Eat.
Eat.
Eat.
Little by little.
Without being noticed.
Slowly chip away.
《Your Proficiency has reached a set amount. Skill『Heretic Attack LV1』has become『Heretic Attack LV2』》 I'm a spider.
I'm in a pinch.
I'm being slowly cornered.
What do I do?
The Monsters are gone.
Seriously!? What the heck?
There's nothing anywhere!
They don't get caught in my webs either, and when I wander around, there's nobody.
What's going on?
Well, I mean, I have a rough idea why.
Here's the problem!
Monsters from the Middle Layer came up!
That thing puts out ridiculous pressure, spreads curses and paralysis everywhere, and is constantly casting magic — a dangerous creature!
If a crazy thing like that showed up, what do you think the Monsters that originally lived in the Upper Layer would do?
The correct answer is, obviously, they'd run, you idiots!
Ha ha ha!
That crazy thing is me!
Oh, yeah.
Objectively speaking, am I not incredibly crazy?
No wonder the Monsters would flee.
Because getting caught by me equals getting eaten.
Ugh.
What am I actually supposed to do about this?
The Upper Layer has no prey unless I travel a fair distance.
The Middle Layer, nobody's left hiding in the magma either.
I've still got a stockpile from all the gluttony, so I'm not worried about starving right away, but if I don't figure out a plan and act while I have the time, it might be too late by the time things get desperate.
Well, I mean, it's not like there's no option.
Actually, that's probably the only option.
Spatial Magic Level 9 — Long-Distance Teleportation.
This magic lets me go anywhere I know of — a dream come true.
And on top of that, I can link it with Wisdom's map, so I can set the teleportation destination in fine detail.
Every path I've walked since I was born — I can teleport to any of them.
Using this to go somewhere random, I'd have my pick of prey.
But, yeah, I think I'll pass on that for now.
I feel like it might be time to start seriously looking for the exit.
So, the plan is: hunt for prey while expanding my range, and when I get tired, teleport back to my current home.
I'll just keep repeating that.
Using this home as a base means I can keep grinding my Fire Resistance levels too.
And when I'm really, truly running out of prey, maybe I'll head to the Lower Layer.
One step there and I'd run into Monsters no problem.
With my current strength, I don't think I'd lose to anything short of an Earth Dragon.
But saying stuff like that is how you summon an Earth Dragon, so I'd rather not go to the Lower Layer if I can help it.
Anyway — time to deploy and expand my map!
And grab some food while I'm at it!
…The Upper Layer Monsters do taste bad, though.
I wander the Upper Layer, and when I'm bored, I teleport home.
That's the dull routine I've been living.
The Upper Layer map has expanded quite a bit too.
Still only about a tenth of the Middle Layer, though.
The Middle Layer really did go on forever.
Hardly ran into any Monsters along the way.
Well, they were all running away from me, so that's to be expected.
Thanks to that, I couldn't get much in the way of Experience Points or meals.
But there was one time I got something that was excellent for both.
I came out into a wide corridor, similar to the ones in the Middle Layer, and ran into an Earth Dragon.
Some kind of dinosaur-looking thing.
I thought it looked familiar, and sure enough — it was one of the Monsters from the swarm I'd seen right after I was born.
From that location to here is a pretty long distance, so it's probably a different individual of the same species.
It was strong when I fought it.
Oh yeah — strong.
I bound it with threads, stopped it completely with the Stillness Eye, and drained it with the Curse Eye, but it was definitely strong.
I'm sure it was.
You know what this means.
I killed a Dragon — so a mere dragon is no match for me.
Now that I think about it, the Fire Dragon was pretty easy to beat too.
Between a dragon and a Dragon, there seems to be an uncrossable wall in terms of power.
Defeating this one boosted my SP stockpile, and the Experience Points were quite tasty too.
Shame the actual taste wasn't any good.
Thanks to draining it with the Curse Eye, my SP stock filled up without even needing to eat.
Having that SP buffer is huge.
That puts me much further from the starvation route.
I surrounded the carcass with threads and left it — when my SP starts running low, I can teleport there and nibble away at it.
The Experience Points are delicious too.
It was roughly on par with the Fire Dragon, so I'm getting a lot closer to a Level Up.
And yet it's still not enough.
But at this rate, it looks like a Level Up might happen soon.
Once that happens, I can finally Evolve.
Evolution doesn't mean it's over, but it would mark a milestone.
I feel like setting small goals and achieving them one by one is the most efficient approach.
My current goals: Evolve first. Strengthen Fire Resistance. Find the exit.
As for the exit, it's not urgent — I'll look for it with a casual, "nice if I find it" attitude.
Running into Humans carelessly would be a hassle anyway.
Humans, huh.
If I actually do encounter some, what should I do?
I don't want to go out of my way to kill them, but if they try to kill me, I'd obviously fight back.
Honestly, I probably wouldn't have as much of a hang-up about killing people as I did back in Japan.
Actually, even back in Japan, maybe I didn't have that much of one.
I just never did it because it'd be a pain and there was no point.
Thinking about it that way, killing Humans in this world might be a hassle too.
I definitely don't want to get targeted by them.
Yeah.
Running away if I encounter Humans is probably the best call.
I have no idea how strong the Humans in this world are.
If every Human was Dragon-class, that would be terrible.
Well, the fact that none of them have gotten past the Middle Layer means they can't be that strong.
Whatever the case — let's hope I never run into any.