I should speak to Nightshade when we get home, I thought as I observed the way the Fae Squirrels, who he had previously slaughtered, gathered at his back with excited gleams in their eyes. They didn’t even glance at his horrible squirrel-head arm as they burst through a last thicket of reeds. Just like Sage, he probably is searching for a sense of meaning in this life…

Hopefully, something more than feeding his cursed hand.

I had fought beside Sage and Nightshade (and I suppose with Violala), but the addition of ten fae squirrels created a whole new sense of momentum to our charge. We felt like a valiant wedge of Arthurian knights, out to slay our monster. Almost instinctively, I dug my feet into the mud and galloped forward to join the charge.

Your Skill (Temp) Inferior Adrenaline Rush has grown to Level 23.

The combination of my increased physical Stats and the growth in Inferior Adrenaline Rush meant the ground beneath me exploded. Fae Squirrels noticed my wild acceleration and scrambled out of the way. In just a few moments, I had crossed the intervening ground and arrived at Nightshade’s side.

He glanced sideways at me and grinned with his snakearms.

Sage let out a whoop of joy and bounded forward to join us at the forefront. “Last one to slay a tube dragon is a freak!”

My momentum carried me forward, as the squirrels chittered out shrill denials about being a tailless freak. However, my mind snagged on one of the words that Sage had said.

Tube dragon? If I were to picture a dragon shaped like a tube…

Gators?

Alligators?

GATORS?!

To be frank, I possessed a deep aversion toward alligators. They were toothy, silent, barrel-rolling murder logs. They outfitted themselves in scales and pond scum. They slept comfortably with a belly stuck in mud. If crayfish were insignificant bottom feeders, alligators were malicious and dangerous bottom feeders.

Unfortunately, the weight of my Armored Spine and the momentum of my initial charge traitorously carried my body the last few steps through the reed and to the habitat of our targets. My feet dug into the mud at the shallow end of a bayou. In the middle of the water, a copse of leafless trees stretched their bare branches toward the sky. Moss like fat and rotten spiderwebs hung from the boughs.

The System rather helpfully focused my attention-- floating in nondescript portions of the nearby mud were several labels. Tiny eyes blinked in surprise as they noticed our arrival.

Toothy Bayou Skulker Lvl 16

Toothy Bayou Skulker Lvl 15

Toothy Bayou Skulker Lvl 17

Small ripples spread out as the alligators lifted their bodies out of the mud and glared at me, the frontrunner. Still dragged forward by that initial charge, I took a few more steps.

Uh, hello. Not that I’m afraid of you, obviously-

Beside me, Nightshade gestured in a way that he probably meant to be generous. “Go on, Tallum. Since my pride demands the glorious honor of fighting their leader, these few can be left to you.”

My snake-eyes trembled as they flicked to the three alligators watching me. Shallow water sloshed around me as I finally managed to stop. Perhaps I would have stood transfixed by fear there, had not a gaggle of bloodthirsty Fae Squirrels followed out of the reeds. Their chittering and gesticulations could have been considered a distraction, but they also gave me an idea.

And really, what is investing in this life but living in the moment? Being so chill that opportunities naturally present themselves? Even natural distaste can be overcome.

“Fire on my mark!” I called out with as much authority as I could muster. The Fae Squirrels looked at me, but then I felt their Mana beginning to gather. I touched my own Mana, even as my heart continued to pound.

I concentrated. The clay condensed in front of me. Even if I hated the prospect of facing off against an alligator (sized up because we Chimera Cores were so small), I was no longer a mundane human.

Ultimately, Magic is the best. I nodded to myself. I released the clay bolt.

“Fire!”

Due to actions, your Launch has earned +4 Proficiency!

The heavy clay projectile smacked against the forehead of the closest Toothy Bayou Skulker. It hissed in pain. And meanwhile-

Ah, I felt most of my hope of defeating the alligators from a distance drain out of me. So the Bloodthirsty Fae Squirrels were storm-trooper types…

Twenty-ish glittering fae bolts shot across the bayou in seemingly random directions. Some blasted up chunks of mud, others skimmed across the surface of the water, while two even shot across and impacted the trunks of the leafless trees.

To add injury to insult, a fae bolt struck my armored spine. The Bayou Skulker I had hit clearly flinched, but the other two looked at me with their mouths half-open. Their tooth maws seemed to be torn between confusion and laughter.

Your Skill (Language) Bestial Comprehension has grown to Level MAX(+1).

Even this is possible…? System…

A Mundane Achievement: For Leveling a MAX Skill, +1 to All non-Temp Stats.

In addition, understand the feelings of two more foreign groups of beasts to improve your (Language) Skill.

I considered my Mana pool while most of the first group of Fae Squirrels slumped down. With 172, I could even fire 17 more Blessings. Unfortunately, my attacks didn’t inflict as much damage as I hoped on the thick-skinned skulkers. I grimaced at the prospect of moving into close range.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

But, even if they are alligators, so what? I gave myself a pep talk. In this life, I’ve learned to embrace a portion of my monster instincts-

Your Skill (Earned) Short-Term Prediction has grown to Level 12.

Abruptly, I had a bad feeling. The water of the bayou, after settling back to stillness, began to bubble. Eight more alligator heads broke the surface of the water. Their beady eyes flicked to the shore and considered the bristling sea of glitter tails.

“My turn? What a lovely stage you’ve provided, brother Tallum.” Sage used me like a ramp, her light feet tapping across my armored spine. She pounced up, becoming a spinning mobius of motley tails. Her voice sounded bright and happy. “Three tailed…

“Reaping.”

She landed on a Toothy Bayou Skulker’s snout. It raised its head and snapped to knock her off, but three of Sage’s tails had already curled around its jaw. When it lifted its neck just a little too far out of the water, the tails blurred into motion.

The Skulker gurgled and fell back as its lifeblood began to pump out into the bayou.

Ripples bounced back and forth across the bayou as the rest of the skulkers waved their powerful tails and drilled toward the shallows. My overwrought nervous system barely had enough time to acknowledge Sage’s cackle and the jeering calls of the Fae Squirrels behind me before the first Skulker splashed up and bit at me.

Your Skill (Earned) Short-Term Prediction has grown to Level 13.

Your Skill (Temp) Inferior Adrenaline Rush has grown to Level 24.

Almost belatedly, the machine in my head activated and told me how it would attack. I managed to jerk a half-step back so that the snout snapped shut just in front of one of my holy squirrel paws. My heart truly hammered against my jelly now. My pep talk went out the window, as did all of my fighting experience over the past two weeks.

An old fear seized me. I raised a tortoise leg and kicked out with as much force as I could muster.

…I flailed so violently that I toppled over sideways. Detection helpfully pinged that another Skulker approached from another direction, right before an open mouth exploded out of the shallow water.

This time I stabbed with my Bloodsoaked Left Fang, still more thrumming-ball-of-panic than my usual composed Chimera Core warrior. A splash of mud hit me first, then I felt my randomly stabbing fang bite into the soft flesh at the side of its mouth, and then I felt the teeth close around me.

All of my worst fears about the scaly murder rollers seemed to explode and seize me. I wasn’t so far gone that I didn’t notice that the Health loss was mostly nominal; the skulker hadn’t swallowed me entirely and the top of its jaw had skittered off my armored spine. Yet this was all a prelude-

Your Skill (Earned) Short-Term Prediction has grown to Level 14.

My Skill informed me that, indeed, the skulker was about to twist and roll with me. The overwhelming feeling spiked. Had I still been a human, I would have thrashed and accomplished nothing.

But I was a human no longer.

Your Skill (Earned) Body Manipulation has grown to Level 25(+7).

Your Skill (Earned) Body Manipulation has grown to Level 25(+8).

My jelly tightened. With an effort of will, I tore quite a bit of my interstitial flesh to concentrate my bulk inside the Skulker’s bite. I felt its head lower, just slightly under the added weight. Already my small squirrel hands groped upward, finding spaces in between the dirty teeth of the alligator that would have been impossible to fit if they were any larger. The fleshy tentacles bulged as strength coursed through me.

My grip above stabilized me, even while I rode the wave of panic. My bloodthirsty left fang rose and then stuck down. I stabbed through the flesh of its tongue, ripped my way out of the alligator's mouth, and then sunk into the soft mud beneath us.

This time, when the monster began to move, it was the one panicking.

Your Skill (Earned) Body Manipulation has grown to Level 25(+9).

My flesh tightened. I tucked two tortoise legs into the alligator's mouth. My panic became a blade. The pupils of my serpent eyes were razor-thin. The blunt feet stomped down even as I pushed up. Damnit you mini-mits, get me the fuck out of here-

Your Skill (Temp) Inferior Adrenaline Rush has grown to Level 25.

The whole of my body shivered. I felt the jello ripples touching all my flesh, cashing in on all the instincts I had inherited by spending Anima.

Force exploded through my body. My hands pushed up, my legs stomped down, even while the fang anchored the alligator in place. I felt its struggles, and its jaw was strong, but the Adrenaline Rush and my panic meant I would not give up easily.

There was a long moment of compression, as its relative advantage in Stats met against the surge of my Skill and fear. At that moment, feeling the whole of this Chimera Core body being mobilized, I had to adjust my previous understanding.

In this life, I want the advantages that come with being monstrous.

For the first time, I felt a bit of acceptance for my new situation.

Feeling the muscles of the jaw around me tightening, I squeezed just a little bit more out of my body. I felt the adrenaline draining out of my body, leaving me hollow. I felt sick with the panic of what would happen when my gambit failed.

But then it didn’t fail.

Because when I had first thrust out my fang wildly, I had scored a hit along the side of its mouth, in the flesh of the jaw. After the long struggle, that flesh messily ripped open.

I exploded upward, ripping off the top of the Toothy Bayou Skulker's head off as I went.

Your Skill (Earned) Field Butchery has grown to Level 8.

Your Skill (Earned) Field Butchery has grown to Level 9.

You have slain a Lvl 16 Toothy Bayou Skulker.

My muscles heaved as I tried to get my instincts under control. A mist of blood floated around me. For a second I felt perfectly preserved in my own triumph, but then the chaos of the surroundings snapped back into place. Nearby, two more Skulkers floated, corpses due to Sage’s ghastly enthusiasm. The air hummed and glittered with the inaccurate fae bolts fired by the peanut gallery.

By now the whole of the bayou was filled with ripples. Sage danced from the snout of one skulker to another, her tails curved like scythes and just as prone to reaping. Another two Skulkers had dragged their bellies out of the mud and snapped at the nearby Bloodthirsty Fae Squirrels.

The tiny squirrels, obviously, bristled at such aggression and rushed forward. I saw one squirrel harmlessly slash at a Skulker’s scales, while another took several seconds to gnaw a small wound on its side.

Blood dribbled down over my limbs, but I surged into motion without consciously thinking. I galloped through the shallows toward one of the Skulker’s backs. Which, of course, meant that when my conscious mind finally caught up, I had no idea what and why I was moving.

Is it sympathy? I felt emotionally overstimulated, twitching and heaving. These Fae Squirrels were only trying to kill me a few hours ago. But-

Fucking alligators.

One of the Bayou Skulkers exploded into motion. Its mouth opened wide, preparing to engulf a whole Fae Squirrel. At the last second, it jerked to a stop just as it tried to gobble its target down; the gator was anchored in place by my Bloodsoaked Left Fang driven through the flesh of its tail.

I lost 7 Health as some interstitial flesh tore to keep my Bloodsoaked Fang attached to my body, but it held.

The Skulker wheeled around with a roar. Ripping out the fang from tail and mud, I leapt forward along its side and wiggled my squirrel fingers. They sharpened into vicious claws (or rather greedy grabbers).

Your Skill (Earned) Body Manipulation has grown to Level 25(+10).

I plucked out its eyes. While the Skulker roared in pain, I raised my fang and drove it down through the roof of its mouth. “You are a Skulker. At least have the decency to die in silence.”

Also, being a human is a fool's game; multiple pairs of limbs are very efficient.