Super Spark of Duper Pride [OB] - Act I: Motivation

1-13: Sleep-Deprived & Suicidal Eating (Spider 28)

Not that it is a good thing right now, considering I am all alone for the foreseeable future.

Come on insanity! Do your thing and give me imaginary friends already!

Inner Critic: I am right here, Hiiro.

You don't count, Inner Critic, you are just that voice in the back of my head that belittles everything I do and think to keep my ego in check.

You are a function spawned out of my desperate need to talk to someone, not a friend.

Inner Critic: Ouch.

Moving on now...Nai wa...

Being on the lookout for threats I cannot do anything about once I am detected by them is super stressful.

If only I could use [Detection], it should make things easier.

Also doesn't help that the Monsters tend to start looking around for a while when I am near.

Like, do they somehow know I am there or something?

Some secondary system to point Monsters in the direction of players without telling them where they are exactly?

Either way, I am too scared to sleep.

Heh, I actually got [Exhaustion Resistance] from refusing to sleep, so that helps.

And right now, I am hungry.

I haven't found a small fry to eat for a while, so my attention turns to something I have been seeing all over the Lower Stratum.

Appraisal-san: < ????? ???????? LV2 Status: Appraisal Failed >

There must be a reason why everyone ignores these snailbugs.

Inner Critic: I have a bad feeling about this, Hiiro.

Yeah me too, Inner Critic, but I am just too tired to care anymore.

I carefully check my surroundings.

Good, no Monsters nearby.

I then grab one with my thread and chow down.

Blaur!

I immediately vomit after one bite and collapse on the spot.

...

Did I die?

...

Inner Critic: No, you are still very much alive, Hiiro.

...

Nani the heck?!

It's like leaving food out in a heatwave for a week before soaking it in spoiled milk!

Hell! I actually lost some HP!

Divine Voice: "Proficiency has reached the required level.

Skill [Rot Resistance LV2] has become [Rot Resistance LV3]."

Seriously?! This is rotten food?! Yikes!

I don't ever want to eat anything rotten ever again! Nai wa!

...

But I really hate wasting food, no, it's more like I can't afford to waste anything.

I am lucky to be alive, so I should just be grateful and try to live.

I mean, even though this little guy has a soul and I killed the poor thing which isn't trying to kill me like everything else has been trying to so far.

The least I can do to respect it is to eat it so its death doesn't go to waste.

As a certain spooky scary skeleton once said, it is the responsibility of the hunter to use the hunted prey without waste.

That is how you respect the dead.

Besides, raising Skill Levels is important, especially for Resistance Skills.

So I picked up the snailbug again.

I can feel my hands shaking and my mouth hesitating.

I don't want to do this, but I have to!

Here goes nothing! Chomp!

Oh god! This tastes so bad, I want to die!

Wait, that's it!

The sweet release of death is waiting for me!

Come on! Kill me!

And before long, I somehow managed to eat the whole thing.

...Nai wa...

I wish I had some water to cleanse my mouth of the lingering taste of the snailbug.

I want to cry, and sleep too.

I want to cry myself to sleep.

Inner Critic: But you can't and really shouldn't, Hiiro.

Nai wa, what am I? That character in a slap-stick comedy that always gets hurted?

I mean, I am sure my misadventure so far is a great source of entertainment from an outsider's point of view.

Heck, even I find it kind of funny actually now that I look at it that way.

Nai wa, this is how I'm going to go insane, isn't it?