Chapter 55

Snake Report: Day Whatever/Watching Humans Report: Official Day 7

"[Voice of Gaia], show me my abilities."

[Level 42]

[TITLE: DIVINE BEAST, LEVIATHAN]

[BRANCH: Magic Being]

[UNIQUE TRAITS:]

[Toxic] - Toxic Flesh. Dangerous is consumed. [Crystalline scales] - Increased Defense [Omnivore] - Capable of eating non-monster food-stuffs. [Affinity of Flame] - Bonded to the Element. [Legendary] - A rare being. Not often seen, known only to Legend.

[STATUS:]

[None]

[RESISTANCES]

[Poison resistance: Rank XII] [Fire resistance: Rank II] - Affinity* [Mana resistance: Rank 21]

[Skills]

[Healing:] [Passive Healing 21] - Automatically being to recover from injuries. Mana drained as a result. [Heal I] - Third rank of healing. [Flame element] - Affinity* [Leviathan breath II] - Rare ability. Advanced variation of [Flame Breath][Fireball VII] - A ball of flame, capable of long-range. [Earth element] [Earth Molding 20] - Second spell rank of [Earth Manipulation] [Water element] [Water Manipulation II] - Ability to actively mold and shape water. [Knowledge element] [Voice of Gaia VI] - Knowledge embodiment. Spirit of the world. [Divine element] [Royal Spirit of Man] - Acquired.

What the heck is that last one?

I don't know. [Voice of Gaia] is being all sorts of taciturn when it comes to that particular subject, and I've run out of mana crystals to eat.

Well, anyways- that's where I'm at.

To say the least, I've been busy. Earth magic growth has been good, water magic growth has been... well, not so good. I tried splashing some of the drinking water around, but Miss Paladin was watching me so seriously, I felt obligated to stop.

She's following me around now, watching everything I do, everywhere I go (not that hard considering the lack of terrain) but she's been doing this with a really serious expression. She has also been rambling on with a bunch of words I'm not exactly certain of. I get the sense she's trying to make me learn something.

Jokes on her, I was terrible at language in my last life.

I doubt this one is any different.

Occasionally she'll go back up to the summit and make the pillar I've been making glow a bit, but then she comes back and follows my every move. Light-source, snake, food source, snake, bathroom, snake.

I'm the center of attention. It feels sort of nice.

"____" She'll say, followed by another bout of "___ __ ___ ___" and some conflicted expressions with hand gestures that point at me with a bit of a dramatic flair.

"Hiss" I'll often reply, which is snake for "Yeah, I know I'm the best at this. Thanks Miss Paladin."

I don't know, maybe she's been a little weird recently. She even grabbed my tail once.

Like, just went for it. Bold move I might welcome if I were a human- taking the initiative and all that. But, I'm not a human and it scared the ever-living-snake-shit out of me.

I think she apologized afterwards.

"_____ ___" is what she said, whatever that means.

Tiny-Snake-God preaches forgiveness to anything that doesn't try to eat his followers, so it was all good. A good fashion head-bob "hiss" passed that on and along.

We're cool human.

We're cool.

But what's not cool, is the growing number of Eel intrusion attempts.

You would think that several of your brethren impaled and bleeding to death atop a wall covered by a large number of sharp and pointy stone-daggers might discourage this sort of behavior.

No, it's having an opposite effect.

It's working them up into a feeding frenzy. They're like highly mobile and suicidal sharks. Dead eel on a spike? Better try and eat that, get impaled myself, and repeat the cycle.

It's getting a little scary actually.

There are some seriously problems with that sort of behavior.

First and foremost: There is a very limited quantity of stone for me to play around with now.

Those walls are only fifteen feet high for a reason: I'm too nervous to take any more material to grow them, and moving it around is difficult now that I'm running on my own strength alone. No more seemingly infinite mana sources around unless I happen to mine a crystal out of the ground.

It seems unlikely. This stone isn't the right kind for that I don't think.

But there is a second issue here. One I'd like to bring up and communicate to Miss Paladin, if I could talk. Currently I can't manage that though, and she can't climb the tower I'm pushing up towards the ceiling.

Issue number two: It's not just Eels out there now.

Hisss...

Those stupid toothy bastards are putting a lot of blood in the surf. more than just a lot, honestly, gallons upon gallons: It's as if the Boston tea-party had been tomato soup instead of earl-grey.

Yeah.

Think about that. Eels are annoying and dangerous, but I wouldn't put them at the top of the aquatic food-chain.

Think bigger.

Bigger.

The reason you don't go swimming with an open wound.

Yep. You're getting there now.

Remember when you were a kid, and your parents took you to some weird-ass museum filled with bones, and you walked though some giant archway- only to realize that it wasn't an archway at all, but a set of jaws.

Well that's fine if you don't- I do.

It's all I can think about now. It haunts my tiny-snake dreams, my waking hours, my everything, because there is a big-ass fin cutting the waves out there. A huge fin cutting through the water with waves, and circling this little island like no tomorrow.

BIG fin. Horrifically big.

And it has been coming closer.