Chương 103: Chapter 101: Dragonoid meat

It's a comparatively short fight. Within three minutes, we have it desperate to escape. Within four, it's dead in front of us. You have defeated Treeant and Forest Wyrm. You gain (800, 000/5. 5) 145, 454 experience. Five point five? Must be because we were on the wyrm's side for half the battle. Doesn't matter. What matters is that I've gained a level. And I have eleven points to spend on my stats.

I decide to put two each into strength, agility, and vigor – that seems to be my regular pattern – and then the other five points into the other five attributes, one point each. Gigi is annoyed at me right now.

"It's not fair," she says.

"I'm six levels higher than you. But you have thirty more hit points than I do. Thirty! And the fact that it's just thirty makes it even worse."

"I don't know what to tell you," I say.

"I have a higher vigor than you do."

"You'd have a higher one too if you went through the death cycle," Ash says.

"Yeah, yeah," Gigi says.

"I know that. I'm just saying it isn't fair." I look down at the body of the forest wyrm. I'm not sure what I can harvest from it. I definitely want those spikes and spines that flared out when it was trying to be intimidating. Those seem like they might be useful for something. So might the scales themselves. They might count as dragon scales, and could then be used for armor. I don't know. It didn't seem like the scales helped its defense all that much. Still, it's probably better than nothing.

I get to work with the skinning, the carving, and the portioning of the dragonoid body. My animal harvesting goes up to 18 as I work my way down the body of the beast, pulling out claws and peeling away scales to get at the meat. Ash begins working with the meat itself, seasoning it and salting it so that we can turn it into jerky or so that she can cook it for us later today. Maybe we should just set camp here and relax for the day. We're not in a rush, and there's really no reason not to.

Vincent sets a fire, putting the sticks into a little tepee and then lighting it with his magic. While I'm still working on gathering scales and claws and fangs and everything else that I can take from the wyrm, Ash starts to cook on the fire, building it up a lot bigger so that there's more of an area of flame to cook the meat with. Dragonoid meat is weirdly sour. It's not bad, but the notes of sourness give it a unique flavor when we eat it.

It gives us a movement buff, which makes me think that after we eat we can start moving again and probably make it out of the forest before we decide to really stop for the night. All of us can see in the dark, so it doesn't much matter when we travel. It makes me think back to the tutorial. Everything was more dangerous at night. The monsters were bigger and nastier at night, and it was like the tutorial was trying to teach us not to travel at night.

Was that just because it assumed we would not have dark vision, and wouldn't be prepared for the level of darkness that happens at night in this world? There's a deeper darkness here than I practically ever saw back on Earth. Back home, there was always light pollution that made the darkness not quite so dark. But here, there's none of that. The cities might still light up at night, but with lanterns, not streetlights.

There aren't lights shining up into the sky, hiding the stars behind the brightness of technology. Without the moonlight, there is practically no light whatsoever. Those who can't see in the dark are as blind as a bat when the sun goes down. Maybe the tutorial was just trying to teach us to keep safe at night, secure inside somewhere that we could defend, so that we didn't have to go around at night. Or maybe there was another purpose. Maybe there really are nastier monsters that are nocturnal.

We've just seen some pretty powerful monsters out during the day, which just suggests that the things at night are going to be even worse. But worse also means worth more experience. And I'm finding myself wanting to level more than I can remember ever wanting to level before. Maybe I'm just itching for another talent, so I can deal with poison damage. I'm guessing the wyrm had a poisonous bite.

I don't think it got through anyone's Shell to find out, but based on the hollow fangs that I just pulled from its mouth, I'm guessing it had a poison debuff in its normal bite attack. That could've been bad. Most poison debuffs that I've seen last at least five or even ten minutes. And while the poison itself doesn't do a ton of damage, even just ten points a second for ten minutes is a lot of damage. I mean, that's six thousand damage over ten minutes.

And that's damage that keeps happening even if you put Shell back up. I need a way to deal with that, other than just avoiding getting hit in the first place. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. I'm starting to feel like we need a goal. Leveling up is all well and good, and I'm looking forward to getting that extra talent, but we need more than just getting more powerful. If we're really going after the god slayer, we need a way to find them.

We need to be know what we're even looking for. Maybe the answer is to find more dragons like Wrax and see if we can talk to them, see if they know who or where the god slayer is. Wrax was always working on theory and idea; we need something more concrete. But where do you go to find dragons? I thought that maybe the mountains would be a good place to find them. After all, that's where Wrax keeps his lair.

But dragons seem to have a lot of territory that they claim as their own, even the ones that are relatively lower level and less powerful. Wrax is only level thirty two, despite his power. He's only about the size of a school bus. Are other dragons bigger and more powerful? Do they have territories that are larger than what Wrax would claim as his own? Do they patrol those areas? Maybe we can find one if we just keep an eye to the sky. Of course, then there'd the be the question of how to signal them.

How to get their attention so that they land with the intention of speaking rather than attacking us. We might be able to withstand a few attacks by a dragon, but that's not how I want to start things. The dragons need to be our allies, and that means not fighting them. How do I get across to them that I just want to help, that I'm on their side? Maybe my sword can help. It's called the Dragon Forged sword, which means that a dragon made it. Are dragons used to making equipment, or is this special?

Maybe just showing it will be a sign that I'm allied with another dragon. Maybe that'll be enough to make a dragon willing to talk to me. Have to find one first, though. I'll keep an eye to the sky as we travel once we're out of the forest. A lot of my ranger abilities aren't going to work anymore, or not as well, when we leave the forest. I might get a second environment that the bonuses all work in when I hit level forty, which just gives me all the more reason to want to do it.

We eat the dragonoid meat, gorging until all of our stomachs are full. I know that when I eat like this, I can generally wait at least a day before I have to eat again. It's a state of fullness that is a bit more than full. Like I've eaten all that I could, then a little bit more. It leaves a somewhat uncomfortable feeling of fullness, but that will go away in a few hours as my body starts to digest the meat. I notice that El and I eat more than anyone else. She must gorge the same way that I do.

There are a surprising number of things in common between my wolf blood and her bear blood. I never really thought of bears and wolves as having that much in common, but I guess I can see it. Both of us overeat when we can so that we can go longer periods of time without needing food. Both of us are focused more on stamina than on health, and both of us prefer the wilderness to the city. Though that might just be something about El and not her bear side. I'm pretty sure it comes from my wolf side, though.

Vincent, I think, likes cities. There are more opportunities for him to study there, more ways for him to get even more spells, and more comfort in general. I'm not saying he's soft or anything, but he clearly likes his creature comforts. I like the freedom of being out in the wilderness. El clearly does too. Vincent is on the other side of the spectrum. I think that Gigi and Ash are closer to his end than they are to mine.

They don't seem to mind the wilderness, but I think they'd both prefer to sleep in beds than in bedrolls. They'd both prefer to go to taverns and restaurants than to eat from a campfire. They'd rather be surrounded by people than not. I'd be happy if there were no other people within a hundred miles of us in any direction. I know humans are social animals, and I know that we thrive on contact with other humans. But I don't need more than the four of them.

I don't need to see strangers around, and I don't need to make more friends. I've got my little pack, and it's plenty for me. It's all the friends and family that I need, and really all that I want. I think this is going to come up when we get to Marketplace. I don't know if Gigi and Vincent will split off again, or if Ash will go with them. But I have a feeling that sooner or later, it's going to be just me and El traveling together. Just us against the world. Maybe just us against the god slayer.

I really hope that when we do find the god slayer, there isn't a lot of conflict that comes of it. I hope that whoever they are, they don't have any intentions of killing more gods. I hope that they want to just live their life. Maybe we can be friends. Maybe we're the only people who can really understand what they've gone through, and the only people that they can truly connect with anymore. Maybe the god slayer has gone and systematically reduced themselves back to a normal person. Is there a way to do that?

Could you die at a certain level and actually end up losing net stat points? I don't know how many you lose at level one. Maybe you don't lose any. If that were true, then I don't think there's a way to reduce the number of stat points you have. Once you've been through the death cycle and gained that demigod like status that Ash, El, and I have, there would be no way back. But if you still lose five points from every attribute when you die even at level one, then it would be possible.

Then you could take some time and just die over and over again, lowering your stats until you were back to a normal level. What would that do to you, psychologically? What has the death cycle done to me psychologically? I know that I don't fear death anymore. I more fear imprisonment. I don't want to be tied down to a location for any real length of time. That's why I really wanted out of the guild. I didn't want to have even those metaphorical shackles on me.

I need to be free to do what I want and to go where I want. That's more important to me than staying alive. More important than keeping the levels I've earned. More important than gaining more levels. I want my freedom.