Matthew approached the spider's corpse slowly and when it was directly in front of him, Matthew closed his eyes and chomped at the big spider carcass before him.
Matthew expected himself to throw up the moment the spider's flesh entered his mouth, but when it actually did, it actually didn't taste that bad.
The exoskeleton is not that hard, it gives the flesh a crunchy texture when being chewed and the actual flesh of the spider is not tough like a cow or a pig's meat, it reminds Matthew of the texture when he was eating seafood, particularly a shrimp.
Matthew is glad that either insects actually don't taste that bad in the first place, but since he never ate them when he was still a human and he doesn't know of it or his new chameleon physiology is the one that makes the spider actually taste quite okay.
When Matthew finally swallowed the flesh, a notification popped at his vision, below the circle minimap at the top right of his eyesight.
-Data about Common Wandering Spider Collected (1%)-
-Bionutrients Consumed-
'Whoa! What are these things?' Matthew wondered what does the notifications mean and how does it affect him, but nothing more popped up to give him further explanation, so he tried asking the system,
'System, can you please explain to me what those things meant?'
Matthew then heard the system's voice again in his mind.
'Host can collect data from eating monsters when the data percentage reaches 100%, Host can then apply or change the original parts of Host's body to the consumed monster body parts.'
'Then what is Bionutrients?'
'Since changing or adding body parts that don't belong to the host's original body needed additional energy and building blocks for the new part, when host consumed a monster, the system would store the bionutrients to be the fuel and building blocks for the body parts alteration.'
'I see, thank you system.'
The voice then disappeared once again without replying to Matthew's thanks.
'So going by that logic, the more I eat the better it is for me right?'
'And If I could change my body parts to a monster's body parts that I consumed, does that mean that I could turn into a lion or something?' But Matthew didn't know if a lion would look the same in this world since he just saw a giant spider twice as tall as him, and he can't even imagine how big a lion in this world could be if there was one in the first place.
He wondered if his body right now is just small or the spider was too big, he looked at the trees near him, he noticed that his body itself is even longer than some of the trees' trunks and although Matthew never have a pet chameleon before, he knew that a newborn chameleon shouldn't be about 30cm long.
'Does that mean I'm a giant myself? And I'm still a baby chameleon? Or am I born an adult? And that's a question for another time! Let me finish up my dinner first!' Matthew then started chomping away little by little, eating the huge spider body.
After about an hour, the sun started to be eaten up by the horizon and the sunlight slowly turned orange. Matthew, who spent the last hour eating the massive spider, only succeeded in eating half of its body before feeling his hunger completely gone away and replaced by the feeling that he usually gets when eating too much at a buffet. Matthew already got tens of notifications about the monster data and bionutrients, while he didn't know how much bionutrients he got, he knew that the monster data from the common wandering spider have reached 54% from the notifications.
And now after eating a large meal, Matthew felt that his throat was quite stuffed and needed to drink water to wash it down. His current position is still near the lake and he could easily go there, but that means leaving the half-eaten spider's corpse lying there.
Matthew didn't know where all the other creatures went that the forest looked empty, but he refuses to bo believe that the forest didn't have any other lifeforms living in it if he only saw a small number of creatures here and there then he won't be suspicious, but so far he hasn't seen any other creature other than the black spider and himself.
'Should I make a shelter somewhere? Or A nest in this case, since I'm an animal.'
Matthew then pondered for a second where he should build his nest,
'Ah! Let's just build it there.'
Matthew then remembered one of the safest places he knew in this world and he decided to take the spider there.
'I hope my mother and other siblings won't be mad that I used the place for myself.'
Matthew then looked at the half-eaten spider and the legs scattered everywhere,
'Should I bring the legs too?'
After considering that he might have to eat the legs too to get 100% monster data, Matthew decided to collect all the eight legs that he had torn out earlier.
Now that Matthew is able to control the stickiness of his tongue properly after being forced to learn them at the spot when fighting the black spider, he is able to quickly gather up the scattered legs with only moving his tongue and not moving his body from the place he is currently standing on.
After collecting all the scattered legs, Matthew counted them all and realized there are only 7 legs, which means that 1 leg is missing. He tried to search where the last leg went missing, because it may have gone flying because of Matthew's lack of control earlier, but then Matthew found the last leg was still stabbed through the spider's head.
'Ah, I forgot I did my finishing move earlier.' Matthew then pulled out the last spider leg from the spider's head. When Matthew was about to bring it together with the other leg, he noticed that he could feel something different about the last leg.
Although the last leg is covered in an unknown substance, either from the spider's flesh, blood, or its brain, but either from his animal instinct or something else, Matthew somehow felt something dangerous about the last spider leg.
Matthew then first put the last leg in a separate place from the other legs and tried to examine the leg closely. But even after looking at it closely, he couldn't find anything different other than the stain from the spider's blood and other matters inside a spider.
Matthew then walked to the last place the leg had been, which is the spider's head, and tried to see if he could find anything. After looking closely, Matthew failed to find anything different from the spider's head, but he noticed that the grass around the spider's head was either dead or withered.
Matthew then remembered one characteristic about spiders that is even famous back on earth, that a lot of spiders are either poisonous or venomous and from the looks of things, this spider is the venomous type. The venom should be contained in a sac or glands on their mouth or head, and the leg he used to pierce through the spider may have torn open the glands that stored the venom and spread it to the nearby grass and killed the plants in the process.
'Thank the bearded god that I started eating the spider from its back, or I may have met god again earlier than he expected.'
'Can I wash the venom off? Let's do this first before the sky turns dark.'
Because Matthew knew that he can't make fire and can't glow in the dark, he needed to get his things done before nightfall where it would be harder for him to do activities.
Matthew then decided to tear apart the head away from the main body so that he could wash the head part easier in the lake. After finishing the preparations, Matthew then attached his tongue to the main body and started dragging it back to the nest where he hatched, luckily, after being half-eaten the spider's body was small enough to fit in the tunnel. Matthew then came back and coiled his tongue at the 7 legs, using his tongue as a rope to tie the legs together and also brought them back to the nest.
After he finished storing the other parts, Matthew then used the last leg to pierce the spider's head again to safely bring it without making direct contact with it.
When Matthew arrives at the lake, the first thing he does is to drink the water first to quench his thirst before finally washing away the leg and the head with the water lake.
'Fishy, fishy, I'm sorry if any of you are harmed by the poison, but I meant no harm, and please don't hold any grudges against me if something like that ever happened.' Matthew said in his mind.
Matthew swayed the head and the leg back and forth at the clear water, hoping that the water could wash away whatever venom left in them. Although a river should be better for doing stuff like this, but the lake is the only water source that Matthew had, so he has to do with it.
After Matthew finishes playing...washing the spider's head and leg Matthew pulled them back out of the water and prepared to bring them back to his nest, at the edge of his vision, he could see a large bush near him are rattling slightly, although it is starting to get dark, thanks to a chameleon's excellent vision, Matthew could notice it.
There is nothing special about bush rattling, it can happen easily when the wind blows the leaves, but the problem is that Matthew couldn't feel any wind blowing at him right now, and to make sure, he pulls out his tongue up high to see if there's wind blowing, but he still couldn't feel it.
'My chamy sense is tingling…'