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Re:Monster Human Edition

[Day 41]

I left the [Red Bear] behind because there was a team of four humans that had entered the forest. I had my blood clone follow them from the time they entered to the time they set up camp. They seemed… promising. Not exceptionally promising but, if they survived in the forest and the encounter I was setting up for them, they'd be worth eating. Especially the warrior. He looked like something out of a manga. Heavy armor plating, a large, thick shield and a sword as long as he was tall. Honestly, it could've been a type of golem. His movements were slow but deliberate, and he had excellent battlefield awareness.

The priest in the party was cute, too, but in a childish way. I doubt she stood at five feet even and she had a chibi-ish face. Her staff stretched a head taller than she was and it seemed she was at least moderately proficient with it, making me think she had a job or a skill relating to staves.

The mage was… pathetic, really. A fireball Sei could cast was twice the size of his and he didn't seem to have any other element at his disposal. A bad match-up, should they fall for the encounter.

The archer had decent aim but seemed to toy with the weaker enemies, wasting his arrows when he didn't have to. He'd run out of usable arrows within a few days in the forest, should he not learn a lesson, one I intended he'd be forced to encounter. Alone, if possible. If he died, I'd store him in my bag for later consumption.

An interesting note, one that could involve the humans. If I give my blood clones the ability to use my Item Box, it stays connected to mine. Meaning I can have them go scavenge items from across the world, should my ability to connect mentally with them remain, and have them gather exotic ingredients. Or even send them into camps and castles to take equipment from my enemies. It's a very useful ability.

As such, I plan on creating blood clones as big as I can get them and as many as I can get and have them go out and, on top of their normal scouting duty, have them hunt down ingredients and supplies, sneak into bandit camps, kill the bandits and store them in the Item Box and so on and so forth.

Ah. I couldn't wait to see how they tasted…

Whoops, drooling a bit.

The rest of the day was pretty boring, other than the three of us encountering a small group of [Black Wolves]. I didn't much feel like hunting and 'flexed' my intent. It had been a while since I had done so, but it was just like riding a bike. I pour on just enough to frighten the wolves and scared them off rather easily.

I made a hill for us to sleep on, giving us a fair view of the area around us. I didn't need it to scout the area, but the girls should get into a habit of keeping watch. I might not always be around, after all.

During my shift at night, an [Armored Raccoon Dog] came into camp to try and find food. As soon as I looked at it, however, it scampered off. Maybe it felt like I was a hungry lion waiting for prey to come close.

[Day 42]

After a breakfast of gnome for the girls and some lesser magical items for me, we headed back to the nearest city.

[You have learned "Conceal Self Status" ability.]

I was hoping we'd arrive quickly. There were storm clouds gathering and, from the looks of things, they would be close enough to drench us within the next couple hours. I could make an umbrella of sorts but the ground would still get soaked, impeding our progress.

I know they aren't normal horses but mud and muck will still slow them down.

We didn't stop for lunch and instead ate some experimental dried elf meat. To make the dried meat, I used [Hydrokinesis] to pull out most of the moisture. It didn't have the overwhelming salty taste but it didn't quite taste like the fruit it normally did. If anything, it tasted rather like plain meat… why it tasted so different as a jerky of sorts, I have no idea. I've never tasted such a difference between dried and normal meat before.

I gained no skills out of it but I suppose that really didn't matter. I just wish it had some of its usual flavor.

It started raining a couple hours after lunch, so we stopped for the day, or at least until it wasn't raining anymore.

I used [Hydrokinesis] again and dried up a portion of the ground. It wasn't strong enough to wither plants, but I could at least flatten them down.

I wanted Sei and Sato to evolve soon, so I pushed my [Lesser Summoning: Undead] ability, combined with my [Self Replication] ability - I had to absorb the rain water using [Liquid Restoration] so I could keep up with the replication process - to create a trio of sort-of undead version of myself. One skeleton, one zombie and one ghost.

The fake me's had limited access to my abilities and the skeleton and zombie were coated in a thin layer of blood to protect them from the little bit of light leaking through the rain clouds. The ghost was incorporeal but I really only made it so I could try to eat it. But, again, it's incorporeal. My hands - damn I was happy to say that again - slipped right through it when I tried to touch it.

I gave two simple orders to the undead copies. Let the slimes control their bodies. Since I was synced up with the blood clones, I could control their movements as if I were moving myself. The fact I was doing two at once meant my control over them was sloppy.

As strange as it may sound, I never ate an ESPer with a duplication ability. I have no practice controlling extra limbs, or extra bodies. Not only that, the zombie was a standard movie type. Slow to move but utterly strong. It was hard to control.

The skeleton was much easier to control. It was as strong as a normal and it was as light as, well, bones. I did have a little trouble trying to control it. It tended to jump forward further than expected with its steps.

The two were unarmed and, more interestingly, solid black. The skeletons the girls and I fought were a bone white while the one I got the summoning ability was more of a grey color.

Speaking of, as I half-focused on controlling the two undead creatures, I pulled the [Greater Skeleton] bits out of my bag and snacked on it casually. Minus the head and spine, I still had most of a skeleton here to eat.

I had Sei deal with the zombie. It was slow, like I said, but the blood was resistant to fire. She couldn't burn it away easily and her tier two flame spell hardly did a thing against it. She'd have to cast with her other attributes, which I've only seen her do two other times.

Sei had Fire, Water and Shadow magic attributes. Undead are naturally resistant to both shadow magic and abilities and they were weak to fire, life and light magic and abilities. I controlled the clones in a way that allowed them to be easily affected by water magic. All Sei had to do was pull the clone away using water magic and burn what was left over.

Describing it as water magic and fire magic was, from what I've come to understand, inherently wrong. It doesn't allow you to make or control fire or water but fire magic would be more aptly described at heat magic, allowing you to control the temperature of things. The less magical the object you're trying to control, the easier it becomes. Water magic could be called liquid. It wasn't perfect. It was easier to control molten lava with earth magic but it could still be done with water magic.

Sato had to fight an enemy faster than she was. Physically, Sato was stronger than a normal human and she was a bit faster but the skeleton had her beat in both. It'd work out as good combat experience for them both.

Sato defeated hers first. The weapon she held, while it was just a common steel sword, gave her an advantage. Since the skeleton seemed to be resistant to slashing attacks, like the ones from the dungeon, she had to work a bit smarter.

The blood coating the skeleton kept her from using her fist to damage it and I took her sheathe. I don't think she figured out why.

Two minutes into the fight, she used her sword to separate the joints. It was by accident the first time. She shoved her sword against the elbow and twisted so she could swing it to deflect the other arm coming down for her. She separated the forearm from the upper arm far enough to where the magic keeping them together couldn't do so, so it just popped right off.

It took her another four minutes to figure out what it was she did so she could repeat it but once she got started, the skeleton was quickly nothing but a pile of bones that could only rattle its head.

She stomped on the head a few times and I let her have the kill. She was going to go help Sei but I… convinced her otherwise.

I would say I convinced her to lay with me but I'm almost certain that, if she hadn't been forced into it the first time, she never would have. She has her eyes on Sei and I wasn't going to ruin what they were going into.

I summoned a pair of elves, both male, for her to fight. They were armed with their own weapons. Strangely enough, the [Dark Elf] - I've found I'm capable of summoning variations of the same species. Dark elves as a variation of elves, redcaps as a variation of gnomes and stone dwarves as a variation of dwarves - was holding a pair of swords, a standard wakizashi and tanto. The common [Elf] held a basket-hilted sword and a small buckler.

The [Dark Elf] wore a traditional outfit fitting a samurai. Loose black hakama pants, a white gi under a black haori jacket and white socks under a pair of geta. Black hair, eyes and rich brown skin showed the nature of its race.

The other [Elf], the common one, wore a pale yellow tunic, pale brown pants and brown leather boots. It had pale caucasian skin, light blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes.

It was a bit hard to describe them as I didn't exactly care to. They could be called handsome men, I suppose, but men weren't my type.

Anyway, the two elves distracted Sato because she was a battle junkie. It would be appropriate to say she got turned on by fighting and it was one of the things she enjoyed doing the most.

With my focus now on one blood clone, I could control it better, giving Sei a harder time. Maybe I shouldn't have made the blood fire resistant. Eh, whatever.

The two elves were doing good. They weren't exactly working together for whatever reason, but they were putting up a good fight. They were fairly proficient in their weapons, better than I expected them to be, but their lack of teamwork was hindering each other as they bumped into one another or 'accidentally' slash at one another but they never injured each other. I was actually surprised at the amount of free will they had. Or maybe it was just genetics coming in and that their species just naturally hated one another.

Since the spine and head of the [Greater Skeleton] held the most power of it, I hadn't gained any extra abilities from eating more of it. I was on the last limb of the grey skeleton now. And I was halfway down the thigh before I gained an ability.

[You have learned "Greater Equipment Materialization" ability.]

It was a nifty little ability. I was able to summon items much like I did minions. Nothing overly magical. They couldn't have enchantments but it'd be high quality metals and easy to enchant with my own magic… if I knew how to enchant.

Half an hour after her fight started, Sei was defeated. She couldn't concentrate enough to focus on stripping away the blood and she was physically outmatched.

Sato was having the time of her life fighting the elves. She took the wakizashi from the dark elf and was using it along with her other sword, albeit crudely. I think using two swords suits her though. I'll teach her the proper styles later tonight.

As for Sei, jiu jitsu and low-stress counter styles would be fitting her. Maybe a couple staff techniques as well. As soon as she was rested, I'd show her the styles using an elf as a practice dummy.

The rain passed after three hours but its job was already done. It was too late to continue on and too treacherous to attempt it. I kept our little camp and the surrounding area dry with [Hydrokinesis], I fed the horses some gnomes and the girls and I ate the elves Sato fought. She was able to beat the [Dark Elf] but not the [Elf].

Sei got a little practice in with her staff but she wasn't very good with it, despite having carried it for years apparently. She took to jiu jitsu a bit better but it was only her first day and her physical strength was comparable to a goblin, or a gnome. Her endurance was a bit better but it was still substandard compared to a human.

I used [Greater Equipment Materialization] to experiment and see what I could make. Equipment is defined as the necessary items for a particular purpose. I wanted to see if this ability defined it the same way. If so, there'd be almost no limit to what I could make. Cooking supplies, sleeping bags, construction tools - not machines, as far as I could tell. They needed gasoline and it didn't seem like this world had any - and a multitude of other items.

When the three of us went to sleep, Sei curled up against Sato and Sato comforted Sei.

I was beginning to think they wouldn't stay around much longer. I couldn't fault them either. I actually killed a fair portion of the older generation of goblins back at their cave. Then again, they seemed a bit disappointed but not upset or angry over the fact it happened.

The rest of the night as pretty quiet. I kept my sensing abilities active to keep watch but nothing really got close enough to bother us.

[Day 43]

It was still overcast this morning but I could see a fragment of sky here and there. It didn't look like it was going to rain and the ground dried up enough for the horses not to get drained of energy too quickly.

I made a wok with the equipment materialization ability and used it to cook up some succubus and elf. As I was cooking, one of my clones alerted me to some vegetables they found around the patch I devoured with Kurohana.

Ah. I wonder how she's doing… well, it's no big deal. She's with Red and she had a collar and a taming license. I doubt there'd be much trouble. I just kind of hoped she was getting a bath every few days.

I cut up some of the vegetables - they weren't the living kind and didn't taste as good but it had been a while since I had some - and tossed them into the wok with the meat. Carrots, ginseng and some potatoes were all that would go well with the two types of meat.

The meal was eaten in silence. The girls were still waking up from their slumber, eating while half asleep. I added a bit too much ginseng to it and made it a bit too bitter but it wasn't terrible. In all fairness, I used the entirety of an elf and a succubus and it was a rather large wok. I even drained their bone marrow and used it as a sort of thick stock to cook it all in.

The succubus and elf tasted good together but it wasn't all that great. The elf was a bit sweeter while the succubus was salty. It threw the taste off some and conflicted.

I gained an ability from both the succubus and the elf. Both were fairly nice but one stood out above the other.

[You have learned "Glamour" ability.]

[You have learned "Luck" ability.]

Luck was definitely the better of the two. It increased my chance to find or acquire objects of value, including coins, through luck. With [Golden Rule], an ability that literally changes my fate to have my life filled with riches, on top of it, I should be able to find plenty of tasty things to eat.

Glamour was a magical ability that changed my appearance, through illusions, so I looked more attractive. Only more attractive though. It'd make sense a succubus would have that ability. It'd make things a bit easier for them to do, if rumors of my past life were right. Eating souls sounds like an interesting ability.

After all the food was gone, I cleaned the wok and stored it in my bag.

I summoned up a trio of redcaps for horses to eat. A trio each, meaning nine of them.

I'm rather glad the horses ate meat. It'd make it rather hard to feed them if they didn't.

It was still rather early in the morning so I didn't force the girls to get on their horses. We stayed quiet as the sun started its journey across the sky. I woke up at roughly six in the morning, started cooking around six fifteen and the girls woke up at around six twenty. We spent until roughly nine o'clock being lazy and just not really doing anything.

After it got to roughly nine, we mounted up and made our way to Purgatory.

I really wanted to get the girls to evolve. Goblins and hobgoblins weren't well accepted by human societies, as I've said before, and I didn't really want them to die.

To ensure they'd evolve, I'd summon a small army at night for the two of them to fight. I'd give the army two commands. Do not kill and capture them in any way possible. It could still end up badly. Limbs could be cut off, flesh could be torn apart and they can be pinned down with weapons stabbed through them.

Of course, those are only the worst possible endings. I could just summon a large supply of rope or give them an order to do as little harm as possible but experience towards level, and therefore towards evolutions, are based off of many factors, including equipment, how hard opponents on both sides fought and, after that was all factored in, experience towards one's level could only be gained if you kill your enemy. I wanted maximum effort for maximum results.

For that reason, we'd stop after the sun set for the day so I could use [Darkness Absorption] and a near-endless source of mana to keep summoning creatures. And I wouldn't limit what the girls could use. Sato could use her sheathe or the wakizashi she too from the elf and Sei would be allowed to use fire magic.

I would use my three summoning abilities to bring interchanging waves of enemies. One wave would be dwarves, another would be skeletons and another might be mephits.

The day passed with relative quiet. It was kind of boring, having quiet days all the time.

As we got close to a mountain, we did come across a giant of sorts.

It reminded me of a satyr but it was more goat than man. It stood at roughly five meters and held a wooden club in one hand that was thicker than its forearms and as long as its torso. Like a satyr, it had the lower body of a goat but it also had a goats head, complete with horns. The only part that looked human was the chest and arms. The fur from the head swept down to about mid-chest but the rest of its chest and arms were totally hairless. It had no tail, so I couldn't exactly call it a fomor like I had planned. I decided to call it a [Lesser Fomor] since I couldn't really come up with something else.

I say we came across it but it threw a large rock at us and it actually hit me and knocked me off my horse.

As much as that pissed me off, I was impressed by its aim.

I was sent sprawling down the small decline we were set on. I was in pain and I could feel several broken bones, including my only remaining real arm. I might not have mentioned but my left arm is the real arm.

I started the healing process with [Healing Saliva]. It wouldn't heal up right away, but it'd set the bones and accelerate the healing process but I'd be able to use it soon.

I pushed the large rock, a boulder really, off of me and started casted a spell. As I started casting - silent casting was difficult as all hell. The words act as an additional focus, allowing you to mold your mana in certain ways to do specific task. Silent casting means you yourself have to mold the mana instead - I started moving my way up the hill. Spell casting got a lot easier as I've leveled my skills, jobs and as I've evolved, so I was able to cast tier one spells within seconds of starting the spell but tier three spells still took a few minutes.

I fired off a [Spear of the End] at the wrist of the fomor. It was holding another boulder to throw and that angered me more than myself getting hit. I don't know if it just got lucky with hitting me or if its aim was just good but I didn't want the girls to get hit in any case.

The fomor reacted well, dropping the rock and trying to dodge the attack. It mostly succeeded. The spell hit it in the hand, blasting off the index finger. It wasn't the hand holding the club, of course, but it'd make its off hand harder to use.

As I got closer, it swung its club down at me, intending to crush me. I let it.

The giant looked proud when he saw me become a red smear on the ground. That is, he looked proud until the red smear started to climb up his club, onto his hand and up his arm.

Before I was crushed, I used [Metamorphosis] to change my entire body into a slime-like body. However, despite my body being more liquid than solid and my damage reduction skills, the giants attack friggin' hurt! My nerves were still there and my only pain management skill was inactive.

The giant tried to pull me off his arm, pulling off bits and pieces of me and throwing them to the ground. Since they were made into slime with [Metamorphosis], I could reabsorb them later. The only real difference for me before I reabsorb them would be my height. I'd be a bit shorter and, with less of me there, a bit weaker.

I activated a combination of [Self Body-Fluid Control] and [Corrosive Touch] and started dissolving the giants arm and club while maintaining my slime form and absorbing what I eroded in a manner similar to eating.

From the sounds I heard the giant make, he must've been in a large amount of pain. I imagine being both dissolved and eaten alive is rather unpleasant.

I reformed my upper body when I got up to the giants shoulder and strengthened the acidity of my body, devouring the arm faster. As a bonus while devouring him, I gained mass. That means that, while he tried to tear me off, I built myself back up. It wasn't a one to one conversion ratio. I had to eat about five pounds to gain one pound of my body back. It didn't really make much sense but whatever.

I opened my item box and pulled out a unique vermillion spear I got from Velvets dungeon. [Analyze] said it was called Kazikli Bey. It had two specific abilities. The first was the fact it was incredibly sturdy. It wasn't actually an ability listed on the weapon in the analysis list but it was a legendary class weapon, on the level of a weapon from a demigod class dungeon.

I thrust the spear into the giants eye and activated its second ability. The ability was called 'Army of the Blood Soaked Crimson Spear' and what it did was, within one hundred meters of what the spear penetrates, I can pour mana into the spear and cause similar vermillion spears to pierce through what the original is impaled on. In this case, it was the giant.

Dozens of spears pierced through the giants flesh, spraying blood into the air. Four alone came out of his skull and I saw bits of brain stuck on the end of one of them.

I pulled the spear back out of the eyeball and stretched myself out with the [Metamorphosis] ability and covered the giants corpse up. With my two corrosive abilities active, the entire beast was starting to dissolve inside of me. I saved a few scraps so I could taste it and while it was good but a bit chewy for my liking.

I got three abilities out of the entire giant, which was more than I was expecting.

[You have learned "Increased Stamina" ability.]

[You have learned "Lesser Physical Attack Enhancement" ability.]

[You have learned "Giants Language" ability.]

Again, pretty basic abilities. Increased Stamina gave me increased stamina, the physical attack ability just made all of my physical attacks hit harder and the giants language ability just let me understand giants if they talked.

After absorbing the giant, I went around and gathered up my missing pieces.

Once that was done, I offered some giant meat to the two girls. Sato snatched it out of my hand like she hadn't eaten in days, not even giving me time to cook it. Sei waited long enough for me to to that but Sato stared at the glistening, perfectly cooked meat with blood stains around her mouth from how messily she ate the raw portion I gave her. Sei split it with her, eating her fill before giving the rest to Sato.

They both seemed to enjoy it more than what else we've eaten so far, so I marked this area on my mental map as a place to come back to later.

My broken bones were healed up less than an hour later but I still had some bruising that was healing slowly.

After we stopped for the night and ate, I had Sei and Sato fight the faux-army like I had planned. Sei blasted the archers and mages with her magic while Sato focused on the melee fighters.

I switched up one of the waves mid-wave and summoned an excess of archers and mages, forcing Sei to use her tier two fire magic 'Char'dei Dirou', also called 'Firestorm Calamity'. She created give fireballs about four inches across and launched them at the ranged summons. The fire spell hit the summons even as they tried to dodge it and exploded in a more grandiose manner, consuming the summons they hit and burning the ones around them. It was a good idea and it would have been better had she not been completely exhausted by the spell. She was already low on mana and used the remainder and then some to cast the spell. I wouldn't be surprised if she slept for a week after she cast that.

There were a few archers who were badly wounded but survived the explosions, though their weapons didn't, and so the walk, limped or crawled forward to try and capture the pair. They were swiftly executed by Sato who then moved to make sure Sei was alright.

I ended the training session there. Sei was in no condition to fight and Sato wasn't going to continue fighting, despite her battle junkie personality, so she could make sure her best friend was okay.

I did gain a job from summoning the amount of creatures I had tonight. I don't understand why I didn't already get it but maybe it was harder to get this job or maybe the more jobs you have, the harder it is to gain other jobs? I didn't have a clue about the job system. I just knew it made the people with said jobs better or stronger in their respective fields.

[You have gained "Job: Summoner".]

The job reduced the cast time it took to summon the creatures by five seconds, reduced the mana cost by one percent, strengthened the summons by five percent and gave me a point one percent chance of summoning a superior subspecies or a higher rank creature using the same amount of mana. The bonuses would increase as the level did but it was a brand new job.

I summoned twelve skeletons and had them guard us for the night. Sei was too tired to take a shift, Sato was fretting over Sei and would exhaust herself before she fell asleep next to Sei and I just didn't feel like keeping watch. I'd still have my sensory abilities active but I wouldn't be awake and watching for any dangers.

[Day 44]

To say I was surprised when I woke up to find Sei had evolved would be a severe overstatement. To say I was surprised when I noticed also Sato evolved would be accurate.

Sei's appearance is like that of a human with two small horns. From her appearance, one could guess that Sei is in the latter half of her early twenties. Rather than calling her cute, an intellectual cool-type beauty who seems like she would look good in a suit. She grew a bit taller than she was before but she was still short.

Her skin is now bluish-white that radiates life, green, somewhat pointed eyes that show intelligence, in the middle of her forehead an amber-looking round gem three centimeters in diameter between a pair of horns, long, ash grey hair that extends down to her waist, and black tattoos on her forearms with patterns similar to mine yet subtly different.[1]

Sato's appearance changed more than Sei's. She grew to just a hair shorter than me and had clearly defined muscles. Her figure was a bit less feminine than before but she became more attractive. Amazoness would be an apt description while describing her.

She had steel grey metallic hued skin and she kept her purple hair, though the ponytail she kept it in grew down to her lower back. On the back of both her hands were silver-grey orbs five centimeters across. Her eyes were a darker color than her skin, more of a stormy grey and, like Sei, she had gained a black tattoo on her back similar to my own.

Sei said she evolved into a [Half Spell Lord (Variant)], gaining a blessing from the [Demigod of Staves] and Sato said she evolved into a [Half Sword Lord (Variant)], gaining a blessing from the [Demigod of Swords].

Sei was certain that normal [Half Lords] didn't have tattoos like the two of them did but she wasn't certain about variants.

Still, the fact that the two of them gained blessing came as a bigger surprise than the both of them evolving at the same time. In celebration, I gave Sei a robe made from silver and gold thread with a red holy shroud attached to it. Analyze said it was called 'Body of Full Luck' and it's abilities were [Auto-Amplification] and [Physical and Magic Damage Resistance]. It was a unique class robe from Velvets dungeon. The first ability increased the power of abilities and spells with no additional mana cost and the second just made it harder for her to get damaged by rank three and lower spells. I didn't have a staff for her to use so she'd have to stay with her old one until I got her a new one.

As for Sato, there weren't many plate items in Velvets dungeon but there was one that fit her well. It was a full set of plate armor made from red iron. It also had a red cape but it wasn't enchanted and Sato didn't like it, so she tore it off. As for her weapons, I gave her an enchanted longsword called 'Blood Princess' that has the ability to suck blood out of enemies with every attack she deals that pierces the skin. It was a rare class item, one I had been debating on using myself. She kept the wakizashi she took from the dark elf for the moment. It was a normal rank item that came from a summon and it was either that or a long dagger that was enchanted to burn as it cut. She wasn't a fan of daggers so she kept the sword.

After a celebratory breakfast consisting of mainly leftovers - we finished off the last of those today, the edible ones at least - we left and continued our journey. I wasn't sure where we were going, but it was a new world to me and, despite my experiences in my past life, I still had a sense of adventure. Why not explore and see what we come across? With some of my clones out gathering information, I could head towards certain areas if I wanted something interesting to do. Like dungeons.

There was a dungeon not too far from where we were now and I even had some of my clones go scout it out. As weak as they are, the five that went in got down to the fourth floor before being eaten by something. The floor of the dungeon was covered by a few inches of water, which would slowly sap the strength and, if one wasn't careful, had the potential to kill. I'd likely be… well, mostly fine but the same couldn't be said for the girls that're with me. Sei was physically weak and her specialty was fire, which would be weak, if not useless in the water-based dungeon. Sato was strong physically but reckless. My clones watched groups of people fall into traps and hidden monsters.

So, instead of heading to that dungeon, we may our way south towards a different dungeon. This one seemed a lot more simple. The first three floors had been fully scouted by my clones and they hadn't seen any groups fall to traps.

All the creatures seemed to be larger variants of species I've seen so far. I've seen [Muscle Lords] (just a guess), [Ogres], [Minotaurs] and many other large meathead-like creatures. While they didn't seem to have much of a style for combat, their instincts were top notch and my clones had seen several heavily armored people get decimated by the attacks from the brutes. Bad enough to where their armor was rendered unusable.

Speaking of which, I should mention that armor is absorbed by the dungeon, with lower quality or damaged items coming out of chest from the weaker floors and increasing quality items coming out of the better chest from the stronger floors in addition to equipment I believe is generated by the dungeon itself. Of course, it's not always equipment. Sometimes its spices, metals, gems and other sorts.

Some monsters use armor or weapons, the larger creatures using large clubs or branches. While their attacks were a bit slower, the wind the clubs produced could alter the course of arrows and magic or, if it was fire magic of rank two or lower, it'd be snuffed out.

There wasn't really much to say about the dungeon other than that. My clones couldn't reach any lower in the floor and the two that tried were destroyed by whatever force it was guarding it. Unlike the water dungeon, the muscle dungeon had a boss every four floors, so it was possible the barrier was to prevent the boss being controlled, or preventing something too weak from getting through. It had forty or so floors but I didn't have anything to base it off of other than the water dungeon so I didn't know if it was large or not.

We'd stop at a couple towns on our way there, the entire journey taking about a week and a half if we were to take the horses. It wasn't ideal and it made me miss the auto-piloting and self driving vehicles I had back in my original life but I'd make due with what I had.

The rest of the day passed without much else going on. We stopped a few times because some [Black Wolves] attacked us but they were defeated easily and we made some roast out of them.

I improved our saddles and got a new job, [Craftsman], which improved the quality of the goods I could make. It came in handy instantly, my saddles going from subpar to barely acceptable. The leather wasn't tanned and, since there was no flesh or fur remaining, it just wouldn't work for long. I've never tanned hides before, so I'd have to drop some clones around and have them scout shops to learn how they tan leather and all sorts of other things.

After we had stopped for the night, the girls came and celebrated their evolution with me, leading to a long night awake, a late morning and quite a good time.

[Day 45]

Nothing happened today. We stayed on the roads and made our way to the dungeon. The most interesting thing to happen was our lunch, which consisted of black bone dust, it made a good spice, and [Half-Elf] meat.

[Day 46]

Like the day before, nothing happened. It got a bit cloudy early in the morning but it cleared up fairly quickly.

[Day 47]

Something actually happened today. We were passing a group of adventurers and they had the audacity to try and demand our items. The girls had decent items on them while I wore a unique rarity pair of pants, [First Kings Loin Guard], and my silver arm which was a legendary rarity.

It was kind of funny, actually. Most of the time, I had to pick fights to get humans to bother with me or do some things on purpose to get them to attack me.

The humans had some fairly nice items on them but they were all crap compared to what I had on or what I had stored in my Item Box.

Unfortunately, the humans got my and Sei's horse in the crossfire, so I got a little… angry. The priestess was the only one not smashed into the ground, mostly because I wanted to eat her while she was still alive. A bit cruel but I didn't have many healing skills and only one that was used on other people that didn't do much more than speed up the bodies own healing process. Eating things, especially living things, the fresher it is the better. She was bound, gagged and drugged so I could eat her without much huff.

Satos horse was still alive and was only grazed by one of the wind spells cast by the magician.

All in all, the group tasted pretty good. The priestess tasted best, and I found out why after I finished off her heart. She was dead before that, so I wanted to eat the heart and brain fast so I had a better chance of getting an ability.

[You have learned "Parallel Thought Processing" ability.]

[You have learned "Lesser Increased Stamina" ability.]

[You have learned "Backstab" ability.]

[You have learned "Divine Protection of the Demigod of Healing" ability.]

[You have learned "Job: Priestess" ability.]

The first three were obvious in what they did. Parallel Thought Processing allowed me to think about multiple things at the same time easier than what I normally did. I'm surprised I hadn't gotten it any earlier really. Lesser Increased Stamina was like it's superior version, Increased Stamina, just reduced. Backstab was a Thief skill but could be carried over to rogues or assassins. Any job that was a superior version of the thief line. It improved the accuracy towards backstabbing, making the injury more likely to be lethal on a human, elf, dwarf and a number of other species that had biologies similar to humans. If I knew the weak points of other, non-humanoid species, the skill would come in handy for that.

The Divine Protection was something I looked forward to. It increased all healing I'd do by fifty percent, including my self-regeneration skills, meaning I healed in three quarters to half the time it normally took. It also increased my healing jobs leveling rate and improved the chances of getting a healing skill or spell. It certainly explained why the priestess tasted the best. People with divine protections always tasted good, though nothing had topped the lion just yet.

As for the Priestess job… well, a job normally obtained by a female was received by a male. Through unconventional means but it was still done. In any case, it improved the mana cost and effectiveness for my healing spells and came with two spells, [Recovery] and [Lesser Blessing]. Recovery is a weak healing spell but, combined with the divine protection, it worked like a spell a rank higher. Lesser Blessing give a minor improvement to all stats and slightly reduced debuff effect durations.

Sei and Sato weren't hungry, so I had the bodies to myself. It may have been because I asked them while I was soaked in blood and viscera but that's not likely… is it? No, I'm probably just overthinking it.

I tamed the lizard mounts the party had been using, healed them up and the three of us, Sato still on her horse, and the five mounts took off towards the dungeon again.

Since we didn't need the spare mounts, I killed one and cooked it up for us, roasting the large reptile over an open, smokeless fire.

It was actually good. It didn't need salt, but the lack of spices did show that, after a bite or two, it started to taste bland.

I built us a little hobbit home for us out of the clay from deep underground, dried it up with my fire ability to make a harder pottery-like material and set some silks and furs down on the ground so the three of us could sleep in peace. I covered the outside with grass to disguise it a bit better. It was warm enough outside for the lizards and horse not to get too cold.

[Day 48]

The lizards were much better than the horses. They weren't as fast, but we were able to take detours we normally weren't able to otherwise and rough terrain was less of a problem. Sei and I pulled so far ahead that we had to stop and wait for Sato to catch up, who then switched mounts to one of the other lizards (which was just a [Giant Lizard]) mounts.

Neither of the girls favored the horse. It had no name and there was no real feelings for it, other than it being a mount, so I took it and served it up for the three of us for lunch.

Our route, since we had more mobile creatures as our mounts, changed. It was a more dangerous route but… well, other than the [Gold Lion], nothing had really been a challenge. And even then it wasn't any smarter than a normal lion. Its method of hunting was different, in that it went itself instead of female lions, but nothing else had changed.

Our route went through the mountains on the southeast border. It was a direct line to the dungeon, or just about, and home to what was called a Demon's Nest. In game terms, it's called a Monster Den, an area home to any type of animals or monsters. The reason it was so populated with monsters is that any creature able to undergo Evolution (i.e. everything but humans) were strengthened by fifty percent. In addition to that, it was also possible to meet otherwise impossible variants or hybrids of monsters, such as [Werepyres] or [Faerie Dogs]. Typically, they occur through breeding but [Werewolves] bitten by [Vampires], or vice versa, had a lower chance of dying from the two viruses conflicting if they were inside a Demon's Nest.

Legends also had it that Demons Nest were the first location from which monsters sprang forth, the corrupted land mutating the beast that originally lived there into monsters. Another theory was that the original monsters were not mutated but, rather, suddenly appeared there one day and, when they weren't off terrorizing the natives, they were reproducing and spreading their genes to different beast, creature more monsters and expanding their territory. The reason that monsters hadn't taken over the world was explained that, with more types of monsters being born, the different species began fighting over territory reducing their own numbers.

I had no idea what kind of beast we might find in the Nest but I was hoping there was something that could make me work up an appetite and make me anticipate eating it in the end. It just wasn't a proper meal unless I really worked for it.

Most of the way to the Nest was plains that had a slight upwards slope, I'd say about five degrees at the steepest and one degree at the shallowest. It was a constant uphill but it'd take a few miles to notice a difference.

A couple hours into our trip and still well before noon, I spotted a town off in the distance. It was probably some sort of border city made for trade between nations. I wouldn't doubt they had a mountain path winding around the Demons Nest. For good reason. The average human here is as strong as the humans from my past life, maybe a tiny bit stronger due to the presence of the Job and Skill system this world has. Some monsters and even other humans were as strong as some of the middle-tier Esper.

To give an estimate, low-tier espers were designated as non-threats, easily taken out by trained government soldiers. Mid-tier Espers were capable of destroying one to several city blocks, with high-end mid-tiers capable of destroying an entire city if they felt like it. High-tier Espers could destroy several cities to entire small nations, calamity-tier Espers were capable of destroying nations on the scale of Brazil and upwards and, finally, apocalypse-tier Espers were capable of destroying the entire earth if they wanted to. There were only three known cases of apocalypse-tier Espers before I died and I ended up eating one of them after they tried to take over the world.

The strongest monster I and my clones had seen so far was on the high-end of low-tier but both they and I have overhead rumors and stories about beast that could and have destroyed countries before. It was possible that my birth mother was a refugee from a country that was ravaged by such a beast. Then again, it was just as possible for there to be a civil war and the rumors of a beast were created to mask the fact.

I was hoping for a civil war. There were plenty of strong people around and beast were likely to just eat everything they could while people would be taken hostage as other people, or certain people on the losing side would be spared for their past honors they performed for the nation. While I could still eat the beast, I'd be willing to bet that none of them had the ability to absorb abilities from others, meaning I'd lose out on a few. I wouldn't face a country by myself, not any time soon, but that didn't mean I wouldn't in the future. I would, actually. There were far too many temptations to not taste them all.

We spent most of the day getting to the mountain and climbed up a small portion until we reached a cave. We could've kept going but I didn't want the girls out too late on a mountain near a designated danger zone. The energy I could feel radiating from it was something spectacular. Strong enough to make my hair stand on end. Whatever it was, we had to avoid it at any cost.

The cave was surprisingly empty. It looked like something did live here, once, but the bones were old as were the shed scales. A quick application of Geokinesis blocked the entrance, letting enough air in so we wouldn't suffocate while blocking entrance to any monster that may want in for the night. I also set up a few of my blood clones around the entrance, inside and out, to watch for the night.

The night passed slowly. I stayed up, of course, for a few hours after the girls went to sleep and snacked on a… rather large number of skeletons. Since it was night and we were in a nearly pitch-black cave, Darkness Absorption kept my mana at full. It was worth it, since I gained a new ability, [Tireless], which allowed me to keep going at one-hundred percent regardless of how much stamina I had. It wouldn't work with mana or skills that required magic since they weren't based on stamina, but I could fight for days or weeks without stopping. It was useful but the drawback was pretty bad. I'd fall asleep after deactivating it and sleep until my stamina was completely restored, which would take extra time since Tireless reduced the amount of stamina recovered based on how long it was active. Used for too long and you'd sleep yourself to death from dehydration or from starving to death. It was a skill that was perfect for the undead, since they didn't need any stamina.

[Day 49]

We had to stay inside the cave today, that's what my Intuition was telling me. Even if it didn't the tingling on the back of my neck had me jumpy. Whatever I felt yesterday was nearby and was searching for something.

Not that staying in the cave was too hard. We had plenty to eat as long as I had access to summoning magic, which I could do continuously with Darkness Absorption, and we all had the ability to see despite the darkness so it wasn't an issue. The issue was the boredom that set in. I didn't want to make too much noise in case whatever was out there found us.

I reinforced the entrance with more stones and golden threads, then added extra layers of threads to muffle any and all sounds we make. Nearly to the point of complete soundproofing. I could add in a layer of magic but… well, we were very bored and didn't have much to do so the girls decided on something special and we spent most of the day together. Looks like I'll get to use my Tireless skill after all.

[Day 50]

After a rather long night - they were friskier than they had been before, so looks like my worries were for nothing - I woke up and immediately noticed the thing that had been nearby was gone. My Intuition wasn't screaming at me to hide and my hair wasn't standing on end anymore, so it was definitely gone.

I tore down the wall I covered the entrance with and bathed in the sunlight for the first time in a while.

And there's a [Harpy] in front of the cave.

Without waiting, I took my spear out of my bag and threw it at the harpy, impaling it. Using string I attached to the butt of the spear, I pulled both back. It's been a fair bit since I had some poultry and the monsters tend to taste better than they're normal non-monster counterparts.

I severed the upper half of the harpy with a short flick of the spear and tucked the spear back into my storage.

I started cooking the harpy, plucking the feathers from its lower half while I ate the upper. It wasn't anything spectacular. It tasted like lean human meat with hints of quail. It wasn't bad but it wasn't anything to write home about.

I really should get some spices and things from a city next time I'm there. Maybe start a farm of some kind. It wasn't a bad idea. I'd have to learn how to farm, but getting a greenhouse where I grew things from all over was an entertaining idea.

The girls woke up as soon as I finished cooking and… to say their appetites were voracious was understating it. I was a bit vigorous in our activities last night. Plus they were evolved from goblins, who were known for their gluttonous appetites. I let them eat as much as they wanted. We had more to climb and… getting energy back after last night was important.

We would take it easy today, get up the rest of the mountain and find the edge of the Nest, stopping there and resting for a while to gather our energy. To insure our safety, I'd have to make a few dozen blood clones and station them around the area where we made our camping grounds and keep my sensory abilities active while we slept. It'd be annoying, sure, but our safety was more important.

We spent more time in the cave than I would've preferred but the girls were somewhat sore and needed a little longer to rest before we continued our travels. I should probably tone down my wants unless we're in a safer environment.

It was close to noon before we set off. The lizard mounts were capable of climbing the mountain much better than the horses could ever be, even going up at angles that a normal mountain climber would have trouble with.

We had a couple encounters with harpies but they didn't bother us after I killed the first two.

The most annoying part of the trip was when a lone [Lamia] enthralled our mounts. The fight was annoying as well. She, since Lamia are a female only species, used illusion magic that could fool the five primary senses. It had been a long time since I couldn't rely on my senses, including in my past life, and I was out of practice in doing so.

I really only had three skills, two that worked in combination, that gave me the ability to fight her. I had too few sensory skills, something I needed to rectify. Sense Area, combined with Presence Detection, allowed me to find the general idea she was in. Intuition helped somewhat but it was based off instinct, something illusions were meant to confuse.

Defeating her meant I just had to withstand her magic attacks while I prepared a wide-area attack. Using Geokinesis to create a large, deep pitfall, I cast a dozen plus rank two water magic Water Cutter to absolutely butcher anything in the hole. I kept casting until the illusion she had us under faded and I saw the result of my actions.

A five meter wide hole that was equally deep was now to my left. The scene inside was more horrific than when I got my Priestess job. Rather than just one small spot with a splatter around it, the Lamia was shredded all across the inside of the hole. There wasn't even the slightest bit of her that was recognizable, excluding a small portion of her tail near the very tip.

Anyway… waste not, want not. I raised the hole back up with Geokinesis and gathered her blood up using Hydrokinesis, making sure to remove the debris, and drank it all. From there, I had to carefully gather her parts and ate all that wasn't literally mush. Which, unfortunately, was a fair amount. It'd just be too much work to do that and, if she couldn't survive an onslaught of rank two spells, she wasn't strong enough to get any skills from. A fact proved since, despite how much of her was basically inedible, I was still able to eat a sizable portion.

The girls, understandable, were both awed and frightened by my actions. I took my time to explain to them how easily we could've died. Even I wasn't immune to all the spells I was hit with. I had a fair amount of healing abilities and spells but I couldn't easily survive my head or heart being destroyed. I could heal damage to both, my heart especially, but I couldn't heal back memories.

I was still healing from the fight come nightfall. Not because I couldn't heal before that but because I wanted to remember that I wasn't invincible. I nearly was in my past life and I got cocky. I believed I couldn't fall no matter what and ended up dying and coming here.

I dug out another cave a fair distance from the Nest, far enough to disinterest any beast from leaving it to hunt us, even if they knew we were around. It wasn't a good cave but the ground was flat, we had good ventilation and we were protected from the weather.

We spent the night together but didn't perform the usual activities. It was just chilly, almost cold. We would have a busy day tomorrow, no use in wasting our energy needlessly. As much as I really wanted to.

[1] Description taken straight from the Re:Monster Wiki, very slightly altered.

Weapons found thanks to wikipedia's list of premodern combat weapons.

SERIOUS TALK REAL FAST. I know I haven't updated in a while and I apologize. My muse comes and goes so very often that I lose interest in one story, start another, lose interest in that and start all over with another story. With chapter 57 having just come out at the time I'm writing this, it has sparked my muse for this story. At least, sort of.