Chapter 4. Moonlight Tango

I roamed the cave aimlessly for hours; until I was modest enough to admit I was lost and retraced my steps. It wasn’t a complete failure though, all this time strolling around allowed me to get acquainted with my new body, but now I was just getting tired. Everything in the tunnels looked the same. The stalagmites mixed with the stalactites at every entry like the teeth of a hungry wolf, and black obsidian stone and glittering mushrooms covered all the chambers.

The mushrooms were suspiciously intact, probably because they were poisonous to eat. And as tempting as it was eating one of those glowing things and stretching the limits of [Adaptability], there had to be safer ways of gaining skills and leveling them up.

It was disturbing traveling all this time without clashing with a single creature. I knew I wasn’t alone, but I’d no way of proving it. It wasn’t a theory based on reason, but more of a hunch. My gut was telling me I had a pair of eyes glued to my back.

Though perhaps it was just paranoia messing up with me. An entire day had already passed since I reincarnated, and the only break I had was during the evolution process. I wasn’t foreign to long wakefulness periods, but now in a new body, with the adrenaline fading off, I was beginning to feel the effects of exhaustion at full strength.

Laying down here wasn’t an option if I hoped to awake in one piece. I began searching for a cut-off passage with a single entry, something easy to guard, but what I found was the complete opposite.

Like the calm that precedes the storm, moisture filled the air as I arrived at a clearing around thirty meters wide. Fading rays of reddish sunlight bathe the now mawkish walls, and the unmistakable sound of waterfall echoed across the cave’s length. Funny though because after everything I had seen in the last twenty-four hours, falling into that pool of water turned into my biggest fear.

I quickly dismissed that notion and focused on the survival checklist I’d created in my mind that prioritized finding food, water, and shelter.

Right now, I wasn’t hungry. I presumed that eating once a day was more than enough, but neither did I intend letting slide a good opportunity to get stronger. ‘Eat them before they eat you’ I advised to myself. If something promising appeared, I would eat it without a doubt.

Moving on down the list, finding shelter was my main concern, but I thought foolish abandoning this chance to drink some clean water. Hence I approached the stream to do just that. But I should have listened to my previous instinct because that’s how I got my first lesson in survival: never approach large bodies of water without an escape plan.

A shadow passed beneath the image mirrored in the water’s surface, revealing what was hiding in the lake’s depth. I reacted instantly, jumping with all eight legs and landing on the nearest wall, as the creature sprung from the water.

What was that? I questioned in surprise, but I didn’t expect to receive an answer.

Archival Inspection. Species: Water Boa Sex: Female Tier: 1 Level: 2

Once the mist settled, I saw what the message was referring to: A two-meter snake had appeared, crawling outside the pond and watching me with hungry eyes. Although it was twice my size, the snake’s mouth wasn’t big enough to swallow me in one bite; instead, if it ever caught me, the process would be slow and agonizing.

I thought I had fared better in life-or-death scenarios than most people, but I was right just by a painfully low margin. I was frightened, and it was only due to my traits that I was able to hold my bearings this time, but my mind was still a mess.

Why did I accept coming here?

Will God give a second, no, a third chance if I died again?

Will it hurt?

I shrugged those thoughts away.

No. If it ends, it ends on my terms.

[ Panic Resistance ] has reached level 6!

Shut up!

I ignored the message entirely and focused on what to do next. The wall and ceiling were both safe places, though it made me wondered how much distance I’d jumped from the ground up to here. Being capable of these extraordinary feats felt great, but it also forced to consider what the boa was capable of doing.

I circled the clearing length, trying to find an opening by getting behind her, but the snake had her eyes glued to me and it followed my movements without fail. Then I looked at the hole carved in the ceiling, the entry of the single light. I could escape. Ran away and left the snake behind. It was the same situation I’d been hours ago, but with one big difference. Now I was at an advantage, and much more confident with my body.

I decided to stay and fight. Food being put before my eyes just wasn’t going to happen again. I’d to earn it this time around.

The snake had a long range, but fortunately for me, it wasn’t enough to reach me.

If I could just attack it from behind…

From a new angle, I looked at the piece of sky visible from the clearing. It was unsettlingly familiar. The sun was already gone, and night began with a sky filled with shining stars. The moon was nothing I had ever seen nor expected. It was much bigger than the one on Earth, and a circle of what I believed were asteroids, ringed the hazel satellite.

Perhaps I can wait for a cloud to block the moonlight? No, don’t be stupid. From the way she keeps pulling her tongue out, this thing probably doesn’t even rely on her eyes to see me.

I continued searching for a way to attack the boa. Surprisingly, the snake was as patient as I was, and just laid there waiting for me to come closer.

I am overthinking this. It just a dumb animal right? Can I make a trap and lure it into it?

Tools. That was the biggest difference between this creature and me. I had the intelligence to come up with a plan and use the environment at my disposal. My eyes wandered to a cluster of roots and vines, hanging from the cave’s ravine. If I could smile, I would be doing just that.

All I needed to do was biting pass the scales, and supposedly my venom would kill her eventually. The more bites I could manage to inflict the better. I was going to lure the snake into the marsh, trapped her, and then overdose it with venom. No webs? Let’s use the plants.

After checking that the vines weren’t going to break at an inopportune moment, I was ready to make my move.

Now I just needed bait.

I am going to regret this, don’t I?

The boa was exclusively interested in me; that no other distractions would work. If only I’d someone looking at me with that cold-blooded look of passion a lifetime ago perhaps, I wouldn’t have ended up in here about to put myself as an appetizer.

After jumping down the ground, our fight began.

The green-scaled animal lunged itself forward, planning to trap me with her body, and then squish me into her mouth. I underestimated her speed and was barely able to avoid it. No rest for the wicked, cause as soon an attack was over, the next one was in motion already.

I trusted my instinct to dodge the attacks and let them drive me through the fight. The snake hissed before every advance that after a couple of minutes of our give and take action, a pattern was established. Of course, sometimes the snake spiced things up, and in one occasion, instead of lunging forward, the snake did it backward, using the gained momentum to hit me with its tail.

There was about one meter of distance between the two of us, but I still saw the attack with enough anticipation to dodged if I wanted to, but that wasn’t an option as my would-be trap was behind me. I wasn’t going to take the risk of damaging it before it was time, so instead, I hunkered down and prepared to take the blow, hoping «Robust Exoskeleton» worked as advertised against blunt strikes as well.

It rocked me harder than expected and a dull pain crossed my body. Dismissing it, I jumped at her head, trapping the jaw under a tight grip, but had to let go as soon as I noticed her stumbling towards the pool, but not without biting her twice.

She planned to drown me!

I spit at her face some blackish fluid that had stored in my mouth, and the snake hissed in return. It pissed her off.

Beyond the weird mix of exhaustion, adrenaline, and pain, going one on one against this thing made something flick inside me, something primal.

I was enjoying the fight, disregarding my surroundings, and losing sight of my goal. The more this went on, the less I wanted to eat her and gain skills, and more thrust bite after bite until I ripped her head off.

[ Adaptability ] — Ability [ Blood Rage ] obtained!

If this keeps up, I may actually turn into a full-fledged monster.

That woke me up like a bucket of cold water thrown at my back, but even if that hadn’t worked, the next message would.

WARNING: Low stamina!

We were both getting tired. I needed to wrap this fight soon, but so did the snake. I doubted the venom already in her blood would be enough to kill, but at least paralyze her. With the idea of gaining time, I return to my first plan: trapping the snake into a marsh of vines and roots.

I was in position just to dodge the snake’s attack but waited until the last moment to do so, and the animal barged her head towards the wall, struggling to get out.

I relaxed, thinking the fight was already won, but of course, the snake wouldn’t have me.

She refused to give up and die. Fighting and twitching to free herself from captivity. I was still catching my breath when I saw the roots and vines giving up as well. The boa was just too fat and stubborn to stay there.

After putting everything I had together, I climbed across the cave’s wall, planning to give her the final knockout. Praying to some higher power that I didn’t develop a fear of heights, I reached the top of the chamber and propelled myself downwards. The distance between the snake’s head and me shorted exponentially until I finally landed on her skull, snapping it with a pleasant crack.

I hauled the corpse upwards using my two posterior legs as hooks, and after finding a nesting opportunity amongst the vines; I dropped the body there and drifted into blissful sleep.