Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? (LN) - Volume 9 - Chapter 5

ARRIVAL AT THE GREAT ELROE LABYRINTH 

Ever since the upside-down-girls incident, Vampy has been in a very bad mood. 

Well, I guess I can’t blame her. She gave me the whole story, and apparently, I caused that whole debacle while I was drunk. 

She tried to calm me down when I went on a drunken rampage, and instead I went wild. If I were her, I’d get mad, too. 

But I don’t know why that means she has to invade my room every chance she gets. 

Even now, while I’m testing out my abilities, she’s sitting there having a tea party with Sael and company. Plus, since Vampy is the only one of them who talks, that means their little tea parties consist of sipping tea in silence and watching something. 

Normally, their entertainment is Fiel goofing around when she gets bored of the stuffy silence or Riel suddenly doing some bizarre activity. 

Otherwise, they have to actually just sit there in boredom, or Vampy has to start talking by herself. 

But now, they have the exciting new option of observing ME. 

And that’s exactly what they’ve been doing lately. 

Four pairs of eyes stare at me expectantly, making it difficult to get anything done. 

But I do feel guilty for putting them through the upside-down incident, so I can’t be rude to them about it. 

So I just try to ignore them as best I can while I test out my abilities. 

My powers finally returned to me when I got drunk. 

…Yeah, I know that sounds pretty terrible, but I have to ignore it. 

While my powers are back, that doesn’t mean I can use them exactly the same way I did before. 

I still don’t have skills or stats, after all. 

What I’m doing now is basically just imitating those. 

What exactly are skills and stats, you ask? Well, they’re part of a crazy-huge act of conjuring called the “system.” 

Most phenomena in this world that defy the laws of physics are actually brought about using energy that works by entirely separate rules. 

Artificially manipulating this energy is the basis of magic. 

In a broader sense, that means that skills and stats are a kind of conjuring, too. 

The giant act of conjuring known as the system supports humans so that they can easily harness said conjuring, in the forms of skills and stats. 

When I underwent deification, I became exempt from the system, so I don’t get the support of skills and stats anymore. That’s why I wasn’t able to use my powers. 

After all, that requires sensing and manipulating the energy that forms the basis of all this, and I no longer have the Magic Power Perception or Magic Power Operation skills that used to do that for me. 

You have to use energy for conjuring, but I wasn’t able to see or feel that energy, never mind know how to manipulate it, so I wasn’t getting anywhere. 

But I was able to do it before, even if the skills were helping me. 

I thought I might be able to get a sense for how I did that if only I had some kind of chance. 

Although I never thought that “chance” would consist of getting drunk. 

If drinking was all I needed to do to get my powers back, then why did I suffer so miserably for almost two years…? 

Unreal. 

Well, whatever. They’re back now, so there’s no point dwelling on the past. 

Anyway, skills and stats support the residents of this world so that they can perform conjuring more easily. 

So if I can use conjuring now, that means I should be able to do all the same things I did before, even without the support of skills…in theory, at least. In practice, it’s not so easy. 

It’s like the difference between riding a bike with training wheels and a bike without them. Obviously, it’s gonna be hard at first. 

I have to control the whole thing myself, without the support of skills. 

For some reason, I can produce thread without really thinking about it, but for everything else, I have to consciously produce the runes and such. 

It’s not like using a skill, where you know how to do it right off the bat. 

I have to figure out what the system’s support was doing when I used each skill and control that part myself. 

I guess it’s kinda like the difference between automatic and manual. 

It’s pretty hard, though. 

I mean, I can sorta remember the runes and stuff for skills I used relatively often. But it’s more like I remember the feeling of using them than the detailed steps. 

I have to rely on vague feelings like, I dunno, was it kinda like this? which actually seems to work more often than not. 

I guess it’s sorta like muscle memory…or maybe soul memory? 

Well, as long as I can use those, that’s fine with me. 

The problem is the stuff I can’t use yet. 

I don’t remember the skills I didn’t use as often, so it’s been tough to get them to work. 

There are some skills that I constantly had on by default in order to raise their skill levels, but there’s plenty more that I never did that with. 

At the moment, I have no idea how to re-create about half of those lesser-used skills. 

I do have a vague sense for most of them, so I think if I keep practicing, I’ll be able to do it eventually. 

But there are a few others that I can’t seem to use at all. 

The biggest example being magic. 

I can use Dark and Spatial Magic without a problem, but the rest of them are tougher. 

I know what you’re thinking. C’mon, conjuring and magic are basically the same, so what’s the problem? 

But listen, those are totally different. 

In fact, magic is just one small part of the giant conjuring known as the system. 

D added some gamelike elements and fancy effects to give the impression of “magic.” 

It’s sort of like an illusion, except it actually affects reality. 

Sure, that magic produces fire or water or whatever, but it’s not quite the same as the regular kind of fire or water. 

It has some stupid extra parts like attributes and resistances, for one thing. 

In fact, most of it is superfluous stuff, to the point where the rune producing the all-important fire, water, etc. is more like a bonus than anything… 

Skills have attributes, and there are resistances that oppose them. 

This is embedded in the gamelike system, which also creates affinities. 

That’s why runes are so unnecessarily complicated. 

So, since I know only the runes produced by my old skills, I don’t know which parts of them are actually necessary for pure conjuring that’s not related to the system. 

When I try to reproduce those same runes, they’re inevitably connected to the system—and since I’m cut off from the system, I can’t activate them. 

Since all magic has these stupid “attributes” attached, that means I can’t use most of it. 

That goes for non-magic skills that have attributes, too. 

Like Jinx Evil Eye, for instance. It has the Curse attribute, and it directly attacks HP and MP and stuff, all of which are directly connected to the system. 

If I want to re-create Jinx Evil Eye, it might be better just to build a new rune from scratch. 

Not that I have the know-how to do that! 

On the other hand, there are two kinds of skills I can use even though they have attributes: Dark and Rot. 

But wait just a minute. 

Okay, Dark is one thing. 

I don’t know why I can use something that’s so obviously attribute-based, but it’s useful, so I’m not gonna worry about that. 

But what is Rot doing here?! 

The Rot attribute was always a last resort among my many strategies. 

Of course, when I did use it, it was very reliable. 

But that’s only if I could use it properly. 

’Cause the Rot attribute is a total double-edged sword! 

It’s so damn strong that it causes recoil damage to the user. And that’s when I had it under the control of skills thanks to the system! 

What’s going to happen if I use it without any of those restraints? 

I’m so scared that I don’t even dare test it out. 

My giant scythe still seems to have that kind of attribute, so I thought maybe I’d be able to use it all right, but that was a failure. 

It started to activate without a problem, so I panicked and shut it off. 

I still got a little recoil, since I stopped it so abruptly, but I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what would happen if I actually activated it. 

But warning bells were going off in my head so loudly in that moment that I’m not sure I would’ve survived. Letting it activate all the way wouldn’t have led to anything good. 

It’d be one thing if it misfired and I lost an arm or something, but in the worst-case scenario, I could’ve actually died. 

That nasty evil god told me that I would’ve died from using it if I didn’t have the resistance, and that was when I had skills. 

Now that I don’t have that safety net, I have no idea what’ll happen. 

So I’m going to be super-careful when it comes to the Rot attribute. Yeah. 

And Rot’s not the only thing I have to be careful about. 

I was able to handle everything easily with the help of skills, but now I have to keep it under perfect control without any help. 

I’ve got to handle everything with care, not just Rot, or I could easily make something misfire at any moment. 

So I’m keeping my practice relatively simple, not to mention sticking to stuff that wouldn’t cause too much damage if it did go awry. 

Right now, I’m working on seeing through stuff. 

My eyes have a whole bunch of pupils, so I have to keep ’em closed when I’m in town and stuff so I don’t freak out other people. 

Obviously, I can’t see with my eyes shut, so it’s pretty damn inconvenient. 

If I can learn to see through things like I used to with Clairvoyance, I can look right through my eyelids at the outside world, so I won’t have to deal with all that nonsense. 

Plus, it wouldn’t do any real harm if I mess this up, so it’s perfect for practicing in my room. 

To an outside observer, it probably just looks like I’m sitting here with my eyes closed, but for some reason, the peanut gallery seems to find this interesting enough to keep watching me. 

Even Fiel, who normally doesn’t have the patience for this kind of thing, is staring at me. 

It’s starting to stress me out, so I turn away from my audience of little girls. 

Then Fiel silently sneaks around my side and waves her hand in front of my face. 

I can see you. 

Even with my eyes closed, I can see you with Clairvoyance. 

But if I react now, she’ll probably get carried away and distract me even more, so I ignore her. 

The speed of Fiel’s hand waving steadily increases, and soon she starts moving the rest of her body, too, until finally she’s demonstrating some bizarrely feverish dance in front of me. 

Oh, come on! You got carried away anyway?! 

It’s getting annoying, so I open my eyes and use Inert Evil Eye. 

Fiel freezes in a shee! pose. 

Okay. I wasn’t expecting the pose, but I guess it worked. 

Inert Evil Eye originally evolved from Paralyzing Evil Eye. Since the latter has the Paralysis attribute, I normally wouldn’t be able to use it, but Inert Evil Eye has a sort of time-stopping effect. 

I guess that effect is unrelated to Paralysis, which is why I’m able to use it. 

That’s the only explanation I can think of anyway. 

By the way, I can technically still use it even with my eyes closed. 

If I combine it with the see-through effect of Clairvoyance, it still works, but it’s less effective and harder to control. 

I can activate several at the same time, too, but I don’t want to push it too hard while I’m still learning the ropes. 

Although I’m hoping that eventually I’ll be able to combine Evil Eyes with Clairvoyance and do super-long-distance Evil Eye attacks like I could before. 

But first, I have to figure out what I can and can’t do and practice hard to improve. 

…So? How long is Fiel going to stay frozen? 

Oh? It won’t wear off until I stop it? 

How exactly do I do that? 

After that, I struggled for a while until I finally managed to release Fiel from her inert state. 

Yep. It’s important to understand how these powers work. 

That was definitely a good reminder. 

So I’ve been testing out my powers pretty successfully, and guess where I am now? The Great Elroe Labyrinth. 

Why? Because I teleported here. 

It’s not like I actually wanted to come here even a little bit, but when I was trying to decide where to go to test out teleporting, it was the first place that came to mind. 

And as soon as I thought about it, I found myself here. 

I teleported so naturally, it’s almost shocking, if I do say so myself. 

Just like when I make thread, I don’t even have to think about constructing runes or anything like that. What’s up with that? 

Isn’t teleporting, like, a super-advanced skill? 

Well, I guess I did use it all the time. 

It was literally my lifeline, y’know? 

But I didn’t think it was going to be this easy to use it. 

The Spatial Magic skill was always pretty hard, since you had to designate a destination and use it as a starting point while activating Teleport. 

The farther away the destination, the longer it takes to designate it. 

And it takes a pretty long time before you can actually teleport there, too. 

Again, with an even longer waiting period for faraway places. 

In other words, it always took a crazy-long amount of time to activate Teleport. 

Even with my cheat skill Height of Occultism, Teleport took anywhere from seconds to even minutes to prepare, depending on the distance. 

But when I teleported just now, all I had to do was think about a place, and I found myself there right away. 

Seriously, what the hell? 

I don’t get it. Why would it be faster to do this without the support of skills? 

Hmm? Did the skill actually kinda slow me down? 

Skills are essentially a form of assistance that activate conjuring for you. They’re a structure that makes it easy and safe to produce runes. 

But it’s trickier than it seems: It also means that the system itself is doing the dangerous part of the work in place of the user. 

But what if the system was slower at constructing that part than the user? 

Then it might actually be faster to do it without the assistance of the system. 

But is such a thing even possible? 

I can kind of understand it with the thread, since I’ve been using it nonstop since I was reborn here. 

But why would I be able to use an advanced technique like Teleport faster than when I had the system’s help? 

Hrmmm. 

I mean, it’s obvious that I must be some kind of genius, but still. 

I guess there’s no point in dwelling on something I can do when I should really be focusing on the things I still can’t. 

I’ll just try to be grateful that I was able to do it more easily than I expected. 

So anyway. 

Here I am in the Upper Stratum of the Great Elroe Labyrinth. 

Specifically, I’m in that big space on the border with the Middle Stratum. 

I called this area home for a long time, so it makes sense that it’d be deeply ingrained in my mind. 

After all, this is the first place I thought of when I tried to teleport. 

And now, a swarm of white spiders is clamoring around my former home. 

So I’m surrounded, so what? 

Sure, I might be screaming EEEEEK! on the inside, but it doesn’t look like these guys are going to attack me. 

On the contrary, they actually seem happy to see me. 

They’re showing their joy by bouncing up and down, almost like they’re dancing. 

Huh. 

Teleporting here to find myself surrounded by spiders dredged up some unpleasant memories, so I panicked at first, but I guess I don’t mind as long as they don’t attack me. 

Being surrounded by spiders reminded me of the first thing I saw in this world, the bloodbath of my spider siblings. I wasn’t exactly looking to relive my first traumatic experience here. 

By the way, my second traumatic experience was seeing Mother right after that. 

The third was when my home got destroyed, and the fourth was Mr. Araba. 

What’s this? When I look back on it, it kinda seems like I’ve had a lot of traumatic incidents in my life, no? 

Oh, but I’ve conquered most of those fears by now. 

Trauma’s nothing to be scared of! 

What? My legs are trembling? 

Th-that’s just because I’m so excited! 

I’m definitely not shaking because this situation brought back traumatic memories! 

I’m not, okay?! 

…Fine, so what if I am?! Everyone shakes a little once in a while! 

Besides, the moment I was reborn wasn’t the only time I’ve been surrounded by spiders, remember?! 

There was also the time I got chased around by Mother right after I escaped the labyrinth, barely managed to escape with my life via Teleport, and then found myself surrounded by an army of spiders and almost got squashed! 

You can’t blame me if I’m a little traumatized! 

I really thought I was gonna die at the time! 

But there’s no reason to be afraid now. 

’Cause it occurs to me that the white spiders around me are actually kind of my family. 

Or family that was created by my Parallel Minds anyway. 

These are the extra underlings my Parallel Minds made with the Egg-Laying skill while they were temporarily separated from me. 

But when I got deified, I absorbed all my Parallel Minds, so they really are my family now, aren’t they? 

In fact, if my Parallel Minds laid these eggs, doesn’t that mean I’m their mother by blood? 

Hey, Demon Lord, you’re a great-grandma nooow! 

Once I dealt with those Parallel Minds, I just shoved these guys in here and left them to their own devices. They were simply obeying my Parallel Minds, so I couldn’t bring myself to kill ’em. 

But I wasn’t gonna start looking after them, either. 

Which is why I just teleported the lot of them into the Great Elroe Labyrinth and left ’em here. 

I didn’t know what had happened to them after that, but from the looks of things, they’ve been getting on just fine. 

Good, good. 

Okay, your mom’s going home now, so keep up the good woooork. 

Child neglect? No, that definitely doesn’t apply in this situation. 

But the white spiders seem to sense somehow that I’m getting ready to teleport away, because they suddenly freeze. 

All that happiness dissipates at once, and suddenly they’re looking like a bunch of abandoned puppies. 

I guess in a way, that expression is accurate. Although they’re spiders, not puppies. 

Still, those eight eyes of theirs somehow look tearful to me. 

Cut it out! 

Don’t look at me like that! 

You’re making it hard for me to leave! 

In the end, I wound up staying over for the next several days… 

It’s all because of those cute little eyes! 

But I guess it’s fine, since I’ve managed to do some good experimenting in the process. 

The Great Elroe Labyrinth works pretty well as a space where you can use dangerous techniques without inconveniencing anyone. 

As a result, I’ve been able to figure out some things I couldn’t do in the duke’s mansion. 

This has been a pretty productive span of time. 

The white spiders keep presenting me with monster corpses, but…I guess that’s sorta cute. 

Although now that I’m a human, monster meat doesn’t really suit my tastes anymore. 

Well. Y’know. Since they insist on offering them to me, I’m doing my best to eat them, but I’ve got a pretty small stomach these days, so I can’t eat a whole monster in one sitting anymore. 

But I don’t like to waste food, so I’m doing my best… 

I have occasionally been pretending to eat while storing it in subspace, but that’s our little secret. 

These guys just keep bringing me way more food than I can eat! 

Since I’ve been away for so long, they seem excited to be able to serve me devotedly. 

Who raised them like this anyway? It’s a mystery. 

In the end, I had to pull myself away from the white spiders as their eyes begged me not to go and return to the duke’s mansion with Teleport. 

The whole thing was a little painful for my heart, so I guess I’ll check in on them from time to time. 

“Where were you?” 

Besides, there’s a scary little girl here, glaring at me like a wife who’s accusing her husband of cheating. 

I can’t spend all my time in a house with a scary girl like this! 

I have another family who’s actually happy to see me! 

“Don’t go wandering off on your own like that. Understood?” 

…Yes, ma’am. 

In the end, I couldn’t stand up to the anger of Vampy. 

From now on, I’ll have to get her permission before spending the night elsewhere.