(L) Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? [WN]

[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by Amuris

Shun, towards you, I am indifferent. Then you said this. Now I hate you.

Ehh Why?


On a different subject: I'd commented on "Wakaba Hiiro" (ie D) being quiet above and possibly being in "spectating" mode. However, even when playing that game she rarely communicated through her avatar. This is not just Shiro's memories - in Shun's memories "Baldy" was the quiet type as well. She's possibly the type that doesn't like pointless chatter... or maybe something else.

[Amuris]

It's an overused line that a 14-15 or whatever year old has no business using. Though, to be fair, much of what he says after that makes him less likable in my book. *sigh* Even common harem protagonists wouldn't hide or cower like he does with the whole Wakaba incident. Then the way he reacts to Rihoko....really, he has the feel of someone whose only pleasant on the surface. Not overtly bad, but seemingly lacking in sincerity.

As for D, I wonder if she can really help the atmosphere she has around her. It seems that her nature is just leaking out. If she can't control it, then people are just naturally afraid of her and there might be few people she can really interact with. (probably doesn't mean anything in the game though) If she can control it...well maybe she is just spectating...but then her presence seems to influence things around her so...spectating what?

[bludvein]

Originally Posted by Amuris

It's an overused line that a 14-15 or whatever year old has no business using. Though, to be fair, much of what he says after that makes him less likable in my book. *sigh* Even common harem protagonists wouldn't hide or cower like he does with the whole Wakaba incident. Then the way he reacts to Rihoko....really, he has the feel of someone whose only pleasant on the surface. Not overtly bad, but seemingly lacking in sincerity.

As for D, I wonder if she can really help the atmosphere she has around her. It seems that her nature is just leaking out. If she can't control it, then people are just naturally afraid of her and there might be few people she can really interact with. (probably doesn't mean anything in the game though) If she can control it...well maybe she is just spectating...but then her presence seems to influence things around her so...spectating what?

It's just a figure of speech, and how did he hide or cower? I could see being indifferent, but he hasn't really done anything worth hating in the WN. Well on the flip side there's nothing worth liking about the character either...He's just a generic stereotype.

[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by Amuris

It's an overused line that a 14-15 or whatever year old has no business using. Though, to be fair, much of what he says after that makes him less likable in my book. *sigh* Even common harem protagonists wouldn't hide or cower like he does with the whole Wakaba incident. Then the way he reacts to Rihoko....really, he has the feel of someone whose only pleasant on the surface. Not overtly bad, but seemingly lacking in sincerity.

I think you're ignoring the context in which the phrase is used. He's not saying "I've never had a girlfriend, sulk, moan, whinge", he's saying "since I've never had a girlfriend I have no right to preach to my friend who is at least trying". If it was the former I would agree with you.

It could be argued that avoiding D is one of the smarter things he's done

It's fairly clear though that Shun has a tendency to avoid conflict. ie go with the flow or avoid as necessary. He seems fairly normal in this regard though. I don't get the sense that he's two-faced or something.

As for D, I wonder if she can really help the atmosphere she has around her. It seems that her nature is just leaking out. If she can't control it, then people are just naturally afraid of her and there might be few people she can really interact with. (probably doesn't mean anything in the game though) If she can control it...well maybe she is just spectating...but then her presence seems to influence things around her so...spectating what?

Well, I wonder things like: why is D attending school at all? I can't think of anything forcing her to - attending high school is not mandatory in Japan and even if it was she should be able to avoid it. In which case, it seems likely that she's doing it out of curiosity. While there's various possibilities for why she might not talk much in school, online things should be rather different - since she's also quiet online then it must be more about her personality.

[Xacual]

Originally Posted by kari-no-sugata II

Well, I wonder things like: why is D attending school at all? I can't think of anything forcing her to - attending high school is not mandatory in Japan and even if it was she should be able to avoid it. In which case, it seems likely that she's doing it out of curiosity. While there's various possibilities for why she might not talk much in school, online things should be rather different - since she's also quiet online then it must be more about her personality.

I always assumed her attending school was like the perfect hiding place. No one that knows her would expect her to be in that kind of environment.

[Amuris]

@bludvein

he hid by intentionally staying out of wakaba's line of sight and moving behind her.

@kari-no-sugata II

I don't mean that he's two-faced. I mean he's insincere. He's kinda half-assed. He's not trying to deceive anyone, it feels more like he just isn't trying in the first place.

Really, it was just a series of minor things that rubbed me the wrong way about him. It started with the girlfriend line, which is really just my problem with the line itself, and peaked somewhere around him going "ack" to Rihoko.

This little short story did a good job of showing off the characters "personhood", something characters in most stories don't have at all. By "personhood" I mean writing them like a person and not a caricature. I liked it for all of them except Shun, though. In Shun's case, though he did seem more like an actual person then normal, he seemed like a person I wouldn't like. Worse so, he seemed evasive enough that he wouldn't be the type of person I could get in an argument with. Someone you can argue with is easier to reconcile with than someone who you dislike but avoids the confrontation/hides it. The fact that Sophia here is shown to be a kinda funny/interesting girl and that he still has such bad reaction to her, even trying to quickly end a conversation with her, makes me think less of him.

...or maybe I'm just mad that he isn't nicer to Sophia, rather than anything about him or his personality...

[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by Xacual

I always assumed her attending school was like the perfect hiding place. No one that knows her would expect her to be in that kind of environment.

Well, she could have just stayed at home and played games. I think she would have stood out even less.

I started thinking about a few possibilities about what might motivate D. The following is highly speculative.

It seems likely that D ran away from her responsibilities. Which somewhat implies that she is not someone with freedom to do as she wants. It's hard to say how free she actually is. I doubt she's strictly regulated or something like that but there's probably some rules or conventions she has to adhere to.

There's probably situations where she needs a "legitimate reason" to be able to do something, or rather to do it safely / without repercussions. I'm reminded of the days when "Kumoko" was wondering around hoping to use "legitimate self-defence" as a reason to kill humans without Kuro getting dangerously angry at her. ie she was willing to do things like set up shop near Sophia's town with the expectation that they might attack her, so that she could kill them in return.

I'm not saying that D's situation is equivalent overall but just that the "legitimate reason" aspect might be. It's been said that D has a reputation for being merciless with those who attack her "kin" - I've suggested before that it might be that D reacts like this more because this gives her a "pretext" (legitimate reason), though some sort of desire for revenge probably plays as a part as well. Anyway, it's not impossible that D would deliberately put herself in harm's way in order to set up a particular situation.

Consider this: did D know she was actually going to be attacked in advance? I find it doubtful that Kumoko is the only one D ever monitored. She might well have found the actions of the previous Hero and Demon King to be interesting - the ones who created the dimensional attack on her. So she might have been monitoring them. She seemed to be quite certain about what had happened and why. It's certainly possible she could have figured it out after the fact but it's plausible she knew in advance. We've seen examples of "grand magic" that take days to cast - the super dimensional attack was probably more extreme, given how powerful it was. It might have even taken weeks or months. Something so significant would be likely to show up in automated monitoring. Anyway, I find it plausible that D knew about the attack in advance.

If she did, then why did she do nothing about it? Well, maybe she wasn't at all worried about the attack being able to damage her (or had prepared countermeasures) but wanted an excuse to set up a certain situation. Though she's notionally in control of the planet the story is set on, she would probably not be allowed to do things like forcibly reincarnate a bunch of people to another planet (since it goes against the rules of the universe as it were) but this attack gave her the cover to do so.

So in short: under the assumption that D cannot do whatever she likes (reasonable, given that there should be other gods on her level and maybe even higher level ones and also how her "maid" treats her) and the further assumption that she knew about the attack in advance (probably reasonable, but we just don't know enough to estimate this) then it's possible that she deliberately allowed the attack to occur so that it would give her a "legitimate reason" to create a certain situation that she wouldn't be able to do normally. D might have gone to school because she knew such an attack was coming, strange as it sounds.

Whether or not she had a particular "end goal" in mind or not I dunno. She might have simply done it for fun.

[Breimn]

I wonder if we are going to get a christmas gift from author.

[K2Grey]

I really like this idea that D was baiting an attack from Potimas so she could take action. It's another parallel with Shiro, and I remember now that in addition to all those legitimate self defense cases she also tried to bait Sanatoria into an attack by showing up alone in the middle of the 2nd army.

[kari-no-sugata II]

In this scenario, she wouldn't have been "baiting an attack" but rather "allowing an attack" or "not avoiding an attack". Potimas wouldn't have known what D was up to I'm sure. Minor difference though.

It would help explain why D did nothing to Potimas after the attack. It's not the only explanation for that though.

[Xacual]

Originally Posted by kari-no-sugata II

Well, she could have just stayed at home and played games. I think she would have stood out even less.

When all she was doing was that, the maid found her.

[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by Xacual

When all she was doing was that, the maid found her.

When Shiro visited D for the first time, half a year had passed on Earth. This is the scene when the maid appears:

A Godly aura rise from D’s body. No way. Is she going to use it?! The power of God that has been sealed so far?

「I’ll put my serious effort…「Please don’t let it out」」

A woman’s voice interrupted D’s speech. And at the same time, the game was turned off. Ah!

The maid basically appears as soon as D starts to unseal her powers, telling her not to. So I can only see this as "D unseals her powers = maid finds her". D had probably been playing games for 6 months without being found.

Originally Posted by Breimn

By the way new manga raw update.

I'd forgotten until you mentioned it!

[kari-no-sugata II]

I've posted a translation of the timeline from LN4... and also the timeline post from the author around the same time.

Enjoy

(Ronant sure has a lot of entries...)

[Okashira]

Spoiler:

I thought about it before, but Ronanto totally looks like this geezer that still dress in leather & listens to rock full volume in his attic even at that age.

[EvilSociopath323]

It looks like the author didn't forget about us completely. He/She/It will write an episode for us. Started writing just now so it will take some time though. Also said something about originally wanting to finish the story this year but not achieving that somehow.

[Okashira]

LoL Shiro asking for Shun's skill to be patched out
LoL at Shiro's roleplaying (aka 「ここで負けるわけにはいかないんだ！　うおおおおお！」 -- 「馬鹿な！　貴様のどこにそんな力が！？」 -- 「これは世界を救うための、勇者の力だ！」 ).
So, since Shun has 2 skill that have random factors, Shiro measured how 'random' they are by pitting him to a 7 sins skill, and we can deduce that the result is that Shun's inbirth skill is a bigger danger than the ruler skills.
And indeed Shiro-chan purposedly created an escenario so that Shun cappes out Taboo quickly.

Well, that; & Katia is the choroin we need + The gallery telling her to go & explode

Originally Posted by Shiro

　お　姫　様　抱　っ　こ　！
　お　姫　様　抱　っ　こ　！

----------

　結論。
　ラブコメか

Damn, amazing chap Now I need just as good of a chap once every few days, please?

Originally Posted by Shiro

　勇者なんてもんになっちゃってるけど、元はどこにでもいる普通の少年。
　だから、きっと世界の命運なんて背負えない。

Silly Kumoko, you never, never learned how to hold back and not to trigger those accursed flags due to some careless comment......

[EvilSociopath323]

　[勇者なんてもんになっちゃってるけど、元はどこにでもいる普通の少年。
　だから、きっと世界の命運なんて背負えない。]
Yeah. I bet she challenged fate one time too much.

And I claimed this some time back now but there is a chance Ariel gets defeated by Shun if they fight. It was revealed that the hero system works in a way that gives the hero a sudden power up depending on the strength of the demon king when they fight. Well of course he'd have to first get to her. Also would be interesting to know if the power up stays after he defeats the demon king or not.

This reminds me of the side side story. Probably what stood out the most for me was how Shun viewed Wakaba. He felt some sort of anxiety when near her, some negative aura. Seemed to me like foreshadowing that Shun will most likely oppose Shiro even after finding out about taboo. Maybe he'll show some guts in the end after all. Literally.

[Ratedhook522]

Ok I just started reading this novel but can somebody share with me what chapter is it when she gets a body again that replaces her spider form? Is it when she becomes a god?

[mufarasu]

Just read the story?

[Ratedhook522]

Just read the story?

I'm getting a headache from the slow progress. Already at chapter 80 and nothing major or significant has happened besides her leveling up and evolving.