I'm hiding behind a rock, staying perfectly still.
『Elrodaznatch LV23 Status HP: 786/818 (green) MP: 335/335 (blue) SP: 779/779 (yellow) : 723/781 (red) Appraisal of status failed』
It's slowly moving along, just a little ways from my rock.
What is that thing?
How should I put it... a big fish with arms and legs? Hmm, that's not quite right.
Some kind of hard-to-describe mysterious creature.
Well, what the mysterious creature actually is doesn't really matter all that much.
Okay, it does matter. Kind of.
If it finds me, I'm screwed.
But more important than that!
Yes! Appraisal came through for me again!
I can see the enemy's status!
Sure, I can only see HP, MP, and SP, but isn't that still awesome?
The success rate isn't even that high—maybe one out of every three or four attempts—but even knowing just a partial look at an opponent's status is huge, right?
Just having a rough idea of HP, MP, and SP tells me roughly how strong something is.
Obviously, I should avoid picking fights with things whose numbers are way out of my league.
Tactics, baby. Life comes first.
Same goes for that mystery creature that's passing by right now—definitely not engaging that one.
The numbers are way too high.
What, 818 HP?
That thing could kill me twenty times over and still have HP to spare?
Isn't that inflated way too much?
And if that dopey-looking creature has stats like that, then something like an Earth Dragon has gotta have four-digit HP, right?
Nope. No way.
One thing I've figured out over the past few days: anything above Level 10 is seriously strong.
I think that means they're what you'd call high-level Monsters—the ones that don't evolve even past Level 10.
So even for anything below Level 10, if there was a member of the same species I've seen past Level 10 before, the general rule is to run.
Conversely, if you search everywhere and can't find anyone of a species that's broken Level 10, they're usually pretty weak.
The real shock, though, was that even the trash mobs I've been hunting regularly have way better stats than me.
Some of them had three-digit HP.
Seriously? You were that strong this whole time? That kind of thing.
No wonder I couldn't win in a straight-up fight.
I'm putting everything on ambush tactics.
That's the moment I made up my mind.
But, thinking about it... I've been calling them trash mobs, but they're actually above me, aren't they?
And Spider Silk can take those guys out without a problem—so it's a pretty ridiculously strong Skill, isn't it?
Without it, I wouldn't be alive right now.
Status is important, but Skills matter too.
Which means I'd really like to figure out what Skills my opponents have as soon as possible.
If I knew their Skills too, I'd have a massive advantage in combat.
As for me, if you take away my Skills, all I've got is being fast.
If Spider Silk gets countered with fire, or Poison Fang gets neutralized by an antidote, I'm done for.
Yikes.
Man, getting your Skills countered is terrifying.
If someone came that prepared, I'd be dead for sure!
Well, I doubt Monsters have that kind of cunning, though.
That's probably exactly why I, a pathetic little spider, have managed to survive.
Cunning really does matter, doesn't it?
Humans' greatest weapon for a reason.
Hmm.
Humans, huh.
I wonder how far humans have explored in this Dungeon?
The last time I actually saw humans was when my nest got burned down.
There were still human footprints in that area, but after I started exploring the maze zone, I barely saw any.
It's supposed to be the world's greatest labyrinth, so maybe exploration hasn't actually progressed that far?
Come to think of it, it's fine for me since I eat Monsters, but humans need to carry food, don't they?
If you want to explore a labyrinth this massive, you'd have to haul an enormous amount of food with you.
That alone is a huge amount of effort, and on top of that, you'd have to fight Monsters too.
If you had some convenient Skill or magic like an Item Box—something that lets you store things in an extra-dimensional space—that would change things a lot. But even then, it'd still be brutal.
I think humans can probably only explore a limited portion of the Upper Layer.
That would explain why the footprints disappeared partway through.
Maybe the point where the footprints stopped was the farthest humans have reached?
Huh?
But wait a second.
Then does that mean the first footprints I ever found were from someone who made it into the area where the giant spider and those scary-looking Monsters were?
Wait, humans can explore that area?
My Mother lives there, though?
No way they actually took her down?
No way.
That thing, if my assessment is right, is on par with an Earth Dragon—maybe even tougher.
They beat that? No chance.
Unless... how strong are humans?
That's a scary thought.
If humans really are strong enough to take down My Mother, then forget about ever leaving this Dungeon.
I wouldn't stand a chance of surviving out there, no matter what I did.
Living inside this Dungeon would be way better.
For now, my goal is to reach the Upper Layer.
Once I get there, I'll look for somewhere humans don't go.
Actually, before that, should I risk it and try to Appraise a human's status?
Well, no need to rush.
I don't even know if I'll make it to the Upper Layer yet.