Chapter 47: Monsterpedia

People say that every useful product of science discovered accidentally. I guess it was the same for magic as well. I was trying one skill, but the result gave another. Moreover, this dizziness lasts for as long as a second. It may sound weak because it only lasts for a second, but don’t forget that I could spam this skill as many times as possible. However, this skill didn’t show itself on the system screen.

I wonder why. Perhaps I was missing something, but that’s beside the point. It may as well be an application instead of skill, that’s why it didn’t appear. Only time could tell why.

While experimenting, I did wonder why there was no commotion since we took away two of their members. Isn’t it common sense that if someone from a group goes missing, others were to search for them? Perhaps the other knights were still unaware of these two’s situation, thinking of this, I tried to console myself. But as the clock ticked and minutes turned to hours, I felt something was wrong.

Moreover, it was not just me who felt as such. The two humans, who were calm otherwise, started to become jittery since a while ago. They looked around with worry evident in their eyes. They must have thought that their companions would come to save them. Now that they saw no one, even after so much time passed, they should have felt something was not right.

Not long after, Logier came back with a wide smile. The fat on his pig-face jiggled as he ran as fast as he could. One should keep in mind that those fats weren’t just for show. They would cushion almost 90% of the damage Logier receives. It was almost like a sponge that soaks damage instead of water.

“Little friend, the humans are gone.” Logier felt it was a piece of good news and came to share it with me as soon as he heard it. At that time, I really wanted to share the joy with him, but I couldn’t. The words of ancestors held some truth, after all. It was a bliss to be ignorant. While Logier was happy, I knew what will happen now that they escaped. There gonna be a hell lot of trouble in the future.

Not long after this day, I would understand how close to the truth I was.

“Okay, that’s good,” I replied before continuing with my research. I pretty much had a rough outline of how to proceed with my recent findings. The spell I created, Dizzy, required me to actively control it. Unlike my other skills where I just have to aim and activate, with Dizzy it had to be done manually. Not only it takes valuable time, but also my attention. In a life and death battle, if my concentration was divided like this, I might die as a result.

Therefore I was practicing to reduce the time of casting so that it would become instinctive. I wanted to achieve a state where I would not have to consciously make the thing explode. However, it was easier said than done. After all, I had no prior contact with magic or its applications. All I can do was to proceed through trial and error.

I only stopped when my MP was about to dry out. Each of those tooth-picks drained 2 MPs, and my current MP was 170. I looked at the roof, to the crystal that emitted light according to the time outside. It had gone dim, meaning the sun was going to set soon. Then I looked at the two captives and found them unconscious while foaming from their mouths. It looked like I had gone overboard with my experiment.

Strangely enough, I didn’t have a sense of revulsion when using them as practice targets. Normally it would have scared the hell out of me, but considering the predicament I was in, perhaps this was a blessing in disguise.

After becoming a monster, I thought long about my life as a human and the way I lived. Everything was peaceful because there was ‘law’ that dictated wrong and right. There were authorities who made sure these laws were followed by everyone. However, in this dungeon, no such laws exist, and neither does the authorities. Here having enough strength means you wouldn’t become food for someone else.

Here, strength is directly proportional to survival. With that in mind, unless I grow stronger, sooner or later, I might become someone else’s food. My heart palpitated as I felt numb while thinking of this matter. Usually, I would avoid thinking of such a depressing topic as it would make me feel restless and afraid.

My victory over the two humans didn’t give me any sense of comfort. It was because I was still relatively unaware of how high I was standing in the pyramid of this dungeon. Logier said that these humans were as strong as him, while Urt said he could take care of both of them at once. Due to these conflicting opinions, I was confused about my real strength.

Of course, I was not counting my physical abilities. Because, as far as physical power was concerned, I might be pretty close to the bottom of the pyramid. My strength was illusions, and by extension, magic. There was no need for me to moan about my poor physical prowess.

I walked to the orcs’ camp and asked a ‘female’ orc where they had put the two humans’ belongings. I wanted to find if they had something to eat in their possessions. After all, they were still useful to me to some extent. I couldn’t just have them die of hunger. This afternoon alone, I understood more about magic and how it worked than this whole month combined. With a test dummy, my progress was too fast.

The orc led me to a heap where they dumped all their weapons and shields. Seeing the equipment scattered around carelessly, I concluded that these pigs lacked proper discipline. After rummaging through the heap, I finally found two backpacks. These backpacks were small and felt somewhat leathery to my palm.

When I tried to lift them, it took me some effort to do so. Those bags may look small but weighed more than they should. Curiously, I opened one of them to see the contents. Inside it was foods, water bottles, weapons, spare clothes, spare armors, some kind of crystal-like rock, a token with a symbol of sword, and a few books. I wasn’t surprised at the contents as much as the volume of it.

The bag was so small, yet, it contained so much stuff. It was almost like a certain blue cat’s four-dimensional pocket. Speaking of blue cats, when I looked at the bag, my eyes widened as my breath shortened. In my heart, I was chanting ‘it can’t be’ like a mantra. With a feverish gaze, I tentatively reached towards the bag and refilled it with the things I pulled out.

Everything went in smoothly without me using any effort. I emptied the bag again and refilled it again. This process, I repeated for a few more times until Logier came and aksed me worriedly, “little friend, are you alright? You are playing with that thing for a while, is it more interesting than playing with us?”

“Hmph! What do you know? This thing is a treasure.” I snorted at the pig’s ignorance. At that time, I thought it was a bag enchanted with space properties. The second bag’s contents were also identical to the first one. This prompt me to believe that it might be a standard issued bags for all knights like them.

Suddenly I cooled down as if someone dumped a bucket of ice-water on my head. I suddenly realized a very dreading fact. If a kingdom could give its knights a space bag, then how fearsome must be their power and influence!? If so, wouldn’t their retaliation would be that violent? Common sense said that I should go into hiding until I was sure no retaliation comes. But earlier, I heard that these knights do not belong to the two neighboring kingdoms. Therefore I decided to take it slow. Moreover, the orcs just experienced two large-scale battles and saved from the verge of extinction.

Something told me that if I ask them to move again, they would rather choose to die.

Therefore I fell into a dilemma on how to tackle this problem that somehow came to my doorsteps uninvited. While I was thinking, my eyes landed on the two books inside the bag. With a curious expression, I picked it up and opened it to see the contents.

Monsterpedia

The title was eyecatching and written in stylish fonts. I opened the book and found the first page was about the contents of the book. Thankfully all the names were written according to alphabetical order, so I skipped everything and searched for Dream Weaver.

When I opened the page, I saw a picture of my current race. It looked uglier and very different from how I look, and I was not being biased. The book contained a detailed explanation of the monster, their strength, weaknesses, types, behavior patterns, and how valuable they were.

After reading everything about my race, I trace of fear born in my heart. If I had sweat glands, I would have oozed cold sweats. I never knew my race was so rare and so shout-after. Just my skin had a market price of four digits. Though I didn’t have an understanding of the money of this world, four digits were still much.

For the sake of my protection, I decided to be careful in the future.