Capítulo 13: 13 - Merloc Hunt ｢3｣
Johan had never once in his 19 years of life thought that had would say such a ridiculous line to anyone, let alone an animal.
But of course, Johan wasn't plagued with any weird slavery fetish or anything like that, he had his own logical reasons for proposing this deal.
By becoming the creature's 'slave', he could retroactively get the Gobbler Ring back as his entire body would technically belong to the creature.
Since he would be its underling, the Beast would also naturally drive away any similiar threats to Johan's path to True Magic.
That was more of a gain than it was a loss! As for playing the role of a slave...
It shouldn't be that complicated. After all, it was a small cute animal, aren't most pet owners not too different from slaves anyway?
Johan had a cat once before Noah accidentaly killed it, he knew how this whole thing worked.
He gazed at the silent Beast, nervously waiting for an answer.
It was completely silent, but after a few seconds of deep contemplation, it responded.
"Kyu..." The Beast growled.
What... what's that supposed to mean? Johan couldn't comprehend what such noises meant.
Sensing the confusion, the Beast hopped closer on the dirt before gently placing the severed ring finger on the ground.
"Is... is that an agreement?" Johan asked with sweat in his brows.
The Beast nodded its little head, but then gazed at him with a heavy look.
"Fou, kyu, kyu, fou!"
It seemed to be stating its draconian conditions for the deal, conditions that Johan frankly couldn't even understand.
Reluctantly, he just returned the nod.
With obvious satisfaction, the Beast sat on its hind legs and silently observed its slave.
"Alright... thank you..." Johan coughed as he slowly knelt down and clumsily picked up his finger.
He then released a Spell as clean water formed around his bloodied hand, cleansing the filth away.
"Kyu." The Beast suddenly interjected.
"...I-I'm cleaning the wound so it doesn't get infected..." Johan explained carefully.
It shook its head before tapping its forelimbs onto the ground, particularly, where there were stains of Johan's blood.
"You... do you want my blood?" Johan asked with a eyes widened.
It nodded.
Are you some kind of Vampire species? Johan theorized as he reached into his suit. His hand quickly pulled out a phial of blood, his own blood.
"Here have this... don't bite me..." Johan pleaded as he gently placed the phial on top of the dirt.
The Beast sniffed the phial for some few seconds before it opened its mouth.
When he saw what was inside, Johan completely understood how even after Reinforcing his whole arm, the Beast was so able to effortlessly mutilate him.
It was like a spiralling pit of razor saws, each tooth sharpened to a tip, each grinding against eachother to sharpen themselves even further.
Somehow, the inside of the jaw looked much, much bigger than the outside.
A rope-like tongue extended out from the inner reaches of the throat as it constricted around the phial, lifting it off of the ground and pulling it in.
The Beast proceeded to swallow the entire phial, glass and all, with some blood gushing down its chin as everything got crushed and devoured.
Ugh... Chills flooded down Johan's spine as he questioned what he had gotten himself into.
He glanced at the severed ring finger in his hand with a complicated expression, a mixture between anger and contemplation.
To be honest, as the Gobbler Ring couldn't be taken off no matter how hard he tried, he thought that it would have some kind of defense mechanism against finger mutilation.
...Maybe it would magically teleport to his other ring finger or the Gobbler Ring would activate its Time Reversal on a local scale and reverse the damage.
But that didn't seem to be the case.
Although this did answer some of Johan's questions, like how the previous wielder lost the Gobbler Ring.
Their finger must have been torn off ages ago and decayed beneath the London Bridge, leaving the giant Gobbler Ring without a host.
After all, based on the size of the Gobbler Ring before he became its host, the previous host must have been quite the huge Phantasmal Beast.
If it had lost its live under the London Bridge like that, surely some fossils would have remained.
But there was none, which would be a lot more plausible if it was only a finger that decayed over time, not the entire corpse.
There was some relief to be found in this situation. Johan now realized that he wasn't completely stuck in this path, if he had some hesitation or regrets, he could just cut off the finger and be done with it...
Of course, he wouldn't do such a thing as long as his mind functioned properly.
"Fou..." The Beast produced a whimper of satisfaction as it licked its lips clean.
Johan distinctly felt that if he hadn't known that it was actually his blood, he would have thought of it to be adorable, but now, he only saw a sinister monster enjoying the life force of its enslaved human.
He sighed before returning his attention to the severed ring finger.
Lifting it with the other hand, he positioned it in its original position before he activated the Mystic Code Implant.
It was the same implant that he had used below the London Bridge, the Spider's Nails, an extremely-versatile Mystic Code inherited down to the Lawrence heir alongside the family's Magic Crest.
From the exposed wound extended out several dozen thin metal strings, they coiled around the severed finger before pulling it closely.
It was painful, really painful—the Spider's Nails were energy efficient, but every usage caused great physical pain.
The strings pierced through skin and intertwined with eachother, creating stitches as Johan surged his Magical Energy and chanted an incantation.
"Keshor-Shuv."
It was a Spell from Healing Magecraft, binding his flesh together and returning them to its prior state.
The stinging burn pulsated through his finger as it regained sensation, the stitches created from the Spider's Nail delving beneath the flesh as they vanished from sight.
"Ha..." Johan exhaled with relief as the ringer reattached itself.
Curiously, he noticed that the Gobbler Ring hadn't stop draining his Od even when the finger had been severed.
Hmm... He grasped his stomach as the organ within growled. "Is there still some of that boar left?"
Johan gazed to the side, but only found the pitiful bones...
"Fou!" The Beast called out as it leapt into the air.
Johan instinctively dodged as memories of what happened earlier shot through his skull... but the Beast merely climbed onto his shoulder and rested there comfortably.
It was... quite light, Johan barely even felt that it was there.
The Beast tapped his shoulder with its right paw before lifting the same limb and pointing it eastward.
"D-Do you want me to go in that direction...?" Johan asked, quickly interpreting the gestures.
"Kyu!" It nodded with its little head.
"...May I ask what's in that direction?" He asked for more clarification.
The Beast tapped its stomach before it gestured its paws towards the leftover bones.
"...Food?"
"Kyu!" It rapidly nodded.
Johan hummed as he trudged forward, reluctantly doing so as he hoped he wasn't being led into some kind of death trap.
The surroundings gradually changed as he walked about, from the woods into the shoreline of a lake.
There, Johan stopped, his eyes widening.
Half-intact, was the corpse of a gigantic humanoid. It had the anatomical structure similiar to that of humanity, but it was covered in scales and had an inhuman head as well as long, finned tail.
The head of a catfish...
It was a corpse that Johan couldn't help but instantly recognize upon sight, it was what he had been hunting, after all.
A Freshwater Merloc.
Johan felt something within his guts stir at the sight, sweat dribbling down his back, and throat as dry as the thousand dunes.
He should have been excited, elated to have stumbled upon this fortune, but he couldn't.
For something foreboding had sprouted itself in his subconcious.
This... wasn't this too coincidental?
———
A/N:
Power stones, if you may.
I still desire to rank higher than 30, if you guys can fulfill this, than I will ascend.
Estado de energía semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Piedra de
Poder