Travelling
It is the strangest thing, no longer feeling the heat, that you'd come to expect by now, as you take your first steps out of the forest. It was even stranger to find that the air outside was so… moist.
But against all odds, it feels right to do so. As if you should have done it long ago.
Regardless of your feelings though, you set out into the distance. Your stomach full of the small bite of shell material you'd taken before leaving.
So went the next few day, with you running as long as you can before taking a temporary stop to rest. All the while keeping a look out for anything interesting as you went on your journey.
And you noticed two things, neither of which you bothered stopping at.
There was a strange hill you noticed in the distance, surrounded by many shelled two-legs going in and out of it. Then there was the weird wooden… thing on top of the whole river of cool liquid.
Then there was the thing you did stop at, which was a bunch of unshelled two legs being chased by a lot of semi-shelled two legs.
… you were beginning to feel hungry now.
[Map updated]
Looking at the running two-legs you decide, first and foremost, to just ignore the one without any shells. Which left only left only about a quarter of them left for you.
Looking closer at the available prey, you note that there were some, more shelled, two legs standing in a group far from the others. So, deciding that they would make better food than the rest, you began making your way over to them, keeping a casual pace as you approach them in case they are stronger than they seem.
And as it turns out that was pointless as the two legs can't even do much more than throw some wooden shard pointlessly on your scales before you have one of them pinned on the ground to the ground with one claw.
Even their shells tasted nowhere as good like the other two-legs you've fought, something you discovered as you took a bite out of the one you'd pinned.
Although, you do notice that your single bite had caused one of those red filled shells to fall from it the ground, along with a lot of blood and viscera, and begin leaking some of the fluids in it.
Curiously enough, it doesn't smell anything like the ones you'd eaten before. In fact, now that you give it a quick lick… yeah, doesn't taste like it either. Regardless, you ate the whole thing anyways, it's not like putting stuff into your stomach has caused you any problems before anyways.
… oh hey, that's not bad.
You jump size from side. Can't let the ground touch you or it'll eat you.
You are speed, it can't eat speed.
Wait, why are you running? Why are you running!
Oh wait no, you stopped. Hmmm, maybe you should lay down for a bit… nah, you need to catch that big yellow prey before it gets away. Now… you just need to figure out how to fly.
Maybe it'll work if you jumped off that cliff?
…
… …
You can fly!
POV: Maurice Gérald Micheaux
Sometimes, he regretted the bout of childish rebellion that had led him to leave comfort of Baerlis.
Sure, he had been overlooked as the heir of the family for his brother just because he hadn't been born with the families bloodline. Sure, he wouldn't have been aided by his family in levelling up, like his brother would've been, due to the same reason. Sure, he'd have had to hunt his own monsters to level up.
But he still would've been the first son of a viscount who would've gotten enough money to live better than any peasant could.
So yes, sometimes he regretted his decision. Except today wasn't one of those days, especially when he felt another surge of energy indicating a level up, "status."
Name: Maurice Gérald Micheaux Species: Human (+1 to all stats every 10 levels) Bloodline: None Level: 40 Class: Ranger SP: 21 MP: 15 Strength: 5 Constitution: 4 Agility: 5 Spirit: 4 Magic: 4
Yeah, he'd like to see his brother beat him now…
… actually, no he wouldn't. His brother had, at least, double his stats, and that's only if his father hadn't started paying adventurers to capture monsters for him to kill and level up through.
Still, he wasn't regretting his choice to create a bandit group today.
At least he hadn't been, until a fucking boss monster came outta nowhere and began mauling his second in command. Especially when the boss monster just shrugged off all their strongest attacks.
But it seems that the gods had some mercy on him as the monster, in the process of murdering his second in command, had managed to eat the special alcohol that he had on his person.
"Bozz, da booze!" unfortunately while the gods had mercy on him, his life choices did not as his underlings, who had initially been running away with him, were now blocking his way, "we gotta avenge da booze bozz."
"Okay, look Doug," he began patiently, "as much as I'd like to avenge the 'booze', we can't. That thing would literally murder all of us."
"But bozz," Doug, after finally letting his statement sink into his empty skull, spoke, "iz drunk bozz. We can take 'im bozz."
Oh, by the pale lady. He looked back at the boss, which was currently hopping side to side like a possessed cat, before turning back to the lemming in front od him.
"Look, Doug. You got the scan skill right?" the brainless idiot nodded, "okay, use it on the monster."
He waited until Doug completed his instruction.
"Now what did it say Doug?"
"Hypa lethal, bozz."
"Okay, so do you know what that means."
"We gotta get moar men to avenge da booze?"
You know what? Fuck it, he's going home.
X Lizard POV X
When you regained consciousness, it was in the centre of a crater and with an incredible pain in your head.
You had no idea what happened after you killed that two-leg, or how you got here, but when you went back to where you'd pinned the two-leg all you found was his corpse without any other two-legs.
It took you a while to recover from the splitting pain in your head, but when you did, you once again continued on your journey.
And it was when you were near the end of the journey that you came upon something interesting again. Specifically, you found some two legs… or rather, what looked like two-legs.
Because while they seemed like two-legs, if only without shells, more than a few of them had additions to them that said otherwise.
A couple even having wings, like those of birds, instead of their upper limbs.
And those same wing-limbed creatures were now definitely aware of you, if the way they were throwing fire near you in an attempt at intimidation was any indication.
Of course, you were undeterred by the attempt at intimidation.
In fact, you're offended that something so clearly weak is even trying to intimidate you. So angered that you immediately decide to rush towards them to attack them, ignoring the fireballs that splash against your scales as you do so.
But it seemed that wasn't all they had as, when you were almost within the trees, several new enemies emerged to fight you, these one's looking like someone had stuck half a two-leg on the body of another creature.
But while they shared similarities with two-legs they were far, far more aggravating.
Because not only were these things managing to constantly push you back, despite not actually being able to harm you, they also just would. not. stay. down.
It wasn't even that your attacks weren't harming them, because they were.
It's just that, any time you managed to heavily injure one of them the rest would manage to push you away from them in a wave of some weird green light and the one you'd downed would get up in a burst of golden light.
The only way you can actually manage to kill someone is when you manage to pin one long enough to rip of it's upper, two-leg, half. Something you'd only been able to do twice thanks, again, to getting pushed off whenever you manage to pin one of them.
What's more is that, when you try to use your mist on one of them they get surrounded by a field that repels it.
And now there was a massive wall of light blocking the forest and a new two-leg like thing was coming out, one that seemed far more dangerous. One that was making noises at you.
And it was like that moment from when you were smaller again as a wave of power from it's attack managed to send you flying with a deep gash in your sides.
You weren't going to win the fight, you knew that instinctively.
But you were more than fast enough to grab something and run away.
