It's been a few days since I took down the snake.
Being in a Dungeon, I have no sense of what the date is, so I can't say exactly how many days have passed, though.
In the meantime, I've been living a eat-and-sleep lifestyle.
The snake takes forever to finish eating, and new food keeps getting caught in my web, so I can't exactly move.
I originally intended this as a little vacation, but this might be a problem.
At this rate, I'm going to revert back to being a hikikomori!
I glance over at the mountain of prey I've taken down over the past few days.
A mountain. Yeah, a mountain.
Definitely not "Yamada," though.
Come to think of it, there was a kid named Yamada in my old class.
No, no, that's completely irrelevant right now.
Anyway, there's a literal mountain of prey piled up there.
I'd been picking off every Monster that got caught in my web, and it all just accumulated like this.
Back when I was at My Home, I used to eat things as soon as I caught them, but with the snake still not finished, I couldn't touch any of it, so I figured I'd store them for now, and well... here we are.
None of them were tough enough to break through my thread like the snake did, so taking them down was easy.
Some of them were Level 6, which is pretty respectable, but even those are just part of the mountain now.
Well, high Level doesn't necessarily mean strong.
My Level is 9.
In terms of raw Level, I'm equal to the snake.
But in actual combat ability, the snake was overwhelmingly superior.
Honestly, I'm confident that even against Monsters with lower Levels, I couldn't win without my thread.
My theory is that the single most important factor in measuring strength is species.
Even if two combatants are the same Level, if one belongs to a superior species, there's probably no chance of winning.
I think that the Level-based advantage-disadvantage system only really applies when both parties are the same species.
In the extreme case, the Giant Spider I know of — probably the strongest creature I'm aware of — even at Level 1, there's no way I could beat it.
At Level 1, with that massive body as my opponent, I'd be squished no matter how hard I tried.
I think Level is something you should only take as a rough reference point.
Thinking about it that way, the gap between me and the snake was even wider than the Level difference suggested.
When I stumbled on it during the time I'd set up a temporary shelter, I managed to pull through, but if I'd encountered it with zero preparation, I wouldn't have stood a chance.
I got incredibly lucky, is what I'm saying.
That snake currently has about three-quarters of its body inside my stomach.
Should I think of it as having eaten three-quarters of that massive body, or as there still being a quarter left?
With this mountain of Monster carcasses still here, I'd say there's still more than a quarter remaining.
With this much in storage, food might start to rot before I even get to eat it.
Well, I do have Corrosion Resistance, so even if something's gone a bit bad, it's not going to upset my stomach.
Actually, a little bit of rot might even be good for leveling up my Skills.
Taste?
I've been eating the god-awful taste of Poison-type Monsters and worse this whole time, so a slightly rotten flavor is nothing I can't handle.
Right.
Bottom line: I can't move from here until I've digested all this food.
Once I finish off the snake, the other Monsters aren't nearly as big, so I should be able to whittle them down gradually.
Or rather, I really need to eat through all of this, or I'm genuinely going to slide right back into hikikomori life.
This place was only supposed to be a temporary shelter too, but with how long I've been staying, it's already gotten to be about the same scale as my previous home.
Hm?
Wait a second...
Could the fact that my home is so well-built actually be attracting more prey?
Hmm...?
No, no.
Even Monsters wouldn't look at my sturdy home and decide to attack it, right?
At my old My Home, I'd designed it partly to lure prey, so I'd made the threads as inconspicuous as possible, but this place is built for defense, so I didn't bother with any of that.
Just as I was thinking that, a vibration travels through my thread.
Looks like something got caught in the web again.
Here we go again.
More food to deal with.
Who would've thought I'd ever be troubled by having too much to eat.
I head over to whatever got tangled up.
It seems to be thrashing around with quite a bit of force — did something big get caught?
If so, my hikikomori stint just got even longer.
I'd really prefer something small, but... what a luxurious problem to have.
『Eiro Randanel LV3 — Appraisal of Status has failed』
『Eiro Randanel LV3 — Appraisal of Status has failed』
『Eiro Randanel LV4 — Appraisal of Status has failed』
Three Monsters had gotten caught.
Oh, right — last time at my old home, three of them got caught at once too.
Are these Monsters sold in packs of three or something?
But even more than one big one, the sheer volume might be worse.
In terms of meat, that is.
I strengthen the binding threads further and scoop up all three Monsters, web and all.
Removing them as a bundle like this is a new technique I picked up since coming here.
It's way more convenient than cutting the web apart piece by piece each time.
I set up a fresh web, then carry the three Monsters back to the center of my home.
Ugh, three of them really is heavy.
I should've just been patient and dealt with one at a time.
Thud!
Ow, that was rough.
My body hurts now.
Also, I lost a chunk of HP too.
Fine. I'm going to make them pay for that.
It's pretty unreasonable, but I don't care.
So anyway — chomp, chomp, chomp!
《Experience Points have reached a certain threshold. Individual "Small Lesser Taratect" has leveled up from LV9 to LV10》 《All basic ability values have increased》 《Skill Proficiency level-up bonus has been obtained》 《Skill Points have been obtained》 《Conditions have been met. Individual "Small Lesser Taratect" is now eligible for Evolution》 ...Wait, what now?