Chapter 4: Devour
『You have learned the skill Devour Lv.1』
『Devour Lv.1』
『Rank: SSS』
『—> You are able to consume a small portion of the dead and absorb a fragment of strength from the target, which provides a boost to one of your stats.』
『—> You can mimic one of the consumed target's stats for 10 seconds after consumption (one-time use).』
『—> You can learn one of the target's skills.』
『—> You get a brief flash of insight into the target's memories and skills.』
『Limitations: At Lv.1, Devour can only be used once a day.』
『Note: The skill evolves once you feed on more prey.』
『You have killed a Lv.10 F rank Mage.』
『You have leveled up!』
『You have leveled up!』
『You have leveled up!』
『You have—』
『You—』
『Lv.4—>Lv.5』
『Congratulations, you have reached Lv.5.』
『New features will be unlocked:』
『Profile (unlocked)』
『Shop (unlocked)』
I heard Stucky say a lot of things, and weirdly enough, I remembered all of them, even if I didn't want to.
Skill isn't any meat. I understood that. It is something like the fire that the male—uh, mage—used.
I got Devour, which just means eat. Does that mean Stucky wants me to eat?
I realized that I was starving.
All this time, no matter how many times I came back and died, I never ate.
That one time when I got bear's meat, I fed it to my kin. But I didn't even taste it.
So maybe that's why Stucky gave me something like this.
I blinked open my eyes, back to the view, and there... I stood again at the same place.
I could hear the chatter from behind... no, wait, something was different.
The usual cries of the children, the adults' mockery, and fights weren't present.
I turned back, instantly, only to find them... feasting?
What were they eating?
I lowered my gaze and concentrated only to find them hovering over the body... the body of the dead mage.
I couldn't believe it.
Or had I taken it lightly that I had forgotten?
I had killed a human.
But more so, I had killed them with the help of flesh-eating worms.
I had to rush and warn them, immediately! Otherwise, they would be dead... but as if reading my mind, Stucky appeared in front of me.
『The Mokrs have been stored away in your inventory due to your death.』
"...?"
I didn't understand what inventory was, but Stucky showed those boxes and I guess, I finally knew what it meant.
In one of those boxes were eight flesh-eating worms.
"Interesting...", I muttered to myself.
I didn't know Stucky could do that. But it explained to me.
『Note: It has been auto-set that things used by the host, scattered or thrown, will return to the inventory during the host's death. You may change this setting.』
It was complicated stuff, but I understood what it tried to say.
I didn't have to bother thinking that I lost my items.
I gave a brief nod, understanding a bit of it before walking towards my family and demanding food.
"I need some."
"Gubzo?", one of the elders sneered at me, giving me weird looks.
"We found it! Why should we give it to a loner like you?", said another.
"It's for the children. Can't you even sacrifice this much?", said a third.
"Here. This should suffice. Understand that we don't have much to share from.", one goblin, seemingly a bit more muscular than the rest but still scrawny, threw a small piece of bone at me.
It bounced off my chest, leaving a small scratch mark before falling to the ground.
I stared...
The human was someone whom I had killed...
He was someone whom I outsmarted.
He was someone who gave me pain, but I gave him payback.
I enjoyed his scream on their behalf... all because he killed them.
And this is how they treated me?
I was taken aback.
A finger, not even the thumb but the little finger, is what they threw at me and that too, it was chewed out by someone.
I lowered myself, picking it up as I cursed myself for thinking about them.
I had given them the bear meat and now human meat... I fought for them but this is how they treat me?
I briefly looked at the blue portal, wondering if the humans might enter soon, so I decided to savor the taste but...
The little finger didn't have anything in it save for some amount of skin and tiny strands of muscle fiber. Some blood attached.
I grit my teeth, unknowingly.
The little finger, I put it in my mouth and gave it a nice crunch.
The taste... it didn't taste like anything.
It felt bland.
My fellow kin enjoyed it, but I couldn't enjoy what I had hunted.
I don't know why...
Regardless, I continued chewing on it and swallowed. Just then, Stucky appeared.
『You have consumed a little portion of the dead.』
『You can now mimic one of the following stats for 10 seconds:
HP: 120 MP: 250 Strength: 8 Agility: 7 Intelligence: 30 Dexterity: 12 Constitution: 10』
『You can learn one of the target's skills:
Fire Wave Lv.3: You can cast a wave of fire at will. [Cost: 100 MP for activation and 2 MP/s to maintain it.] Fire Bolt Lv.3: You can cast a small bolt of fire that deals moderate damage to a single target. [Cost: 30 MP/bolt] Fire Breath Lv.1: Makes your breath a little hotter. [Cost: None]』
All of these were fine. I would be extremely excited to choose from one of these... however, I couldn't afford to at the moment as the memories surged in, of the dead body.
I was paralyzed for a moment, I think, when I saw the mage's life. Not entirely, but parts of it.
Many things caught my attention, but the biggest part was after the body died.
I could view the memories of the dead body and what happened to it...
A drop of blood streamed down my mouth as I bit my lips when the memories ended.
My entire body trembled as I swiftly turned my head towards the portal, not at it but above it...
And there she was... tightly gripping the stones, close to the ceiling, the female who had killed me the last time.
Her face... she had a maniacal smile as both our eyes met...
What I saw in the memories was that she had sprinkled something on the dead body and had been hiding there all this time, for almost an hour...
My lips quivered as I looked behind me... the goblin kin falling to the ground one by one...
And... similarly, I fell to the ground too.
But this time, I didn't hear Stucky's regular voice.
It didn't say - 『You died.』
It said... 『You have fallen asleep.』