There were eight of them. The Arachnes that attacked us. They were lying on the ground. Already dead due to my skill.
They were incredibly agile but maybe because they underestimated me or because of level up, I could could aim my arm towards them just fine. The fact that they could only attack from one direction, also helped. When I aimed my arm towards their chest, I just hoped it connected with the their core and it did. Every single time.
I relaxed a bit, seeing that no more were coming. I stepped closer to a dead Arachne lying at the corner and tried to invoke my skill on it once again. But it didn't activate. This confirmed the statement written on the skill's discription - [There can't be more than one disintegration centre in a single target].
It will take nearly 23 minutes for them to get completely disintegrated into nothingness. I'll just have to wait it out to see how many levels did I gained.
Akane was resting at that moment so, I decided to sit and keep watch.
'This is place is kind of like those games that I and Izuku used to play.' I chuckled to myself. ' What were those called again? R.P.S? FPG? Ah, how could I forget them, they were RPG and FPS.'
Well, it has been more than 17 years since was reincarnated, so of course I may be forgetting or already forgot about many things that I liked.
I am a reincarnated person, huh.
That Goddess called me Reincarnated Imposter, Scavenger, Sinner and what not... What a load of bullshit!
But... Is there any chance that she was telling the truth?
A scavenger that feeds on the dead for nutrition. I wait for these dead monsters to disintegrate to level up, to gain strength, to get the 'nutrition'. A scavenger that scavenged the leftover of the heroes' power... Can I even call this my own skill?
I always believed that I am a person that got reincarnated into this world. What if, I was tricked into believing that? Come to think of it... I don't actually remember how I died. I chalked it up to the defence mechanism of my brain but was that really it? What if, I really am a Devil's servant?
'...'
Sigh, what am I even thinking... I remember my Mom, of my past life, she loved me and I love her. My family, of this life, is waiting for me outside of this dungeon, in my home, they love ME and I love them. My bonds and feelings are not artificial. There is just no way I am some devil's servant! I am not the Humanity's Traitor!
*Ting*
The sound of level-up rang in my head.
"
"Check your status Akane-san." I said. She nodded.
""
"Akane-san, did your level increase?"
"Yes, Itsuki-san, I am now a level 326, and my skill's at level 4, it increased 3 times!"
"Hmm, my skill's level didn't increase neither after crossing level 300 nor level 400, but at level 500 it did level up. I am at level 537 right now."
"Um, Itsuki-san,"
"Yes?"
Akane exclaimed enthusiastically, "I think I am extremely powerful now, my stats have multiplied by the level I gained with my initial stats, which was 3. All of my stats are now over 500, and my HP and MP are in the thousands!"
"Oh yeah?"
'most of my initial stats were 0 and 1, fuck they remind me of binary codes!'
'But...'
"Akane-san, I don't think that you're that strong.... I mean, well... let me tell you, my friend, Izuku, all of his stats were above 500 at level 1. So, you can guess how your stats compare with those who are or will become really strong, right?"
"Oh is that so..."
Her face hung down and her shoulders slumped. She seemed a bit dejected, well a lot actually, but that was the truth. Seeing her like that, a chuckle escaped my mouth.
"Did your skill levelled up?" I asked. "Check for the updates you got in it."
Whenever I talk to her, my tension and worry decrease a bit. Well, at least this is better than thoughtless depression.
Akane seems like a nice person to be with, she even tried to protect me. Twice. Also, I think, she has kind of opened herself to me. I've never seen her change so many expressions in school. She always had this indifferent look on her face and didn't talk to anyone in the whole school.
I know nothing about her. I never tried to talk to her before as she never approached me too. I once overheard some girls teasing her for being a chuuni, so I thought that must be one of her peculiarities. And me being the selfish bastard, wouldn't want to meddle in someone else business.
Anyways, Akane is now a partner. A partner who will help me escape this dungeon. Having a partner to talk to in a place like this can keep your mind at peace. I mean how can someone who can watch your back will not keep your mind at peace. And a mind at peace can make better decisions too.
"Haaah~"
It has barely been a bit more than two hours since we were thrown here and it feels like a few days have passed.
Sigh...
What should we do from here?
Those Arachnes and other kinds of monsters must be roaming everywhere on this floor. This dead-end can be said to be a relatively safer place. As here, they can attack from only one direction and with my skill. I can eliminate them a bit easier because here, AIMING is a bit easier. After all, as I said earlier- they can come from only one direction.
They are extremely powerful that much is obvious, this is the lowest floor ever ventured, it can also be inferred by their speed and agility. They can walk on walls too. And since they have partial spider bodies, so, webbing ability wouldn't be a surprise, but I haven't seen it yet. The physical strength of theirs is not known to me as the first one was just playing with us, and the others didn't even get the chance to display what they could do. Well, that's good anyway, I have no desire to see their tricks. If I see any of their kind, they're going to get disintegrated.
But first, I need a mental image of what Akane's stats and skills look like, I need to know what their uses are and how we can use them effectively. Since we can't show our status screens to each other, I queried her about it, she told me willingly with a serious tone.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
'Hmmm, I see, I see, so that's it, huh.'
I have a good mental image of what her status looks like, it must look somewhat like this...
NAME: Rina Akane
AGE: 17
SEX: Female
RACE: HIGH HUMAN
ORIGIN: EARTH-01Z
TITLE:
The Not Summoned One
LEVEL: 1085
PHYSICAL STATS :
HP: 1650/2282 (7*326)
MP: 16300/16300 (50*326. 50, quite high initial MP, huh)
STR: 978 (3*326. My initial stats were 2)
DEX: 978
DEF: 978
AGI: 978
INT: 978 (my initial stats for this one, was 5)
LUCK: not defined
ABNORMAL STATE: none
SKILLS:
Psychokinesis lvl 4
* A unique skill that makes the user able to perform psychokinesis. A special sense is developed somewhere in the body of the user for better control of psychokinesis.
* Range: 20 m ( 5*4)
* Maximum force applied: 9000 N ( 300*300*0.1 "maybe" I'm not that sure for this one)
* MP cost: 10/ 1 sec →Note: can be more if over-exerted
* Cooldown period: null (cool, but won't her skill be unusable when her MP hits zero. Doesn't that mean that her cooldown period is the same as the refill time of MP?)
BLESSINGS:
Linguistics
All-father has blessed you with the ability to understand all languages that exist in, EARTH-01Z. You can communicate and write in any language that you already know or have come to know through the blessing.
'Hm? I don't get it. Why is there so much difference between her current HP and maximum HP? Wait does it mean that in her case, when there is a level up, the ratio between (new - current HP/max HP) and (old - current HP/max HP) should be same? No...upon closer look, it seems that the new current HP is a bit more than what it should for it to be true and in my case too there wasn't this much of a difference......... Ah! Wait, what if her HP increased such that the ratio is the same but level-up healed her a bit.... well, it might be true.'
'Hoh! Yeah, it does provide some healing when levelled up, my pricked finger is somewhat patched up!'
'Hmm......... back to her status, the special sense must be the "organ behind the neck" she was talking about? The range is 20m, good. Oh! the maximum force applied has increased to 9000, impressive. I see, so the square of level which her skill levelled up is multiplied by the initial value, which was 0.1 in her case, huh. Well, maybe I'm just looking too deep into it. It could be a random increase for all I know. But still, with a maximum force of 9000, now she can even lift a small car if she wants to. This can be extremely helpful! I can't help but imagine its uses but what does this over-exerted mean exactly? Sounds like, we need to test this to know the answer to that.'
Anyways, she seems enough powerful to do something in this dungeon.
I checked my status once again to calculate how much time will it take me now, to fully disintegrate an Arachne.
NAME: Ren Itsuki
AGE: 17
SEX: Male
RACE: HIGH HUMAN
ORIGIN: EARTH-818
TITLE:
The Not Summoned One
LEVEL: 537
PHYSICAL STATS :
HP: 3221.7/3222
MP: 5370/5370
STR: 0
DEX: 1074
DEF: 0
AGI: 1074
INT: 2685
LUCK: not defined
ABNORMAL STATE: none
Skills
Disintegration lvl 4
♦ A unique skill, that disintegrates living targets into non-existence. To invoke this skill, you need to verbally call out the skill's activation phrase - "DISINTEGRATE", while aiming at the target that you need disintegrated with the hand. The point at which the skill is connected becomes the disintegration center. And the target undergoes disintegration with the disintegration point being the disintegration center. Note, the target does not die immediately once the skill connects, but when, it is completely disintegrated. Note, there cannot be more than one disintegration center in a single target.
♦ Current disintegration rate: 240cm³/s.
♦ Current range: 1920 cm
♦ Number of shots: 81/81
♦ MP cost: 3
♦ Cooldown period: 9 hours
BLESSINGS:
Linguistics [ ⇓ ]
'Sooo... My HP looks a bit weird with that decimal value. Oh-kay, Stats increase has the same pattern, the parameters for the skill too have the same kind of increment..... Hmm?...Range..... I can't figure out how my "Range" is being upgraded. Earlier I thought that it was just multiplied by 16, but now it got twice its previous value? What's the pattern?...... Anyway, I guess seeing more values as I level up might help me understand the pattern better.'
'Now, onto the main point. Now the time taken to completely disintegrate an Arachne is nearly 14-15 minutes which is a huge perk in itself. With this range, rate and number of shots, escaping this place got a little less difficult than before....... But still, it doesn't mean that we can let our guard down.'
Moving away from here may be risky, but we also can't stay up here for more time as there is no guarantee that they will always come in a number that I can handle. They may charge at us in millions for all I know and this dead-end might become our grave if they really do.
We should move from here. The obvious choice. That's the decision I told Akane-san and to which she agreed.
.
.
Before moving from here, Akane-san practiced her ability for about an hour.
She can use her ability without any difficulty, which means that she doesn't need to heavily concentrate to move something, she uses her skill quite naturally. Akane used 'me' to further test the control on her ability. She lifted me, made me fly, made me walk and tried to squeeze me to check the maximum force I could tolerate.
When she made me walk like a puppet, I tried to resist walking but couldn't, and when she tried to stop me from moving, I tried my hardest to move but failed again, it was as if I was paralyzed.
At present, I think the most useable application of her skill will be to freeze the enemy or at least slow them down if they have insane physical strength. The slower they are, the easier will it be for me to aim. And yeah, if we can burst the heads of the monsters that would be good too, this much force should be enough for that, I think.
She can also make a barrier, which we can use to fend the webbing ability that the Arachnes may possess. In case they shoot us with webs or even poison, i.e if they can. At least we will have a measure to defend ourselves.
Of course, she can fly too but using her ability to fly through the dungeon's path is not feasible because it will constantly eat up her mana. As well as dangerous, due to the low height ceilings.
.
.
Before moving from this place, we also checked our supplies. They consisted of Akane's school bag. A 1000ml water bottle(700 ml water left after using it to wash Akane-san's wound). A box of sandwiches(10 pieces!!). A packet of bandages. A pack of bandaids. An antiseptic cream. A packet of cotton. A bunch of safety pins. A few sanitary pads, a bra, a panty. A few stationaries and a few books. A smartphone and a portable solar charger.
To be honest, when we went through her items, I was surprised quite a bit to see her items. She told me that today she forgot her knife. She is a daughter of a... sinner group, I was again reminded of that fact.
"Akane-san, were this many sandwiches supposed be to be eaten for the lunch break?
"Yeah... I like eating!"
'She looks quite prideful about it, heh.'
"Well, this much food can only last till two to three days at max, I highly doubt that we can get out of here that period of time. The monsters that live here must be preying on each other or something else for food. I doubt that these spider looking monsters will be edible for us, they have a high possibility of being poisonous." I said.
"Agreed, we should look for other edible looking monsters for eating and for drinkables, they could possibly have a source of water. If we find it along the way, then it would be good otherwise, we might starve to death." She replied as she touched the injury in her forehead.
"Hmm, that would be good.... I really do hope we find some edible monster here, but in this dungeon, Devils dwell. Though we have been calling them monsters, their species, is different, they aren't the monsters that adventurers hunt in the forest for raw materials and meat. The dungeons of this world have never been explored for meat and edibles, they are only explored by the adventurers for Mana stones and other minerals."
"Itsuki-san, keep hope. We will escape this place no matter what!"
"Yeah." I said.
"Okay, lets move."