"Being constantly covered in blood, I found, is quite the inconvenience, Em."

"For one, the smell. Blood, I found, smells horrible, unless you like the scent of rusty metal," Hans said raising one claw. "and secondly, it's hard as fuck to get rid of and it's even when it dries. Usually, I just rub my body against the sand to rid of them but that takes a while. Times that I could use to do other things. Like hunting, which usually ends with me covered in blood..." Hans slumps and sighs.

"Anyways, the point is, being covered in blood suck. It gets everywhere, it's hard to get to rid of, and no matter what I do, I always end up covered in the stuff," He said before gesturing toward the cave that they were in. "For fuck sake, the whole cavern is coated with it! I can't run away from it Em, it follows me wherever I go."

...

"Yeah, I guess the only thing I can do is embrace it."

Have you tried embracing the fact that you're insane?

Ignore the voice, Hans, it can't hurt you.

And you're lucky I can't.

Ignore, ignore, if you ignore it hard enough it will go away, sooner or later. Just like all your other problems in life, don't confront them cause you'll only make them worse.

Ridiculous.

As they say, don't poke the sleeping bear.

Now, what was he doing again? Ah right, talking about blood. Huh, if you think about it, he was technically naked and—

Let's not go down that line of thinking, shall we? Because that only brings disgust and horror, and that's something that he does not want right now. He was in a good mood, right now and he didn't want to ruin that.

"So, Em, how's your new size doing for you? Do you feel any stronger?" Hans asks. "Man, I remember when you were tiny. You were only about the size of my—"

Something was nearby.

Hans narrowed his eyes as he scanned the surrounding area. There, to his left, he spotted something, furred and small rummaging through the corpse piles.

He was there in an instant.

Standing on top of one of the corpse piles, Hans looks down to see a marking fox ripping a dead-fanged rat out of the pile and eating it here and there. The fox paused as if it sensed something, its body tense, and ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

Hans jump.

He spatters the marking fox's meal into little bits of meat and gore as he turns around to face the marking fox. The first thing that he notices was that he towers over the fox with it barely the size of one of his claws. The second thing he noticed was the bright blue markings on its face, quite different from the last marking fox he encountered which had red markings.

It seemed to be frozen with fear, judging by the fact that it hadn't run away yet and was just blankly staring at him, not moving a single inch.

How unfortunate for it.

Hans threw a punch at the fox, which to his surprise, dodged, causing the attack to miss completely.

Oh? Was that a fluke or something else entirely?

Hans decided to test that out. The fox, having been knocked out of its stupor, took to sprinting as fast as it could from him, making quite the distance between it and him. Too bad that it wasn't fast enough, perhaps it would succeed if he was in his previous form, but not in his current form.

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Welcoming the rush of speed that pumped through his body, Hans rushes toward the fox, kicking up a dust cloud, arms raised, he let it shoot forward like a cannonball. And to his amazement, he watches as the fox, seemingly predicting his attack, twists its body to an impossible degree around his arm like water and using his arm as a platform, and launches itself farther away from him.

It wasn't a fluke.

It was just that good.

This might be fun.

He can't help but wonder just what types of skills it has. Something similar to [Flexible Grapple]? [Danger Sense] for it reacted to his attack? A speed enchanting skill?

Was it an evolution?

The possibilities were endless.

Hans felt the world blurred around him as he dashed, catching up to the fox, and catching it off guard. He slammed a claw down on it which it dodged and he retaliated with a thrust from his stinger which missed as well due to the fox's unnatural flexibility.

Raising his other arm to bring it down on the fox, the fox to his surprise, didn't try to run away, raising its head at him and opening its jaw.

He felt his world plunged into darkness as what was unmistakably water hit his face, getting into his eyes. Hans stopped and tried to rub the water out of his eyes, unsuccessfully.

By the time he blinked away the last drop of water out of his sockets, the fox was long gone. Not a single trace of it could be found in a mile radius, no vibrations, no claw marks, no blood, no nothing.

Fuck! It got away!

Something burns within him. He didn't know it was, just that he didn't like it one bit.

Hans huffed before walking back home, at least some of the blood on his body got washed off. Though, the next time they meet, he'll make sure there won't be any next time.

Spewing water out of its mouth as a form of attack, in a desert no less? Utterly ridiculous! Where was the water even coming from? Magic?

...

Wait...Was magic real? He never really encountered any forms of magic now that he think about it. Most of the absurd things that he encountered were unnatural biology, like stuff like an acid spitter could be explained away by it having a sac that produced acid and a swarm of berserk rodents could just be instincts.

Wait no, he had encountered magic before. Whatever the hell Em did crushing the muscle rat into a ball of flesh. That had to be magic or...Perhaps it was something like what psychics do.

Telekinesis! Pyrokinesis! Astral projection!

Did that last one count as psychic power? Wait no, you're going off track Hans, is what Em did magic or psychic power? Now that he thinks about it, psychic powers didn't really explain the hand imprint that appeared, so it really might be magic.

Don't forget the system itself.

Right the system! That had to be magic because nothing else can explain it. How else would you explain all the floating notifications that appear whenever he kills something?

Hans began to hum to himself as he considered the mystery of whether magic exists or not solved.

He then narrowed his eyes as he spotted an acid spitter gorging itself on dead rodents. The snake was seemly in bliss, eyes closed, enjoying itself before it opened its eyes and spotted Hans.

The two stared at each other for a moment before the acid spitter tried to slither, failing due to its enlarged body slowing it down. It didn't take long before he put an end to its attempt with a claw to the skull.

You have slain [Acid Spitter] - Lv. 7!

"Not letting another one run away."

Hans flicks away the gore and blood that clings onto his claw, everything here was so weak that they either die to one hit or are unable to leave even a dent in his exoskeleton.

He probably should be thankful for that considering it means that there's mostly nothing that could be of danger against him and he could roam the place carefree.

It's just that...He was getting bored. There wasn't really anything he could do here to relieve that boredom, well he try carving only to find that he suck at it, his lack of fingers making it harder than it need to be.

The furniture he made for his little cave took several hours to make and he can't even use them! And the other option was talking to Em, who doesn't really talk much in the first place, so he was really making up the conversation as he goes.

You got me.

Hans sighs.

Rude.

Really the only times the boredom gets relieved is when he encounters something new or fights something strong. Then he was either feeling excitement, intense concentration or alive.

The adrenaline helps as well.

Sadly those things were rare as hell.

Unless...

Just a few meters away from his cave, an idea popped into Hans' head. He glances up at the ceiling.

He had fully explored the surface, had he? He had been playing it safe and didn't stray far from the caverns due to the jackals and the literal dragon that was roaming the surface.

But he have gotten stronger.

Hans felt a smile crept up on his face.

Oh, this is gonna great.

Damn right, it is. He've been cooped up here for too long.

Now's time to play.