Chapter 10: X – All You Can Hunt (And Eat) Buffet

You have defeated [Shadowfang Nightcrawler Lvl35]!

You have gained bonus experience for defeating an enemy of a higher tier than yourself!

You have leveled to level 19! +1 Free Major stat point gained! -1 Sanity gained! +0.5 Willpower Gained! +0.5 Intuition Gained!

 

Esperanza tried to ignore the happenings within her body as best as she could, the way the nightcrawler - some sort of large lizard with far too many sharp teeth for her liking that hunted from above the trees and often fell upon its unsuspecting prey - trashed and fought for dear life as her amorphous shape simply engulfed it in its entirety and slowly squeezed the life out of it.

 

She had replicated the beast’s own favorite hunting method and subjected it to its own medicine as she waited atop a tall branch until one of the beasts climbed the same tree and perched itself on a lower branch to wait for prey. It never saw her coming as she fell and “swallowed” the thing within a fell swoop, her body gulping it down like an amoeba devouring its prey.

 

To capture the beast was not difficult, but she found it harder to kill. The Nightcrawler’s scales and flesh was hard, hard enough that the fangs on the top of the “mouths” that tipped the appendages she created to assault the beast trapped within her failed to find any purchase. Neither had she the strength to twist and break the creature. As such, Esperanza fell back to a simpler method. She simply enveloped the creature in an airtight embrace within her flesh, one that gave it no room to move its limbs much despite its best efforts as she would simply just bounce right back and encase it once more.

 

Then she waited until the nightcrawler suffocated to its death.

 

Esperanza took a glimpse to her statsheet shortly after she heard the notification of the nightcrawler’s death. Compared to the first six levels she gained in the flurry at the temple, the last month or so of hunting in the woods had been much slower, if still a lucrative way to obtain experience. She understood that sapient beings like people apparently gave more experience compared to animals and monsters, as Oldies told her, and she had to admit that the first couple weeks of hunting had been often rather disastrous as well.

 

The first few days, she could barely control her ever-contorting form. It felt almost as if she was trying to walk while being drunk and high at the same time, so needless to say she caught no animals during those days. After she managed to gain a measure of control over her amorphous shape, the next thing she had to learn was how to conceal the aura she gave out, consequences of one of her skills and her prolonged exposure to Oldies.

 

That took another skill before she properly managed to keep it under control. During the week or so she took to gain that skill, she had to subsist off things that were either too dumb to translate her aura into danger like grubs and other simple bugs or wild fruits, as well as eggs from bird’s nests and the likes. Those were sufficient to barely keep her alive, but even the strongest of the grubs were only equivalent to a human halfway through their first tier and gave her poor experience as a result.

 

When she managed to conceal her aura and control her movements well enough to actually hunt something, she quickly learned that it was something far easier said than done. Her first ten or so attempts got her nothing for the exertion, and more than once, she overestimated herself and tried to hunt something that turned the tables and preyed on her instead.

 

Thank fuck for [Respawn].

 

Esperanza chose to return to life where she was since she was at least already familiar with the surrounding terrain, rather than risk respawning somewhere even worse. Eventually, she managed to get things into a working groove, and gained more skills that made things easier to hunt and level. She gained roughly a level a day over the past two weeks in her hunts.

 

The way she allocated her stats remained mostly focused on evening out her attributes more. From the weekly conversation with Oldies she sort of guessed that her classes would likely focus more on the Soul attribute overall, but that was already covered by the free stats she gained every level up. On the other hand, there was no harm in ensuring that she could do something without having to rely entirely on her Soul attribute either.

 

Name : Esperanza Marisol de Gonzalez Cabrera

Race : Human (?)

Age : 18

Class : [Spark of Hope Lvl19]/???/???/???/???

 

Stats :

Free Major Stat Points: 0

 

• Body : 30

    - Strength : 30

    - Dexterity : 29

    - Constitution : 31

• Mind : 19.66

    - Intelligence : 21

    - Perception : 20

    - Wisdom : 18

• Soul : 48.33

    - Willpower : 26

    - Intuition : 23

    - Sanity : -96

 

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Skills:

 

Class 1: [Spark of Hope]

• Far Down the Deep End :EX

• Fleshweaving: Lvl 4

• Shape Alteration: Lvl 6

• Consume: Lvl 3

• Gauze of Oblivion: Lvl 1

 

General Skills:

• Respawn: EX

• Language Understanding: Lvl 1

• Gaze Unto the Abyss: EX

• Aura Control: Lvl 5

• Tracking: Lvl 3

 

She certainly felt the benefits from the more evenly allocated stat points. Her body felt far more limber and agile compared to… well… ever before, including the times when she was still human. Her mind also felt clearer, thoughts and ideas coming to her more easily and solutions coming to mind faster than ever. The improvements to her soul she could not really tell much, but it likely helped in its own way.

 

Apparently [Fleshweaving] and [Shape Alteration] were skills that were semi-enforced by her new body, skills that gave her more overall control over her undulating shape, that allowed her not only to change her shape almost at will but also to grow things like teeth and eyes where there had been none before. The sensory overload was a pain to handle at first, and still gave her the equivalent of a headache even now, but it was getting better.

 

Esperanza naturally tried many times to shift her shape to one that resembles a human more, but had no luck so far. It was one thing to temporarily shift herself to envelop a creature and another to form herself into an intricate facsimile of her previous human form and hold it. She lacked the fine control to hold such a transformation for long or do things in that form, however.

 

That said, Oldies told her that the skills she gained in her first class would likely evolve and become stronger as she reached the next tier, so she had hopes.

 

[Consume] was rather self-explanatory. The skill allowed her to devour a creature and temporarily gain part of its stats for a brief period of time. She could see it being useful in a pitched battle against many, and used it as she hunted just to train the skill, even if the method it demanded was something she felt a tad revolting to do.

 

[Gauze of Oblivion] looked somewhat superfluous with her [Aura Control] at first, as the skill allowed her to erase her presence - she could still be detected in more direct and physical ways - entirely, as if she had not existed at all. On the other hand, [Aura Control] allowed her to project her aura to make the beasts think she was somewhere else after she got a few levels into it. It allowed her to drive prey straight to her waiting maw on more than one occasion.

 

She even learned to mimic the aura of other creatures with [Aura Control].

 

Esperanza felt some excitement at the prospect of growing stronger. She was uncertain whether that excitement was a natural reaction, or something linked to her current form or her possible broken mind, but had not really cared too much about it either way. While living like a beast in some wild primordial jungle was a thought that never crossed her mind, she could not deny that there was some… appeal to such a simple life where all one could afford to worry about was survival and one’s next meal.

 

Perhaps that was why some people shunned society and chose to live in seclusion in her previous world too, she thought.

 

In the past month, Esperanza thought she was glad to have the weekly conversation with Oldies. They were probably the only thing that kept her sane and not reverting to a beast that ran on instincts and allowed her to keep the fact that she used to be human in mind. To the present day, she was still somewhat uncertain whether what Oldies said was the unblemished truth, or whether they were simply trying to manipulate her for their own use.

 

Not like she cared too much either way. She had a second chance at living for the moment, after she had resigned herself to the embrace of death in her previous world. That alone was already far more than she had ever expected, and she had resolved to at least enjoy this second life of hers as much as she could, all else be damned.

 

She would still help Oldies if she could, as if they had not lied to her, they were likely the lesser evil in this case. It was something she would have to see for herself, still, as her only foray into the more civilized portions of this world had been that brief tussle in the temple, which had most certainly not endeared her to the locals back there.

 

Fortunately enough, Oldies also had similar thoughts in mind, though they warned her that attempting to reach most of the present societies in her current form would have… detrimental results at best. She understood as much, and thought the same. Even so, she still starved somewhat for interaction with other people, and as a compromise, Oldies promised to lead her to one of the hidden enclaves that still worshiped him, after she reached her second tier and hopefully more control over her form.

 

That was a goal she set for herself in the short term, and the reason for her hunting spree for the past couple of weeks. Now that she was only a single level short of her goal, she had the thought of once again trying to fight the one beast that had been responsible for the times she was forced to respawn in the past. The overlord of the local area, The apex of the food chain of the region.

 

With the help of her [Tracking] skill Esperanza started to look for traces of the beast’s presence in the region. It took her most of the day before she finally caught on to the presence of a footstep at a softer area of the ground that matched that of her quarry. From that spot, she searched the surroundings for more tracks and other traces of the beast.

 

The presence of several trees that had parts of their bark peeled off around head height, coupled with a strange musky scent that smelt like it had been rubbed into the exposed inner bark of the trees, clued Esperanza that she had reached a place that the beast had marked as part of its territory. The general sparseness of wildlife in the area made her doubly certain that she was in the right place.

 

After all, none of the other predators in the area dared to tread into the overlord’s territory, and kept their distance everytime the beast was out on a hunt.

 

Once she entered the beast’s territory, Esperanza activated her [Gauze of Oblivion] and slithered up onto a tree to prevent herself from being spotted. From the height, she looked for traces and signs of the beast while she slowly proceeded towards what she assumed to be the center of the beast’s territory as a whole. Her guess proved validated when a few hours later she spotted her quarry as it lazily dozed under the glow of the setting sun.

 

The [Tyrant-Claw Ursine]. The largest and strongest beast in the region that had no match nor any competitor for its claim as the overlord of the region. The only third-tier equivalent beast in the vicinity. The quarry Esperanza had chosen to gain her final first-tier level from.

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