SING CRIER CH.7 - Monochromatic Predation Well...! It's sort of cute up close... in a... biological curiosity kind of way... En... You can clearly see where our leg adaptations start and end... At least... if you can look past the weird textures, they can sort of look like... stockings... right...? Snow white colouration from our thighs down... it doesn't look all that bad, right? ... To think, somehow... we've acclimatized in just a few hours to this extreme degree... and to think it would be so expensive... maybe we got too pumped up... Ah... Regret... If you listen closely, you can still hear it... The sound of regret... A pink twin's stomach growling... and if you listen even closer, you can hear the sound of an empty berry pouch being shaken... ...All the berries have been mysteriously eaten. Yes... every single one, and - mysteriously - we're still hungry. It's as if our stomachs have become bottomless after our adaptation. We can hardly remember eating them... it happened so suddenly... and it just... the hunger just doesn't end... We can only guess that our legs are responsible for it. The energy just had to come from somewhere, we imagine... Hah... Trying to adapt again... could kill us unprepared. Ah... hungry... Adaptation is too expensive... We take a deep breath of the biting cold air. ...It's time to go. Information, hunger, the reasons will only keep piling up. No more dilly-dallying. Sing, hold the dagger. Crier will hold the now empty bag. For real this time... let's see what Sal'venakai has in store for us, and more importantly, gather food so we don't die of starvation. We smack our cheeks to give ourselves a wake-up shock, then march out, carving a path through the snow. The brush and crunch of cold against our new legs doesn't hurt. Instead, it feels nice... maybe even preferable to walking unobstructed. We feel a bit more detached from our legs for that reason, but it's not too bad, since we're used to that split feeling. We're very quickly surrounded by swaths of touchy evergreen trees and shrubs. It's all still colored in grayscale much like the persisting overcast clouds, but it's the lack of wind and snowfall that just complete that "lifeless" look. Well geeze, it's not like we want to be here or anything! Hmph! Such a stone hearted welcome... let's just get the identification over with. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

LV.7 ▬ Ghenbi

Coniferous Tree

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Effects ▐ ◈ Toxic[LV.7]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

LV.8 ▬ Damiah Arime

Evergreen Shrub

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Effects ▐ ◈ Toxic[LV.8]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

LV.1 ▬ Snow

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Just simple plants, with simple lethal effects ...and snow. The snow, not belonging to any named species, has no special name or subtext. The vegetation (because their names are likely in another language) have their phonetic pronunciation placed where their name would be. That's Myriad Worlds behavior, and it seems to be working as intended. Ah... where did all the time go? It feels like it was just yesterday that we were betraying close friends. Ehehe... The land starts to get violent further from the cave. At first, we were just climbing and descending small inclines, but now we're starting to see cliffs and chasms; it's vertically challenging terrain. It's not like we can go back without food though... Mmm... this is kind of lame... ...Hmm? A trickle? Water? We're not looking for just water, obviously, but maybe... there exist new plants near the water? Maybe even fish? Hopefully not a mammal though. Mammal is probably death. 『 Hup! 』 『 Nnh... 』 The trickling sound came... from this hill... It's steep... but if it's these legs... we might be able to climb it? We give each other boosts over the small ledges to take breathers. We end up taking a bit of frostbite in our hands, but it can't be helped! Eighteen SP is barely enough energy to jump twice, much less climb. Huff... If we find a fish... how do we cook it? Fire? How do you make fire without magic? Do you just... rub two sticks together? ...S-Somehow we can't see that working out. Well, if it comes down to it, we could always eat it... raw... right? Ha ha... Phew... Okay... Steep hill... conquered! It may have been just a few meters high... but every single one of those meters was hard work. Not long ago, climbing such a thing would have been impossible. This is actually a big achievement you know? Praise us! Now closer to the trickling sound, we stroll down a small incline atop the hill. The trees in this area are also evergreen, but their pine needles sit high up, creating a canopy in a similar fashion to the magical forest in «Spirit Break». Despite the scattered shadows and piercing light across the ground, the colourlessness of it all does little to change the mood. Everything in this forest is just in on that "lifeless" theme... Finally, in an illuminated area, we find running water in a small rocky stream. It's a scenic location surrounded by polygonal rock, featuring a small waterfall, and a fallen tree allowing convenient passage as a bridge. The water is dark from the rock bed and grayscale like everything else, but the fact that it's moving is just enough to give off the feeling some semblance of life exists here. Well, if nothing else... the view is a refreshing sight. It'll soften the blow for when we find nothing of value. We approach with caution, being especially careful at the riverbank. We haven't spotted any animals thus far, but being out in the open doesn't feel comfortable in the slightest. Actually, it feels a bit painful because of our rising Eldritch Fear. Sing leans over slightly, peering into the stream. Crier holds Sing's hand just to make sure she doesn't fall in. It's crystal clear all the way through, but she can't spot a single soul. The sashimi dream is dead. There may not be fish in the stream, but we did see new plants nearby... Surely... one of them must have something edible on them... right? Even... even if it's just an edible pine needle, that's okay too, you know? Please fate? This one time? Identify something nice? 『 «Identify» 』 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

LV.4 ▬ Damiah Enkigiri

Evergreen Berry Bush

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Effects ▐ ◈ Paralyze[LV.2]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ...It's not lethal? ...Really? 『 «Identify»! 』 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

LV.4 ▬ Enkigiribo

Wild Berry

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Effects ▐ ◈ Paralyze[LV.1]

▐ Regeneration[LV.4]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Really?! Wha- T-These berries... are tiny... That's... That's okay! That's totally okay, who cares about that? Paralyze? What is that? Is that a dressing? If it's not going to kill us, it's good enough, you know? Let's just... eat a few! Yeah, then we'll bring the rest home and paralyze ourselves there. Good plan! Just a bit is fine, just enough to curb starvation... Just a little snack... is fine... 『 Mm...? 』 It's... ...it's sweet... haha... Crier's vision turns up towards the sky. Her hair is pulled down, dragging her upper body with her. At the same time, a round shadow erupts from the bush and occupies the space where her head just was. ...Huh? We're not sure what we're looking at, but it clicks when we hear the crunch of teeth. Ah... a monster... Our hearts stop. The creature dodges back into the bush as quickly as it appeared. It all happens before Crier even touches the ground where her fall is softened by the snow. If only the snow could have softened the coming pain that would ravage Crier's spine, too... 『 ...a...aa...! 』 Crier kicks away from the bush helplessly; her breath fills with distress. I run behind her and pull her up to help her get back on her feet. It can't be helped... it's not her fault... she very nearly lost her face. Please don't expect her to remain calm... when death grazes her like that.

She's fragile, you should know this. Ah... We can still hear it rustling in the bush... She won't calm down like this... I hold her head and cover her ears to block out the troubling noise. She's shivering too... so I lean close... and whisper... 『 It's okay... It's okay... It's fine... I'm here... You're safe... 』 Sing's hands feel warm against Crier's skin. Having our bodies together... just seems to calm us down. Crier steadily slows her breathing and lets her legs find their footing, while Sing guides her away from the bush, inch by inch, keeping a close eye on the snow. We can feel Sing's heart thumping out of her chest, but Crier's... feels sluggish. Paralyze... We shouldn't have... Of course we shouldn't have. Idiot... Sing bites her lip. We feel it coming. She grips the dagger. Our feet dig into the snow. We prepare for the worst... ...for when it appears, with a screech. 『 «Identify»! 』 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

LV.4 ▬ Aggrabon

Young Lesser Frost Demon

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HP ▐ 14/70

MP ▐ 48/60

SP ▐ 58/70

P.ATK ▐ 18

P.DEF ▐ 8

M.ATK ▐ 0

M.DEF ▐ 0

Effects ▐ ◈ Demonic Miasma[LV.4]

▐ Starvation[LV.2]

▐ Fear[LV.100]

▐ Infatuation[LV.100]

▐ Paralyze[LV.54]

▐ Insanity[LV.50]

▐ Paranoia[LV.50]

▐ Hysteria[LV.50]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Lesser... Sing swings the dagger down at the charging mound of snow. ...Frost Demon? It hits, and the creature... just... ...stops moving. We watch it, ready for it to spring back to life... but it never does. It lies in a mound of snow... completely immobile... ...and lifeless. ... I...It didn't die... it... it succumbed... Fear[LV.100]... Infatuation[LV.100]... Paralyze, Insanity, Paranoia, Hysteria... All these effects... It can't be... that these... Are these from us...? Our miasma? But that's... But what else... could it have been? ... Haha... ...Ahaha. That's... Sing kicks the immobilized creature, but it doesn't move. Sing kicks it again... and again, and again, and again. The debilitating effects it gained from Fear only rise further. No amount of physical trauma seems to incite it to move again. The creature is inadvertently unburied from its snow cover with every kick. Eventually, we can make out what it looks like amongst the white powder. It's a furry creature, with beady red eyes spaced far apart. Its fur is white with gray lines, and red wherever it's injured. It has four tiny legs sticking out from a bean shaped body. Its head and body are one mass, and its ears are folded behind its "head" like a ribbon. Its fangs are exposed, some broken, and fur is missing in various places. It would be cute if it weren't mutilated and on the verge of death. ...What? Please don't look at us that way. Don't you understand what it means to have a sisterly bond? If it lashes out like that at Crier, of course the big sister is going to bite back. If you attack and don't understand that, then it's your own fault, you know? All of this, is its own fault... understand? We're totally innocent here, okay? So when we kill it... that too is its own fault, okay? With that, we're absolved of all responsibility, right? ...No? Why not? Huh? We're responsible for it? You think we should spare it- no, save it?! That's a bit of a jump in logic, don't you think? But fine... if you insist, let's think about it. Let's see if there are any reasons to spare this... monster. It's only because you think we should though, not because we want to or anything. ...Companionship. Shall we save it out of affection? No, it's just going to be another mouth to feed... Hunting pet? Can we share a symbiotic relationship? No... with the EXP alone we can accomplish much more. Morals? Can we find it in our hearts to spare a suffering creature? Yare yare... of course not... who cares about something like that? A reason to let this creature live... Does such a reason exist...? Divine favor? Getting on better terms with divinity? ...No, this is a drop in the bucket; let's have this talk again when we get to genocides. Frost demon politics? Perhaps we can get on better terms with the wildlife? ...Why? We just learned we can suppress them with demonic miasma, didn't we? Ah... this is getting a bit tough... Is there really no reason to spare it? What about... the Demon King? What would the Demon King do...? Pfft. Brutality, that's what the Demon King would do. He'd kill us if we were what stood between him and a meal. Ah... sorry, it looks like we failed Aggrabon-chan~ Unfortunately, fate decided that you would be our prey today. You should just accept it, you know? Fate always wins. You may have resisted up until now, but it always... ...always wins in the end. Crier turns away. Sing crouches next to it. It's convulsing. It doesn't look cute. Its expression is... something else though. There's something satisfying about this. We feel a buzz in Sing's cheeks. 『 Don't struggle too much... or it'll hurt more, you know? 』 Poke... Seven... Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. 〖 Level Up :: Level 3 〗 ...Sing wipes the blood from her face. ...That's it. It's... it's... that's it! We killed something for real! It's okay, since... it was for survival. Survival of the fittest right? That's just... how it is. Right... right, it's fine. This much is fine... This is... how it should be. Sing swallows her breath. Crier shuffles over and hands her the pouch, but we keep her eyes away from the corpse because she's squeamish. Don't worry Crier, your onee-san will take care of all the bad stuff. It'll take just a second... so don't look...! 『 «Identify» 』 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

LV.3 ▬ Sing '' Streya

ᵈᵢBlack-Lamb Pure-Demon

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HP ▐ 30/30(35) [+ 20]

MP ▐ 0

SP ▐ 40/40 [+ 20]

P.ATK ▐ 3 [+ 2]

P.DEF ▐ 101 [+ 2]

M.ATK ▐ 0

M.DEF ▐ 30 [+ 30]

Effects ▐ ◈ ᵈᵢⓈ∞

▐ ◈ Ancient Shadow King Miasma

▐ ◈ Pure Demonic Blood

▐ ◈ Ruptured Mana Pool

▐ Eldritch Fear[LV.1] ▐ Frost Bite[LV.16]

Titles ▐ 「 Prophet of Death 」「 Feral 」

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ah... power... Squelch. Power feels nice... Squish. Our stats are still subpar... but skills can make up the difference... Crunch. 『 Finished. ... Crier? 』 We glance at the brown leather pouch, stained in blood. Sing's dress, covered in red splatters and drips. Her hands, her hair, her face... all in red... but somehow, we feel... that... nothing... is wrong with that... It's her expression... It's Sing's smile, we think... that ties her look together. Maybe... in hindsight... we should have looked away then, but we were too engrossed at the time to have done such a thing. Her expression was too wonderful to look away. Sing walks up to Crier and reaches out, pressing her cheeks together. It... It's cold, it tickles! S-So of course, Crier laughs, which causes Sing to laugh, but... 『 Stop! Hah... fuahaha! I-I said stop! 』 『 Hee hee hee... 』 ...Eventually, we calm down, and Crier holds her hand over her chest. 『 Okay... heh, fine... ready. 』 We smile at the sight of each other, we can't really help it. Sing brushes her thumbs over Crier's cheeks very carefully, then lets her hands fall away with a satisfied look. Crude facial paint now decorates her cheeks. We think red is what the forest needs, to break up that lifeless feeling. Lots and lots... and lots... of red. [END]