[ Shraaizar has joined your party] – As if.

Actually she is with me, but only because she wants to bite me again. She mumbled for a while how her (C rank) Naga venom cannot lose to (A rank) Wyvern venom, and I should be happy that she is giving me another shot at dying from her poison.

“Don’t get me wrong, I am not excited because I am going to ‘do it’ with you, it is just that I have to protect my naga pride.” - Don't put emphasis on 'do it' blushig then dismiss it, you tsun…

But before she digs into my flesh again, I asked to recover my stuff I left my bag near the slime area, and my spear was dropped in the middle of it.

And there is no way in hell that I am going to break open my skull to get a horn again. If it didn’t hurt so much, I would open up a shop selling monster parts. What piece of me you want me to sell today, sir? ‘After being reincarnated as a Troll, I’ll make a living selling (my) monster parts.’ Buy now in a bookstore next to you. Heck. I bet somewhere a shitty noble would decide to sell my sensitive parts as aphrodisiac. ‘Eat this sausage and get a troll’s stamina in your night’s play.’ #depressed.

After negotiating biting rights for a gear pickup mission, we are now walking to the slime area. I swear that if my staff was eaten by a slime, I’m going to kill it. Then I am going to kill its slime mommy and slime pappy. And then its slime gramps and granny. And after killing slimes for 300 years, i’ll become… I don’t know. Maybe a slime slayer title. 95% chance of instakill when glaring at a slime.

I say we are walking, but the one doing all the job is me. I am now strolling in the forest of hurt with my new snakeskin scarf. It has the issue of being stuffed with a living snake lady, but I’ll overlook it. It is the latest fashion in monster wear. Shraaizar wrapped her tail around my chest and waist, and is hugging my neck and laying on my shoulder like a damsel sighing on a window sill while the prince parades in the main street.

Except she is not sighing, she is talking and asking about all sorts of stuff. About how she and her sisters used to live in a cave north of here, asking me of all the details of my adventure with Helen at the outer forest near the human town, what kind of human I was before reincarnating, etc, etc.

For someone that was alone and borderline insane for the last week, I should not complain about the chatterbox wrapped in my neck. And indeed, I would not complain, but her voice sounds too much like a human girl when she does not hisses. We are currently killing our third goblin patrol, and before there were two hungry wolf packs. I’ve given up dismantiling or collecting the corpses. I just kill and walk away. The only thing that made me stop for a while was to up the goblin’s toothpicks. I have 20 of them now. They make up for a nice throwing weapon, so it is good to have a ranged attack. I tore a strip of wolf leather, and hung the toothpicks on a hole. I have now a toothpick bandolier. Today’s fortune is to have lots of things hanging out of oneself.

We arrive at the edge of the slime area, and then I see the worst scene I could imagine. Monkeys. Black monkeys are cluttering around my bag, ripping, tearing, opening, smelling, biting, and chewing on all my stuff. Everything.

My wolf pelts, my sundries, my spare clothes, my memento Helen’s pan…

I am enraged now. I run to the monkey-infested tree at full speed, Shraaizar almost falls down. She decides to hold my horns, and now she is like a low rider biker taking a drive through route 66. Maybe an extra 6 because this world deserves.

I reach the tree, and I need to get all the monkeys away to my stuff at once. I conjure up my best impersonation of the MGM studios vignette, and let out a [Intimidating Roar]. I focus the area of effect to only include the area with monkeys. The more you constrain the area, the stronger the effect.

Some monkeys that are very close by faint, and fall down. Others freeze on the spot. Most of them decide to high tail away from me. Almost all of them drop my stuff, but a few run while clenching their tiny thief hands around my precious stuff.

I give chase. Shraaizar gets off of me and slithers into the tree branches, and begin to bite the flinching monkeys. Most of them become paralyzed on the spot, and crash to the ground. While running I begin to draw and throw the toothpicks at the fleeing monkeys that are carrying my things.

Out of the twenty toothpicks, I scored 14 monkey killls. [Short Spear] rose to 3. My [Skill Growth] cheat is awesome.

Shraaizar goes the other way, across the tree branches. Since she is more than 15 feet long, she can get from tree to tree easily. And she is fast when in combat mode!! but not as fast as monkeys. She begins using wind magic when the monkeys are out of reach. She can bite really fast, but she needs to coil her body before lunging and biting. She is specialized in Healing and Wind magic. Different from Helen, that is an all-rounder. Also Helen is a G rank adventurer, Shraaizar is a C rank monster.

It seems that monsters do not have MP. We can use magic, but it comes out of our stamina or lifeforce, so we get tired really fast when using magic. Shraaizar gets cold too. I think the window robs her of her body heat, and since she is a reptile, she has temperature issues.

And I learned the motive for the lap pillow. She was cold after healing me, so she put her tail under my body, to warm up using my body heat. A Troll is a wonderful creature. It can give out weapons, vaccines, its regenerating meat can feed a county. And in a pinch, it is a warm blanket. It is more useful than a cow.

Some monkeys got away. I am recovering the toothpicks, when a big shadow jumps over me. I look up and see a gray monkey, about 50% bigger than the others. Its face is wrinkled. I’ll call it Old Geezer. There is a bag in its hand. A cold chill runs up my spine. It is my pemadra bag. Old Geezer looks at me, and shrieks. I throw some toothpicks, it dodges. It takes some pemadra from the bag, and shoves it into his mouth. Crunch crunch. It smiles at me, and swings a bit on its branch. I throw more toothpicks, it swings around and I miss all of them. More shrieking. Pointing and shaming. Pemadras go down Old Geezer’s throat like they are popcorn.

I throw the remaining toothpicks in anger, and all of them miss. I don’t even know where they fell. I don’t have anything to throw now. Old Geezer is delighted. It screams, and swings back and forth again. Clap its hands sideways. Show teeth. Frustrating world. Everything wants to kill it. Even my monster friend wants to kill me.

I need something to throw at Old Geezer. I look around, there is a sizeable stone. It is round, the size of a shot put for athletics. Old Geezer is looking at me, but after I do nothing, it loses interest and reaches into the bag again.

It takes out one large round pemadra, black with red streaks. It is the Red Streak pemadra, one of my trophies. Old Geezer looks at the pemadra, and smiles. Looks at me and sneers. I make a dejected look. Looks at the pemadra, and drools. Licks its lips. Is it that delicious? It is there, admiring the stone before it dives into the monkey’s belly.

And then it takes a stone to the skull, faints and falls down. Like hell I will stand still while some stupid monkey eats my treasure. I used [Stealth] when it began to drool distracted, picked up the stone, held it next to my ear, and tossed it.

- [Throwing] level 1 acquired.

- Grendel has leveled up.

- 5 skill points awarded.

- Title [Enemy of Monkeys] acquired.

It probably broke its neck during the fall. I was occuppied with looking where the pemadra will fall, so I missed it. The opportunity to savor it is forever lost. Ah, there it is.

I pick up the bag, most than half the pemadra are gone. Then Shraaizar catches up with me.

“Hey Grendel, I leveled up.”

“Nice one girl. I leveled too.”

“Oh, you killed graymantle. This mischievous monkey was a troublemaker in these parts of the woods.”

“Who? Did you mean this Old Geezer.”

“You have a terrible naming sense, Grendel. He was graymantle.”

“Yeah, and he will become a gray mantle after I am done with its skin.”

“You look irritated, what did he do to make you angry like that?”

“He was eating my pemadra.”

“What is a pemadra?”

“This”- I show her the Red Streak’s pemadra.”

“Oh, a Monster Magic Core Stone (™). Why do you call it pemadra?”

“It is a pet name.”

“The stone is your pet?”

“No. It is a trophy.”

Monkeys gather around us. They are silent. They seem to be mourning their leader. They are also afraid of me. They look away when I gaze at them.

“Why are you collecting Monster Cores?”

“Dunno. They are beautiful, they remind me of my enemies. What is to do with them?”

“Why are you not eating them?”

“Now that you mention it, this piece of shit was eating my pemadra.” - I kick the Old Geezer’s corpse.

“Monster core.”

“Yeah, these things.”

“We monsters eat other monster’s core. It gives us power.”

“Oh. You called it magical core. Is the monster’s magic is in this stone?”

“Something like that. Eat it. Or if you don’t want it and don’t mind, I would not mind doing you the favor of eating them for you. I hope you are happy that I am willing to do it for you.”

“Do you chew them, or just swallow whole?”

“What do you take me for! How would I do such gross thing? To keep one’s food in the mouth for too long, to break and crunch the meat instead of just stuffing one’s belly.”

The snake girl is pissed off. Oh. Snake. Girl. She can’t chew. I made a faux pas. I need to make up.

“Say, do you want to eat this guy?” - I point at the Old Geezer.

“Graymantle was D rank. And very old. Its core should be big. Why won’t you eat it?” - Oh. The same rank as Red Streak.

“Nah. I want you to have him.” - I was about to slip about Earth’s ‘ladies first’ etiquette. Bad.

Shraaizar seems happy. She doesn’t show on her poker face, but the tip of her tail is honest. Just a final nudge.

“I have this whole bag of pemadra to eat. Plus this Red Streak Wolf one. There are dozens of dead bodies in the forest too. We can have a banquet of wolf, goblin and monkey if we want. It is fine.”

She ‘allows’ me to convince her. Then she brings her body low, moves the tail underneath OG and wraps herself around him. Then all of his bones are broken. Snap snap, crack crack.

Then she dislodges her jaw, and separate the sides. Her mouth begins to stretch, while the neck puffs up like a baloon. She puts her mouth to the corpse, and begins to wriggle her body to pump the meat sack inside the mouth. Then after a while, her mid-section bulges, and she moves her jaw back in place.

“Uhnnnnn. Delicious!!! Thanks, Grendel.”

“Awesome. I’ve never seen a naga eating before, it is awesome.”

She would blush if she had cheeks. Well, it is monster eats monster. Let’s dig in! I take some pemadras, and put them in my mouth. Then I begin to chew, they crack really easy. I swallow the broken stones. The taste is… faint. Maybe because they are most cores of G rank wolves.

- [Pemadra points] acquired: 68.

I had a hunch, but the akashic records interface text is based on your own experience. There is no other explanation for me to be able to read these messages as I would any text back home on Earth. What are those points for?

I eat the Red Streak’s pemadra.

- [Pemadra points] acquired: 250.

Oh, not bad. A single Red Streak is worth dozens of wolves.

And then the weirdest message pops up.

- Unique Skill [Loot Crate Maniac] unlocked.