I was nudged awake by a gentle and caring finger over my head and snoot. I instinctively moved toward the touch until I realized what I was doing and jolted away from the caring hand of the person that stole my freedom in exchange for love and safety but still…. My freedooooooooooom.

I gently moved away from her hand and remarked she was holding me against her and thought I hated my predicament the warmth was heaven to my cold-blooded body.

She oggered me a slice of fruit, i was hungry and i bited intobit and tear flowed asvthe taste was like ambrosia. It was so gooooood.

She giggled at my reaction but didn’t try to impose herself while i finished my meal. Something I thanked and secretly hated I did want more touch it was blissful in my defence.

I also remarked that,

we were sitting inside something that was moving around on 4 massive circle and pulled by… horseyyyyyy.

Yes, horses were pulling us forward I could only see the general shape and colour of ‘our’ party but from what I could sense and hear they were in some kind of conversation and were looking toward me. Did they want to hurt me? Take my skin and make it an armour belt or pouch? Maybe I was just too curious or it was my tail wave earlier…..

My train of thought was interrupted as I saw a white-yellowish empty rectangle with a rugged appearance and a black square in a crate. That smelled strangely like carbon and burned stuff… if I wasn’t more than a snake, I wouldn’t know what it was but a part of me remembered. One long lost in this world. But maybe it could help me communicate. There 3 things I know, music, art and theatre are universal art but theatre with simple action and shadow art can be understood by everyone they are not only a universal artistic form but also a universal language. I might be unable to speak but I could hopefully draw. I had 3 issues to deal with how to draw with my current body, how to get myself down from the iron but caring grasp on my body and how I was going to be able to draw and be understood well enough. I wasn’t blind …. but my vision was bad enough to be thought I guess my vision wasn’t as bad for close drawing I will be able to see the general line but that removes any complicated drawing from the picture. Hmmmmmmmm

Well, let’s start with trying to get down, shall we?

I gently bitted my tamer’s hand and moved my tail to indicate the floor repeatedly.

The elf looked at me sharply and slowly readied a dagger I gulped. But my tamer answered in her strange melodious tone but, I couldn’t understand her sadly. So, I try moving my body out of her grasp. And at the same time pointed to the ground with my tail hopefully making my intention clear. As I felt her confusion through the link I tried to send her my desire for freedom.

I still felt worry and confusion but she begrudgingly let me down on the wooden floor moving kind of smoothly.

I was so happy maybe it could work. I gently slithered toward the crate of stuff and using my longue tongue tried after multiple attempts to move one of the pieces of paper to the side so I could bite the corner and carry it away.

After 10 tries and some small cut on my tongue, I succeeded and slowly carefully bit the paper side and …. Wait how do I move backward….

Not knowing how to move backward I slowly tried to turn my body around the crate as the treasure I took slowly came loose from the pile and I successfully set it on the carriage floor under people staring at me and not even making a sound.

I gently reached for the charcoal stick and slowly took one in my mouth and resisted the desire to gag. First let me tell u charcoal taste like…. well, it taste bad alright!

I slowly removed my head from the crate and set myself up while putting my body on the paper side and angling the stick toward the paper.

I decided on drawing something simple. And luckily it seems I could distinguish the black line from the whitish yellow.

I slowly started by drawing the form of a nose in a somewhat diced mushroomy state. And slowly drew 2 fine lines on either side of it that as sharply and slowly as I could curve into a feline eyebrow I tried and very gently did my best to make it symmetrical it wasn’t amazing but it wasn’t as bad as I thought It would be. I then instead of drawing an eye decided to use charcoal to make 2 black eyes with an empty slit and tried my best at shaping the eye area. I then moved to the mouth and even did a somewhat triangle on one side u der the maw part as a fang. I then slowly added whisker. And drew some cat ears with 3 long streaks at their end I then finished the cheeks and used the charcoal mixed with a bit of spit using my tongue. Tongue I’m so sorry I swear but now I could make some shadow in the drawing as best I could.

I them gaged away from the paper and coughed the very wet and disgusting charcoal from my mouth while a pair of hands I didn’t recognize took my work and I felt 2 caring but strong ones hold me and another pair poor water in my mouth and around my face to try to wash the tar away. I purred happily and when they were done fell asleep from mental exhaustion.

Aurora looked at the drawing the green snake made she couldn’t believe an animal so young could draw something like this with such primitive tools and no training beforehand or hand for that matter.

It wasn’t pretty but…. It was a cat that much was visible what specie or kind she couldn’t tell.

‘Laĩea u sure u tamed the little one?’

Laĩea looked while holding her tamed snake at her party leader and nodded.

‘I got the system notification which came def as a surprise as I’m no tamer thought it gave me the skill related to it. Why?’

Aurora sighed

‘Because I do not believe they are what they are as simple as that they are newborn yet were able to draw an animal we didn’t encounter nor could have lived in such a cave. The fact they draw in the first place is ridiculous and the fact they waved at us when they woke up even more…. I had doubts there but now… those doubts become reality that. And her strange coloration is unique. I’m going, to be honest, I’m glad I didn’t kill it when I saw her crawl toward the fire for warmth.’

The other 3 nodded in approval but didn’t speak probably thinking stuff for themself.

Aurora continued

‘I also believe it explains why u felt she was confused if she was not an animal but a sentient being or at least one that wasn’t born a snake but became one by a weird or cursed string of fate.’

Laĩea looked at the sleeping snake in her arms with a sad expression and worry.

‘I’m I bad then to treat her like one?’

‘U couldn’t know Laĩea’ said a shy voice from beside her as it hugged her side with feathery wings.

‘At best maybe we should treat her as a party member, not an animal?’ she continued

Aurora sighed again

‘As much as I understand your word Cyriel but, she not like us we have humanoid shape she... do not have that luxury.

Treating her differently than one in town would cause us to issue in more ways than one Leĩea could after all she her ‘owner’—'her heart hurt a bit at those words and she saw Leĩea’s expression sour quickly and shiver.

‘—technically, it could explain her care but if we all care too much about her it could attract bad intentions, we adventurer and we all-girl as such we even more treated poorly by all those brutes that call themselves adventurers here in the human region it’s worse, we prob don’t want that poor child to suffer as we did, no?

If it can help when we out of town or in private spoil her like u want but be reasonable and respect her boundary it’s the east we can do unless we found a way to communicate which is probably impossible other then general emotion with Leĩea help’

Leĩea expression took one of surprise and stared at the elf

‘didn’t u say u didn’t want her around’

Aurora’s expression shifted to a sad one

‘I did but I’m not a fool… they aren’t evil nor a monster even if the world or system see them as such, not once did they attack anyone other than biting your hand but they lack fang and pointed to the ground, so I assume they wanted to go down. Not only that none of us are human, to begin with, and in a way isn’t she a little sister to our party and us? My only problem is needing to register her as a pet and we all know how the human nation sees us at least we are not outright attacked cause we are adventurers but we need to go across 3 cities before we even reach our land and mirage help us we might get into trouble with those barbarian. On the way so stay vigilant.’

They all nodded at each other before Aurora walked toward her bag and found a small blanket for their new friend and family member hopefully.

I was slowly startled awake as I felt a scream outside the carriage and slowly moved my head out of the soft warm thing over me to see what was going on through a hole in the wood to see 5 recognizable shadows circled by what looked like a group of bandits

Fear took my heart as I slowly saw one of the bandits successfully hurt my tamer with a wild slash of his sword.

I felt pain and fear enter my mind and understood it was how she felt.

I didn’t know what I could do what I did know was that they probably wouldn’t be killed. But instead captured which I knew was a fate worse than death.

They slowly dropped their weapon to the ground before the bandit tied them up and threw them in what seemed to be a cache, I suddenly felt fear and sadness flood my mind as anger raised from mine. The flow of emotion was startled by the anger burst as confusion and then understanding and fear for me flow through the link.

I ignored it as soon as I heard a step and hid as best I could in one of the bags of clothing we had and waited as the bandit checked around and then took the horse handle. And followed the others and the carriage thing that took my tamer and her friend… they only been kind to me if the blanket was any indication, no way would I run away as I did for the red-eyed one…. They were important and all I had that treated me with care and not hatred!

Resisting the urge to hiss I remembered the system word about more information will be available in the future.

I screamed in my head the word System.

Name: none

Race: Green Sneraeloa

Gender: female

Age :3 days old

Level:3

Status: Tamed (By: %$#!##$%@$)

Stat:

Strength: 4

Dexterity: 5

Vitality:4

Intelligence: 4

Wisdom: 4

Speed: 4

FSP:15

Magic stat: Locked

Morphology:

Very weak snake eyes

Normal Snake tongue (smell and taste)

Very Small Green Scaled Snake body

Weak body muscles

General Skill: 4 open slot

Dash (level) 1 :

In the face of danger, u pushed past your limit for a short moment to move faster at an immense stamina cost.

Evolution point: 20

Bank:

Weak snake eyes: 3 Ep

Normal snake eye: 5 Ep

Snake fang: 2 Ep

Weak Venom:

Basic: 3 Ep

Necrotic: 10 Ep

Paralyzing: 5 Ep

Slow acting: 3 Ep

Sleep inducing: 5 Ep

(Normal quality venom is twice the price)

Weak Bioluminescence: 3 Ep

Bioluminescence: 5 Ep

Oil gland: 10 Ep

(After 5 first changes the price will double permanently and then augment once again at the next purchase.)

--

Do u want to activate the system notification?

Yes/No

Do u want to see the previous notification?

Yes/no

I winced in pain from the buildup of the pressure of the information in my head and pressed Yes for both prompts.

You have devoured a Lightbulb Caterpillar Level 0. Exp as been awarded.

For eliminating our first enemy in this world u have been awarded one of their characteristics: bioluminescence

U have been tamed

For having successfully drawn an art piece to communicate with sapient being taught at the cost of oil and charcoal mush in your mouth u have earned a special evolution: oil gland

You have earned 1 dexterity point for ur effort.

Ur party as eliminated spear master level 35

For being a tamed being u have earned 50% of the experience. Based on your tamer and your battle. For not participating your gain has been reduced to a minimum of 5%.

Level up +5 eP +5 stat point

Level up +5 eP +5 stat point

Level up +5 ep +5 stat point

The multitude of ping made me nauseous, but it at least explained some of my statuses.

And the fact I was level 3 now!

And the Ep would help a lot for what I had planned. From what I understood u gained 5 at each level and I probably started with 5. It seemed slightly weird, but I wasn’t going to complain.

I decided to first allocate my stat in dexterity to put it at 12 which cost me a 7 point. I then put the other 8 and separate them to put 2 in strength, 2 in vitality, 2 in speed, and 1 in intelligence and wisdom.

And I had a rough idea of what each was about.

My stat now roughly looked like this:

Strength:6

Dexterity:12

Vitality:6

Constitution:6

Speed:6

Now to the Ev point, I had 20….

The easier choice was to first take the fang option.

As soon as I spent the 2 points I felt my energy drain and 2 sharp pain filled me deep into my mouth and head.

They were snake fang. They whereas such retractable and hidden. I will find out how to use them later.

I now had roughly 18 points left

I closed my eyes and decided to focus on

I then choose to get an upgrade to my eyes and selected the 2 eye upgrade for a whooping 8 point

As soon a my eyes started to burn from the inside out I internally screamed. But decided to focus on the other choice I made and decided to get paralyzing venom with normal strength.

And started to feel behind where my fang where pain and pressure like an abscess burst. It was painful to feel my flesh change in real-time.

Panting and hurting I decided to start my plan by why I have chosen venom and better eyes as I slowly slithered toward my tamer water barrel and her friend’s food supply and 3 rare alcohol bottles.