Couple of years of reading reactions to the WN then the LN led me to realize something.
The LN is really a whole lot better (at least at this part of the story) as it fleshes out a lot of things and reinforces the original theme of Kumoko/Shiro having to struggle to survive with her wits rather than brawn. And when I read Japanese reviews of the LN, this general seems to validate my viewpoint.
However, there's a considerable vocal group of people outside Japan who hate this arc, and the whole 'losing her powers' thing in general. I just chalked it down to differences in opinion or...well, people just not reading. But I've come to realize that Isekai like this series tend to attract a certain audience. Isekai really do tend to be power-trip fantasies, and it wasn't Kumoko's struggles that attracted everybody, even if they don't realize it themselves because of how the series has been presented up to this point.
It's true the manga is skipping a lot of backstory, but there's people who hated those to. So what can you do? It's a pretty sprawling story originally (LN ver), the manga is being read by a lot of folks who already read one of the two versions of the novels (in Japan at least, where reading them is super easy), and not every work is the Lord of the Rings.
Anyway, I don't care if it's a spoiler, but frankly, just to shut people up because they would keep moaning otherwise, drop this arc then come back. It doesn't take long for her to become overpowered again, though it seems a little too long for a lot of you folks. You just might want to drop the manga after that too, because it's not like she goes about flaunting it much after this either. You can find other OP unstoppable isekai MCs dime a dozen. If you look hard enough, some of them might even have interesting personalities, instead of just being superlative alpha males banging 10 harem slaves a day.
