The level 5 trodil lay dead at his feet, its blood seeping into the dry earth underneath its body. Dominic was panting and his health was down to under a hundred points, but it was OK. He was alive; he’d survived.

Not unscathed, though. Not uninjured. His front right leg was hurt enough that he wasn’t putting any weight on it. Blood was trickling through his fur uncomfortably in multiple places. A nasty bite to his flank had ripped away the skin and part of the muscle. Now, even breathing just sent more pain shooting through from it.

That rage attack is a killer, he mused grimly. Almost literally. The speed and power it had added to the trodil’s attacks had made them impossible to dodge completely; the best he could do was merely shift one way or the other to minimise his injury.

Maybe I should try a different technique next time, he continued by wondering even as he leaned down to touch his nose to the corpse before him. Both times the trodil only became enraged when I killed off all its ‘guards’. Perhaps it would be better to attack the key-holder first?

It was risky. The key-holder had so far been the strongest of the lot each time, and Dominic had no reason to assume that would change. Even without the extra power of its rage, it would have been the most difficult to take down, and attacking the key-holder first would mean dealing with its entourage at the same time.

Plus, if he was wrong about what triggered the rage, he could be in a very difficult position. Grumbling under his breath, the sound coming out as an irritated snarl, Dominic licked up the Beast Core of the mini-boss trodil. It was still small, but noticeably bigger than even its guards. Dominic had to wonder what would happen if he started finding human head-sized Cores. He wouldn’t be able to swallow one of those….

Oh, hello, the human-turned-lion thought in pleasure as a new message flashed up.

Ability: Rage>

So it’s actually an ability? But I swear it used Quick Strike too. It was an interesting question. The way the trodil had almost blurred a few times as it struck was surely an indication of a higher level Quick Strike from its brethren – or a multiplicative effect of its boosting skill – but clearly the actual boosting skill was itself an ability. However, Dominic had only received one of the abilities from the Core, not both.

Does that mean that the previous mini-boss also had this ability, but I just got Quick Strike from it? Checking his status screen, Dominic saw that his progress towards the next level of Quick Strike hadn’t changed since the end of the last fight, while his progress towards this new ability had advanced by the same 11% as he would have expected had it been applied to Quick Strike. So I guess that if a creature has multiple abilities, I only get one, Dominic thought, a little disappointed.

Then again, if he was able to get all of a creature’s abilities by killing it and eating its Core, that probably would be considered too much of a cheat. Not that Dominic would have cared – all’s fair in love and war, and all that. But perhaps whatever the System was wanted to keep a little more of a level playing field.

I suppose that I only got this ability as a consolation prize for being merged with another being. If the System didn’t want to be fair, it could have just left me without it, he told himself logically. In the end, Dominic just mentally shrugged and moved to consume the other bodies and corpses.

Once he was done, his health and stamina resources were both well over half their maximums, but he didn’t feel ready for the next fight yet. The one just passed had been tough, and the next would be even tougher. Approaching it without his maximum resources seemed idiotic.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have enough PP to level up.

Progress to Evolution: 140/147 PP

As he stared at the frustrating number, a mere 7 Prey Points away from level 7 – ironic, perhaps – he had a brainwave. Maybe that would work….

Lying down, he made sure that one of the key pieces was lying a foot away from his nose, then rested his head on his paws and closed his eyes. Let sleeping lions lie, he chuckled to himself. He was on high alert, regardless of what he looked like. And, even if nothing took the bait, hopefully he’d regain resources over time anyway.

While waiting for something to come and offer itself up as Prey Points on legs, Dominic found himself wondering what this whole place was for. Surely a dungeon like this isn’t for beasts? Yes, Dominic accepted that he basically was a beast in body, but since his mind was still mostly human, he felt he was rather in a special category.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

But since he suspected his situation was rather rare, if not unique, who would be expected to come and tackle the dungeon? The thought that it wasn’t meant to be entered did cross his mind, but he dismissed it a moment later.

The whole ‘quest’ to find the bits of the key, the set-up of the trodils ranging from roaming weak individuals to strong groups, the message he’d been greeted with at the beginning… No. This was a place that was designed to be entered and challenged.

But not by beasts, surely, who wouldn’t necessarily have the strategic capabilities to both hunt the trodils, find the key pieces, and then assemble them to gain access to...whatever came next. So humans, then. But how would a human be expected to overcome this? Dominic wondered.

OK, an experienced hunter with a gun and enough bullets would probably find this whole thing a cake-walk. But how many people carried guns around and knew how to use them properly? Yes, there were probably more in South Africa than in his homeland, but what if all they had was a knife or some makeshift weapon constructed after the apocalypse arrived?

Dominic was already struggling a bit, and he’d only cleared out the two weakest camps. And that was as an apex predator who only needed his natural weapons to easily kill a human one-on-one – assuming no armour or advanced armaments on the human, anyway.

Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be done solo? A team would definitely make this experience easier. Heck, Dominic could easily imagine a four-man DnD team tackling this: the damage-dealer triggering the trodils to attack, the defender pulling their attention and keeping them off the others, the scout sneaking in behind to grab the key piece while no one was looking, and the medic helping everyone afterwards.

Actually, would there be classes for humans? While it wasn’t pleasant to consider the fact that he might no longer be considered as human, it wouldn’t exactly be a surprise – his own status screen even labelled him as a ‘beast’. In the initial message he’d seen, crafting had been offered as a method to progress, and then crossed out, making it clear it wasn’t something he could do.

Logically that meant other people would be able to do that. And if they could do crafting to progress, couldn’t that mean they’d get a class for it? Sure, there were no guarantees that combat classes existed even if crafting ones did, but Dominic couldn’t help but think it was a likely possibility.

In the end, his thoughts were nothing but idle ruminations: the fact was that he didn’t have any sort of team or backup. He didn’t have a class or any way of improving himself other than fighting and killing. The thought of not improving himself was immediately dismissed. There was no way he wanted to become the prey instead, and letting everything but him get stronger at a faster rate than him seemed like a perfect way of ensuring he’d be prey. Leo gave off a strong sense of agreement with his thoughts – clearly the lion was very familiar with what weakness got a creature in the cut-throat environment of the Kruger Park.

Besides, Dominic was curious about what was inside the temple, and to get there he had to gather all five keys.

*****

Time slipped by, and several times Dominic wondered whether his plan would even work, though reminded himself each time that in a way it didn’t matter if it did or didn’t. Sure, it would be more beneficial if he got what he wanted, but it wasn’t necessary.

Then, when he was on the verge of giving up out of sheer impatience, he heard a quiet footfall. The silence that followed made him wonder whether it had just been wishful thinking, but he refused to let himself even twitch just in case it had been real.

When another slight scraping sound happened a few moments later, he was glad he hadn’t broken his pretense. The next few minutes were tortuous, his ears straining to hear every sound, no matter how slight, trying to get a good idea of where his opponent was.

Wait. Wait….

Now!

Snapping his eyes open, Dominic took a fraction of a second to confirm what his ears had been telling him and then propelled himself off the ground with powerful muscles enhanced by Quick Strike.

All the practice he’d had over the last few days was paying off now: his strike was perfectly calculated to land him in the ideal spot.

His sharp claws pierced and ripped through the flesh of his opponent, forcing it to the ground. There, his teeth bit viciously into the neck of the startled trodil, a strangled yelp emerging from its jaws.

Then its throat was ripped out and all it could make was a desperate wheeze.

The light faded from its eyes not long after and the awaited notification flashed up in front of Dominic.

Perfect.

Dominic was also pleased with two more things. First, he’d succeeded in turning off the damage notifications from the damage he inflicted. Second, he’d taken his target down in less than ten seconds with no damage taken. Though, at least the fact that he could now see his health and stamina bars in the corner of his vision proved that he’d succeeded with his other attempt.

He’d found the flashing messages about damage taken and received too distracting. Although it might be useful to see damage when trying to work out if his new and improved offensive or defensive capabilities were actually any better, he’d far rather just not take the damage in the first place. Having a flashing message suddenly appear in his vision had startled him more than once in the middle of a fight.

No, having bars was much better and he was glad that the System was flexible enough to adapt his HUD to his needs. Though, the fight had been over so quickly he hadn’t seen whether the trodil had had a bar over its own head – his other request.

However, the fact that he had now earned enough Prey Points to level up was by far the most exciting bit. Not only did it mean he could enter the next battle with full resources – although his stamina had already been basically filled – but he could also go with one of his capabilities enhanced.

Waiting for the trodil to come had offered him plenty of time to decide which would be the best avenue for him to take. So, only briefly taking a moment to consume the body and Core of the trodil, he activated the level up.