Monster

by Sergey Belsky

  Yeah, it was just a couple of them, but their levels told me that there was no chance for me to fight them. And the worst bit: these two bastards were leading my ally away to be their slave. But how had they captured him?

  I presumed he’d died because of something in the city, resurrected, and then they grabbed him. Had they been waiting there for him, or was it just bad luck?

  Hmm... bastards, they’re ruining all my plans. Yes, my poor brain was aching again. I looked at the number of points I had and decided to invest another hundred into the brain.

  Your brain is evolving!

  Stats: Mind +8, Evolution +2, Structure +1, Complexity +1.

  20 points of experience gained!

  Level up! Current Level: 8.

  With each subsequent evolution of my brain, my thoughts became clearer and more complex. However, my brain didn’t seem like it could keep up with them. I wonder why?

  With their levels, these beetles were easily too strong for me to fight. They were probably at least five times stronger than I was since I’d invested so much into my brain.

  How can I kill them? I won’t run away from them, so I must find a way to destroy them… but how? There has to be a way.

  The traps... if it’s impossible to lure the spikers over to them, then I’ll just have to bring the traps to these beetles. My jaws bent slightly, expressing joy, as I remembered that there was an explosive ball in my spatial pocket.

  I hope it explodes if I throw it at them. What if the explosion isn’t enough to kill these bastards? What should I do if that happens? But the explosion will surely kill Skal and he will respawn.

  But what if they know exactly where he’s going to respawn? I decided to stop worrying for now and instead did my best to listen in and see if I could get any useful information out of them.

  “If one survived, a few more could have as well,” one of the spikers suggested.

  “But where should we look for them? These little freaks could be hiding in corners that we can’t even get into, even if we wanted to try,” the other one responded.

  “And what will you tell the leader?” the bigger one stopped walking as he spoke. “That we’ve screwed up? He’ll probably devour us several times and I don’t want to die.”

  “Then let’s continue our search,” the other spiker agreed after thinking it over.

  Counting to three, I pulled out the explosive ball and threw it at them with all I had. The ball didn’t quite hit its target, but that didn’t stop it. There were a deafening roar and chunks of my enemies splattered against the stone that I was hiding behind. When everything calmed down, I looked out from behind the stone.

  Received 50 units of experience!

  Received 500 units of experience!

  Those were some very good messages, but there were only two of them, and when the dust cleared, I saw that the level 35 spiker hadn’t been killed by the blast, but he was badly wounded and wobbling from side to side, blood flowing from his numerous wounds.

  The other one had been torn to pieces, along with my ally. I thought about how nice it would be to finish the bastard off because I’d been given as much as five hundred experience for his buddy, which meant that I would get even more for him.

  But the mental image of the dying beetle easily killing me with one stray blow made me reconsider. I also wanted to follow my instincts and save Skal before this bastard reached his respawn point.

  I rushed toward the remains of the gravediggers as fast as I could. I got there quickly, pleased that I’d remembered where the beetle was supposed to appear. I wondered how we arrived at the respawn point.

  After a while, I received the answer to my question. Dark tendrils of energy emerged from the ground and then slowly began to come together, creating Skal’s figure.

  “Get a move on, Skal, we need to hurry back to the city,” I said, urging the beetle onward. He nodded and followed me.

  However, before we did that, I had to take everything out of the cache, because there was a pebble in there that I thought was very similar to the one the two-legged had mentioned. And there were many more useful things as well.

  Skal could help me carry it if it ended up being too heavy for me. The main thing was to act carefully, as the spikers could still be there. But we were lucky: we saw a spiker with almost full health in the distance, and he was heading toward the remains of the gravediggers.

  It was a shame that I didn’t have another ball with me, I would have thrown it at him. We reached the cache and I threw all the items into my spatial pocket, and then hurried toward the corpse of the spiker, or rather what was left of it.

  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t absorb anything. I certainly wouldn’t have refused the ability to get claws as powerful as the spiker had. Once again, we ran back to the piled up rocks as fast as we could and reached it in record time. We cleared the passage and sighed with relief. After a short rest, we carefully bypassed the traps and went to the spot where we should have originally met up.

  “Finally, we’re relatively safe,” I exhaled. “Now, tell me what happened and how the spikers caught you.”

  Chapter 16

  The Crystal. The Manipulation. Where to put the experience points?

  “Eh,” the gravedigger shrugged. “At first, I wandered around the city a bit. I hoped I could find something to eat. You were right about those trees with orange leaves, by the way, they reacted very oddly when I got close to them. Nothing really interesting happened, except that a strange creature killed me.”

  I listened attentively and didn’t interrupt even though I wanted to ask questions. He could end up telling me what I wanted to know if I just waited.

  “It was like some kind of strange crystal, with frosty air swirling around it. It had several sharp, crystal claws. It was a small winter elemental.

  I’ve never seen such things or even heard of such creatures. It just threw its hand’s crystals at me, and that was enough to kill me. After I respawned, I came across those spikers. You already know the rest.”

  “The spikers will be wary now. Though they haven’t seen me, they know that someone can kill them. I hope they thought it was the rippers.”

  “How did you manage to fight such powerful enemies?” Skal looked at me, clearly puzzled.

  “I was able to use an exploding trap against them.”

  “We should gather plenty of those traps.”

  “I also thought about doing that, but it seems to me that this place wouldn’t make it easy on us,” I sighed. “Come on, I need to do something.”

  We finally reached the statue again, after a lengthy walk.

  “What do you want with the statue of a ripper?” the beetle asked as he began to look around. “Maybe we should get out of here?”

  “No, I have a deal with this statue,” I said, and Skal looked at me strangely.

  “Look, is this the crystal that you need?” I asked, holding the stone up in my hand.

  “Sel Nur, you’ve managed to find Efilioll’s crystal,” the despair in her voice had noticeably diminished. “Put the crystal on the pedestal.”

  I did as the two-legged told me and moved aside as the crystal flashed brightly and then disappeared.

  Received 200 points of experience!

  “How nice it is to feel some power again,” the voice became more cheerful. “What do you want as a reward, little Sel Nur?”

  “Tell me about energy and how to use it.” I didn’t even need to think about it.

  “Hmm... energy. It suffuses everything in this and many other worlds. It is transformed and transmitted between multiple objects.

  Taking intricate forms and creating unusual patterns, energy is what the universe itself was formed from and is able to influence it. The energy that is contained in your body can be controlled, and the better you do it, the more subtly you can interact with and influence the world.

  I see that a small spark of that energy is already present within you, but it is still
too weak. You will have to train a lot in order to do anything truly impressive with it. I think my little gift will help you.”

  Ability acquired “Simple manipulation of energy”!

  Description: this ability allows you to use the energy that you have, but its impact on your body and the surrounding reality is still small. Develop this ability to learn and understand how to influence this world more skillfully and in more meaningful ways.

  Level: 1

  This description left me feeling very curious. I had to figure out how this ability worked.

  “Use this ability while relying on your reason to guide you and you can gain much,” I thought I heard a note of kindness in her voice. “Now go, I need some rest.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and went over to Skal.

  It seemed like the statue had had a hard time bestowing this ability upon me. I didn’t even hear her crying as I left. We need to find more crystals, but just where and how do I find them?

  I’d gotten lucky with the first one. I thought that it was unlikely that I’d find another one so easily. Maybe the gravediggers could help, but they would need to be freed first. We should check the spikers’ den, in case they have something interesting there.

  “Sel Er,” Skal used my name, which surprised me. No one had done that before, apart from my family and Khha, before he died. “I would like to relax for a while since I’ve eaten almost nothing today and have become very tired.”

  “Of course,” I agreed since it was a very reasonable thing to suggest. When I stopped to think about it, I realized I was hungry and tired as well. “I saw a well-preserved house nearby, we can rest there.”

  “Okay,” the gravedigger responded wearily and followed me.

  Finding the house wasn’t difficult. I had managed to memorize where things were around here and quickly led us there. As we headed to the second floor, we saw our reflections in a frozen, oval pool of water that had vines going through it.

  There were several rooms on this floor. One of them was covered by a half-broken partition, which served as a defensive measure. I pulled it across the entrance so that no one could get into the room while we were resting.

  Skal, without saying anything, sat down in a corner and fell asleep. But I couldn’t sleep, too busy trying to decide where I should put almost eight hundred experience points. On the one hand, I could invest everything into the brain again, but I had no guarantee that I would be able to handle new enemies if I did that.

  My jaws... they had been upgraded a little, but I didn’t use them very often, and they weren’t always able to help. My eyes and sense of smell didn’t need much development, they were fine for now.

  Maybe I should upgrade my nervous and digestive systems. Judging by their descriptions, the former would allow me to better manage my own body, and the latter would let me process a wider range of food.

  Hmm... I wish I could invest in my muscles to become at least a little stronger. I debated with myself for a long time about what would be best, and in the end, I put 600 points into my claws, that is, 150 into each claw.

  Your Beetle Claw is evolving. Now you have a Simple Claw!

  Stats: Structure +1, Complexity +1, Mobility +1, Health +15.

  80 points of experience gained!

  Level up! Current Level: 9.

  Level up! Current Level: 10.

  The claws immediately grew, even if only a little, and I felt kind of odd. I tried to move around and immediately hit the wall. Apparently, I would have to learn how to walk all over again. I still had 190 points to spend, but I wasn’t sure where I should use them. Well, I’d decide later since I was too tired. I lay down on the cold floor in the opposite corner of the room and fell asleep.

  Chapter 17

  The Equipment. The Head of spikers. Who is to blame.

  Narr Nutt

  A terrible, frightening spiker was pacing up and down the stone hall. His powerful forelegs ended in razor sharp claws, and each one had a ripper’s bracelet of a light golden color on it. In one of them was a ruby that exuded a red glow and on the second an emerald, in which an impenetrable, evergreen forest seemed to reside.

  On his head was an old helmet, covered in numerous scratches and dents. On his slightly bulging torso, which was almost the same as that of a karkant, there was a colorful royal mantle, decorated with sable fur.

  None of the spiker chief’s numerous subordinates understood why their leader wore ripper clothes, and this made him very happy.

  My dear, stupid little bugs. The chief grinned. Keep working hard to make me more powerful. You need to find good things that will strengthen me even more. Who would have thought that the ripper’s clothes could increase my own strength so much?

  He remembered that, not so long ago, he’d been just an ordinary spiker, like many others. Their whole life was devoted to the struggle against the rippers and the search for food.

  They were rarely able to harm them and the rippers often killed everyone, not even paying attention to the efforts of the spikers. It really enraged him, but there was nothing that could be done about it because, in order to become stronger, you had to gain experience somehow.

  However, collecting various kinds of raw materials, helping comrades, and a dozen other similar tasks granted little experience, which meant you had to live a very long time before you could gain significant power.

  He didn’t want to wait, nor did he want to end up like so many of his friends had. One by one, they’d gotten their final warnings about only having a few lives remaining, until they’d all disappeared.

  And then, after a warning about his last rebirth had appeared before his eyes, he’d been lucky enough to find the bracelet that now adorned his front right claw.

  The bloody ruby in the gold bracelet increased his strength and health, which made it much easier for the current chief to stay alive. Rippers began to die to the sharp blades growing from his claws, and he became so strong that even the old leader had praised him.

  But it still hadn’t been enough. He wanted to avoid death at all costs, because, despite all his tricks, the rippers could still defeat him. Fear prompted him to seek out new ways to add to his power, and soon a second bracelet was found, increasing his endurance and mobility.

  After some rather serious training, he was able to rise above all the other spikers, and then challenged the old leader and defeated him. The fight had been hard since he hadn’t expected the old leader would be so strong, but the rippers’ bracelets and his rigorous training prevailed. After the fight, he was the new leader of all the spikers.

  As time passed, the chief got greedy again. He contacted some rippers, surprised he could make a deal with some of them.

  The two-legged brought him various things, and in return, he began to kill the gravediggers who ate the dead and prevented the rippers from rummaging in their spatial pockets.

  In addition, those idiots had gladly exchanged metal blades, and even fine jewelry, for some grubs and worms. Their sheer stupidity always cheered the chief up and put him in a good mood.

  However, he didn’t want to give the rippers too much by killing all the gravediggers. Therefore, he decided to enslave the gravediggers and force them to collect bodies for him, since they were the best at finding dead flesh.

  The rippers greatly appreciated this new service and had even presented him with his mantle, which was very unusual. He was a bit confused by why they were so overjoyed by what he’d done. However, it didn’t matter.

  Narr Nutt, Spikers’ Chief, Level 87

  That’s what the two spikers saw when they were taken to the hall to see the chief. Narr had already been told that they’d lost the gravedigger.

  “How could you allow this to happen?” He asked his subordinates, who tried not to look at their leader.

  “Someone attacked us,” the surviving spiker replied. “And we didn’t see who it was.”

  “What happened to the gravedigger?”

  “He died as wel
l,” the other answered.

  “That’s good,” the chief cracked his neck. “Why don’t I see him with you, then? You could’ve easily caught him at his respawn point.”

  “I didn’t know where exactly he would appear or if he would even appear at all,” the spiker justified himself.

  “Of course he would’ve appeared. He’s still young, he hasn’t had the chance to die enough yet,” Narr said dismissively. “Tell me what happened.”

  “After we approached a small pile of stones, a strange thing landed near us, but we didn’t get a good look at it. Then it exploded,” the spiker explained. “If I had been standing a little closer, I would’ve also died.”

  “Hmm...” the chief thought about the spiker’s words. Since it definitely couldn’t have been one of the ancients’ traps, that meant someone was building their own, and they were powerful enough to kill his subordinates. “Take the guards with you and explore the area. If you find someone, take them alive, but make sure they understand I am very upset about the death of one of my guards.” Narr smiled cruelly.

  Chapter 18

  Skal’s explanation. Manipulation with energy. Training.

  Tes Sel Er

  I slept well, but now I clearly felt hungry. We ought to eat something from the stocks. What’s going on? The gravedigger was standing next to me looking surprised.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “You’ve changed and grown bigger," he looked at me incredulously. “But where did you get the experience to raise your level?”

  “I completed the assignment and killed one of the spikers,” I replied.

  “I see,” the gravedigger nodded. “So, I also need someone to defeat and complete the task, but it won’t be easy.”

  “Why?”

  “I am hungry and don’t have a lot of strength left,” he sighed.

  “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem anymore,” I stretched my legs and rose hesitantly. “Now you can eat,” I said, and took out a couple of haloptiriuses and turquoitus.

  Skal looked as if he had seen the tastiest tidbit in the world, so he quickly gobbled them down. I wonder why he eats the dead if he liked mushrooms and worms so much. Maybe he found them delicious as well.