章 17: Chimera Fafnir
After finishing a fulfilling day's work~
Stretching out both legs feels like being in the living room back home.
Humming the melody that's playing in my head—though in reality, I was just hissing—I worked.
The task was simple.
Dissecting the Swamp Alligator I had caught.
Its body is much larger than mine. Swallowing it whole is out of the question.
Normally, I would have pierced its soft belly and eaten it from the inside out.
However, today I decided to reward myself for working hard.
It's been a few days since I escaped from Pelerian's dungeon.
Except for sleeping, I've been focusing on leveling up my skills.
Finally, following "Basic Elemental Magic: Earth," I've made "Basic Elemental Magic: Fire" my skill as well.
There might be water and wind magic too; I hope I can get them someday.
And being able to handle fire means I can cook food.
That's right.
Extravagantly, I intended to grill the alligator.
You might call me a glutton, but I can't help it.
I've been thinking about this ever since I could use fire magic, and I've been holding back until now.
Shouldn't I be praised at this point?
If there were someone watching me, I'd like them to give me a compliment.
I even took special care not to let smoke rise, just in case.
I dug a pit, gathered dry branches, and set them on fire.
Then I wrapped the cut alligator tail in mud and put it in the fire pit.
I've seen this cooking method on YouTube before.
It was in a video made by a foreign YouTuber about survival skills in the wild.
At that time, it wasn't alligator meat but chicken, but didn't they say alligator has a texture very similar to chicken?
It should be fine, right?
Saliva dripped from my mouth.
Yeah, now I should rest a bit until the meat is cooked.
It might be good to take a short nap too.
My status window has become more abundant over the past few days.
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[White Horn Snake lv10+]
[Traits]
[Indomitable], [Perseverance], [Horn]
....
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Since reaching level 10, I haven't been able to level up anymore.
I was prepared for this. It's the max level, so there's nothing I can do until I evolve.
It was a bit disappointing after hunting so hard, but I accepted it.
However, as I continued hunting, a strange message appeared.
「Unabsorbed magical energy is being stored.」
After that message, a + mark appeared after the level like that.
Well, it must be a good thing.
What's important is not this, but the skill window.
──────────────
...
[Skills]
[Basic Elemental Magic: Fire lv3], [Basic Elemental Magic: Earth lv3], [Venomous Fang lv10], [Devouring lv7], [Biting lv8], [Stealth lv6]
[Poison Resistance lv5], [Bleeding Resistance lv3], [Pain Resistance lv6], [Heat Resistance lv8], [Petrification Resistance lv1], [Breath Holding lv4], [Survival Instinct lv5], [Leap lv5], [Magic Detection lv2], [Acceleration lv3]
....
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Hahaha, not only has the number of skills increased, but their levels have also risen significantly.
What I'm currently borrowing with Billy's Horn is the 'Cutting' skill.
I learned it from a dog-sized mantis with sickle-like claws.
Originally, I didn't have claws or anything like that, but thanks to Perseverance, I was able to learn it.
When I swish my tail, I could cut soft things.
It's a skill I absolutely had to acquire.
I used this to cut the alligator's tail too.
The reason why I need to keep hunting even though I can't level up.
It's not just to increase the proficiency of skills, but there's another reason too.
It's here!
──────────────
※Evolution possible:
[Venomous Fang lv10]
──────────────
Quick Crawling, which was an ambiguous skill, evolved into the super-premium skill 'Acceleration' after reaching lv10.
Then what will happen to Venomous Fang?
Venomous Fang is the alpha and omega of my attack power.
Surprisingly, the attack power of Basic Elemental Magic: Fire wasn't that high.
The fire I can spit out now by consuming a tremendous amount of magical power is probably equivalent to the output of about five lighters.
If the opponent quickly dodges, it's even difficult to inflict burns.
That's why the evolution of Venomous Fang was the task I prioritized the most.
And now was the moment to taste that fruit.
Wait, let's taste the alligator meat first.
Mmm, delicious.
The meat juice is very moist.
Now, shall we evolve?
「Consuming magical energy to evolve the skill.」
The magical energy that has been accumulated instead of leveling up until now.
This was the moment for it to shine.
「Venomous Fang lv10 is evolving into a higher-level skill.」
Yeah, let's go!
「Venomous Fang lv10 has become Deadly Poison lv1!」
Alright!
Deadly Poison, what a romantic skill name.
But the romance didn't end there.
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You can choose the type of Deadly Poison.
[Neurotoxin]
[Hemotoxin]
──────────────
Just looking at the options makes my heart race.
Is it because I don't have many opportunities to choose things according to my will in life?
Unlike Acceleration, the evolution direction of Venomous Fang had two options.
'Deadly Poison: Neurotoxin', and 'Deadly Poison: Hemotoxin'.
I roughly know the difference between neurotoxin and hemotoxin.
Not all venomous snakes have the same venom.
In the case of sea snakes or cobras, they usually have neurotoxins.
True to its name, if you're bitten by a venomous snake with neurotoxin, your nerve cells become paralyzed.
If the toxicity spreads to the central nervous system, the diaphragm becomes paralyzed, making breathing impossible.
Literally, your breath is taken away.
It's undeniably a terrifying poison.
Hemotoxin is equally horrifying.
If you're bitten by a venomous snake with hemotoxin, that part is just screwed, to put it bluntly.
I saw this on YouTube too....
...Yeah, about 30% of my knowledge comes from YouTube.
Anyway, there was an experimental video where they mixed a drop of hemotoxin from a viper into human blood.
Even though they mixed just one drop into plenty of blood, the thin blood turned into jelly.
Imagine such a reaction happening in a bite wound.
First, as soon as you're bitten, you feel a burning pain.
This is because the hemotoxin destroys and dissoflves the cell membranes.
Then the skin starts to turn purple and begin to necrotize.
Of course, as the poison spreads through the blood vessels, it can kill the opponent.
The pain of it would surpass that of neurotoxin.
Hemotoxin is flashy and painful, while neurotoxin is fatal and relatively quiet.
Then my choice is....
「You have chosen Neurotoxin.」
「Venomous Fang lv10 has become Deadly Poison: Neurotoxin lv1.」.
I don't have a sadistic tendency to enjoy the pain of others.
Of course, hemotoxin would have its own advantages too.
But I think neurotoxin would be more advantageous for me right now.
It would be best if I could possess both hemotoxin and neurotoxin like some venomous snakes do.
Maybe it will happen that way?
Who knows.
Alright, I've evolved Venomous Fang too.
Let's accomplish today's to-do list.
I've developed a daily routine these days.
It's observing a certain magical beast.
I don't have any voyeuristic tendencies at all, but I couldn't help it.
Because that magical beast is not just ordinarily interesting.
It's a chimera created by a fairy archmage, no less.
I've already encountered it once before.
It was when I fell into this basin along with the Horn Jaguar.
At that time, I ran away without even checking its name, but after learning about it, I wanted to meet it again.
But when I actually tried to find it, it wasn't easy.
How can I find a creature that crawls underground in this vast basin?
I pondered for a while, but the clue was unexpectedly close.
The place where I first discovered it. In other words, I just had to search the outskirts of the basin.
I found the place where the Horn Jaguar had fallen.
It was a place that brought back memories, but there were no traces left to remind me of that incident.
Just a cliff, and bare ground where no trees or grass grew.
Wow, the cliff is really high.
Moreover, the angle is close to vertical, so it seems impossible to climb up.
Even if I borrowed flight, I think my magical power would run out first.
Come to think of it, do I have to live in this basin for the rest of my life now?
...Ah well, I'll figure something out.
Okay, let's get ready.
==
I hid in a large tree.
Previously, I was perched on a rock, but somehow that felt uneasy too, so I climbed up here.
And in the place where the Horn Jaguar had been.
There was a large wild boar lying dead instead.
It's my work.
Of course, I didn't drop it from the cliff, but hunted it.
It was easy, you know? I quietly approached with Stealth and bit its butt, and it jumped up and down in anger.
I lured it here to the front of the cliff.
It snorted on its own, then died without being able to breathe.
Aren't you underestimating venomous snakes too much?
While just being a wild boar, not even a magical beast.
Someone might think it's cruel, but.
I did one thing to the dead wild boar's carcass.
I bit its carotid artery before the body cooled down.
It was possible thanks to my improved Biting.
Blood gushed from the neck of the dead wild boar.
The blood formed a puddle, and that blood slowly seeped into the soil.
These are exactly the same conditions as when the Horn Jaguar was here.
There's no guarantee that it will come just because I made the conditions the same, but it worked yesterday.
And today was the same.
Thud thud thud-
It was coming.
Did it smell the blood that seeped into the ground?
What is it, a shark?
Thud thud thud thud thud-
What's certain is that it's approaching fast enough to shake the ground.
Well, it must be hungry.
Looking at its size, that wild boar would be just a mouthful for it.
Come. Come and eat the wild boar.
This is the feast I've prepared for you.
Thud thud thud thud thud thud thud-
Ah, it passed near the tree.
The tree shook so heavily that I almost got thrown off.
And finally, it burst out from underground.
Kwaaang!
It was so strong that it broke through the ground as it came out.
The first things to appear were eight legs.
Maybe because it was mixed with some tarantula-something magical beast, it looks a bit like a spider.
The legs covered in carapace had several sharp spines.
It hugs the wild boar's carcass with those.
It's truly a thrilling way of embracing.
I could see things I hadn't seen before.
The way it moves is like an inverted spider.
However, while spiders have heads with mouths, its maw was in the middle of its body.
Like a starfish, it swallows the wild boar in one gulp with the huge mouth attached to its body.
It crawled back underground.
Good.
I wasn't angry even though it 'one-bite-chowed' the wild boar I had worked hard to catch and went back into the ground.
That's because I had done something to the wild boar's body.
With the mindset of spiking frozen food with laxatives to punish a dormitory food thief, I had injected a lot of neurotoxin into the wild boar's body.
My venom glands were so empty that my head hurt, so that thing should suffer quite a bit even if it's tough.
Indeed, it didn't disappear right away.
Instead, it twitched while exposing itself above ground.
Did the poison work? It seemed to be intoxicated.
And then, it started to spew something from its mouth.
"Kuweeeek! Kuwek"
It would have been good if it was hemoptysis, but it wasn't.
It spat out bones from its mouth like a fountain.
"Urgh."
And after a thunderous burp, it disappeared into the ground.
It was as if it was saying 'Thanks for the meal~'.
It doesn't seem to have been poisoned after all.
It's a bit disappointing, but not unexpected.
Even if it's neurotoxin, it's not omnipotent.
It's a poison that works through the blood, so in many cases, it's useless when ingested through the digestive system.
Hmm, it's a shame that my secret weapon No. 1 didn't work, but it can't be helped.
The reason why I became interested in it was clear.
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[Chimera Fafnir lv20+++]
[Traits]
[Chimera], [Underground Monster], [Dragon's Lineage], [Molting]
...
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That 'Dragon's Lineage' trait.
It seems to be one of the conditions for my special evolution.
By the way, this thing's status window is quite terrifying.
I couldn't help but admire it.
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