Digging a hole right now.
You're asking what I'm doing?
I told you — I'm digging a hole.
Right now, I'm visiting the city in the dead of night, sneaking around unnoticed, and digging a hole in some random vacant lot.
Being able to dig a hole without getting my hands dirty using earth magic — gotta say, that's nice.
Any excess soil gets temporarily stashed in another dimension using my spatial storage magic.
I dig a hole big enough for me to fit through, pushing deeper and deeper underground.
Once I've gone far enough down, I start expanding the interior.
And just like that, an underground chamber about the size of a small room is complete.
Mm.
I'm quite proud of this, honestly.
All that's left is to cover the entrance with soil so it doesn't look out of place from the outside, and it's done.
At the same time, I make a tiny hole — roughly the size of an ant tunnel — that thread can pass through.
It serves as an air vent in addition to letting thread through.
Still, a hole that small doesn't exactly inspire confidence, so I go ahead and extend the tunnel sideways.
After going a long way, I connect it to the surface at a point well outside the city.
I keep the tunnel size just barely large enough for a person to squeeze through.
And with that, my secret underground base is complete.
Now, why would I build something like this? There are several reasons.
The first is for gathering information.
After all the chaos I caused, I have no idea how the war turned out afterward. I think it's important to be collecting intelligence on a regular basis.
In that sense, I decided to set up a base underneath this city I'm already familiar with.
The second reason is to create an escape route from the Demon King.
His Skill that prevents escape apparently has a limited effective range. As long as you don't enter that range, you can get away in advance.
Between my teleportation and marking abilities, I've got a huge advantage.
But if I just run around aimlessly, sooner or later I'm bound to slip up.
So the plan is to set up several of these simple escape bases scattered around and hop between them to stay on the move.
Third.
This is more of a side thing, but it's to keep tabs on the little vampire girl.
A vampire born into the household of a high-ranking official in a country at war.
Just that phrase alone is enough to predict a life full of drama and upheaval, you know?
I wouldn't exactly feel guilty about abandoning her, but having her within arm's reach makes me curious.
Well, if I'm curious, I might as well check in on her while I'm at it — that's the vibe.
Fourth.
This is the most important one.
I take a big, deep breath.
I tighten my core.
I push hard.
It's coming out.
It's not dirty.
It's an egg.
That's right — I'm laying eggs here.
I've already confirmed that in a fight against the Demon King, the eggs I produce will serve as my final failsafe.
If things ever get truly hopeless, as long as I have these eggs, I can come back to life again.
In a sense, they guarantee my immortality even more than an immortality Skill does.
Setting up eggs as a last resort somewhere or other is absolutely essential.
After this, I plan to set up several more bases just like this one and place eggs in every single one of them.
That way, destroying all the eggs would be nearly impossible.
Even if someone used waves of sheer numbers to take out my bases, as long as a single one survives, I can revive.
An immortal main body that also has a resurrection contingency.
And to top it off, if things get dire and escape-prevention isn't active, I can just teleport away.
That's terrifying.
Even I don't know how I'd beat myself.
I thought about it.
And here's what I came up with.
The means of defeating the Demon King? The second the guy in charge of killing the Demon King croaks, it's gone.
No, but seriously, that's completely impossible.
In all seriousness, you'd have to rise to Administrator-class before you'd have any shot at taking him down.
So if I can't kill him, what do I do?
A reversal of thinking.
Simple — I just don't need to kill him.
Instead, I just need to become an existence that can't be killed either.
And so, my Project Immortality was set in motion.
Normally, someone hearing "immortality" would go, "Yeah, right." But for me, it's actually doable.
At this point, I can't really blame the Demon King for calling me a monster.
Anyway, I think I'll deploy about ten eggs per base for now.
If left alone, they'll hatch, so I'll need to periodically collect them and redistribute them.
But even with that hassle, I want to keep a healthy stock of eggs on hand at all times.
They're my last line of defense, after all.
As for the babies that hatch, I can just toss them into the Great Ello Dungeon.
The seniors are progressing through their Evolution nicely, so once they join up, that should work out.
I should also probably store some food while I'm at it.
If they hatch from eggs with no food available, that'd be rough.
Right after revival, your Status drops, and going without food or drink until you recover isn't really viable.
At minimum, I should stockpile enough preserved food to recover to the point where I can use teleportation.
Once that's settled, maybe I'll catch a few water dragons and turn them into dried fish.
A little spoilage wouldn't make them inedible, but if I'm going to eat, I'd rather it taste good.
Alright — once I set up two or three more bases, I'll go on a water dragon hunting spree.
That's the plan.
Hmm, though — when I revive, what will I look like?
A rideable Arachne?
Or maybe I start as a spider-type and gradually grow a humanoid form as I develop?
If I was a mini-Arachne from the start, would the babies be the same?
If so, they'd be a different species from the babies already in the Great Ello Dungeon, right?
That'd be interesting in its own way — I'm kind of looking forward to it.
Of course, I'd rather not have to use revival at all, and it'd be best if these eggs just hatch normally.