The huge apes seemed to take my smile as some kind of insult and dashed to me while the elder ape thrusted his hands forward.
This is indeed a dangerous situation, or at least it would have been had i not fought with the huge bat.
With a single slash from my spear the tree branch was cut in half, i was about to follow up with another attack when another rock flew to my face but this time noticeably faster than before.
I gently side-stepped it before getting ready for the attack that was probably coming from the big ape and as it would turn out i was correct.
The big ape had opened his arms and was getting ready to hug me, this couldn't help but remind me of my first battle in this dungeon with the bat.
Unfortunately for it i wasn't going to let this happen, i casted 'flash of light' before putting away the spear and pulling out the battle hammer.
I swear this battle hammer might have been the best purchase that i have ever made, other than Yumi of course.
While the huge ape was blinded i took a stance with my hammer and waited.
What was i waiting for, well that is simple.
With a 'whoosh' a rock came flying in at me, this time i didn't dodge but instead used my hammer as a bat and threw the rock at the huge ape.
This turn of events shocked both the apes, something that i wasn't goint to leave unpunished.
I quickly followed behind the rock dropping the hammer and pulling out the dagger, the ape dodged the rock but it couldn't dodge my dagger that was right behind it.
With a 'puchi' my dagger entered deep in it's throat, i even added gluttonus aura for good measure before i used my dagger as a leverage, stepping on it's chest and jumping of towards the elder ape.
The elder ape was still far too shocked to understand what was happening so i quickly aproached before knocking it out with a strong punch at it's neck.
This was the best plan i could come up with, while this ape might only be able to use a single spell it still means that it has the earth magic skill but i have never used gluttony on something that wasn't a body skill before, so just to be sure i decided to use gluttony while it was still alive.
I don't know if this is going to have any influence on gluttony but trying something is better that trying nothing.
After that i took out a rope made of the tendons of the huge bat, this thing was the reason that my 'production' leveled up so quick since not only did i make it from scratch but i even enchanted it to make it more durable.
This rope was of course used to tie the elder ape up.
Since he was still unconscious i went ahead and finished off the big ape as well as the rest of the apes that i didn't previously have time to check on.
I returned to the elder ape only to see it struggling against the rope, which by the way is completely useless, i made this rope with the goal in mind to entangle a huge bat, an weak and sickly ape wasn't getting this thing of even if i left it here for a week.
No waiting for it to scream i used all my mana and casted gluttonus aura, before throwing it all at it's head.
The ape was already weak so it died without even letting out a scream.
"...fuck."
It would seem that throwing gluttonus aura on it's head while wanting it to live might have been a bad idea.
Whatever, what is done is done, i will keep this lesson in mind for my future endeavors.
Such were my thoughs in my mind until i was interrupted by my favourite sound.
[Ding]
[User has aquired skill 'Earth magic']
[Ding]
[User has aquired skill 'Rock throw', skill has mutated and has become 'Weak earth arrow']
There wasn't any pain this time, just an itchy feeling all over my body.
I feel like my mana has changed, i will need to return to the safe-zone to rest and test out if there are any changes.
With that in mind i waited a couple of minutes until the elder ape was completely consumed and made my way back to the safe-zone.
.....
"System"
[Character Information]
[Name: Bell Nyhtous]
[Gender: Male]
[Age: 5 Years]
[Job: Jester]
[Title: The perfectionist]
[Level: 27]
[Attribute Points:]
[Strength: 199]
[Agility: 199]
[Vitality: 199]
[Stamina: 199]
[Defence: 199]
[Intelligence: 199]
[Mana: 199]
[Charm: 199]
[Unique skills: Gluttony]
[Group skills: Art tier 1 level 3, Production tier 2 level 3, Martial arts stage 1 tier 8 level 2, Strong body level 8]
[Skills: Study level 10, Magic cooking level 2, Clean level 8, Pain resistance level 2, Light magic tier 3 level 7, Mana manipulation tier 4 level 6, Weak rejuvenation level 5, Light arrow level 9, Flash of light level 6, Bored level 3, Negotiation level 4, Desire tolerance level 2, Hide level 5, Observe level 5, Danger sense level 3, Battle sense level 3, Earth magic tier 1 level 1, Weak earth arrow level 1, inventory]
[Current status: Normal]
[Comment: Almost there.]
It has been 2 days since the ape nest event.
Other than the 2 new skills and the 3 levels nothing else changed by much.
The mutation in mana also didn't affect anything else other than giving me the ability to cast earth spells.
My 'Strong body' might has leveled up i only used 70% of all the bodies i had, i would rather be a bit weaker than be forced to hunt because of starvation.
During this time i also went ahead and made a pair of daggers from the big ape just in case i lose the one i currently have in battle.
.....
I was just making my way to the smallest bat nest but something interesting caught my attention, a group of around 5 bats was going towards to the ape nest.
Although i had no idea from which bat nest they were from, it definitely wouldn't hurt to kill them.
With this in mind i moved as sneakily as posible and followed them to their destination.
And it would seem that my guess was correct, their destination was the ape nest.
I was wandering where they were getting their food, it would seem that they would hunt at the nest of other kinds of monsters.
The started screaming at each other when they saw that there was no ape here, before splitting up presumably for better food search.
Something that couldn't have been better for me.
They spilt into 3 teems, 2 of the teems had 2 bats each and the last one only had a single bat.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that i would be attacking the lone bat.
Following it for a bit i saw it land on a rock, probably to rest, pity it would be it's last.
With a quick dash, i reached it under it's shocked eyes and pierced it's throat with one of my daggers and it's heart with my other, to make sure it didn't make a sound i used gluttonus aura on the throat while simply just twisting the dagger that was at it's heart.
Thankfully it was enough to kill it without allowing it to let out much noise.
I proceeded to store it and use 'clean' on my daggers, the bats didn't have that strong sense of smell but it is better to be cerefull with these things.
This was easy but i am afraid that the other 2 groups won't go down as easily as this one, i have full confidence that i can kill 2 bats but i don't think i can kill them without making some noise.
I shake my head to get rid of the distracting thoughts and traced back to another group of bats.
How convinient, these two are also resting.
Making sure that everything around was in order, dashed at them at full speed.
I slashed the neck of the nearest bat with my dagger and afterwords i casted 'flash of light'.
Using the momentoum of the slash i changed grip on my dagger and made a backwards stabbing motion at it's throat, i didn't forget to add gluttonus aura to be curtain that it would cause any trouble.
With that out of they way, i started casting 'light arrow' to the other bat which to this point was still confused.
Due to me leveling up the spell now does way more damage than one would expect, only 3 arrows to the head was enough to kill it.
I smile slightly, due to my rapid progress i couldn't help but start feeling a bit proud.
Just as i had backed up and was getting ready to hunt the last group something interesting happened.
There was a big group of bats fighting!
'What the hell is going on here?'