Kurushimi had gained a level for 3 different skills and had leveled up 9 times. Kurushimi felt that she had gotten too much for one kill but it was understandable. The living armour was actually Lvl. 26 itself. Not to mention that it had been the highest level monster she had slain so far. And Kurushimi wasn’t complaining about getting stronger.

Kurushimi quickly opened up the system menu, displaying her status. Her level was 29 now. Kurushimi was now a considerably higher level than the average monster around the starting area. With exceptions for Karshak or any other strong enemies that could appear like the living armour.

The living armour was still laying on the ground near her. As per usual, Kurushimi instigated her scheduled ritual for every time she killed a monster. Walking up to it and crouching down, she grabbed its neck with one of her hands. The living armour was quite heavy even with its weight split in half. But she could handle it. Though she doubted her past self could have even moved it a millimetre.

Looking at the dense metal covering its neck, Kurushimi wondered if she would even be able to bite into it. She could cut through the armour with her katana, but she didn’t know if she would be able to penetrate it with her fangs. With only one way to find out, Kurushimi bit down as hard as she could.

《Skill proficiency reached. Skill: 『Fangs Lvl. 2』 has become 『Fangs Lvl. 3』》

《Used skill: 『Fangs Lvl. 3』!》

Whilst the system messages appeared just out of Kurushimi’s view, Kurushimi bit through the metal. Two holes were created in the hard metal to reveal the living armour's flesh. Without stopping, Kurushimi delved into the flesh, sucking up the living armour’s blood.

Kurushimi swung back in an arc, breaking away from the living armour’s flesh as a small trail of blood followed the movements of her mouth. Wiping away the excess blood on her lips, Kurushimi exhaled with a satisfied ahhh~.

“Mmhuhahaha, the living armour’s blood tastes great too-! Something must be up with the canisfangs blood since they are the only ones that taste terrible~”

“You really have normalised drinking blood, haven’t you?”

“Well, it tastes good and besides- I’m not human anymore, am I?”

《Used skill: 『What’s yours is mine Lvl. 2』!》

A moment after the activation of ‘Fangs’, Kurushimi’s unique skill ‘What’s yours is mine’ activated. Thinking about it now, Kurushimi remembered the living armour’s ‘berserk’ skill was also unique. So she couldn’t learn it. But perhaps it would be possible to get it through her own unique skill. This had made Kurushimi begin to eagerly anticipate the yield from ‘What’s yours is mine’.

《You have gained: +10 HP, +10 STR, + 10 END, + 10 SP, + 10 AGI, + 10 MP!》

“Haaa… I guess I won’t be getting any kind of skill until I’ve killed a type of monster a few hundred times or something.”

Sadly, as always, all Kurushimi got was stats. They were a hefty bit of additional stats, but she had really wanted to see the second part of her unique skill. So far, she hadn’t stolen a single skill with ‘What’s yours is mine’. It was likely she would only be able to get skills from common monsters such as the canisfang. If the canisfangs even had any good skills, that was.

Glaring at the living armour, she stabbed her katana into its head once more purely out of spite. The living armour’s head twitched in response but did no more than that. Kurushimi pulled her katana out and spun around on her heel.

Dead canisfangs surrounded her but she chose to ignore them. Sadly, the canisfang bodies were useless to her as ‘What’s yours is mine’ required her to kill them herself. So she couldn’t steal stats off already dead monsters. But Kurushimi would be lying if she said she wasn’t at least a little happy she had an excuse not to drink their disgusting blood.

Swoosh-!

Kurushimi whacked her katana through the air, making a sound as the blade cut through. Blood left over on the blade was sent flying off her blade. The blood that stuck regardless was removed as Kurushimi conjured mana into it to activate ‘Blood magic’ and discard it.

“I should really get something to hold ‘Sword 1’. It’s kind of annoying having to carry it around everywhere…”

Kurushimi looked down at her katana as she held it by her side. After making a comment, she looked back up and started walking again.

. . . As Kurushimi was wandering along the path, she noticed that the ground was beginning to look considerably different. The earth was dry and rough. Foliage and greenery had almost completely disappeared.

Even the trees had become a charcoal black with a complete lack of leaves or anything alike. Not to mention, Kurushimi also felt like the heat had risen dramatically compared to before. A bead of sweat dripped down Kurushimi’s forehead.

It seemed she had entered a new area in the forest completely. The trees had been turned to charcoal and the foliage had pretty much disappeared. Kurushimi had no clue what could have possibly happened to this area for it to have become like this. Perhaps a fire had spread sometime ago?

Though Kurushimi wasn’t actually that intrigued about the history of the forest. She only wondered what specifically she would encounter in this type of area. Would there be no monsters with the lack of greenery and harsher atmosphere? Or would the monsters be tougher from the climate?

Hiss-!

And as Kurushimi was just thinking about it, Some kind of hissing could be heard nearby. It was a surprisingly quick timing for a monster to appear, Kurushimi had in fact just got here after all. Regardless, Kurushimi looked over in the direction of the hiss to find the source.

Hiss-!

Sticking its tongue out as it hissed, A lizard-like monster stared straight back at Kurushimi. Its scales were rough and sandy. For the most part, it looked like a normal lizard you would find on earth. Kurushimi had to say that it was the most normal looking monster she had seen yet, with the closest appearance to an animal from earth than anything. The lizard, when on all fours, stood up to about Kurushimi’s shins. And she could say its length had to be something over a metre.

《Used skill: 『Appraisal Lvl. 2』!》

Mana centered around Kurushimi’s eyes. Focusing on the aggressively hissing lizard, she looked to find out its name and any other information she could with ‘Appraisal’.

----------------------------------

Salamander

Lvl. 20

HP: 170/140

MP: 80/80

SP: 50/50

---------------------------------

Kurushimi appraised the lizard and found out the monster was a ‘Salamander’. Even its name was the exact same as its earth counterpart. Kurushimi could only wonder how it had received a name from earth, when the others all had new names for the most part. But other than that, Kurushimi also took notice of something else.

“Why is its current HP higher than its max HP?”

The salamander seemed to have more current HP than its max HP. It wasn’t by a huge amount and Kurushimi wasn’t too bothered by the increase but it was strange that the Salamander had more HP than it should.

“Is it some kind of bug? ...Or some kind of skill?”

Hiss-!

Kurushimi held her hand up to her chin as she intently stared at the salamander. The salamander hissed again as she stared. It seemed irrationally angry at her for some reason. Kurushimi wondered if she had walked onto its territory or something. The angry salamander began charging at Kurushimi, though at a comedically slow pace. Kurushimi couldn’t help but laugh a little at the sight.

“Don’t let your guard down, Kurushimi.”

“Hm? UWOAH-!”

As she was laughing at the angry but slow salamander, Voice-san suddenly warned Kurushimi. Without any idea as to why Voice-san was so suddenly and seriously warning her, Kurushimi dumbly responded “Hm?”.

Then the salamander that had gotten closer to her abruptly opened up its mouth. The salamander was still about a metre away and wasn’t showing any signs of getting closer. But then, the exposed inside of its stomach started glowing and increasing in light intensity. Flames erupted from the Salamanders mouth. They spanned over Kurushimi’s leg height, making Kurushimi shout in shock as she leaped back to avoid them.

The already hot climate was intensified by the incoming flames. Kurushimi had just about stepped out of the vicinity of the fire. Kurushimi watched the intense flames, glad she had Voice-san to warn her. This encounter reassured Kurushimi that everything was dangerous in this damn forest.

Hiss-! Hiss-!

The salamander continued its pursuit of Kurushimi. Attempting to get closer and unleash the flames upon her again. Kurushimi stepped around the side and began charging a skill as she readied her katana.

《Used skill: Short-distance teleportation Lvl. 2』!》

The newly leveled-up skills took slightly less time to charge than it previously had. Kurushimi disappeared and reappeared behind the salamander. The angry salamander struggled to turn around and face Kurushimi quickly enough. But before it could, Kurushimi stabbed down into the centre of its back.

《Used skill: 『Blood magic Lvl. 5』!》

As the salamander flinched while its back had been stabbed through, it blood splashed about only to return and dig into its back. The blood ripped through its back and cut the rough skin. The salamander hissed in pain but resisted. Kurushimi realised the tough skin was giving more resistance than expected. The blood had not cut as deep as she had expected it to.