I had the privileged opportunity to snag this book at AnimeNYC, a week before street date. So I’m a Spider, So What has quickly climbed the ranks of my favorite isekai light novels, and this particular volume brings us to a climax on the storyline between Kumoko, the titular girl reincarnated as spider, and the mother who birthed her in this new world, the Queen Taratect. Here are some thoughts I had now that it’s been officially released as of yesterday. Some spoilers ahead.

Frankly, in terms of flow and point of view, not much is different. In particular, this book continues the trend of shifting between Kumoko and the other storyline with isekai’d (brought to another world) classmates on the other part of the continent. That second storyline, while mildly interesting and usually capable of giving a nugget or two of interesting action scenes on top of worldbuilding exposition, felt particularly dry this time around. This isn’t to say that we as readers now know way more about the inner workings of the world, the administrators, and the factions struggling for power.

Far and away the highlight of this book for me was the battle between Kumoko and the Queen Taratect. It’s so fascinating to me that no matter how absurdly broken or overpowered she gets as she levels up, evolves, and attains new skills, Okina Baba still manages to make her enemies that much stronger. More than once, we get to see Kumoko humbled and nearly die, to the point where it almost seems like bullshit, but as readers we know that none of the internal logic of the world and story are being ignored. That is what makes the action and inner monologues so satisfying.

Mild spoiler — Kumoko evolves into a new kind of undead spider, the first of her kind because any other previous members of her current species died or killed themselves with the skillset they inherited. The skill she learns as a result of the evolution? Immortality. During a confrontation with the Demon Lord herself, Kumoko is eviscerated and left as a single head, floating unconsciously in the ocean for days, until her consciousness returns and she can use her magic sense to move her head telepathically across the water and attack monsters who attack her with long ranged magic spells. As she kills and eats more, her auto-recovery skill she learned back in the labyrinth finally kicks in and she can regrow her body and limbs.

It’s such an absurd mental image to picture as you’re reading, but thrilling and evocative nonetheless. Yes, Immortality is ridiculously overpowered as a skill, but when your opponent can basically eradicate your entire body, it doesn’t matter if you’re a zombie who can regenerate. Powerful as she is, Kumoko still has to use tactics and overestimate her opponents so that she even has a chance of surviving, much less win.

The introduction of bigger hitters that also dwarf Kumoko’s mother, Queen Taratect, lies well within the range of the same sense of battle shonen power escalation many are used to thanks to classics like Dragon Ball. The aforementioned Demon Lord is actually introduced as the “Origin Taratect” or the one who actually created the Queen Taratect. Kumoko is just a level 24 of this 5th or 6th stage evolution with two and a half pages of skills and stats ranging around 20k range, whereas the Origin Taratect is around 90k (+99,k) average and with maxed out level 10 skills of their highest tier. Powercreep at its finest! While it gives us some kind of baseline for the apparent endgame, it’s still almost comical seeing such big numbers, back when at her birth, Kumoko only had like 15 hp and 10 stamina.

On the human side of the story, we finally get to the land of Elves, and with it, more classmates and in-world lore about the Administrators! I wish the country of Elves was a little more exciting, it seemed like standard forest village with homes in the trees kind of stuff. Having the elves be antagonistic and self-serving to the other reincarnations seemed kind of expected after the bombshell dropped about the Administrators and how reincarnations play into their grand scheme. The most awkward part of the story is seeing Katia, a childhood friend of the Hero, who was also a close friend back in their old world, who was reincarnated as as woman.

Back in volume 2 or 3 there was a really weirdly written scene about her being mind-controlled by the now main antagonist of the human faction. Her “inner mind” as a former male and current feelings as woman sort of helped bring her consciousness back to reality and it became an affirming moment of acceptance that she is definitely a woman now, and probably definitely also in love with her best friend, who is still a guy in this new world. Now that the party has reached the Elves’ country, where most of the other reincarnations are hiding out in safety, we get to see all the guys react to her. It’s not as bad as it could have been, which was also my reaction to that weird brainwashing-overcoming scene. One guy from Katia and Shun, the hero’s, old circle starts to fumble around because he isn’t used to pretty girls and ends up half flirting with her. Overall it’s mostly harmless, but you would think that maybe now that they’ve been alive for about the same time as they have been in their own world, they’d have a different or deeper level of emotional or mental maturity. That can be hand-waved as due to the elves’ protection keeping them isolated and unable to explore and grow.

The last important bit is the introduction of reincarnations that have sided with the Administrators. Interestingly, we get to see where the timelines start to match up, now that Kumoko is out of the labyrinth and is free to explore. The introduction of Sophia, an established villain in Shun and Katia’s POV story, as an infant vampire that Kumoko comes across, really gets the synapses firing as to how these alliances and factions really got to form. Seeing as this was the cliffhanger at the end, I’m curious if the next volume will have Kumoko stick with Sophia, whether Sophia’s guardian knows anything, or they’re going to be kidnapped. There’s tons of possibilities.

My favorite revelation was finally confirming that Kumoko’s journey through the labyrinth really only lasted like a couple months to a year. It was foreshadowed about halfway through, when Administrator D said something along the lines of “You may have been the only one reincarnated in this labyrinth, but at least this means you got a head start.” Head start meaning, that by being thrown into the lion’s den from birth, Kumoko was able to grow stronger by surviving and leveling up. Her philosophy of “survive, no matter what,” is what allowed her to grow so strong.

I find it absolutely riveting that the Guide of the labyrinth gave Shun that same advice, having been spared by Kumoko herself on her travels throughout the Upper Stratum. Seeing the difference in philosophy between her and Shun, the Hero who is duty-bound to protect and uphold honor, translate to an inherent difference in wisdom, experience, and fighting sense explicitly between the two point of view characters was the main reason I’m glad that Baba decided to write and add this second storyline with the reincarnated humans from within the first volume. In this world where survival of the fittest reigns, there is also the option of escape if you’re capable of it. In her skirmishes with the Demon Lord and her Mother, Kumoko affirms that it is never worth forfeiting one’s life for the sake of pride or any reason; that you never have to jump into a fight that you know you will lose. If you have a brain, you can assess the situation, use tactics, and decide how to proceed. This is a lesson that Kumoko learned in her first day in the labyrinth, and one that is taking Shun weeks and months to learn after already growing to be 16 years old again.

Naturally, I’m ready for more! Now that the world has opened up for Kumoko, I want to see more of her journey, and more from the point of view of the Demon Lord’s faction. There are still tons of details and events we have yet to experience, and I’m fully invested in the future of this story.