Good pain

"Gotta say, not bad for an hour's work"

Looking down at my haul, I felt quite satisfied.

Fifty glowing pebbles, all stacked up like a small pile of radioactive waste, pulsed with magic, ready to be stored in the improvised burlap sack I made out of flayed monster skin.

These were the magic stones gathered from all the goblins who sadly perished during the earlier massacre. It was truly a sad day for goblin-kind.

The reason why they were sitting on the floor instead of in my gullet was quite simple...their usefulness had become negligible.

A simple glance at my soul's status was everything I needed to understand that.

Total skills - (5)

Devoured Skills - (3)

1- Thick skin

2- Kobold Claws

3- Goblin Speech

∞

Consumption required until the next skill extraction:

Goblins - 7/100

Kobolds - 19/100

Indeed...the requirements for devouring skills from the same species seemed to increase exponentially.

This was, obviously, one of Fenrir's limitations.

I didn't completely understand the reason, but I hoped that with enough experimenting and in-depth studying of my soul, I would be able to not only comprehend the limitations but also find a way to surpass or bypass them.

Until then, though, the only thing waiting for me should I eat 100 goblins was an increased ability to make women pregnant.

Something that, while interesting from a biological perspective, didn't provide me with any real benefit. 

As such, for the first time ever since I started my perilous adventure in this world a long time ago (a day and a half ago), I removed a monster's core without consuming it.

The corpses turned to dust which in turn evaporated, as was expected of them, and with said dust also vanished any trace of the flavor I usually felt when consuming magic stones.

If I were to compare the taste, eating a monster's core before it turned to dust was like drinking soda while consuming it afterward was akin to tap water.

Not good, not horrible, just 'meh'.

It was safe to assume that I wouldn't be gaining much benefits from such stones, be it now or in the future.

'At least they can be used in other ways...' I thought as I glanced at the tiny Golbin walking alongside me toward the deeper parts of the dungeon.

After I finished eating all the kobolds and stripping the stones of the goblins, I checked on him only to see that he had become much calmer.

It might have been due to his (false) belief that he wouldn't be eaten as long as he didn't provoke me.

He also stood up and followed me without complaints when I used a *Hragh*, which my Goblin Speech translated to "follow".

To be honest, I had already gotten the skill before even meeting the Loki Familia this morning, but none of the goblins I fought showed the slightest reaction to it.

I might as well have been talking to a wall...an angry wall, so I didn't bother with it anymore due to its presumed uselessness.

There were some explanations for that, but the one I felt was most plausible was that these newborn, Dungeon-fabricated, mass-produced goblins...didn't know their own fucking language.

Maybe they would learn it instinctively if they survived more than a few hours, but given the number of adventurers passing through the first few floors on a daily basis, it was highly unlikely.

'But this in turn would make a goblin Xenos both more likely to appear and much more likely to be killed just as fast...'

I wasn't completely fucking clueless, after all.

I might have only seen the first season of the anime, but I had gotten some spoilers from the others, be they about some drunk god being insane, some monsters with human minds, or human-monster creature hybrids.

I didn't know the details or the chronological order of what would happen though, but simply knowing about their existence was a decent advantage that I would have to be careful to not fucking rely on since until now my info was proven to be riddled with more holes than a sieve.

Overall, Golbin (as I had begun referring to him in my head) behaved well enough that he was allowed to keep his life...for now.

If he continued to be a good boy/girl/asexual creature until we reached the 5th floor, I would have to test both his intellect and his ingrained personality to see to what degree he could be used.

After all, despite me not being strong enough to risk starting to hunt humans, and the little guy being seen as an enemy by the other monsters, I had some ideas.

'But first things first...'

*Ding!* System Message!

Please Choose one of the following skills, you insane bastard!

2 - Heightened sense of smell ( fucking)

3 - Minor night vision ( ̷̡̡̛̫̻̮̥̦̠̤̣̖̃͆̈́̓̏͋͋̿͝ç̶̯̞͈̪̪͍̯͔̤̖̳̙̦̯̈̇̃̊̆́̅͊̏͌͒̀̾͠h̵͉̼͎̰̱͇̳̓̐̈o̶͉͆͒̄̔͘ó̵̬̩̺̻̥͔͉͎͎̂̒̏̀̋̉͌s̸̛͎̩͓͍͓͉̦̪̞͈͈̭͓̈̋͂̒̅̍̽̽̕ͅē̷̡̡̛͈̝̲̲̻̥̝̱̭̳͓͕̽̓̀̉͆̂̃̌̎̐̊̂̚ ̶̝̪̺̹̹͊́̉̌̎̀̈́̿̔̂͛͝a̷̘̗̮͎̳͚͓̭̩͔̺͚̖͕̔͑̀̄̈́̌̅̌̈̇̓͛̕͝ͅl̶̨̗̬̂͋͌̓̃̀͐́̊͠͝r̵̡̢̛͚̳̥͓̙̱̀̎̈́̊̇́̊̆͜ę̸̗͉̠̻̠͈͕͇̞̤̩̈́͐̾̿̎̾̋̇̾̅̚̚͠ả̸̡̡̧͕̤͍̟̳̲͇̗̿̿̃̔d̶̢̼̰͉͍̥̲̭͔̥̻̍̄̐́̎̒́̈́̓̚͜͝ỵ̵̨̛̤͕̩́̋̈́̓̿ͅ!̶̫̭͛̎̍̋̈́̕͠)̸̡̬̠̣̻̩͚̤͚̈́̏͑̆͒̍̓̈́̊̋̚

.

I smiled the tiniest bit as I looked at the insistent messages displayed in front of my eyes, almost pulsing with intensity.

Of course, this wasn't something silly like my so-called "System" becoming sentient or something equally retarded.

No no no...this was merely the result of the strain I had been putting on my soul during the past hour or so.

Just another small experiment, of course...

.

Like I mentioned earlier, I was very dissatisfied with my lack of understanding related to what was, technically speaking, my true self.

My "soul", or what I believed to be my soul was something that I wanted to comprehend in its entirety, eventually, but this was hard to do when to my senses it felt like a paralyzed limb.

Oh sure, I could "see" it due to Non Deorum Opus, or at least interpret the changes happening to it, like one would be able to see their hand catching on fire, (or putting on muscle as was more likely the case for a soul when absorbing excelia)

Hell, I even had a tiny "robot" grafted to this paralyzed limb, moving it from time to time.

This pre-programmed robot, Fenrir's Hunger, was facilitating a type of soul surgery every time I devoured a new skill, and I could feel every bit of it.

For the overwhelming majority of sentient beings, this would have been more than enough.

They would happily amass strength through the overwhelming potential of their devouring ability, never bothering to think about the deeper workings of the skill.

'This was also the reason why, the overwhelming majority faded into obscurity, their unwillingness to go beyond their limits, be they physical or mental, forcing them into a life of mediocrity.'

So, like a real enjoyer of the GRIND, I did my best to resist the changes my skill attempted to make to my soul...for as long as possible.

Saying it hurt like a bitch and a half after passing the ten minutes mark would be the understatement of the gods-damned century, and it only became worse over time.

My whole body was trembling nonstop, muscles twitching uncontrollably under the strain. My hands shook so violently that even the goblin looked a bit concerned.

Sweat poured from every pore, drenching me as we walked, and blood seeped from my palms where my human nails, now embedded deep into my skin, had pierced through. My legs felt weak, barely able to support me, and my heart pounded so fiercely that I feared it might burst from my chest.

Alas, in exchange for this...small discomfort...I could now understand a bit of what was happening when the Hunger was working its magic...literally.

It appeared to use some kind of essence (which might or might not have been distilled souls) gathered from the monsters I had slain previously, mixing it up with similar essence, and when passing some semblance of a threshold, turning that energy into a catalyst to bestow a new skill upon my soul by engraving directly on it...somehow.

What I had actually been doing for the past hour or so (without really realizing it), was trying to keep the energy from dissipating while also preventing Fenrir's Hunger from finishing its job.

After all, despite its namesake, it was MY FUCKING SKILL, and I would force it to work when and how I intended it to.

However, it seemed like a weak part of my subconscious mind, one concerned with trivial things like sanity and being conscious, was beginning to think that the pain was becoming quite unbearable

*Ding* Hurry the fuck up or you might really pass out *Ding*

These stray thoughts in turn reflected in the half-imaginary display floating in front of me...quite funny how the mind worked sometimes...

.

Deeming the experiment a resounding success, I didn't hesitate anymore as I let the metaphorical floodgates burst open, allowing my soul to be modified to bear the skill I had chosen this time.

I felt the energy emerging from within myself, a searing torrent that rushed toward my head.

My brain itself seemed to ignite, despite the physiological impossibility, as the blazing essence slithered through the folds and crevices, winding toward my olfactory nerves before pooling at my nostrils.

The influx flooded my senses with a noxious, charnel reek - the unmistakable stench of death and decay amplified a hundredfold.

Then, as suddenly as they appeared, the burning sensations were over and I was left contemplating my new and enhanced sense of smell, equal to that of a kobold if my skill was to be believed.

'I might need a shower' was my first thought as I was made acutely aware of the effects of constant physical exertion and frequent bloodbaths had on the body.

Of course, a bath or even simple running water was naught but a wet dream for the current me...heh...

'Absolutely fantastic...'