*grin*
Shin grinned because the beast in front of him seemed confused.
He hadn't taken a look at its profile or stats yet, however, even without that, he could say that the beast was confused because of the change in behavior all of a sudden.
It was being hasty or was attacking bizarrely, but right after the skill was stolen, it stopped moving all of a sudden.
'Yes, this is my chance to steal all the skills that it will be using…' and just when he thought that, the cooldown timer popped up.
[ Cooldown Timer: 00:00:02:53 ( 2 minutes 53 seconds ) ]
'Sigh, really now?', Shin's excitement died real quick even before it could peak.
He thought that with this skill he could gain any skill and abilities, however, he noticed the restriction sooner than he expected.
One good thing was that the cooldown timer worked despite the skills being merged, now he wouldn't be required to wait after the merging was completed.
Of course, in the meantime, he had to ask the beast about its origins and the reason because of which it attacked Shin.
"Hey, care to tell me the reason for your attacking?", Shin asked.
The moon was then clearly visible as the clouds moved. The light flashed all over thanks to which the vision was better.
Wolves can see in the dark, very clearly at that, but differentiating colors and other things was highly impossible for them.
Since his skill All Seeing Eyes was gone too, he could hardly see any difference between things.
Shin then walked slowly towards the beast as he became visible to him.
'I never imagined to meet such a beast here…', Shin was surprised actually and no matter what, wanted to close the gap between them to talk efficiently.
The beast was shocked because of its skill vanishing – probably this was the first time this had happened in his entire lifetime.
Due to the light, the beast became completely visible to Shin. It was a tiger cub – a white tiger's at that.
It had black stripes all over its body. Though, its face was covered with dirt.
It had many wounds too at the same time which Shin initially mistook as black stripes.
"What the-", he was shocked to see that when he approached him.
Of course, Shin had his own share of pain because he was wounded by the beast a second ago, but now he didn't even care about that pain because just seeing the cub's pain was hurting his eyes.
"Are you alright…?", Shin asked.
The beast had its head lowered. Was the shock that great?
Shin's instincts were warning him not to get too close, but he was disregarding it.
Of course, he didn't do that to the warning given by the system the moment he was very close to the beast.
[ Warning ]
[ Activation of Self-Destruct spell detected ]
[ Threat Level C ]
[ The system advises the host to run 80 meters away ]
"What the-"
The beast's body soon started to glow with white light. The self-destruct skill was activated by the beast as it wanted to destroy its body along with that of Shin's.
"Steal!", Shin shouted because he wanted to steal that ability away.
Without that there wouldn't be any self-destruction, unfortunately, he didn't have the ability to use the steal for the time being.
'Ding'
[ Failed to use ]
[ Skills under merging ]
"Damn!"
Shin couldn't use that skill at all because of the merging.
"Hey, are you crazy!"
"You will end up blowing yourself!"
Shin was wondering, 'How did a beast like that end up having such a skill?'
Shin closed the gap between himself and the beast and asked it to stop.
He lifted the beast's small head which was lowered and said, "Stop using that!"
He thought that the beast was some sort of crazy one because no one would just self-destruct on their own.
However, he was shocked by what he found.
Tears, tears ran down the beast's left eye which was half-opened.
"Just die…", the beast said only these words.
The voice was that of a female's with which Shin assumed it to be a 'her'.
Also, the tear in her eyes made him get a weird feeling all of a sudden.
The white light just kept increasing in intensity.
Terran had somehow pulled himself and walked all the way to the hut.
He then found the bright blinding light and almost immediately recognized it as self-destruct spell or skill.
"Master!?", he spotted Shin near the light,
"Master! Get away from there!", he shouted at the top of his voice.
His regeneration abilities were good, he had recovered from most of his internal injuries, though, there was a bit of pain left behind.
Shin noticed that Terran was close by too.
'No…'
'Why did Terran arrive here now?'
Shin knew that his HP was less at the moment.
Shin understood that the skill which the beast used earlier so strong and now the self-destruct seemed similarly powerful.
If the beast were to really go and destruct itself, the power will be more than enough to kill Terran.
Not to say, Shin will be affected greatly.
He did have the transformation ability with the help of which he could sacrifice one of the mimics and survive, but that would kill both the beast and Terran.
'I don't want anyone to die…'
He wouldn't be able to carry the guilt of killing such a young tiger cub. If they hadn't come to the area, then the beast would have never gone as far as using the self-destruct.
Partly, he was to blame.
The light got brighter and the beast was about to self-destruct right before which she said just a single thing, "Forgive me…"
"Mom…"
'Boom!'
Boom?
No, there was no 'Boom'.
In fact, the self-destruct didn't even happen.
The beast was shocked because nothing happened when it opened its eye after a few seconds.
Terran was also surprised and relieved at the same time to see that nothing happened.
Did Shin's steal skill return on time due to which he stole her skill?
"…"
To be continued…
New novel chapt𝒆rs are published on free(w)ebnovel(.)com