Day 41
As the early morning sun rose, I went out alone, searching for prey that I have never eaten before in places that I have not yet visited—I was walking in the blank area of my mental map that I decided to call the Unexplored Zone.
The opportunities to take charge of the morning training have been getting fewer, and it has reached the point where Gobukichi-kun can take over when I’m not present.
In other words, I now have free time in the mornings.
Having no one to spar with, the amount of free time I have is fairly large.
Though it would be problematic if something were to happen, like someone getting hurt for instance. For the time being, I had thought of a good alternative by spending time doing basic training, making sleeping bags or working on the unfinished clothes and armor. Unfortunately, both the clothes and armour as well as the sleeping bags made of shells have already been distributed, so my ingenious plan was now gone.
Which led me to decide that, for now, finding new abilities would be a worthwhile endeavor.
The first prey for today was a 2 meter-class “Argiope (Tentative Name)” with a distinctive carapace which had an enchanting, golden color.
Making a rustling sound when moving, the spider was capable of quick movement and the thread it shot out recklessly was both strong and abundant in volume. Its golden carapace was so much tougher that it couldn’t be compared to that of the Demon Spider.
I was struggling with those three threats, but I retaliated with threads of my own, burned it with my fire and finally succeeded in bringing it down by piercing through the Argiope’s carapace with my silver arm.
When the spider finally died, I stripped the expensive looking carapace since it could be used for trading and crafting then ate the rest.
I found and ate eight of these guys in total.
Ability [Golden Thread Creation] learned.
Ability [Adamantine Spider’s Carapace] learned.
As a result, the abilities that I learned increased my personal defense and the strength of my threads.
This ability makes extremely beautiful threads—and the ability’s name, does it refer to the golden colour or that the thread itself is real gold?
It’s quite flashy—so I thought that I could give Gobumi-chan and Redhead a present using this.
Still, I doubt that making golden clothes with this thread would be in good taste, so it’s probably better if I make some ethnic accessories like the ones I made Gobumi-chan earlier.
My next prey was a Four-Eyed, Four-Eared Red Deer (Tentative Name)sporting a pair of antlers that looked like they were made of Rose Quartz.
It appears that the Red Deer had a wild temperament. The two sharp and beautiful antlers sat on its head, thrusting into the trees in its way, shredding them like a drill, but I pinned its head down using the indestructible silver arm and injected it with poison from my fingertips.
The Red Deer began foaming at its mouth and died within four seconds.
Apart from the antlers that looked like they would sell at a high price because of their beauty, the rest of its fine pelt, that showed no obvious damage, seemed like it would be useful, so I quickly skinned it and threw it together with the antlers into my Item Box, after that I ate its flesh.
Unfortunately, I could not secure any abilities, but after eating two or three there was something of a reaction not unlike learning a new skill, because I was able to strengthen my body, so let’s say it turned out ok.
After that, I found a beautiful woman, “Dryad (Tentative Name)”, who lived within the woods. However, I didn’t kill the nearly-naked girl who had a Greek-like appearance and extraordinary proportions that appeared in front of me, so yeah, I had second thoughts about eating her.
For now, let’s just say that having experienced all sorts of things, my [Libido] finally flourished. As I am now, there might be no problem even if I didn’t but it seems like Dryad-san had the racial characteristic ability Absorption, so I tried to counter it by using my tireless [Libido].
It was a very sweet time.
Moreover, she leaned onto me and sweetly whispered “Come again~” near my ear, it was extremely sexy the way her coy expression was directed at me.
Goburou obtain Dryad’s Mistletoe of Love and Blessing!
Well, it was like that.
When I parted with Dryad-san and walked back up again, I found a medium sized river. When, for no particular reason, I followed the river upstream, I discovered a large waterfall. I then decided to wash off my body in the small lake underneath it; my body was drenched with sweat and emitting a unique odor from doing the deed.
I took off my clothing to swim in the decent size lake, where I was surrounded by green scaled Lizardmen who approached while staying underwater.
That I was too negligent was also a factor but, with my current level of [Presence Sensor], apparently if the enemy is in water the reaction will be slightly slower.
Becoming aware of their presence now was pure luck.
Because of this, I finally became aware that I was having an encounter with strong enemies that I couldn’t face head-on. I was getting chills in my spine.
Well, past events aside, I immediately refocused my thoughts. Based on their appearance, I decided to call the Lizardmen in front of me “Green Lizards (Tentative Name)”.
The Green Lizards each held a refurbished falchion—a sword that had a curved edge and a straight back—as a weapon. Also, they each had a buckler similar to a round shield that seemed usable even though they were obviously a little damaged.
Unlike Orcs or Kobolds, they were not wearing any leather or metal armor, at best, they were only wearing light clothes made of thick cloth to cover their groins.
The Green Lizards had no armor. But, the green scales packed together covering their entire bodies may be no different from armor, perhaps they are more effective than they seem, and I cannot make light of their attacks from my blind spot using their long and thick tails.
I should consider the tail a third arm. And since the tails were underwater, they represent an additional danger since it’s hard to spot them.
There were eight Green Lizards, which is a lot, and they seemed to be used to hunting in groups.
Moreover, they were pointlessly flashing their long tongues and falchions making incomprehensible noises like “hyacchahecchizo~ go~gyakutterowigya~ janbettenbachurua~”, but I could read the atmosphere that was filled with killing intent.
Because this hunt was a solo action to get used to my silver arm and confirm its abilities, I had no assistance from allies. They also had another advantage due to the fact that my lower body was restrained by being underwater. Perhaps they were thinking “Even if it’s an ogre, we can kill it.” —which reminds me, come to think of it, although it’s a little late, Gobujii never mentioned about the existence of [Rare Variants]. I’ll ask him when I have the chance—, yeah, there’s no question about it.
With my overlapping abilities active, I made my move.
With the bottom half of my body still in the water, I can propel myself easily by using [Hydro Hand], in the first place, my leg strength which was strengthened by overlapping my abilities had allowed me to move quickly in the water despite receiving heavy water resistance.
I gained an explosive burst of speed by controlling the water and, along with the help of the current, I was able to stomp the enemy deeply in the chest in an instant. I made a fist with both arms and, with more force than usual, fed them to the Green Lizard.
The Green Lizard reacted well, using its buckler to guard against the first strike of my silver arm at the last moment, but the buckler shattered uselessly in the blink of an eye and a life was crushed.
The blow from my silver arm sent the Green Lizard’s arm along with its buckler flying in pieces, without losing momentum I struck its body. The body fared no better than the arm, with scales crushed, flesh torn, and bones broken, all of which are results of the silver arm having penetrated through them in its path.
Incidentally, my flesh and blood fist was stopped after crushing the scales, bruising the flesh and breaking the bones. It was a magnificent blow, but it was incomparably weaker than the silver arm.
Well, I’d say it’s to be expected.
Repeatedly striking and occasionally kicking, it didn’t even take 30 seconds to kill the Green Lizards. I had caught the ones trying to escape with my thread and lightning earlier, so I didn’t unexpectedly lose any weakened prey.
After killing the Green Lizards, I put their armaments in the item box, and since their bodies are difficult to cut apart, I ate them whole.
Ability [Aquatic] learned.
Ability [Lizardman Language] learned.
The Green Lizard’s flesh and bone had an unusual taste and consistency, It was rather delicious.
Wanting to eat some more, but unable to find any more Lizards nearby, I gave up for now.
I walked toward the Unexplored Zone of my mental map that was automatically created by my [Mental Mapping] ability.
After walking a little while I came out of the forest, from there I found a large expanse of grassland.
It was the first time since my reincarnation that I saw something other than forests, mountains or rivers. The blowing wind was pleasant.
As I was having such light thoughts, I found a cow charging towards me. I decided to name the human-faced cow with two sharp horns “Bicorn”.
“For the straight on charging Bicorn, I’d use nothing less than the Jolt Counter!!” while thinking that, I hit it head on with my silver arm, and it sank all the way to the elbow and left the Bicorn as a splattered corpse.
[T/N: Jolt Counter reference to Hajime no Ippo.]
Yeah, today I had enough confirmation of the silver arm’s usefulness. No matter how many times I thank Velvet, who I got the silver arm from, it wouldn’t be enough.
“Namu”. I offered a prayer for him