'Ohhh~ So you wanted to roast it first and then let me eat it! I knew it! There's no way someone could be so bad that they'd bully a cute spider like me~ You really are a good person~'
Spider Girl happily shook her head and rubbed it against his calf. Looking at the frog leg that was charred on the outside, she shouted excitedly, 'Crispy outside, tender inside! Then I'm digging in!'
Right after that cheer, she bit into the frog leg.
The next moment... Spider Girl paid the price for her innocence.
With that bite, she was forced to realize that her thinking had been far too shallow, and that she knew far too little about the wickedness of humans.
The carbonized frog meat, combined with what seemed like cooked blood and toxins, produced a flavor that developed in an extremely strange direction. It tasted unbelievably awful.
At first, Spider Girl instinctively tried to chew it carefully. Then that horrifying flavor exploded in her mouth. She wanted nothing more than to slap her naive self for blindly trusting a wicked human.
"Gwah!", After only one bite and a single chew, the taste, which was ridiculously different from the cooked food she had imagined, made Spider Girl spit it out immediately. With tears in her eyes, she raised her head and glared at him while waving her arms (front legs).
'Did you do that on purpose? Are you trying to murder a spider? I'm really going to die from disgust! A spider life is actually at stake here!'
".What's with that? You're just a spider, yet you're this picky?", Looking at the spider's vivid display of vomiting, Ash was somewhat surprised.
After all, in his impression, monsters weren't usually this particular about food.
'Give me fire! I'll do it myself,' Spider Girl waved her front legs, trying to get her meaning across to Ash. Her movements were full of urgency and anger.
However... Ash only looked at her actions with confusion.
"Why are you waving your claws at me?"
'Fire! Give me fire!'
"Are you protesting? Sorry, but I don't accept complaints," Ash quietly pushed the spider's claws back down.
That made Spider Girl so angry that her mouth twisted.
As soon as Ash stood up, she jumped around on the ground, chirping nonstop.
She looked like a child whose toy had been taken away.
She ran circles around Ash, thinking of ways to get fire from this hateful human.
Suddenly, Spider Girl's eyes lit up. She spotted a rock not far away.
She quickly crawled over, wrapped it in spider silk, dragged it in front of Ash, then continuously swung it around and scraped it against the ground to create sparks. She pointed at the sparks and then pointed at herself.
After all that effort, Ash finally understood what she wanted and cautiously summoned flames again.
The flames danced and flickered in his palm like a blooming flower.
The moment Spider Girl saw it, her eyes brightened. Excitedly, she picked up the frog leg and carefully roasted it over the fire.
But when it was almost done and she took a bite, after the frog's toxins had been roasted, who knew whether those strange compounds were still poisonous. However, the resulting flavor truly couldn't be described with ordinary words.
Although it tasted a little better than Ash's version, it was still worse than eating it raw. The strange taste spread through her mouth and nearly made Spider Girl throw up again.
However, this attempt suddenly reminded Spider Girl about skinning it.
After forcing herself to swallow, she hurriedly used her sharp fangs to bite off the frog's blue-green skin and tried roasting the meat again.
She wasn't sure whether the meat was still poisonous after being cooked, but she couldn't worry about that now. She had already eaten plenty of it anyway. All she could think about was how much she wanted to taste cooked food.
When the roasted, skinless frog meat entered her mouth again, Spider Girl's eyes opened wide. A taste she had never experienced before burst across her tongue.
'Finally... I finally got to eat cooked food that's actually edible! There's still some strange sourness! I don't really understand it, but cooked food just tastes different! If you ask me how delicious it is, I definitely can't call it delicious! But compared to all that weird stuff, it's so good that I can't help crying.'
Spider Girl chirped while emotionally wiping away tears that didn't exist.
Although he still couldn't understand her, judging from her appearance, Ash roughly guessed that, 'It is... pretty good?'
So he silently tore off a piece and took a bite himself.
"It does taste somewhat like cooked meat now, but it's still very bitter, and very sour. Is it because of the toxins? Or is the meat itself just not very good?"
It was probably edible now, but Ash still couldn't stop frowning. Looking at Spider Girl happily jumping around again, he felt a strange sense of defeat.
'The meat I roasted was actually worse than meat roasted by a monster?', He found that hard to accept. Then again, comparing cooking skills with a monster didn't seem meaningful.
"Right, it's like comparing a person to a dog. That's just putting yourself down," He tried to comfort himself, but...
Thinking about it more carefully, didn't that mean he couldn't even beat a dog?
"Maybe I should just kill the spider and silence the witness? As long as I don't tell anyone and it dies, nobody will know I lost to a spider at cooking."
Looking at the spider stuffing itself with food, Ash gradually developed an evil thought after a brief period of disappointment and frustration.
But seeing how happy the spider was, his conscience eventually defeated his pride, forcing him to give up on doing something so inhumane to a spider.
As for Spider Girl...
'This is amazing! This person! Humans really are kind after all! I've decided! From now on, I'll protect you! Gahahaha!'
The cheerful Spider Girl had no idea that she had just brushed past death. She excitedly slapped his foot with her spider claw and acted like a boss.
'Being taken care of by this beautiful young lady! You should be thrilled!'
As for Ash...
'Yeah, this spider is actually pretty interesting. Keeping it as a pet doesn't sound bad. It's ugly, sure... but it's kind of fun,' Stroking his chin as he stared at the spider, Ash came up with a thought similar to Spider Girl's.
However... it was only an optimistic thought, because...
'It's all that damn goddess's fault. Right now I should be relaxing in a palace, petting cute girls, teasing pretty girls, and bullying that elf. Why is there only a strange big-butt spider next to me now...'
After feeling optimistic for a moment, he squatted back down, rubbed the spider's head, sighed, and became depressed again.
"Ah!"
Spider Girl spoke animatedly, as if she had already seen their wonderful future together.
Her lively and strange behavior made Ash laugh despite himself. The frustration in his heart eased somewhat, and he couldn't help thinking, 'This pet really does feel like a pet.'
Though he had never actually kept a pet before.
———
The two had just settled their relationship, each recognizing the other as a pet and subordinate.
After finishing the roasted frog, Spider Girl happily went out to hunt for food once again.
Ash, meanwhile, silently emerged from underground and arrived at the fortress above.
Using High-Speed Movement, he instantly appeared behind a mage, or rather, in this world, someone called a mage. Like a gust of wind, he brushed past the back of the man's head and instantly read his memories.
He proceeded to examine the memories of multiple mages in sequence. Moving through the fortress as though nobody could stop him, he found the highest-ranking commander and easily stole his memories as well.
Then, as if he had never been there, he quietly returned underground. Because... he couldn't find any valuable information on the surface.
Judging from those humans' memories, the strongest human mage was so weak that he could kill them with a flick of his finger. Even the young Frieren was far stronger than them. To these people, even ordinary attack magic was considered something extraordinary.
The magic power in this world fit the traditional definition of magic power more closely. It couldn't be condensed around the body like his or Solitar's, becoming an iron wall capable of blocking all kinds of magical and physical attacks.
Of course, it was also possible that the mages in this world were simply weak, or that the strongest human mages known to these people were still weak.
Still, he learned that he was currently inside the world's largest underground labyrinth connecting the Daztrudia Continent and the Kasangara Continent, the Great Elroe Labyrinth.
Aside from this exit, there apparently weren't any other escape routes.
At least, those people didn't know of any.
The main region of the labyrinth lay beneath the ocean. No wonder even his magic detection couldn't fully cover the entire place.
Furthermore, everyone in this world possessed a system. As long as one killed people or monsters, basically any form of killing, one could gain experience points. Repeating actions increased proficiency, allowing people to develop strange skills.
The lower levels of the Great Elroe Labyrinth were completely inaccessible to humans and served as a nest for all kinds of powerful monsters.
In the past, adventurers had once descended through a giant vertical shaft known as the Great Pit to investigate.
Almost all of them were wiped out.
The only information brought back was that terrifying monsters existed everywhere below.
They were basically creatures humans couldn't defeat, so humanity completely abandoned any thoughts of going down there.
"And the demon race in this world is pretty weak and short-lived too. They only live two or three times longer than humans. Even the elves only live about ten times longer than humans. Isn't that way too short?"
Meanwhile, monsters were vastly stronger than these intelligent races.
The difference in power wasn't even on the same level.
It was practically a different world altogether.
Then why were they willing to remain underground?
As for that question, which Ash couldn't stop thinking about, neither the mages nor the generals could provide an answer.
"Forget it. If I can't figure it out, I'll leave it for now."
While chewing military rations he had taken from the camp, he headed deeper underground and couldn't help commenting, "Still, that system really does feel like the whole world is encouraging people to fight. You get stronger just by killing people, and everyone has access to it. If I could connect to this system too—"
[Current Skill Points: No Available Skill Points]
"Huh? What? Seriously? I was just talking, and I actually got it? Could it be... someone's watching me?"
A voice that sounded both mechanical and like a public broadcast suddenly echoed in his mind.
Ash jumped and instinctively looked around, but he couldn't sense anyone's presence.
Naturally, the voice spoke the common language of this world rather than the language of his previous world. He could understand it thanks to reading those people's memories earlier.
Although the process was basically like watching movies, enough volume made learning a language easy.
After searching around and using magic detection without finding the source of the voice, Ash eventually stopped caring and quietly continued deeper into the labyrinth, planning to find some monsters and see whether he could level up.
'The system seems suspicious, but, it would be a waste not to use something useful.'
There's a saying that a gentleman doesn't eat food thrown at him in charity, but a true man knows how to adapt to circumstances and bend when necessary.
Though he wasn't exactly that upright to begin with.
———
When returning to the labyrinth, Ash no longer used High-Speed Movement to avoid monsters.
He openly appeared within their line of sight, as though deliberately provoking them.
Before long, three ferocious-looking monsters slowly approached him.
They resembled small dinosaurs.
Inside their enormous mouths were rows upon rows of sharp fangs. Just looking at them was enough to make people uncomfortable.
Even more alarming was their blue skin, which made it obvious that they were highly poisonous creatures.
And when Ash subconsciously reached out, intending to touch one, the little dinosaur immediately bit his hand.
It let out deep, vicious growls and continuously shook its head, seemingly trying to tear his arm off through sheer force.
But strangely, it couldn't bite through at all.
Even the shaking only moved its own head.
Although the damage was negligible and the monster's fangs failed to leave even the slightest mark on his skin, Ash still felt somewhat insulted. He let out a sigh and instantly released a burst of repulsive force.
The force spread outward from him.
The dinosaur monster biting him took the full impact first.
Under that terrifying power, its mouth was torn apart like paper.
Blood gushed out.
Its head was ripped into two halves by an invisible hand, spraying blood and brain matter everywhere.
Its originally powerful body, along with its two companions, was flung away like feathers.
They slammed into nearby stone walls and turned into piles of meat.
Their pink, strange blood burst in every direction like a gruesome fountain, dyeing the surroundings in bizarre colors.
"As expected from those people's memories. That spider is unusual. These monsters really do bite people," Ash frowned slightly and muttered.
At that moment, a cold mechanical voice suddenly sounded in his mind: [Experience points have reached the required amount. Levelled up to Level 1]
"I was Level 0? Does this count as starting a new character? But my stats...", Ash thought to himself, finding the information both novel and confusing.
The mechanical voice sounded again.
[Current skill points: 100. You may spend 100 skill points to acquire Appraisal: Level 1. Acquire?]
"This thing is a lot smarter than my original system. Of course I'll get it," A hint of delight appeared in Ash's eyes as he immediately made his decision.
[Successfully acquired Appraisal: Level 1. Remaining skill points: 0.]
As the mechanical voice finished speaking, a stream of information flooded into his mind.
Following the usage methods he had seen in those memories, Ash tried appraising himself.
However...
[Appraisal failed.]
"Wow! So it's even worse than my original system?"
The moment he saw the words appear before him, Ash instantly became disappointed in the system.
It seemed to be another useless system that got his hopes up for nothing.
He almost wanted to curse.
Still, he quickly calmed down.
After all, he was only Level 1 right now.
Maybe the system's functions would improve and become useful as his level increased.
Then he thought about it again.
Everyone in this world possessed a system.
'If it is truly some unbelievably powerful cheat ability, then why are humans in this world so weak?'
'Why are they so much weaker than the humans and demons who became powerful through their own training?'
Thinking that, Ash sighed helplessly.
He decided to temporarily stop worrying about the system and not dwell on such irritating matters.
Quietly turning around, he continued toward the lower levels.
The monsters along the way, which originally viewed him as food, barely managed to approach him before being pinned to the ground by an invisible force.
It was as though an unseen mountain had crashed down on them.
Immediately afterward, their bodies were crushed into meat paste as easily as tofu.
Blood and organs flew everywhere.
Meanwhile, the mechanical voice constantly rang in his ears, providing useless notifications.
The voices even overlapped to the point where he could barely hear them clearly.
Still, he could make out some strange proficiency increases.
That gave him a bit of hope.
He repeatedly used Appraisal, and before long, it actually leveled up.
He also discovered that Appraisal consumed no magic power at all.
The only downside was that large amounts of useless information such as [Wall], [Floor], [Frog], and [Spider] flowed into his mind, enough to make ordinary people dizzy.
But for him, it wasn't a problem at all.
No matter how much he used it, he felt perfectly refreshed.
Although he still couldn't appraise himself after reaching Level 2, appraising a stone wall changed its result from [Wall] to [Labyrinth Wall].
"It feels like leveling up doesn't mean much. There's basically no difference between Level 1 and Level 2," Ash muttered with a dark expression, feeling as though he was being toyed with.
But for now... he still approached things with the mindset of a beginner. As he headed deeper into the labyrinth, he leveled up along the way, working hard to leave his newbie status behind.