Chapter 28: For My Own Sake
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 28: For My Own Sake
“I feel like the goat I just ate is about to come back up…”
“Don’t do that. It’s a waste of food.”
“I’m asking you to worry about me…”
We arrived at the 2nd floor. Since Ravi was so light she felt like she’d go flying if I ran with her in a princess carry, I held her like a baby, supporting her thighs and letting her chin rest on my shoulder before I started sprinting.
“Phew… the 2nd floor. We dropped into the forest.”
“Usually, most of the 2nd floor is plains, so it’s rare to land in the forest. We’re lucky.”
Since I only needed to find and catch a single Direwolf anyway, landing in the forest was a plus. Most of them lived there.
“By the way, Ravi, do you know how to fight?”
“I-I can do a little. Just a tiny bit…”
“I thought you’d say you couldn't do it at all. I’d like to see it.”
“Please just assume I can’t… I’ve never actually done it in practice…”
Ravi had hurriedly thrown on a robe before leaving the appraisal office to help me set the thinly sliced bones. She pulled a thin, short wand from an inner pocket of her robe, looking a bit like someone out of Harry Potter.
She said she knew some basic attack magic. Even that much made her a member of the nobility in the explorer industry. When I asked her to show me a magic attack, Ravi nodded with a look of grim determination.
“Iyaaaap! Magic Missile!”
As Ravi swung the hand holding the wand forward, a small sphere of mana formed at the tip and shot out. The mana sphere, flying at a decent speed, struck the trunk of a tall, thin conifer unique to the 2nd floor.
Bang!
It exploded with a loud noise, but that was about it. A bit of bark flew off, and the tree wobbled slightly.
It can’t even break a tree of this thickness in one go.
But apparently, the power was impressive enough to Ravi. She asked confidently, looking quite proud of herself.
“How was it?! I heard back at the Academy that I was surprisingly good at attack magic!”
“Yes. You look like the perfect packed lunch for a Direwolf.”
“Hmph.”
“I’m joking. It’s impressive. How many shots can you fire per minute?”
“A-About five times a day…”
Wait, weren't mages supposed to be the elite? What kind of useless mage was this? Of course, strictly speaking, Ravi was an appraiser who even ran her own office, but she was the one who claimed to be good at attack magic.
The mages I knew were monsters who turned the world into a sea of fire and raised icebergs from bare ground.
Maybe it was because I hadn't met many mages in this world yet. Perhaps the power scaling for mages was just lower here.
“Well, I’ll handle the Direwolf. Ravi, just follow close behind.”
“Understood…!”
And so, I walked through the forest with the Direwolf’s prospective lunch box, who didn't seem to have many skills, tucked by my side. Since it was only the 2nd floor, my detection didn't pick up much, and the area was quiet.
Direwolves weren't the type of creatures to just jump out of the grass like Pokémon. If you wandered around the likely spots, you were bound to see one or two eventually.
“Ravi. What are you doing?”
“I-I heard that staying alert is essential…!”
“Hmm.”
“And we have to keep our voices down…! Yoo Eon, lower your voice too…!”
She acted like the Direwolves were some kind of Dark Templars. Surprisingly, those things made plenty of noise when they moved—lots of barking and yelping. Their stealth capabilities only increased slightly at night due to the influence of mana.
You need something nearby to actually be on guard against or to justify lowering your voice. Given that my senses, which could easily detect anything within a 300-meter radius, weren't picking up a thing, the probability of a wolf being nearby was close to zero.
Still, I didn't want to ruin Ravi’s first stroll in the Labyrinth, so I decided to play along.
“I see. Let’s be quiet.”
“Yes…!”
In fact, if we were looking for a Direwolf, Ravi chattering away would be more effective. Doesn't she look like a bite-sized snack? Direwolves don't run away when they hear a noise; they hunt it down.
After walking for about thirty minutes in a state of legendary, hyper-focused, all-encompassing, total-fucking-alertness, Ravi’s complexion began to change by the second.
“Where on earth are the wolves…!?”
If you focus your senses like that, glaring with your whole body tensed up, you’ll hit your limit of mental and physical fatigue in an instant. I suppose this would be a lesson for Ravi in its own way.
“Ravi. To be honest, there are no wolves nearby.”
“W-What do you mean by that…?”
“I can detect most living things within at least 300 meters. There hasn't been a single wolf around us for the last thirty minutes.”
“Gasp.”
At those words, Ravi’s mouth hung open, her face looking like her world had collapsed.
“Why didn't you tell me…?”
“You seemed to be enjoying yourself. The Labyrinth is fun, right?”
“…It’s not fun!”
Even though she was too drained to even chirp her protests, she balled up her small hands and started thumping them against my side.
“Wait. There’s a Direwolf.”
“I’m not falling for that again!?”
“Over there.”
In the direction I pointed, six Direwolves were baring their teeth and growling at us.
“Hieee?! R-Real wolves! Live Direwolves! The nightmare of novice explorers!!”
“Yeah, yeah…”
They certainly were like a nightmare for beginners. I almost died to one of those things before my body became like this. Even if six Direwolves were easy opponents now, I needed to be careful if I wanted to fight while protecting Ravi.
“Ravi. Just in case, stay right there.”
“What?! S-Stay still?!”
“If you don't want to get hurt, do as I say.”
I had left my pouch, gambeson, and other equipment back at the inn. All I had on me was a hilt and a scabbard containing a broken blade. Of course, I could probably make the Direwolves explode just by kicking them, but it was better to preserve the corpses for now.
Besides, I’d left my metal greaves behind, so my shins would probably hurt if I kicked them wrong. I wasn't a Muay Thai fighter; I wasn't some freak who could just kick through anything.
I swapped my leg muscles for those of an Ursus and my arms for Direwolf muscles. I was worried they might flee if I used the muscles of an Alpha.
Of course, there was one thing I overlooked.
“Wait.”
Did Direwolves fear the Ursus that much?
“You can’t just run away…!”
I instantly closed the distance with the wolves that had turned to flee and grabbed the hind leg of the nearest one, dragging it back.
For a moment, I instinctively tried to punch it in the neck to crush its cervical vertebrae, but then I remembered I needed to harvest the esophagus.
“Huh. If not the neck, where the hell am I supposed to hit it?”
Had my brain turned into a beast’s too? I wasn't sure where to attack effectively if not the neck.
“M-Maybe just the heart…?”
“Ah. Right.”
Now that I thought about it, the heart was also a vital spot. I flipped the scabbard, pulled out the broken blade, and stabbed it into the center of the chest, avoiding the ribs. The creature let out a wheezing sound and died.
“Yoo Eon, you were an incredibly strong explorer…!”
“It’s just one Direwolf. You’re overreacting.”
“Is that so…?”
The part I was trying to eat this time was in a very ambiguous location. The esophagus? How was I supposed to distinguish it? Where does the tongue end and the esophagus begin? Where exactly is the meeting point between the roof of the mouth and the esophagus?
“For now, shouldn't you just… harvest the parts you think you need…?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you want to protect the roof of your mouth, you can tear out the whole upper palate… and if you just want to protect the esophagus, you can just take that…”
“Hmm, that’s sound logic.”
Since it was hard to tell them apart, I’d just rip it all out.
Crrrk—
I grabbed the creature’s maw with both hands and wrenched it wide open. Beside me, Ravi screamed, squeezed her eyes shut, and turned away while covering her ears.
“Ravi, just look at the forest or something. Don't go too far, though.”
“O-Okay.”
* * *
“Ugh, this tastes like absolute shit.”
I had used the blade to roughly tear out and eat most of the lower jaw and everything above the collarbone. I definitely felt like I’d eaten the part called the esophagus.
The problem was that I’d carved out a large chunk of the upper palate to eat, and I felt like I’d swallowed some god-awful snot-like substance along with it.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
My stomach felt like it was turning over, so I stopped there. I’d cut the neck and torn out the tube-like organ to eat, so that should be enough. Along the way, the stomach connected to the esophagus had come out too, so I took a quick look inside.
“Does this thing just eat bird feathers and all?”
“I think they probably spit those out…”
I gave the stomach a quick rinse in the river and swallowed that too. Just in case.
“It definitely disappears into my stomach.”
“I see. Then let’s find out what happens when that stomach itself is changed by the skill!”
For now, the starting point for all my abilities was my ‘stomach.’ The organs of other living beings that I chewed and swallowed entered my stomach, and then, through the skill, they disappeared from within the stomach to be ‘stored’ for my use.
So, what if I changed my ‘stomach’ using the skill? It would be a bit disappointing if the skill didn't work in the stomach of another creature instead of my own biological one.
But what if the skill could be used even in the stomach of a biological ‘other’ that I had swapped in?
“Couldn't I just eat a massive stomach then?”
It would make using the skill a bit easier.
“I’m done for now, Ravi.”
“Good work. But… you should probably wash the blood off your face…”
I thought I’d washed most of it off.
* * *
“This… tastes like absolute shit.”
We returned from the 2nd floor to the surface. From the guild, we made our way back to the appraisal office.
Before eating the sliced bones, I performed the task of swapping my esophagus for the Direwolf’s. A foul stench kept rising up from my throat, and the lingering taste in my mouth was horrific.
“E-Eat up quickly! Hang in there!”
“Yeah. I’m eating.”
It was the sliced femur of an Ursus.
“Phew… Ravi. Give me some of that… whatever it was, the Gunflower.”
“Pardon? Ah, understood!”
It was all for the sake of becoming stronger.