I’ve got some resistance now, so this doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it did the first time, but this! Still! Hurtsss! You jerk, how was I supposed to know you were this aggressive when you weren’t stuck in a web?!

Ptoo! Ptoo! Ptoo!

Wait, wait! Gaaah! Another one got through to me! This is bad! The way things are going, this is going to be extremely one-sided! I’ve got only one option: suicide rush!!

Ptoo! Ptoo! Ptoo!

Hah, as if you can hit me again with the same attack! I’ve seen through your moves: your limit is three shots at a time! Don’t take me too lightly, frog! I possess the analytic eye of a true gamer, and was once compared to the great Idaten! I dodge the poison spit as I rush in, then swing my claws down at the frog!

Grr, as I expected, it manages to dodge, but as it jumps out of the way it lashes out at me with its tongue!

Splat!

OWW! The tongue strikes me with crushing force. And, of course! It’s covered in acid too! Not only was this a heavy blow, I’m feeling a sizzling pain! Ohhhh, this is a serious wound. If I had a health bar, it would be flashing bright red right now. If I take one more hit like that, I’m done for.

Heh, it’s not like that’s going to happen, though.

I’ve already won.

After all, before the frog jumped away, I’d laced the surroundings with my webs.

It’s quite simple, really. As I was dodging the acid spit attacks, I was trailing threads out onto the ground behind me. Usually, if I’m not careful, I wind up unconsciously dropping thread onto the ground behind me as I walk. This time, though, I made use of it. I made the silk that I was spewing out very sticky, and forced the frog to jump onto it. My claw attack was specifically aimed to force it to dodge towards my trap. I didn’t expect it to counter-attack in midair, though.

The frog lands and immediately gets stuck. Mercilessly, I wrap it up tightly with more and more thread, until there was only one thing left to do.

Chomp!

I have just won (albeit by a very slim margin) my first actual fight.