Chapter 8: Encounter with Kin & Those Damn Dirty Apes

A/N:

" " : Dialogue,

' ' : Thought,

[ ] : System, Raphael

"Italicized text" : Telepathy.

// // : W System announcement

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Location: Great Elroe Labyrinth

Shiraori POV

'W-w-w-w what the hell was that?! We were just killing the wasps using our webs and telekinesis, then all of a sudden, a dragon comes by and starts a stare off with Dante.' I think in shock from what just transpired in front of me. I thought that being immune to basically all types of damage that could occur to me was enough for me to survive, but for a single enemy to make me feel like I should run away even with my Nullification skills, perhaps I'd been overestimating myself because Dante never went all out against me. Because seriously, he used his mind to basically cause a hurricane, in a cave!

But what he said struck a chord in me. Power is what makes you live as you want in this world. I've seen that even before now. The snake that would have gotten me close to death had I grown normally without Dante, the wasps that killed some more of that snake, me and Dante when we killed the wasps and other monsters, hell, if Dante wanted, they would only die if he allows them to, and now there was Araba, the first dragon I'd ever met or even got to see a trace of. All of these cases had one thing in common, the person doing the killing was always stronger, however Dante has told me before in training that strength wasn't the end-all be-all that determined the results of a battle, that if I wanted to be the more powerful one in a battle, I had to use my strength in the most efficient and effective fashion otherwise death would await me every time. I thought he was exaggerating, but I just got the biggest reality check ever that slapped me in the face.

I jerk myself back from that train of thought and look at Dante as he sighs. "Come on, we're going this way." He says as we head in the opposite direction of the dragon's trail. "How do I get stronger without leveling up? I don't know if you've noticed but I don't have a system like that of a human's, so building muscle isn't exactly an option." I ask him as we walk down the tunnel. "Do you have up to 300 skill points?" He asks keeping his eyes forward. "Yeah, I've got 1100 skill points right now. Why do you ask?" I respond wondering why he would bring up skill points since I basically possess most skills needed for where we are. "Use the skill points you have and buy the skills 'Pride' and 'Perseverance'. They'll be really helpful to you now and in the the long run." He says, and I do just that, since any advice he's given me so far hasn't caused regret. I watch as my skill points reduce to 500 as the Pride skill was 100 points and the Perseverance skill was 500 points then appraise the effects afterward.

//Skill 'Pride' has been received. You have 1000 skill points remaining.//

//Skill Proficiency Reached. Skill 'Taboo LV2' became 'Taboo LV4'.//

//Conditions have been met. Title 'Ruler of Pride' has been received.//

//Due to the effect of the title 'Ruler of Pride', skills 'Abyss Magic LV 10'11 and 'Hades' have been received.//

//Ruler of Pride//

//'Abyss Magic LV10', 'Hades'//

//Tile Condition: Owning 'Pride'//

//Effect: Increases MP, Magic and resistance stats. A +Correction to mental skill proficiencies. Grants ruling class privileges.//

//A title granted to one who has conquered pride.//

'I know the effects of Pride here are meant to help me grow even faster, but these prompts about Taboo and magic whose name literally means Hell are really making me want to return the skill. Well, over to Perseverance it is.'

//Skill 'Perseverance' has been received. You have 500 skill points remaining.//

//Skill Proficiency Reached. Skill 'Taboo LV4' became 'Taboo LV6'.//

//Conditions have been met. Title 'Ruler of Perseverance' has been received.//

//Due to the effect of the title 'Ruler of Perseverance', skills 'Heresy Nullification' and Conviction have been received.//

//Heresy Nullification has unified with Heresy Nullification.//

//Ruler of Perseverance//

//'Heresy Nullification', 'Conviction'//

//Title Condition: Owning 'Perseverance'//

//Effect: Every ability of defense and resistance rise. Lifts ban on Evil-eye type skills. A +Correction to resistance skill proficiencies. Grants ruling class privileges.//

//A title granted to one who has conquered perseverance.//

After reading through the details of both skills, I gulped in shock at how much of a cheat each of these skills were, and now I had both of them. Checking my stats, I see that my MP, Magic and resistance stats have all increased by 100 points. Seeing how much more my stats have grown leaves me speechless and I shakily turn my head to look at Dante. "Hey, Dante, quick question. Did you know that these skills were this much of a game breaker or were you just mentioning skill names in hopes that they weren't bad skills?" I ask him and he stops, turns to me, smirks and said, "What do you think?"

Hearing that made me start to question how much he knew about this system. But I was broken from that train of thought when I noticed a few wasps fighting another monster. 'If I've noticed it, then Dante's definitely noticed it for a while now.' Using stealth, I creep up to the fight and use Appraisal on the monster that the wasps are fighting seeing its name as Elroe Greshigard. I think it's worth noting that the monster they're fighting looks like a praying mantis, and it proves to be like one as it takes out multiple of them using one hit each, which is impressive but not up to me. I also notice in the appraisal that we are now in the lower layer of the labyrinth, and it's between the middle and bottom layers of the labyrinth. The size of the labyrinth just baffles me as the description of the labyrinth states that it connects two separate continents and has an ocean right above it.

I get pulled from those thoughts as I notice a massive monster enter my Detection range at high speed, pouncing onto the mantis monster, crushing its head and biting it in half, killing it almost instantly. Looking at it, I notice that it's an evolved Taratect, a Greater Taratect to be precise. I stop as it looks in my direction but notice its eyes are not on me, they're on Dante. It looks at both of us for a while before going away. I wonder what that was about.

Dante POV

The Great Elroe Labyrinth's lower layer. The place to be I'd you can't take the heat of the middle layer or the terror of the bottom layer, but are too powerful for the upper layer. Its varying ecosystem when compared to the other layers is quite absurd. Because you'll see monsters at Araba's level but you'll also see Elroe Frogs jumping around. But when you're as physically toxic as most of the weak monster here are no one really wants to eat you. If not for my intervention in Shiraori's life, she too would have only her toxicity to depend on, but now she's strong enough to not need that.

As we keep walking, we come across different monsters, taratects, frogs, ferects, even peckatots, but the one monster we came across that neither of use would eat in a billion years was something that in my past life was fondly called the snailbug, the Elroe Gastruch. Whoever named it that gave it a good name, because unlike other people with detection, I can link my normal 5 senses with my detection and I used it to 'taste' the Gastruch and my god, it tastes like stomach acid mixed with feces. No wonder this thing has Rot Attack as it's primary defense. I warned Shiraori to steer clear of them, because despite us having Rot Nullification, I would rather not have something like that enter my system.

We keep walking and Shiraori pounces on some Randanels we come across trying to level up her Poison Attack skill so that it evolves into Deadly Poison Attack, which honestly would make battles a lot easier. Not long after, we come across a Bugragratch, a monster that looks like an unholy mix between a warthog and a chimpanzee, and seeing it I know that we are coming across another part of Shiraori's life that in the OG would be a massive turning point, and honestly, the same could happen here.

The Bugragratch jumped at us and while midair, I shot it in the head after charging the bullet with electricity, basically destroying its brain with a railgun shell. I already knew that there would be more coming down this way, but I decided that we would face both the swarm of Bugragratches and Anogratches to make this have a bit more impact and also to get that sweet, sweet EXP. I levitated myself, Shiraori and the body of the Bugragratch so that the others could see us, and went away from them faster than they could keep up with. I happened to meet what I felt was the weirdest monster I had seen so far, a giant fish with webbed humanlike limbs, an Elroe Daznatch, and killed it because apart from the deer, this was the first monster that could provide us with actual edible meat. I dismantled it quickly and put the materials in the inventory. Its body. had more useful parts than I expected, the meat was good already, but it's scales and skin could make for good clothing as the Mowajitz leather I'd been wearing for a while now was starting to wear out.

After making my clothes, I changed and crafted some cooking utensils so that I could finally gain the Cooking skill, as well as enjoy good food alongside Shiraori. I unfortunately was unable to get enough water to cook the amount of meat we had and consoled Shiraori, telling her that we won't be stuck with this for much longer.

We continued moving and came across an Elroe Kohokoro, a cute monster that I actually considered taming, but I dismissed the idea and told Shiraori that she could do whatever she wanted with it ,and she killed it just with a tap on its skin and started celebrating, telling me that she got Deadly Poison Attack after using Poison Attack for so long, I say so long but it's only been almost a week since I got into the labyrinth. As she celebrates, we both detect a monster behind us and hear what sounds like a monkey hooting. It is then that it hits me that we're merely some hours from the fight against the monkey swarm as it is an Anogratch that is behind us.

I turn invisible and it jerks a bit before beginning to hop in place. It dashes at Shiraori and she shoots a web at it in the middle of its dash, and it surprisingly dodges it, but she uses Thread Control to attack it from behind wrapping the thread around its neck. It notices the thread on its neck and pulls which moves her for a few inches before she pulls back the thread causing the poison from her Deadly Poison Attack to take effect, the Anogratch notices this and it pulls out it's Hail Mary. It lets out an atrociously loud shriek and I know that it has marked us so others of its kind would come after us to kill on sight.

I started chuckling for a bit, not long after the chuckling turned to cackling and even shorter after, it turned to full blown maniacal laughter. This of course spooked Shiraori as I started laughing like a certain deranged clown with a winged rodent for a boyfriend after a monkey shrieked out its death throes. "What that anogratch did just now is going to bother us some time down the line and that time is not far off. It marked us at the point of its death, and because it's a social animal, its entire community is going to be after us with intentions to kill on sight." I explained to her after coming down from my laughing high. "There is a high chance that we will end up facing entire swarms of these Anogratches and Bugragratches. As for why, we were seen when I killed the Bugragratch earlier and this guy has marked us, so there'll be no way for us to avoid facing them. So right now, we better start getting ready for the largest amount of enemies we've faced." I tell her, unsheathing Yasetsu and returning the Deagle to my inventory.

I take her to a wall as we begin to set up defense and prepare to face a swarm of enemies. "I only killed one of these things, so why do I now have to fight an army of them? If the same happened with me or my siblings, you wouldn't hear a peep raised in our defense." She said with annoyance. "Don't sweat it. All they've got to pressure us in any way is numbers, and we both know that's not gonna be enough. So just relax until they reach here, then you can vent all your frustrations on them when they arrive." I said as I used my threads to set some cutting traps, which reminds me. I got a notification that Utility Thread evolved into Divine Thread Weaving while killing the Finjicotes on the way here, which means I could make even better clothes than what I'm wearing since I could apply all the Nullification skills I have to them. 'Nah, maybe later.' As soon as I have this thought, I hear them as they enter the detection range I set for my time in this layer of the labyrinth, the screeches and shrieks, the groans, grunts and roars coming from both the Anogratches and Bugragratches.

"Well, we've prepared. Now we greet our unfortunate guests with the attitude of a good host, so shall we?" I say as I lay the last web. "Options" I say bringing up a tab of the Game System that I haven't touched yet and I see the BGM function which causes me to chuckle as I set it to the song that can only be used when you're facing an army but you are the Boss Monster.

[Notice. Background Music has been set to 'The Only Thing They Fear Is You'.]

As they get closer, I see their eyes and feel their auras, and notice there is no caution in any of them, just the pure, unadulterated lust for vengeance, and finally it hits me. These monkeys don't know fear. They have never faced terror, so I will instil it in them. I will bring forth a massacre unlike any they've ever seen. I will smash their bodies and break their spirits. I will rend their souls to pieces and become a genetic nightmare for their kind. "I will rip and tear, until it is done." I say as the first one charges toward us while I hold a manic grin on my face.

Chapter end.