Chapter 6

A white thread is drawn between my two forelegs.

When I pull on it, it goops and stretches.

Then when I stop pulling, it gradually returns to its original length.

Okay. Nice and rubbery, just like I hoped.

What am I doing, you ask?

Experimenting with my spider thread, of course.

From now on, this stuff is going to be my lifeline, so I figured testing out what it can do should be my first priority.

I started by producing a whole bunch of it, experimenting with whether I could control the thickness, stickiness, strength, and elasticity.

Adjusting the thickness was easy enough.

I couldn’t quite make it invisibly thin, of course, but I could get it about as fine as a strand of hair.

In the darkness of this dungeon, that should be really hard to spot.

But when I followed up with a strength test, I discovered that the thinner I made the thread, the more easily it broke.

Well, nothing I can do about that. If you think about it, skinnier would obviously mean more fragile.

Conversely, thickening the thread increases its durability.

The fattest strand I can currently create is a little less than an inch around. Not that different from your average rope, I guess.

Of course, that’s only the maximum for a single raw string. If I really want to make a thicker one, I can just bundle together a bunch of them. Sounds like a lot of work, though.

To be honest, I wish I hadn’t experimented with the stickiness.

It’s easy to assume that all spider threads adhere to everything, but in fact, some aren’t sticky at all.

And apparently, the reason spiders don’t get caught on their own webs is due to their skillful use of these nonstick threads. I realized this when my instincts kicked in as I built my home.

So I decided to experiment to gain a deeper understanding of it, but instead I just tangled up my whole body.

Well…yeah.

Since you have to make proper use of the sticky and nonsticky fibers, it stands to reason that if you don’t, you’ll just get caught in your own threads.

And that’s how I ended up stuck in my own damn spiderweb like an idiot.

That freaked me out. But seriously, one more wrong move and I might’ve been permanently caught in my own trap and died the stupidest death possible.

Luckily, by some miracle, I discovered I could still alter the properties of a thread to a certain extent as long as it was still connected to my butt. After that, I tested whether this could also apply to detached threads and found it could, if only a little bit. I guess that’s a fantasy world for you.

I took a moment to regroup, then started testing the strength.

I already knew that thinner thread was weaker and thicker was stronger, but I wasn’t able to figure out the greatest force it could withstand.

Why, you ask? Because when I produced a maximum-strength thread, I failed to cut through it no matter how hard I tried. Alarmingly enough, I couldn’t even chew through it with my fangs.

If I got caught in a web like this, no way could I just slip out.

Even so, I’m sure there could be other, more powerful monsters able to slice right through it, so I have to be careful not to overestimate its strength.

And so, the final experiment, elasticity, has produced the thread that I’m currently manipulating with my clawed legs.

Okay.

This rubbery thread could certainly come in handy. If I fasten a stone or something to it, I could probably use it as a simple sling.

There’ll definitely be other practical uses for it, too.

Guess my experiment yielded some satisfactory results after all.

✦ ✦ ✦

However, there is one problem that I can’t ignore much longer—spinning all that thread seems to have drained my energy.

In other words, I’m extremely hungry.

I’ve been wanting food for a long time, but now it feels like my life might be in danger.

Strangely, I’m not particularly thirsty, but the degree of hunger I’m experiencing is undeniably way worse than usual.

At this rate, I’ll starve to death.

I won’t even live to see the sunrise tomorrow. Although, I guess I wouldn’t see that anyway, since I’m in a cave.

If I want to avoid that fate, I have to eat something… And all I have on hand is the thing I brought along as backup…

Should I eat that?

Well, my only other option at the moment is dying, so…

If I’m going to live in a dungeon, I have to get used to eating monsters raw, anyway.

All right. Time to suck it up.

Eating my sibling’s corpse as my first meal after being born seems kinda irredeemably immoral, but I don’t have much of a choice.

Okay, here goes.

Whoa, this is totally gross. So bitter. But I force it down anyway.

I can’t exactly afford to turn up my nose at it just because I don’t like the taste.

So I press on and finish eating my sibling’s carcass.

This is enough to fill my stomach, so I don’t have to worry about starvation for a while.

Whew. Thanks for the meal, I guess.

✦ ✦ ✦

Uh, what?

It’s the same voice I heard back when I gained the Appraisal skill.

Let’s just call this announcer the “Divine Voice” for now.

So what’s up with this “title” business?

Is this what I think it is? The kind of achievement reward you get after meeting certain conditions?

Probably, but either way, the one I just got is kinda bizarre and disgraceful…

I mean, just the phrase “Kin Eater” sounds terrible!

Other people can’t see this, right? No, I bet they could if their Appraisal skill was high enough.

Ugh…

If someone sees that, they’re gonna judge me so hard.

Although, seeing as I’m a monster and all, they’re bound to dislike me whether or not they can see my title.

But, aside from the unfortunate wording, this is kind of a big deal, isn’t it?

I mean, I even gained two skills at once.

So if you get a title, you can get a skill without using any points. Yeah, this is huge.

I’d assumed there was no way for me to acquire new skills with 0 skill points, so this discovery of other methods is pretty great.

So, my newly acquired skills are Taboo and Heretic Magic.

“Taboo” is a cool-sounding name, but I have no idea what it’ll actually do. I can’t even come up with any wild guesses.

Uh, excuse me, could I get an explanation, please? I can’t use this if I don’t know what effect it has.

Wait… By that logic, I won’t be able to use Heretic Magic, either.

What now? Am I supposed to utter the spell or something? Wait, I’m a spider, so I can’t even say anything…

All I can produce is some kind of…croak? More like a teeth-grinding sound, really…

Well, even if I could talk, it’s not like I know any spells, so I’m out of luck either way.

Just for fun, I try thinking [Heretic Magic] really hard.

………Yeah, nothing’s happening. Can’t use that.

I was excited about the chance to cast some real fantasy magic, aside from the worrying implications of the “Heretic” part, but this sure nips that excitement in the bud.

Maybe it isn’t possible to use magic skills right after getting them?

Is it just because I have no idea how, or do I have to study magic first or something?

I don’t even know the basics, here.

Huh?

I thought I’d struck gold getting these skills and the title, but what’s the point if I can’t use it?

Is Kin Eater totally useless or what?

Ahh, now that I think about it…if all you have to do to get the Kin Eater title is make a meal of your own kind, tons of my spider siblings probably have it, too.

It doesn’t change the fact that humans can easily kill us, then.

In other words, gaining the Kin Eater title had exactly zero effect on my battle capabilities.

So it’s ACTUALLY useless.

I see. No wonder the condition was so easy to meet. So the easier the title is to acquire, the lower its effect, basically.

Still, it’s good I learned about the existence of titles at all.

If I can score a bunch more, maybe I’ll be able to efficiently build up some skills. Maybe I should try a few things to see if I can rack up a couple more.

Although I don’t know what kinds of titles are out there…

And I don’t have any tools or anything, so there’s only so much I can do.

Maybe if I dance for a while, I’ll get a “Dancer” title or something?

Let me try for a second.

Within a few moments, a huge tremor runs through the thread I’m standing on and knocks me flat on my face.

Ouch. That hurt.

I didn’t get a title for my efforts, either. Just a painful new memory. So much for that.