Kumo desu ga, Nani ka? 263

Ever woken up in a strange place feeling like shit and then started pondering where it all went wrong? Well, some of us have a lot to think about!

You might want to re-read chapter 218 again since it’s (indirectly) referenced a lot.

263 – I couldn’t win against caffeine

Ahh!? Where is this? Who am I?

Hrm? No, seriously, where is this? There’s this rather sudden break in my memory though, so what happened? Or rather, I feel absolutely horrible. I feel like I’m going to vomit, yet I can’t. It’s like, between my stomach and my mouth is the origin of the horrible feelings that are swirling around, coming and going. My body also seems quite sluggish, and I’ve got this pounding headache as well. Since becoming a god this is the first time that my physical condition has gotten this bad.

This is dangerous, so for now I perform an emergency check on whether there’s any risk to my life. While my physical condition has never been worse, my life is not at risk. Although that does bring a sense of relief, since I don’t know what actually caused this condition, I can’t become truly relived. I download the memories from my clones, attempting to search for the gaps in the main body’s memory to figure out what happened.

It appears, that it was almost immediately after I drank coffee that I went strange. Da heck? Since it’s something that D drank it’s possible that there was something dubious in it. But when I check the diagnostics information from when the main body collapsed and the clones attempted to performed recovery, there’s no real trace of any strange substances within my body. The cause of my bad condition is… caffeine?

Da heck? Caffeine is, that caffeine, right? Something that is normally contained within coffee and similar. This is what caused my condition to become so bad that I collapsed in a heap? Eh, seriously, why?

Though I understand the cause, the uncertain situation has become even more confusing. For now, what I know is that it appears that my constitution cannot handle caffeine. When my clones attempted to decompose the caffeine, their condition became bad instead, so it can be considered to be quite fundamental. The substance that cannot even be decomposed with the power of god – caffeine. How terrifying. I don’t understand humans who just chug this stuff down. I had thought I had gotten used to eating poison, but there was still an unexpected pitfall out there.

Siiigh. For now, I’ll laze around here until my physical condition improves. Though the clones had been configured so that if the main body collapses it’ll be tossed into another dimension after a while, their quick judgement was excellent work. If my body had been left defenceless there like that, who knows just what would have happened to it. Well, even if it was attacked or something, that probably wouldn’t lead to a situation where I would die though. Even if my main body was killed, I wouldn’t actually die.

No, self-conceit is no good. After all, mere caffeine was almost enough to kill me even. Mere caffeine. Plain ordinary caffeine.

In practice, I’m not so fragile that it’s possible for someone within the System to be able to kill me, is what I think, but it’s not absolutely the case that I can’t be killed. It’s kinda like a battle between an ant and an elephant. If they fight normally, then there wouldn’t be any contest. However, what if the ant got into the elephant’s ear? Maybe it’d then be possible that the elephant could die.

I can say that from experience. If an ordinary human fights me normally there’s no reason why they could win. There’s none, but, occasionally those things called miracles do happen. That is how I myself have repeatedly beaten higher ranked opponents after all.

Of course, even if they’re higher ranked, rather than it being due to a miracle, I take pride in winning through with my own power. However, I always ran away from opponents I thought that I could never beat. Like Alaba, like Mother. The higher ranked opponents that I beat, were solely limited to those within touching distance. I never even challenged an opponent I couldn’t beat without wishing for a miracle in the first place.

That is how things are now. Having absolutely no chance of winning, it could be said that I ran away from D. By the action of accepting rather than rejecting D’s proposal to become her kin.

My basic policy has always been to give top priority to survival. However, there is a certain little obstinacy attached to that. Due to that obstinacy there is an essential matter over which I am unwilling to negotiate, though I guess that’s unavoidable. Since if I yield on that then I wouldn’t be me anymore.

My very existence itself, is considerably vague. Originally I was an ordinary spider. Due to D’s whim, that then became an existence prepared as a scapegoat for her. Furthermore, under the assumption that I would die, my memory and everything were made without consideration for the details. Although it wasn’t to the extent that I would be conscious of such doubts, my memories of Wakaba Hiiro are flawed you know. Even though I believed that I had parents, I can’t recall their faces at all, for example. But despite having such flawed memories, I didn’t feel any doubt. Because D manipulated things so that I wouldn’t feel that way.

To say it again, I genuinely feel that I can only be myself. My past memories are a sham, and cannot serve as a foundation for myself. Even the status values and skills that I cultivated within this world, are merely power within the framework of the System created by D’s hand.

Once I was able to free myself from that System, I had thought that I would be able to become free. Liberated from a troublesome world, with my life no longer at constant risk, I had believed that I would be able to live a quiet and comfortable life. Looking at the results, as usual there is always someone better than you, and at the end of the day all that’s happened is that I have this rather unchanging world. Unable to defy the absolute being known as D, I’m living the life of a gopher who has to watch over the fate of this world. On top of that, the foundation of my own existence was overturned, delivering the shocking truth.

I can’t take it any more. The human who I had thought that I was, actually was a complete stranger with absolutely no relation to the original me after all. On top of that, my original memory is basically equivalent to nothing. The existence known as me, might as well have been born in the place known as the Elro Great Labyrinth, raising a baby’s first cry for the first time after breaking open its eggshell, basically. That’s just how much I am in the palm of D’s hand.

I was born to be a convenient sacrificial pawn for D. However, I betrayed that assumption and survived. Having amused D, this time I’m being allowed to live. There’s no place for my own desires. It’s all for D’s convenience.

Just about everything about the existence known as me, is connected with D. Having her eye on me for becoming her kin, just means that the connection between us can now never be broken no matter how I try. Looking at it that way, maybe D is basically like my parent. However, being born under the assumption that I would die, that’s way beyond mere child neglect there buddy.

Perhaps when all is said and done, I’m currently like a child in a rebellious phase huh. While keeping it below the level where it could offend D, I’ll take the maximum possible actions that go counter to her expectations. I don’t want to be called petty though. What I’m doing is accompanying the greatest individual project in the whole world you know.

Ahh! This ain’t good. I suspect that because I feel bad that my thoughts are going in a negative direction. Well, rather than suspect, they’ve completely declining.

Normally I’d never be thinking such things. Normally I’d obviously be like “I am what I am so I’ll do whatever I want!”

However, no matter what, I just end up having such thoughts. Like, “for what reason I am living I wonder”.

Even if I say so for myself, I think I’m saying some pretty immature stuff. I think so, but having been created under the assumption that I would die and being an existence where everything was fabricated I do wonder what’s the meaning of my life? I just don’t know. I live because I want to live. I think that’s enough, but on the other hand that thought just won’t go away from my mind at all. Having gained a human shape, has my heart also become closer to being human maybe?

Argh, stop stop! I’m definitely thinking all these wishy-washy things because my physical condition is bad. When my physical condition returns I’ll return back to normal. So until then I’ll just go to bed in a huff. Yeah, let’s do that.

Translation notes:

“Even though I believed that I had parents” – perhaps an indirect reference to chapter 7.