Chapter 17

I've never fought a monster that used their skills before. The Lycanrin never used its skills due to them being temporarily sealed by the holy water of the Lake so this would essentially be my first fight with monsters that could use all of their abilities.

[Don't worry Jack after all you have me now]

That was true. Anna could always inform me of the skills that the monsters are able to use which could be advantageous to me in battle.

"I wonder if it's possible to store the entire body of the Lycanrin in the inventory" I thought. After all it would be too tiresome to carry the body of the Lycanrin with me even with my increased stamina and strength and leaving it behind was risky since other monsters could feast on the body if I left it unguarded.

"Anna, can you store the body in the inventory?"

[Of course, with the amount of space available in your inventory that is possible.]

The body of the Lycanrin then dissolved into tiny blue particles that were absorbed by my status window and in a new slot in the inventory was the title "Lycanrin corpse". I took out two spikes and with a spike in each hand, I climbed up the small slopes of the shores that surrounded the lake. Once I arrived at the top, I began walking in the direction of the Azlin plains.

After thirty minutes of walking, my stomach started rumbling in hunger. The holy water of the lake had only managed to postpone my need and desire to eat and drink but even it could only cure hunger for a short period of time.

I needed to be more conscious of my body's needs since at this point it was more possible for me to die from hunger than from predators. As I thought of what I could eat, I saw a group of monsters a few meters away of me. They were feeding on something enthusiastically to the extent that I could hear the sounds of crunching and chewing but I couldn't tell what it was since they were blocking their meal with their large bodies.

The monsters' body structure was similar to a cow except for the fact that they were twice their size with two long horns that protruded on their heads that were comprised of four other slightly smaller horns. They had razor sharp teeth that were at the moment dripping with blood and when they shifted, I saw what they were eating. It was a large centipede-like monster that was already dead due to, what I assumed, were the numerous holes that punctured its body.

"Anna, what the hell are those things?"

[They are monsters known as Monisars. They are classified as high-class D rank monsters when alone but when they gather in a herd then their threat level rises to either the low or middle class of C rank.]

"How many are there in the group ahead of us?"

[There are 50 of them. This means that their combined strength is probably middle-class C rank.]

"What about the monster they are eating"

[That would be the monster Centipa which is a low-class C rank monster that is usually known to hunt alone. It must have tried to hunt the Monisars since they are weaker monsters than itself but got killed by them instead. The Monisars are known to be of low intelligence, but they make up for it with their speed and strength. The large holes on the Centipa are probably due to the charging strength of the Monisars.]

I see.... then these monsters grouped together were on a similar level of strength compared to me which meant that there was 50-50 chance that I could die if I fought them and yet surprisingly, I could feel that I was not afraid, but I was rather excited at the thought of fighting them.

Is it because I had killed the Lycanrin?

No. it was something else entirely but what was it?

As I thought of what had changed about me after the fight with Lycanrin, I heard the alert of the status window.

{PASSIVE SKILL "THE VOID" HAS COMPLETELY ABSORBED THE SOUL OF THE LYCANRIN BUT DUE TO THE SKILL'S LOW MASTERY YOU ARE UNABLE TO RECEIVE ALL THE SKILLS OF THE LYCANRIN AND HENCE WILL RANDOMLY RECEIVE A SINGLE SKILL.}

{YOU HAVE RECEIVED A NEW ACTIVE SKILL "KING'S ROAR"}

{THE MASTERY OF THE SKILL "THE VOID" HAS INCREASED FROM 4 8%}

KING'S ROAR (COMMON)

MASTERY: 0%

REQUIREMENT: 150 MANA

COOLDOWN: 5 MINUTES

A SKILL THAT SPECIALIZES IN DRAWING THE ATTENTION TOWARDS YOURSELF.

EFFECT: 1. INCREASES AGGRESSION OF THE MONSTERS WITHIN A 50 METER RADIUS TOWARDS YOU.

(PASSIVE) INCREASES YOUR COURAGE AGAINST THE MONSTERS AFFECTED BY THIS SKILL AS WELL AS AGAINST MONSTERS STRONGER THAN YOU.

Oh… so that was how the skill "The void" worked. If I was able to fully master the skill, then I would be able to acquire all the skills of the monsters that I defeat. Wouldn't that me unstoppable?

No! If I wanted to defeat Hades, then I will need all the skills that I could get. I need to kill a lot of monsters in order to acquire those skills, starting with the fifty Monisars that were in front of me and hence with those thoughts in mind, I began slowly walking towards them. When I was fifteen meters away from them, the Monisars raised their heads and turned to look at the person who had interrupted their meal. It would seem that they were capable of sensing monsters that were fifteen meters away from them which was probably a skill of theirs.

The Monisars were now bellowing while stumping their hooves on the ground as a warning for me to mind my own business which I found to be quite adorable sort of like the way a puppy would make a high-pitched bark when it felt frightened. I continued to remain fifteen meters away staring at each and every one of the monsters in front of me as I waited for them to use any other skills that they may have but none of them moved an inch.

It would seem that they were the ones who were waiting for me to come closer. They simply saw me as weak prey considering how small I was in comparison to them and therefore did not think it was worth their time to chase after me when they already had a large carcass of a Centipa that they could feed on. That kind of attitude slightly pissed me off.