It had been two hours since the Freestyle Dungeon Raid started. After the incident with the ruins wanderer, Shura and Drill went back a step to raise their levels and gear up a bit before venturing any further.
From the time that Shura had been in the dungeon, he had made out a few things after noticing the patterns in the ground.
The dungeon was spread in a circular area, with each area having different kinds of monsters.
The players were thrown outside of this circular area, all over the edges of that circle. And the more they walked inside the dungeon, the more the dangers of the dungeon would increase, as Shura could notice from the visible crimson thread.
The thread was almost nonexistent inside the first level, where Shura and the others were dropped. It kept on getting brighter and bigger the more one walked inside the dungeon. And to Shura's surprise, there wasn't just 1 thread like that, there were lots of them in every direction going in the same direction.
'So at some point, all players are supposed to meet together.'
Shura concluded as he took out the heart of another monster, the poison hyena, before biting down on it.
"Oukkk!"
Drill threw up again as he saw this scene. He couldn't understand how the monsters corpses weren't disappearing even after them dying, and why the fuck was Shura eating up the monster's hearts like it was some kind of a delicacy.
Well, he couldn't see what Shura did.
[Metamorphosis Lv 2 Index: (38%----------100%)]
After fighting low level monsters here, Shura realised that they weren't actually low level monsters. Just their levels were suppressed, like the players. And when he kept killing one monster after the another without much gain, he started thinking how he could use them for his own benefit.
He ate some of their flesh a bit, but the metamorphosis index wouldn't budge, then he thought about something… a bit unethical.
He dug out a poison hyena's heart and directly bit on it. To his surprise, the index rose by two percent.
And so, he even tried eating their brains, but those seemed to have the same effect as the rest of their body.
'Hearts are the way.'
Shura thought as he devoured one heart after the other, without leaving a single monster behind.
[You have gained a level!]
Shura smiled in content as he saw the notifications. He had gotten quite a bit of gear from the hyenas. From their leather armour pieces to their poison claws, gearing himself and Drill in the process.
Shura was already level 5 and Drill was also at level 4. He could now take on three hyenas by himself.
After getting 20% in the metamorphosis index, the raise had slowed down by a lot, so Shura decided it was time they moved onto a bigger hunting ground.
"Let's go catch some ruin's wanderers."
Shura said as he looked at Drill with a friendly smile, who awkwardly smiled back at seeing Shura's blood covered lips smiling like a maniac.
Shura didn't care if he was getting broadcasted as a live monster eater as long as he could raise his metamorphosis index. He had a feeling it wouldn't be the same if his level reset was undone.
So it was the best time for him to reach level three metamorphosis and gain some additional powers.
Shura and Drill had obviously met other players who even tried to party up, but went their own ways when they saw Shura's merciless devouring.
Even players that had landed in other areas started meeting each other as people started going deeper.
"See, we already found our first prey."
Shura said as soon as they entered the area of the Ruin's wanderer.
"Wait… Shura…."
Drill said, as he looked at Shura in horror.
"What?"
Shura asked confusedly.
"You're not, right?"
Drill asked.
"I'm not what?"
Shura again looked at Drill in confusion.
"You're not going to kill it right?"
Drill pointed towards the direction Shura was heading to.
"Of course, I am going to. What are you talking about?"
"But…but it's just a baby…"
Drill pointed at the small Ruin's Wanderer lying down on a tall rock, with its wings folding around its body.
"Are you kidding me?"
Shura looked at Drill as if he was an idiot.
"You call this monster a baby?"
Shura readied himself to attack the monster.
Shura had found some special grasses when they were returning back to a lower level location, and he had fed the grasses to Drill to recover his health faster.
"I am extremely grateful for the help that you have provided me till now."
Drill said while gritting his teeth, preparing to wield his weapon as he ran in front of Shura and stood in an uptight yet nervous manner.
"But I can't allow you to do something so unethical!"
Drill shouted, as if he won't let Shura do anything before fighting to death.
***
"Woah! Such an uptight person!"
"Shura truly is…. Quite the character…"
"I can't believe he's so merciless to monsters…"
"Well, they'll eat you up if you don't fight them back…"
"But that one is just a baby."
People all over the world were clamouring about when they saw Shura's… inhumane behaviour.
Of course, there weren't many people idiotic enough to think that Shura was in the wrong. On the contrary, experts that were commentating on the various players had immediately come to a conclusion about Shura's continuous devouring of monster hearts.
[Shura's race is a monstrous one and it was clearly stated in the world messages that it was also evolvable. It is very probable that it requires him to eat monsters to level up or increase its power or something.]
Usually, girls would despise such behaviour, but it was the boys who were making more noise this time, and girls were in Shura's support.
"Why don't you fuckers silently watch and see how the situation turns out."
A middle-aged man in the stadium crowd shouted in annoyance, and everyone automatically seemed to want to follow his advice.
"Drill, do you even know what the fuck you're trying to save?"
"What? It's a monster so it needs to be killed? It's a baby Shura! How can you…"
Drill shouted emotionally, unable to comprehend how the kind person that saved him was so unkind to even baby monsters.
"You fucking shithead. Do you know that I can see the power level of things?"
"What does it have anything to do with this situation?"
Drill asked in confusion?
Then suddenly, he felt a chill down his spine as he couldn't even stare back.
[You have been affected by the 'Horrified' status condition, movement speed slows down by 30% for 5 seconds.]
"The thing that you're calling a baby is stronger than those motherfuckers in the skies."
[You have lost 112 HP!]
Drill kept getting some scary notification as he felt an immense pain in his neck, which was bitten by the supposed baby monster.
[You have been bitten by a 'Male Ruin's Wanderer'.]
[You have been affected by the status condition 'Bleed'.]
[You'll keep losing 15 HP every second for 5 seconds.]
—-Grrrr! Ruaahh!!
The monster that had bitten on the neck of Drill tore off a large chunk of meat from Drill's neck to his shoulders, making him immediately fall to the ground after losing a large part of his HP and suffering from immense pain.
"You fucking dumbass, I am regretting saving you twice already."
Shura shouted as he coated mana in the claw knuckle that he was wearing in his hands.
"Come here you shitfuck."
Shura could see the amount of danger a being possessed in the crimson colour, which included even players.
He immediately knew when he saw that the little guy over there was more powerful than the other Ruin's Wanderers.
'This dumbfuck didn't even see that he couldn't see the level of the monster.'
Shura kept cursing the hell out of Drill in his mind.
A monster who's level wasn't on display had many reasons. The first reason was that the monster was too young to be a threat, and hence no level showcase.
Which was what Drill probably thought.
The other reason was that the monster/NPC was too high level for us to see his level. And the third was when a monster NPC had a stealth skill to catch people off guard.
'It's definitely the third in this fuckers case.'
Even though the monster was stronger, the level disparity wasn't big enough to not show his level. It meant that this fucker was designed for sneak attacks.
After taking down Drill in a single strike, the monster seemed to have gotten a bit courageous as he charged towards Shura while flapping his wings.
As soon as he was close enough, Shura punched right at its tiger-like neck, the claws attached to his knuckle piercing through the monster's neck.
—-Uhghh!
The monster tried to make sound but was unable to due to his vocal chords being damaged.
The Male Ruin's Wanderer shook his head wildly, getting his neck out of Shura's claws.
It flapped its wings and flew upwards, unable to keep a proper flying posture due to the big puncture in its neck.
'Fuck his vitality.'
Shura had imagined the monster to die after that huge, clean strike, but he had underestimated the vitality of that small body.
'Nevermind.'
Shura aimed his fingers at the unevenly flying monster, and shot an ether bullet that pierced right through the monster's shoulders.
'I was aiming for his head….'
Regardless of the failed aim even after the monster's massive slowdown, the bullet did wonders as the monster fell down from up above directly to the ground.
[You have gained a level.]
Shura received a notification and ran towards the place where the monster's body fell.
—-Phchhh!
Digging his monstrous claws right in, he took out the heart of the monster and bit on it.
'Fuck! This one actually doesn't taste gross.'
Shura ate up the whole heart, and to his surprise, his metamorphosis index rose by 3%.
Going back to Drill, Shura looked at his pained face in disappointment.
His health was less than 10% after all the bleeding was over. Shura didn't have any leftover healing grass on him, so he sat down and started whispering in Drill's ears.
"You know, I can save you right now too, but I don't want to show a lot of my abilities to the world."
"I–It's okay, Shura… I've disappointed you."
Drill said slowly, while coughing up blood.
"To be completely honest with you, yes you have. You have greatly disappointed me. I took you in because of your courage, but the moment you start judging my good intentions was the moment you lost your respect in my eyes."
"....I get it. Just leave me alone and move on without me."
Drill said with a sad sigh.
"I'll move on without you, yes. But I won't leave you alone."
"What do you mean?"
"You know, I've always wondered. Can I somehow gain the flesh of players too?"
".....what?"
"I'm going to try and eat your heart, and put it to some good use."
"You're kidding…."
"Yes, I am."
Shura chuckled and Drill looked at Shura with an unbelievable expression. At that moment, Drill felt like Shura wasn't actually kidding.
"The next time you show yourself in front of me, remember you have enough achievements to back yourself. I don't want to go back on my own words and not take you in my guild now."
Shura said as he stood up and started walking off, his thick tail swinging around.
"Haah!"
Drill let out a loud sigh, before biting off his own tongue, his body turning into dust due to the little amount of HP that he had left.
The audience who watched all this couldn't help but take in a cold breath.
"He's not needlessly merciless or kind. He's made to fit in the new world."
A person who was watching all this from a VIP cabinet smiled. Beside him was a familiar girl. If Shura saw her, he'd recognise her as the girl who he met at the mall and bought clothes from.
***
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