I stood around in a daze for a while. I did not feel anger or sadness. I felt absolutely nothing. Perhaps my brush with religion was more illuminating than I expected. Life truly was suffering. All pain is a result of desire.

The trick… was to just let go of desires.

Harvesting crayfish organs? (Setting aside all the ethical implications that I so easily accept this) Definitely an exercise in futility.

Developing my first practical application of Mana? Simply a mirage. Better not to chase it.

Amifutaba… Let’s just sleep today off.

Who cares if I received a slew of interesting notifications… and all they amounted to was a bit of Mana. And all those body parts that Green pulped in order to grab two for me… having any desires is how I ended up in this position. Much better to just be empty. I am a Chimera Core… human thoughts are a meaningless distraction…

Ohoho? Could this be the trick? Look how freely Indigo and Green live. Humanity is a scaffolding of suffering I must abandon.

It was unknown how far down my rabbit hole of nihilism I would have descended, had not I felt a strange response from my body. I paused and focused on it. First I worried that the Kami had reached out to mock me again. However, it didn’t quite feel like that. When the answer didn’t immediately present itself, I turned off my vision and focused instead on energy sonar. Almost immediately, I noticed new presences that burned in my energy sonar, even beyond the limit of my usual range.

Their Mana felt… familiar somehow. And more relevantly, they also appeared to sense me, because the three dozen or so little bits of Mana were rushing toward me.

Your Skill (Temp) Lesser Mana Detection has grown to Level 10(+13).

I moved to meet these little lights in my perception, heading diagonally past the home stump toward the place where the reeds grew. Noticing my movements, Green and Indigo ceased their torture games and followed me. Green seemed especially boisterous; perhaps she was hoping I would lead us into another battle.

Not today…I think…

Just before they got here, I realized what the Mana signatures probably were and why they felt so sympathetic. I had formed a hybrid Monster Core, but a portion of that had come from the first Hex Spider monster core that I absorbed.

They erupted from the reeds, still quite small due to being recently born. They marched forward, took a formation with neat rows, and each raised a tiny foreleg to salute me. Between our Monster Cores, I could feel that these little, Lvl 2 Hex Spiderlings recognized me as their leader, due to my higher Level.

Green didn’t share this instinctual understanding and simply leapt forward. Luckily I somewhat predicted this development, so I already had tentacles extended to wrap around her and prevent a massacre. Even so, she jolted me forward several body lengths. When she noticed my restriction, I gestured emphatically; these little guys were no longer enemies, but friends. With their low Level, they barely triggered any hunger in us Chimera Cores.

Trying to demonstrate she understood, Green took a few skips forward to the nearest spiderling. She used a leg to pat the spider on the back in a show of camaraderie— and squashed it entirely, because it was just a tiny spiderling. Green looked alarmed, but her first response was to move her leg to screen my vision and shoot out a hyper-quick frog tongue. Just like that, the evidence of her crime was sucked into her mouth, with barely a little ichor left behind.

She peeked over a shoulder to see if we had noticed. Indigo and I exchanged a glance.

Honestly, perhaps I should be happy it only took one spiderling death for her to learn her lesson…

Green rolled away, clearly bored with the spiderlings and wanting to absent if we ever raised a fuss about the missing one. Indigo gestured vaguely above his head, the sign he used when he went exploring, and then rolled away in a different direction. Probably, he also wanted to be as far away as possible when Green remembered how fun it was to torture him.

Meanwhile, I was still testing the internal connection to the spiderlings. I could even feel their emotions. Toward the death of their comrade… they felt only a vague sadness, but more of the feeling when you turned on the tv to see your favorite movie was almost over, something like that.

Mostly, they seemed to shape their reaction… based on my reaction, as they current alpha in the network.

Uh oh. I have inherited some species-wide system of oppression.

After a little bit of manipulating my Monster Core, I figured out how to send commands to them. Soon, I had them marching over to the area next to the Swampfly area I had created. Farming had quickly grown complicated, but perhaps my hidden talents lay in spider ranching? I could at least set them up with a sweet spiderling pad, where food was only a leisurely stroll away.

With the extra flowers I had brought, now a literal column of flies buzzed above the swamp. So many clustered together they seemed like a physical block of noise and twitching bodies; they looked like what I imagined an electron cloud to be. Only I really came here to eat, anyway, now that Indigo and Green had both grown more powerful. So it was an easy answer to put up spiders on one side of the swamp, happily collecting flies.

They quickly began to spin webs in between the nearby shrubs and reeds. I wasn’t sure what to do about the Hex Spiders, but I figured a growing community of fellow monsters should provide us with security. Obviously, there could be no peace with the crayfish, but perhaps it would be possible to discuss some sort of diplomacy with the frogs?

Although until our communication becomes more efficient, any deals I manage to make… will definitely just be broken by Green…

Right around that time, a point of Mana regenerated. After taking a deep breath, I attempted my Blessing, dribble liquid.

An unidentified, lavender liquid oozed out from my skin. I gained a proficiency in the Blessing, but-

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More than anything, it just looks like I’m sweating, like a clammy-handed boy attending my first middle school dance… life is empty and devoid of meaning. Everything is chance. Do not waste emotion craving more than the moment…

I decided to head to bed early before I could suffer any more blows to my ego.

Unfortunately, none of the problems solved themselves overnight. And a few more complicated issues arose.

Actually, the feeling that yoinked me from slumber was a wave of panic from the hex spiders. The connection through my hybrid monster core informed me that while I had slept. Quite a few had died. And my energy sonar clearly informed me that Green was over in that area.

The sun hadn’t even risen and my ranch already was suffering problems.

I scuttled out on my four legs, waving around my arms and antenna like a madman. I had intended to stop briefly next to the swampfly breeding ground and replenish my Anima— with my two new higher-level body parts, just making it through the night had brought be down to 19 Anima. I had forgotten to eat before bed, due to my mood, but it was still a dangerously low amount.

However, I skidded to a halt; suddenly my hunger for Anima forgotten.

The river flowed and brushed up against the mud beach, east of the mud beach was our stump and the swampfly breeding ground, and now Northeast of that, as far as my little eyes and energy sonar could see, the reeds had been covered with interconnecting strands of spider silk. You could vaguely see the shape of the reeds underneath, but when the wind crossed the wetland, the entire spidersilk/reed forest rustled as one. It was, in a word, creepy.

I recalled the vast deadness of the forest around the tower we had escaped.

Uwah. I suppose I just told them to put up their webs… and they’ve been working all night, without taking a break…

Even I couldn’t fathom the industriousness of the hex spiderlings. But seeing their work, only made me more confused. I headed around the… well, I’ll call it the spiderzone for now, to the place where I could sense Green. As I scuttled there, my legs began to sink into the ground. Soon, I just oozed along; the spiderlings had extended their web to cover an area almost double the size of the entire beach, putting it atop of one of the sluggish tributaries of the river that carried us here.

Finally, I could see Green. Immediately, I released a sigh of relief. Rather than surreptitiously snacking on the hexspiderlings hiding down in their webs, she appeared to be defending them. Several bluebirds glided down to the area above the webs and used their talons to snag bugs that had gotten stuck in the massive spiderweb. Occasionally, they must have also grabbed Hex Spiderlings that didn’t notice the threat until it was too late, hence their depleted numbers.

When a Bluebird Chirper Lvl 9 glided low for another pass, Green bounced off the ground to intercept. But all it took was a twitch of the wings and the Chirper changed directions. Green tumbled harmlessly through the air. The bird fluttered up to join its fellows and engaged in some sharp birdsong that sounded suspiciously like giggles at Green’s failure. When she hit the ground, Green slammed her leg into the shallow water in frustration, splashing in every direction.

Tsk, stupid birds making trouble, I shook my head, but also had some ideas about how we could strike them down. After looking around a bit, I headed back around the edge of the spiderling zone to the flies; first, I needed Anima. As I was moving, the hexspiders sent me a request: They wanted to lay more eggs.

You could do this the whole time and you waited for my go ahead? Truly, insect hierarchy is a scary thing… I agreed thoughtlessly with their request and devoured fifty flies in order to have an acceptable amount of Anima. As I hurried back to the Green’s frustrations, a thought occurred to me.

Wait a minute, after Absorbing that much Anima, how come my new Feed Skill didn’t activate? This stingy System…

Calm, deep breathing, watch the wiggling jelly… probably just because the flies are barely Level 1…

As I came back to the spiderling area, Green executed another leap that accomplished nothing. I hurried over to her position, ignoring her splashes. I mimed out what I wanted and she actually understood quite quickly. She rolled over, legs pointed up at the sky and I climbed up and tightened my body into a ball. When the next Bluebird Chirper dove down toward us, I tapped Green’s side and she launched me up into the air.

Very quickly, I arced up and reached the same height as the chirper. It blinked in surprise and cocked its head sideways, but just as quickly it tilted its wings and adjusted the vector. Before it could speed away, I extended out my serrated foreleg and stretched a tentacle to support it. Just like the method I used to move from one cage to the other through the gap in the Mana-charged mesh, I extended that tentacle further and further, essentially just creating tentacles atop of tentacles with my Anima.

Before the Chirper had registered the threat, I whipped out an extra-long limb that ended in a serrated foreleg.

Your (Earned) Skill Inferior Body Manipulation has grown to Level 9.

Your (Earned) Skill Inferior Body Manipulation has grown to Level 10.

I aimed for just chopping off the enemy’s head, but the bird twisted sideways at the last second. As it was, the serrated foreleg slashed into the wing joint and broke the bone. The chirper fluttered, but tumbled downward, crashing into the webbed area. Already, I could feel the Hex Spiders marching for the body, intending to give their lives to inject the bird with their venom.

I probably would have ordered them not to waste their lives like that, had I not crashed into a puddle of water and gone completely under. For a second, human instincts kicked in and I thrashed around. But then I remembered that breathing didn’t matter and my eyes were protected by a gelatinous barrier and I regained my cool leadership skills that Green and Indigo definitely admired.

By the time I had climbed ashore, Green and hopped over to me and gestured emphatically in what was clearly ‘ooo, that seems fun, okay it’s my turn’. Luckily, the tweeting arrival of the three other Bluebird Chirpers distracted her. It seemed these fellows were not happy that we had knocked their companion out of the sky.

Green twisted around and then bounded up. The Chirper in her path realized too late that it had come too close and beat its wings rapidly. Without missing a beat, Green exploded and extended her own limb, wrapped her serpent’s tail around its neck and twisted sharply enough to produce an audible crack, reeled in the first body to give a bit of a mid-air foundation, pressed her legs against its body, and then leapt sideways off the body and knocked another Chirper out of the sky. The last chirper swooped at me and I sent up a tentacle to distract it.

Let’s not obsess over the fact Green took one look at what I did… and then did it better.

As I suspected, the bird slashed my tentacle with its claws and flitted away, at a speed that even impressed me. But the second, longer tentacle I had been forming behind my body swung out with the serrated foreleg at the end. The leg sunk into the Bluebird Chriper’s body and it crashed into the water.

It managed to thrash its way to the surface, but my legs carried me over and a few stabs quickly ended its life.

You have successfully Absorbed Anima! Anima +8.

You have successfully Absorbed Anima! Anima +9.

You have successfully Absorbed Anima! Anima +5.

Your Skill (Temp) Feed has triggered! Restoring 1 Health over the next 30 seconds.

Your Skill (Temp) Feed has grown to Level 2

You have slain a Bluebird Chirper Level 9.

You have assisted in slaying a Bluebird Chirper Level 9.

The second notification was likely from the bird that had fallen into the hex spiderlings’ area. I glanced sideways to see if Green needed help, but clearly she had already slain her foes. And as I watched, her body stiffened. Grey flesh began to grow and cover her Green ooze core.

My jelly wiggled in anxiety. Of course I am the last one to reach Level 10…