The Gauntlet

As Roy was making his way towards the third team, he noticed that his mana had almost fully regenerated.

'Hmm, I really want to test more of this skill, but I can't use up all my mana and get dizzy again. Maybe I'll test it on one of my left hand fingers?' Roy contemplated, as he did not want to put himself, Solus and Inbellis in any more danger.

'Hmm... Let's try and see if I can grow it how I want, or if it's limited to just growing out.' At that thought, Roy imagined his pointer finger growing into the shape of a tri-knife. He remembered it being banned by the Geneva Convention for its brutal way of killing, causing the wound to be extremely hard to suture. As well, it caused great pain to the enemy. Unlike many wars on Earth that were more meant to remove the will to fight from enemies, here, Roy had to kill. There was no giving up, these enemies would fight to their last breath and so would he.

As he channeled his ability, he felt a slight loss of his mana. On his finger, keratin could be seen forming in real time. It began to grow in the shape he imagined, but his finger became stiff due to the whole thing being covered. 'Wow! It really worked, huh? With this I have extra weapons at my disposal. It consumed a bit more than one MP as well, so I might as well do this to all my fingers on my left hand. I'll leave my thumb unaffected for the most part and just give it a bit of protection where it might touch my pointer finger, since I don't want to cut myself.' As Roy was modifying the keratin covering his fingers, he had arrived in the flank of the last normal group of goblins.

As he was about to sneak up and test his new deadly weapons, a slight crack was heard on his back. Alerting the goblins, all four turned around and spotted Roy, who was slightly surprised at the terrible timing.

Shaking his head, Solus and him rushed to the goblins to try and take them out before they alerted the main group.

With his hatchet in his right hand, and his tri-knife fingers on his left, Roy slashed at the first goblin's neck, killing it near instantaneously. He ducked under the punch of the second goblin, before stabbing his fingers into its heart. The points on his fingers easily pierced the skin of the green humanoid, as the spiral shape of the knives sliced the skin open like a hot knife through butter.

Before it could scream in pain, Roy swung his hatchet directly into its skull.

*Bang*

The goblin collapsed on the ground in a pool of blood. Looking over to his side, he could see that Solus had just finished her two off as well. Roy looked at his fingers, shocked at their piercing power. After a second he flicked his hand in an attempt to shake off the blood slowly running down the spirals.

"Let's go Solus. We need to take a break and wait for an opportunity to kill the others. They are too strong for a frontal assault." After telling her, Roy went off and hid under a nearby tree to take a breather and examine Inbellis and his system logs.

Inbellis crawled out of the backpack after sensing the danger was gone. It climbed onto Roy's shoulder and stared at him. Roy, not being able to see it well at that angle, lightly picked it up with his right hand.

Soon a slightly bigger, light blue roley poley entered his vision.

"Look at you, you've grown half a size bigger! And that pretty blue shell of yours seems a little lighter shade as well." Roy complemented Inbellis as he rubbed its exoskeleton.

"Buhihihi! Next time you evolve, you probably won't be able to sleep in my belly button anymore you know?" Roy joked to Inbellis, as the little guy scurried around his hand and back up to his shoulder.

'Oof, that tickles a lot more with no fur. System Log.' As Roy said that, he received all the notifications he had from the last fight.

[Enough Experience has been accrued]

[Keratin Growth Level up 1->2]

[Enough Experience has been accrued]

[Taming Level up 1->2]

[Enough Experience has been accrued]

[Inbelllis Level up 1->2]

[Goblin killed]

[30 EXP Received]

[Goblin killed]

[33 EXP Received]

[Goblin killed]

[33 EXP Received]

[Goblin killed]

[36 EXP Received]

[Enough Experience has been accrued]

[Inbellis Level up 2->4]

[Enough Experience has been accrued]

[Level up 5->6]

[Enough Experience has been accrued]

[Apprentice Assassination Level up 4->5]

[Enough Experience has been accrued]

[Hatchet Arts Level up 4->5]

'Wow, this leveling speed makes my bug eating days feel like a bad dream.' Roy reminisced his experienced over the past two weeks since he came to this world. 'Gotta say, aside from all the killing, isolation, bug eating, weakness, and constant looming danger, it also been nice to experience this other world reincarnation I've always enjoyed reading about. It's not exactly the start I would have chosen, but I think I'm doing a pretty good job with the cards I was dealt.'

As Roy was lost in thought, Solus tapped his shoulder and pointed to her mouth. She was obviously hungry and wanted food, but they had left the basket behind before the fight. "Unless you want to eat goblin, we don't really have anything right now. Sorry Solus..." Roy apologetically said to her as he pat her head with his clean hand.

As he consoled her, Roy queried the tutorial skill on how [Taming] levels up. This was the first time it had since he received it.

{Info}

[Taming]

This skill levels up through taming, and evolving pets.

'Alright, short and sweet. Guess I have to get more pets and evolve them. But if I do that, my experience would continue to get divided even more... I'm already so far behind Solus as well.' As he looked at Solus, who was now level 10, the halfway point level wise to her next evolution, Roy decided against getting more pets for now. He would focus a third of his experience on Inbellis for now and when it gets stronger in the future, to the point that it can fight along side him, Roy might consider getting another pet.

'For now, I've prepared all I could for the battle coming up. Those four now have no reinforcements coming for a long while and I can use guerrilla tactics to take out the weaker ones first. After I isolate that stronger one, me and Solus can attempt to bring it down...' After deciding his plan of action, Roy looked at his mana.

'About four MP now, guess I'll add some palm and back hand protection now.' Deciding to do that, Roy used the [Keratin Growth] skill on his left hand once again. Soon a keratin exoskeleton formed on his palm, it was broken into multiple parts so that he could still bend his hand. Unlike the knives that he would have to rework the design of in the future, he had an easy time designing these new parts. He just had to follow the creases in his palm.

'Three MP?! That's the same price as my entire forearm! Is it because I had to stop and start it for the creases? Ugh I need to be careful in the future...' Roy was left with only one MP left, being dangerously close to the mana drain fatigue.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Roy looked at his hand that had changed significantly today.

The originally peach fuzz covered pink hand, had become black. Then soon after it had gained a sheen of keratin over it. Giving it the look of black metal. His fingers were now black tri-knives stained with green blood. His forearm, had the same black sheen as his hand. All together it gave the look of a menacing gauntlet. A gauntlet that could easily reap the lives of those that challenged him.

'I really am getting further and further from humanity... but is that really a bad thing?'