So I’m a Spider, So What?, Vol. 10, page 1
Copyright
So I’m a Spider, So What?, Vol. 10
Okina Baba
Translation by Jenny McKeon
Cover art by Tsukasa Kiryu
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
KUMO DESUGA, NANIKA? Vol. 10
©Okina Baba, Tsukasa Kiryu 2019
First published in Japan in 2019 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.
English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through TUTTLE-MORI AGENCY, INC., Tokyo.
English translation © 2020 by Yen Press, LLC
Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Baba, Okina, author. | Kiryu, Tsukasa, illustrator. | McKeon, Jenny, translator.
Title: So I’m a spider, so what? / Okina Baba ; illustration by Tsukasa Kiryu ; translation by Jenny McKeon.
Other titles: Kumo desuga nanika. English | So I am a spider, so what?
Description: First Yen On edition. | New York, NY : Yen On, 2017–
Identifiers: LCCN 2017034911 | ISBN 9780316412896 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316442886 (v. 2 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316442909 (v. 3 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316442916 (v. 4 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975301941 (v. 5 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975301965 (v. 6 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975301989 (v. 7 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975398996 (v. 8 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975310349 (v. 9 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975310363 (v. 10 : pbk.)
Subjects: CYAC: Magic—Fiction. | Spiders—Fiction. | Monsters—Fiction. | Prisons—Fiction. | Escapes—Fiction. | Fantasy.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.O44 So 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017034911
ISBNs: 978-1-9753-1036-3 (paperback)
978-1-9753-1037-0 (ebook)
E3-20201027-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Insert
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue Thus a Goddess Was Born
1 Let’s Set a Goal
2 Let’s Make Preparations
Interlude The Slacker Demon Lord
3 Let’s Take Action
O I’ll Do What I Can
4 Let’s Bring the Pain
Special Chapter The Elf Cackles
5 Let’s Observe a Meeting
Interlude Brothers
Interlude The Elder Demon Admits Defeat
6 Let’s File a Complaint
Interlude The Vampire Servant’s Annihilation
Interlude Asaka and Kunihiko
7 Let’s Make a Threat
Interlude A Teacher Wants Only What Is Best for Her Students
8 Let’s Wrap Things Up
Epilogue Thus an Evil God Is Born
Afterword
Yen Newsletter
THUS A GODDESS WAS BORN
A long, long time ago…
The world was considerably advanced.
There were machines everywhere that made people’s lives easier.
But the people of the past committed a grave error.
They laid their hands on the forbidden power source, MA energy, which they should have never trifled with.
A certain woman explained the dangers to them and urged them to refrain from using it, but they paid her no heed.
After all, MA energy could make their lives even better than they already were.
But all that awaited them was destruction.
By the time they had realized their mistake and tried to right their wrongs, it was all far too late.
The end was fast approaching.
As they wept in despair, the people discovered a single ray of hope.
A means of saving the world by sacrificing a single woman.
That woman was the very person who had warned them of the dangers of MA energy.
As the people changed their tune and begged her to save them, she nonetheless agreed.
And so she became the sacrifice that would keep the world alive.
The people called her a goddess and worshipped her.
LET’S SET A GOAL
The scents of richly steeped tea and sweet confections mingle with the aromas from the flowers that decorate my room.
The smells are all wildly different yet somehow harmonize perfectly.
Even that was intentional, I bet.
The folks who run the duke’s mansion are something else.
Right now, we’re having our customary tea party.
The attendees are Vampy; three of the puppet-spider sisters: Sael, Riel, and Fiel; and me.
Also, Mr. Oni, who’s looking very uncomfortable.
Just us six.
The mansion servants scattered as soon as they were done setting things up, as usual.
Well, I guess I can’t blame them, since we generally give off a Don’t mess with us aura to the staff.
Even if that wasn’t the case, they probably couldn’t bear the awkward atmosphere in here.
Yeah. You could cut the tension with a knife, mostly thanks to Vampy, who’s staring daggers at Mr. Oni.
As she continues to glare at him in silence, Mr. Oni looks increasingly bewildered as to what he should do.
I guess these two are never going to get along at this point.
I mean, they’ve already tried to kill each other twice.
Mr. Oni was in a state of insanity thanks to the ultrapowerful Wrath skill and its terrible side effects.
While he was on a rampage, Vampy and I fought him twice, nearly losing our lives both times.
Huh? You’re saying that in the second fight, I totally owned him with a super-cheap strategy?
Doesn’t ring a bell.
Anyway, Mr. Oni and Vampy have a pretty nasty history.
On top of that, Vampy was beaten to a pulp and nearly died the first time, and I interfered the second time, so there hasn’t been a clear winner.
Although I’m pretty sure our little bloodsucker would’ve lost if I hadn’t intervened.
But that reality probably just makes her hate Mr. Oni even more, since she’s a really sore loser.
Which brings us to the current standoff.
Unreal.
If you’re gonna fight, just do it already.
Just don’t ruin my rest-and-relaxation time!
Why do I have to put up with an atmosphere so depressing that I can barely even taste my tea and pastries?
Now that my stomach capacity has shrunk drastically, I only get so many opportunities to enjoy tasty food!
Ughhh, no waaaay.
Mr. Oni seems to be begging for a lifeline with all the desperate looks he’s giving me, but I ignore them.
Our tea parties are typically held in silence.
And thanks to the merciless teachings of the mansion’s Spartan instructor, we now have impeccable manners, which means our eating and drinking are totally silent, too.
Not a word and not a sound. That’s gotta look weird to anybody but us.
But the puppet spiders and I never really talk, so naturally, Vampy also has nothing to say.
Mr. Oni seems to have picked up on this, so he doesn’t try to make conversation, either.
Is it just peer pressure?
We keep drinking tea and eating pastries in tense silence.
Aren’t tea parties supposed to be a little more lighthearted?
Oh, but then again, apparently noble tea parties often include people scheming, thinly veiled threats, information bartering, and so on. Just thinking about it makes my stomach hurt.
So I guess this equally stomachache-inducing atmosphere might be dead-on for a tea party!
Incidentally, that conclusion’s mostly based on my personal views and assumptions, so don’t go taking my word for it, folks!
Ahhh, that’s the ticket. At times like this, you’ve just gotta avoid reality by getting lost in thought.
Until I figure things out, Mr. Oni will have to suffer a little while longer.
That said, it isn’t as if I’m wrestling with the meaning of life or anything.
I’m just deciding what to do next.
Now, that might be a big deal if I was coming up with some crazy future plan, but it’s nothing that deep.
You know how in Japan, high school second-years get that form to fill out their career prospects and start worrying about their futures? It’s like that.
Once they become third-years, there are college-entrance exams or job hunts or whatever waiting for them, like it or not.
So when second-years start to think about the future, they’ve still got some time to figure things out.
This is basically the same idea. I don’t need to rush to make a decision, but I’m gonna have to face the music eventually.
Maybe I’m biased, but I doubt there are that many second-year high school kids who have a clear vision of their future.
Most of them are probably just thinking, I guess I’ll go to college or whatever and then get a job or whatever, right?
And more often than not, that’s exactly what happens.
It’s just like my current situation.
If things go on the way they are now, my future likely consists of being snatched up by D and turned into some kind of subordinate.
Getting hired straight out of high school! Way to go, me!
Yeah. D seems to really like me, so if I don’t do something soon, she’ll probably slowly but surely turn me into her pet.
It’s not like D has actually said that explicitly, but as far as I can tell, that’s exactly the kind of thing she’d do.
It’s like when you get a job offer thanks to your parents’ connections.
If I stay on this path, I’ll just keep wandering aimlessly through life, get scouted by D, and end up on her payroll.
Is that a bad thing? No, not really.
D is a god who manipulates the incredibly complex magical conjuring known as the “system” without batting an eye, and now that I’ve met her in person, I know for a fact how unfathomable she is.
As I am now—no, no matter how strong I might get going forward—I can’t even imagine a future in which I could possibly beat her.
I don’t know anything about the world of gods, so having one take me under her wing would actually be a pretty sweet situation for me, wouldn’t it?
I am technically a god, after all (LMAO)!
A brand-new god—freshly deified and still wet behind the ears.
And between the system and me swallowing that continent-destroying bomb or whatever, I took a highly irregular route to godhood, so my combat ability is currently weaker than it was before I became a god.
Not that I know what the regular route to godhood is anyway.
But at the very least, I’m guessing it isn’t leveling up a bunch thanks to a gamelike system, then swallowing a continent-destroying bomb.
Anyway.
I’m technically a god now, but I don’t feel like one in the slightest.
The sheer amount of energy swirling inside me is definitely godlike, though.
As you may have gathered, the energy I absorbed from that continent-destroying bomb is…well, enough to destroy a continent, duh.
So for people in the know, or at least deities in the know, it’s easy to tell that I’m a god.
What would happen if I wandered off to some other planet, then?
Well, I’d get found by the gods of that planet.
Seems inevitable?
Now, if they were happy to just peacefully coexist, that’d be fine and dandy.
But from their perspective, I’m essentially a trespasser, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they attacked me without so much as a hello.
I mean, even when I left the Great Elroe Labyrinth, the Demon Lord attacked me right away.
That’s when I learned exactly how dangerous it is to leave your home turf.
Then again, the Demon Lord was already targeting me personally, so it wasn’t really about me leaving the labyrinth, not exactly.
But still, as long as I stay on this planet, no random unknown god is going to come down from on high to attack me for no reason.
This place is under D’s jurisdiction.
The powerful magic of the system covers the surface of the entire planet, and as you know, the party responsible is none other than D.
That means D literally rules the world.
Even when she’s not actually here, trying to mess with this planet would be the same as picking a fight with her.
So as long as I’m on this planet, I’m automatically borrowing D’s might.
You could even say that I’m under her protection.
So taking a step out from that safety zone requires a lot of courage for a newbie god like me.
I don’t know anything about godhood, so if I was to leave D’s sphere of influence, it’d be like an acrobat doing a crazy trapeze trick without a safety net during their first day on the job.
I could die. Easily.
So currently, I have no plans for leaving this planet, aka D’s area of authority.
Honestly, it makes becoming D’s stay-at-home housewife or whatever all the more tempting, in terms of my personal safety anyway.
In fact, I don’t think I have any other options at the moment.
Especially considering how bad it would be if I did anything to get on her bad side.
Considering everything that’s happened so far, I have no idea what D might do to me if I tick her off.
I’m scared that it would be worse than anything I could possibly imagine.
It’s just, I dunno…
That’s also the biggest problem with the idea of working for D.
Like, she definitely has a mean streak.
Take, for instance, the way she toys with a certain person’s heart using the system or all the times she’s maliciously meddled with me.
She doesn’t call herself an evil god for nothing.
And when I actually saw D with my own eyes, she was even scarier than my worst fears somehow.
Would I really be all right living and working under someone so impossible to understand?
…I can’t say that I would.
Huh?
Wait, am I screwed no matter what I do?
…No, of course I’m not. I’m not, okay?
Let’s just go with that. Yeah.
Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that there’s nothing I can do right this instant.
I just have to keep doing whatever I can, here on this planet where I can act freely.
Whether I ultimately let D recruit me in the future, or whether I choose to reject her, I’m in no position to make any decisions right now.
I don’t have enough knowledge or power for that.
Which means my first course of action is to acquire more of both.
So basically, the same thing I’ve been doing all along.
I need to regain the strength I enjoyed back to when I still had the support of the system, or ideally get even better.
On paper, my specs are definitely higher now, so I should be able to do everything I did with the system and more.
Honestly, I’m not too worried about that.
I can tell I’m making progress every day, even if it’s happening super-gradually.
Compared to the overwhelming anxiety I felt when I couldn’t even produce thread, with no idea if I’d ever get my powers back, any progress is way better than none at all.
The more time passes, the stronger I’ll get. That much I know for sure.
But that’s not to say that I’ve got no worries whatsoever.
As long as I stay on this planet, I don’t have to fear any unknown gods attacking me, but there are gods I do know that are kinda worrying and other sketchy characters, too.
The god in question is Güli-güli, and the sketchy character is Potimas.
No matter what I do—or don’t do—these guys will probably keep taking actions that affect the course of the entire world.
Right. Even if I just keep living my life normally, the world won’t stop changing.
Even as a god (LOL), there are still ways I can be killed, and not just by other gods.
That Potimas jerk is well aware of that much.
His machine army plays by its own rules, outside the system.
Even I have the rule-breaking art of teleportation under my belt, but I still can’t let my guard down.
Sure, I can use my teleportation to transport enemies into dangerous areas, warp myself to safety, or do all sorts of other stuff.
That’s why I’m almost 100 percent confident I wouldn’t lose to any enemy who operates within the system at this point.
As long as the Demon Lord doesn’t use her crazy speed to land a hit on me before I can react or something like that.
But the mysterious barrier Potimas uses might even be able to stop me from teleporting.
And the only plays I’ve really got right now are that and my thread.
