Hey guys, second chapter.
Response to reviews:
Well for once, please read what I have to say in my author notes before saying giving a negative review. I don't mind criticism, but criticism is only fine if it actually means something. For once, the Ainz in this story is not the canon Ainz (Read the part one of The Abyss series if you want know the backstory of this Ainz) and as for lack of Ainz POV, and rushing of the story, this is simply because I wished to show Kumoko's reaction to Ainz before jumping into details, and the fact that I like to make the first chapter of long stories as a teaser, I had plans to write Ainz POV in the last chapter, but I didn't because I don't like to write long chapters only to go on hiatus for weeks. I plan on to update every week, unless a serious problem comes up. And like I said before, the first chapter was just a teaser to hold you guys in suspense at what Ainz was thinking doing what he did. And starting with Ainz's POV would have ruined the comedy of this chapter.
And I have already explained everything about Ainz in my prequel to this story, so starting this story with the explanation would be a waste of time. This is why I clearly stated in the author notes of the previous chapter that any new reader should read the prequel before reading this.
And I offer my thanks to Mr LinkMorali and Mr Zipher for responding to the ones criticising me without reading my author notes, I really it appreciate my friends. And to answer your question about the ring around Ainz's neck, well it was just a term I used to describe the magic item he wears around his neck alongside his other divine class equipment.
And about Kumoko appearing OC, well I kind of did that on purpose, I mean I have read all of the webnovel, manga and I am also up to date with anime, and I also have all the volumes of the light novel, which I am waiting for the anime to finish before reading, so you could say I am obsessed with Kumo desu ga nani ka? And I think that how I portrayed kumo was how she would behave if she has been overwhelmed suddenly with everything, first dieing and then meeting a entity who claimed to be above the Admins, alongside the fear and gratitude she felt for that one entity, I think this is how she will behave.
And a minor spoiler, I intend for Kumoko to be eventually like Albedo to Ainz, without all the 'madly in love' part, just with loyalty beyond everything, so while she will be in character with others, she might appear out of character with Ainz sometimes, though she will not be a copy of Albedo, of course, she is a very different character so she will be alot more different. And this will only happen eventually, Shiro does not have enough level of loyalty yet to be called Albedo level. And there will be as much romance as Overlord does, it will only exist for comedy and Ainz will never get into a relationship.
Anyway, the reason my chapters are so small, is because I plan on to update quickly. Another thing is, while I was planning to release The Abyss: Multi world edition on saturday, I have now decided against it, as of now the date is unknown, because the story of Multi-world takes place after A Spider, so I don't want to give out too many spoilers about this story.
And the update days of my story have changed, check my story log for more information.
Disclaimer: I don't own Kumo desu ga nani ka? or Overlord.
The Abyss: A Spider?
Chapter 2
'Isn't this the fifth universe I am going to visit?'
These were the thought of one Momonga, or as he called himself for now, Ainz Ooal Gown.
It has been quite some time since he ascended, and he has even visited several universes by now, four if he doesn't count this one.
'Well, the others were pretty disappointing, I hope this one is not the same.'
The other universes he visited didn't have anything much which would interest him, namely they didn't stir the collector in him. (The collector which was still very prominent despite the fact that he could create anything now. Or maybe it was because he can create anything, he will consider things not created by himself very precious.)
But he had high hope for this one, because, unlike the other godless universes, this one had gods who called themselves administrators.
Like in all the other worlds he had visited before he sent out a summon created by himself, which he called True Hanzos.
True Hanzos were figures made of pure darkness with glowing red eyes and dressed in a dark ninja attire.
They were modified versions of YGGDRASIL monsters 'Hanzos'. The difference between YGGDRASIL Hanzos and the True Hanzos is that, the latter is much, much better. True Hanzos were summoned using 30th tier of magic, and despite being a pure stealth and interrogation type monster their base stats were even greater than that of YGGDRASIL's world enemies. And they had the better stealth skills than even best stealth type monsters of YGGDRASIL.
Well, back on the topic, he had sent several of them to all more noticeable the planets present on this universe, and he had found out quite alot of thing about this world's Gods or Admins.
There were three of them(Admins) that caught his eyes, the first one was a dragon, with more defence than any even world enemy found in the YGGDRASIL, the second was a goddess with insane combat stats so much that she could be called the ultimate cheat code by both this world and YGGDRASIL, and lastly the one who caught his eyes the most was another goddess, however, as high as it was, it was not her power that caught his attention, it was her personality and actions in the past, she was, as he had found out by making Hanzos read her memories using a spell of 21st tier, a self-proclaimed evil god who was hiding from her work and responsibility, in a world similar to the one he was born in, albeit less developed and more nature based, hell even the country name was same as the one he remembered, Japan.
But while this did interest him, the thing that interested him even more, was the creation of a special skill by the said goddess, the 'N%l=w' skill.
From what he found out, D, the goddess, had created a system to balance out a planet's environment, a few centuries before she went in hiding to slack off and run away from her work. And then while she was slacking off the hero and demon king of that planet, had prepared a massive spell in a futile attempt to kill D, but instead of killing her, they instead ended up killing up a few students surrounding D at that time. Which brought him to the n%l=w skill, a skill which was created to hold the memories of the deceased students in before she reincarnated them into the same world where she created the system in.
What's even more interesting was that D had reincarnated a spider to replace her, in order to not raise suspicion among her fellow gods, probably expecting the said spider to die quickly, only for it not only survive but also become significantly strong by the standards of the plant she was reborn in.
D's strategy was very flawed in his opinion as well, it was okay until reincarnating the spider, but then her first mistake was staying in the same world which the hero and the demon king attacked, which, to him, was very foolish, since any god searching for her will not ignore this and will definetly investigate the place that was attacked. But then again, he did not look enough into her memory to find out if she even had any other world to go to. He only had the True Hanzos look into her recent memories stealthly.
But back to his evaluation of the admins, if were to take it (his evaluation of the Admins) and place it in an imaginary nutshell, it would say that , they...
'...are as shitty as, no, even more Shitty than YGGDRASIL admins.' Ainz thought with a mental sigh.
Even though he had forgotten all of his grudges against the admins of YGGDRASIL, he still considered them minor annoyances of his past, and these admins of this universe were even more shitty than YGGDRASIL Admins.
'Neglecting their duties, arrogance, annoying behaviour...' he said as he kept on listing the things he found the most shitty in these Admins.
After he was done mentally insulting the Admins of this universe, he remembered where he was right now and why did he come here.
He had the True Hanzos collect basic info about every reincarnated, including the spider and give it to him. And the one which interested him the most was the spider, the one D had reincarnated as her substitute. The spiders was of a species that even he had not seen before, a reincarnated and had some insane potential on the top of that, this all made the collector in his cheer in glee.
So now here he was, in the labyrinth called Great Elroe Labyrinth, in the place where the spider of his interest was fighting for her life, against an earth dragon, none the less.
He watched as the spider struggled against the powerful dragon and finally catch it in her webs, through a well staged plan.
'This spider, she had impressed me, truely, she has a lot of potential.' thought Ainz with excitement.
But then the dragon used up all of its collected skill points to gain fire type, and some other skills to counter the spider, putting her at a severe disadvantage.
Ainz grimaced in sympathy for the spider, as he had also suffered quite alot from his weaknesses before his ascension, 'Oh well, I can always help her if things get worse.'
He kept watching as the earth dragon surrounded itself with blue flames and covered the walls of the cave with even more flames, then it proceeded to chase the spider, who Ainz decided to call Kumoko for now, upwards until they reached the top of the cave, and just as he was about to reach Kumoko, she back flipped and started falling downwards.
Then she started to channel magic to her six of her eyes, activating a skill.
'A skill which inflicts rot type damage to the opponent, but harms the user as well. Hmmm.' Compared to most other skills of this world, this one seems to be stronger.
'But it would utterly useless in YGGDRASIL.' It was common sense in YGGDRASIL to get resistance to rot, some species, like the undead had a racial passive immunity to it as well, and considering the fact this skill harmed the user as well, it was a pretty useless move for any YGGDRASIL player.
Then realising Kumoko's plan he thought, 'This plan of hers is a very crazy one, but it just might succeed, the position of herself and the dragon is perfect for this plan to work.'
Then something happened which even Ainz, unless he uses his all-knowing and all-seeing powers, could not have predicted. A rock, A flaming rock fell down and hit Kumoko right on the head tilting her head back from the force of impact, leading her attack to miss, not damaging her opponent and destroying six of her eyes in the process.
Then Ainz winced as Kumoko slammed down of a buring side wall and landed on a ledge, with most of her legs missing. Talking advantage of the opportunity, the earth dragon lunged down at her with his fangs bared.
'If I don't do something soon, she will die.' Ainz thought quickly springing into action, he casted a 22nd tier anti-seveilence spell, to prevent D from observing them, and then casting [Single Target Time Stop] on the earth dragon, while simultaneously healing Kumoko, and putting out the fire burning on the walls and the ones cloaking the dragon, with [Perfect Heal] (30th tier) and [Anti-Flame] (10th tier), respectively, all in a span of a single moment.
[Perfect Heal] was a 30th tier spell, developed by himself during his time in the Abyss, it was such a potent spell that can heal someone from death itself, it can even heal the very existence of any target, even if their body and soul has been destroyed, this cheat like spell could easily heal them, and the best thing, it worked on everything regardless of their species or anything else. Using this one was overkill, but Ainz considered it worth to save a great possible subordinate as Kumoko.
[Anti-Flame], on the other hand, was just a 10th tier spell, its purpose was to put away any flame below 11th tier level of power.
Ainz watched as Kumoko got up and stared at him, and then she kept stareing for a few seconds, before he felt her trying to appraise him. It was obvious to him that appraisal would not work, not only was he an entitiy beyond the system and the admins, he was also an entity whose powers can not be measured.
So, he just decided, to ask her, "Are you alright, Kumo-dono?"
The spider stumbled a little bit bfore stuttering out, "Y-Yes."
'Eh.' Ainz thought, 'Why did she stutter?'
While thinking that, he let a mutter slip out of his mouth, "Did she stutter?"
Then Kumoko froze, causing Ainz to panic slightly thinking, 'Shit, did I say that out loud.'
She must have been scared due to getting so close to death and the stuttering he just pointed out out must have been an effect of that. Even thought he had no personal experience with women, he knew that anyone would be annoyed if they just nearly died and someone started wondering why were they scared, even if it was indirect.
'Oh no, I hope I didn't lose the chance to get her on my side because of my stupid mouth.' Hoping to distract her from his folly, he quickly said, "It seems like you have not yet recovered from the fear of almost being killed. Don't worry take a few moments to calm down then we can talk."
'Ugh' Ainz groaned mentally, 'Could I have thought of a worse way to screw things up even more.'
He just repeated his first sentence, in a way which would be even more annoying to anyone listening.
And before he could think of any way to correct his mistake Kumoko looked at him and started asking questions in rapid succession, "Are you an administrator? Why did you help me? Do know admin D?"
'Oh no, oh no, oh no.' Ainz thought in a panic, 'She is too suspitions of me already. At this rate it is going to be impossible for me get her on my side.'
The was the only obvious explaination, why else would she ask questions so fast, if she were not suspitious of him.
Then he chuckled, chuckled nervously, 'What am I going to do now?'
Just as he was thinking, Kumoko interrupted his thoughts again by quickly bowing in a fearful tone, with her head touching the ground "I am sorry Death-sama, if I enraged you. Please don't kill this lowly one."
'Uggghhh.' Ainz groaned even louder than before, thinking, 'This is just great. My nervous chuckle must have sounded menacing. Now I have probably pushed her fear to surpass the one she was feeling before.'
He just kept screwing things up. He could now feel her recruitment as his subordinate slipping out of his hands.
Now at this point when he had lost all hope, he just desprately started saying what came to his mind first.
"Ah, you are an amusing one aren't you Kumo-dono." 'This just makes me sound like a villian, but what other choice do I have.'
"Y-Yes?" Kumoko gulped loudly.
'That was a very loud gulp, I hope I didn't scare her even more.' Ainz thought, worried in his mind, but keeping what he hoped was a graceful voice on outside.
"Don't worry, for I am not angry. I was merely amused at the speed of your questions and your fear of myself."
"A-Ah."
'Ugh, She totally doesn't believe me.' Ainz groaned for what seemed like the thousand time the day, even if it was just the third or fourth time.
But adamant on not giving up he continued "As for the answer to your questions."
He cheered mentally at successfully distracting her when she perked up at that. Not wanting to let this chance to go to waste he said,
"I am not an Administrator, but an entity even beyond them. I-" he spread his arms in an attempt to mimic a majestic pose and said, "-am Ainz Ooal Gown."
Declaring himself an entity beyond the admins had two purposes,
Firstly, it was to serve as a bait, the admins will probably seek him out, if he keeps introducing himself like this to everyone, and if he found himself interested in any of the admins, he could then recruit them easily.
Secondly, just the knowledge of power was a powerful weapon in itself, and he could use it to attract other intersting indnividuals to himself.
And D was among the strongest gods and she was not a match for even a True Hanzo, who was a stealth and interrogation based summon, so it could be easily said that there was not a boundless entity among gods, and even if there was, it was hidden. This might also drag them out. But still, there was one problem...
'This is so lame.' He thought to himself with shame, this pose appeared lame to even himself.
He flattened even more when Kumoko just stared at him.
"But-" He hurriedly said looking at her. "-you may call me Ainz." 'I screwed up again.'
"As for your other questions, I will answer them in just a moment." He pointed one of his skeletal hands at the earth dragon who was frozen due to his original 10th tier spell [Single Target Time Stop], which basically freezes time for a single target, while allowing attacks to be still effective, and casted a [True Death] on it. It then lost the life in its eyes and fell over, dead.
It was only then he realised a mistake he made as he looked at Kumoko, 'Damn it, I killed someone in front of the one I am trying to recruit, I really suck at this.' Even if he revived the dragon, it will seem like he enjoyed killing and reviving his opponents over and over again, just to make them suffer. He had just gone with the flow and now he regrets doing so.
Kumoko was a spider, so, he can't read her expression and tell what was she thinking, unless he used his true power, or a mind reading spells, using his true power ran the risk of alerting other boundless entities if they are nearby, and he would rather not use a mind manipulation spell on a possible future subordinate.
He was only able to understand her because of a translation spell he had casted, and that spell did not extend to facial expressions.
"Now" Ainz began, hoping the spider's expression was not a negative one, "Let us move to a better location to talk. After all, you had many questions, and I am sure it will be much harder for you to ask them here."
He then raised his hand and snapped his fingers. Suddenly they were in a place completely different from the one they were in a moment ago.
While they were in a cave before, now they were now in a living room, with soft sofas and a table, with a warm hearth burning nearby.
This was a dimension created by Ainz a few years ago, a dimension which was infinite in size, it could be altered by himself without using his true powers, and it was also protected by his boundless powers, he had intended this dimension a place where could flee to if he ever had an unexpected encounter with another boundless entity. But he could also bring other entities here if he wants to.
"Before we begin." Ainz snapped his fingers and used [Create] to summon some food.
[Create] was a 12th tier spell created by himself, its use was simple, to create any physical object the user wishes. It was just the watered down version of his other 24th tier spell [True Create] which could bring the users imagination in to reality and even create concepts.
He created some cookies, cutlets and some fried shrimp.
'I won't be a good boss if I let a possible subordinate starve.' "You must be hungry from your near death experience, go ahead, eat as much as you want, I will even summon more if you like them. It would be best for you to eat as much as you would like before I answer your questions."
As he was talking, he saw that Kumoko was crying.
'Oh no, did I do something wrong. Is she still feeling pain or did I mistake what she would like to eat.'
Hiding his inner turmoil, he asked the spider, while trying not to sound panicked, "What is it? Are you still feeling pain? Or is the food not up to your liking?" 'I hope I didn't mess it up, again.
"No, Not at all." She said quickly, so quickly, it triggered his paranoia again, wiping her tears away, "I-I-I am ju-just so happy. I don't know, I don't know how to express it, but thank you. Thank you for everything."
'Is she truely happy? Or is it that she is just afraid of me and thinks I will get angry and kill her? She did answer too quickly' Ainz thought in paranoia, he almost considered using his true power to find out, almost, but stopped at the last second, before thinking, 'Might as well play along and see what happens.'
He then said "Like I said before, you should eat as much as you like, don't hesitate, I can answer your questions any time, after all."
'Now I am betting everything on my stupid luck. Even though I have probably lost my chance to ever get her on my side.' He finished his thoughts with a mental sigh.
Kumoko nodded and quickly started eating, either because she was really hungry... or because he scared her.
'I really am very bad at recruitment.' Ainz thought gloomy.
To be continued...
The universes that Ainz previously visited were OC universes of mine with no major significance.
So I guess this chapter probably cleared some of you guys doubts, I mean, geez, I rushed the first chapter because I wanted to build in suspense and I guess I failed at that, oh well.