Huh!?
Where am I?
Who am I?
Hmm?
No, seriously, where am I?
My memory's cut out all of a sudden. What's going on?
And also, I feel absolutely awful.
I feel like I'm going to throw up, but I can't.
It's like something nasty is sloshing back and forth between my stomach and my throat.
My body's super sluggish too, and my head's pounding.
This is the first time I've felt this rough since becoming a God.
This is bad — first things first, I need to do an emergency check to see if my life's in danger.
My condition is about as terrible as it gets, but there's no threat to my life.
That's a relief, sort of, but since I don't know what caused this state in the first place, I can't relax completely.
I'll pull the memories from my divided clones to figure out what happened while the main body was unconscious.
It seems like things started going wrong right around when I drank the coffee.
Why does this keep happening?
D was the one drinking it, so maybe something suspicious was in it, but looking at the diagnostic memory my clones recorded right after the main body collapsed, there are no traces of any foreign substances entering the body.
So the cause of my poor condition is... caffeine?
Why does this keep happening?
Caffeine — that caffeine, right?
The stuff that's normally in coffee and things like that.
And I'm so knocked out from that that I'm practically incapacitated?
Seriously, why?
Even though I figured out the cause, I'm somehow even more confused. What an incomprehensible situation.
Well, the bottom line is: my body apparently can't handle caffeine constitutionally.
The fact that my clones tried to break down the caffeine and it actually made things worse suggests the roots of this problem run deep.
Caffeine — a substance that even the power of a God can't break down.
How terrifying.
I can't comprehend the mindset of humans who just casually chug this stuff.
I thought I'd built up tolerance to poisons and all manner of things, but I never expected this.
*Haa.* Well, I'll just hang around here and mope until I feel better.
My clones tell me that after the main body collapsed, I was thrown into some kind of pocket dimension, but their quick thinking to recover me deserves a pat on the back. If I'd just been left there defenseless, who knows what could have happened.
Well, even if I'd been attacked or anything else, it probably wouldn't have killed me.
Even killing the main body wouldn't kill *me*.
No, no — I shouldn't get cocky.
After all, I was nearly done in by caffeine.
Caffeine. Just caffeine.
And yet, caffeine.
Now, I don't think I'm so fragile that something inside the System could kill me, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.
It's like an ant versus an elephant.
Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't even be a fight.
But what if the ant crawled inside the elephant's ear?
The elephant might actually die.
The same goes for me.
There's no way I'd win against a normal human under straightforward circumstances.
But that's not quite true, because miracles have a tendency to happen.
I myself have pulled off victories against stronger opponents that way.
Of course, while they were stronger than me, I have the pride of having climbed up through my own power, not through miracles.
But against opponents I was absolutely certain I couldn't beat, I always ran away.
Arava. Mother.
The stronger foes I'd defeated were always within reach.
I never even challenged someone I'd need a miracle to defeat.
This time was the same.
You could say I ran away from D, who I was certain I had zero chance of beating.
By neither rejecting nor accepting the proposal to become D's subordinate — by accepting it.
Past and present, my core philosophy has always been to value life above all.
I've just added a little bit of stubbornness on top of that.
That stubbornness sometimes makes me inflexible when it counts — unable to back down at crucial moments — but that's just how it is.
If I bent on that, I wouldn't be me.
My existence is pretty vague to begin with.
Originally, I was nothing more than a spider.
D whimsically fashioned me into a stand-in for herself.
And because I was made with the assumption that I'd die, my memories and everything else were cobbled together rather carelessly.
Before I realized it, I never even questioned it, but my memories as
I have memories of having parents, yet I can't picture their faces at all.
And despite having such patchwork memories, I never felt any doubt.
D had tampered with things to make sure I wouldn't.
I'm reminded once more that I am, and can only be, *me*.
My memories are fabricated — they offer no ground to stand on.
The Status and Skills I've cultivated in this world are only powers within the framework of the System that D created.
I'd thought that if I could break free of that System, I'd be free.
That I could leave this troublesome world behind, never face danger to my life again, and live out a leisurely existence.
But when I opened the lid, what I found was the same old world with someone always above you — essentially no different from before.
A servant's life, unable to defy the absolute being that is D, forced to watch over how this world turns out.
And on top of all that, the shocking revelation that my very existence is built on a lie.
I can't take it.
The person I thought was me turned out to be a complete stranger with no connection whatsoever to my true self.
And my true self's memories are practically nonexistent.
My existence is like a spider hatching from an egg for the first time in the Great Ello Dungeon.
And even that was all just part of D's palm.
I was born as a disposable pawn that served D's convenience.
But I survived contrary to all her expectations.
And now D finds that amusing, so she's keeping me alive.
None of that is my choice.
It's all about D's convenience.
D's hand is woven into every aspect of my existence.
Since she set her sights on me as her subordinate, an unbreakable bond has been forged whether I like it or not.
From a certain perspective, D might be something like my parent.
But giving birth to something with the assumption that it'll die? That's beyond mere neglect, seriously.
I suppose the current me is something like a rebellious teenager.
I'll do everything in my power to act against D's plans — without crossing the line into making her angry.
Don't call it small.
What I'm doing is a grand enterprise that could reshape the fate of the world, after all.
Ahhh.
Not good.
I think all this negativity is because I feel so terrible.
No "I think" — I'm definitely spiraling downward.
Under normal circumstances, I'd never dwell on stuff like this.
My usual attitude would be: *I'm me, so I'll do whatever I want.* But no matter what, the thought just keeps creeping in.
*What am I even living for?* I know it's naïve of me to think like that.
But what *is* the meaning of life for an existence like mine — one that was born with nothing but death as its premise, everything about it a lie?
I don't know.
I live because I want to live.
That should be enough, but no matter what, I can't shake the thought from my mind.
Maybe becoming humanoid brought my heart closer to being human?
Ugh — enough, enough!
The only reason I'm agonizing over all this is because I feel sick.
Once I recover, I'll be back to my usual self.
So until then, I'll just sulk and sleep.
Yeah. Let's do that.