'It can talk!?'
My eyes constricted to the size of a needle. I burned my mana and used <Bending Blade> to change the path of my blade, before it killed the monster.
The tip of the sword struck a stone. A metallic echo rang, making the monster flinch. "P-please…"
'A talking monster.' My initial surprise lessened fairly quickly. 'No, this is slightly different. It could speak from the beginning, the one who is different is me. I can understand its language.'
The scrawny monster repeatedly begged to spare its life. It was quivering and had hidden its head between its arms. However, it never tried to fight back.
'The only reason I can think of is [Language Translator] skill. But even then, the monster's words are too fluent for the level 1 language translator.'
The monster was still only gruffing and grunting. However, I was interpreting those words in my own language subconsciously.
For the Great Ape and other monsters, the language translator didn't work for them as they had no intention of conversing with me. The green monster in front of me was different.
"Please let me l-live. I…I'll do anything." The monster muttered. It then raised its head when it realized that it hadn't been killed yet.
I didn't answer the monster. 'Is it perhaps my <Reader> attribute? <Reader> helps me notice others' habits, intentions and, to an extent, their thoughts. Maybe <Reader> is working together with [Language Translator] and enhancing the skill's effects.'
Among my records – the black book – accessible to me on Floor 0, the records of <Reader> attributes were missing. Because of this, I had been in the dark about my 2nd attribute since the beginning.
"Ca…can I go?"
Mistaking my silence for approval, the monster tried to leave. I didn't stop it and simply swung my blade. A wound appeared on the monster's chest.
However, at the last second, the green monster had fallen backward and avoided a fatal injury.
Before the monster could move, I stabbed my sword into the ground. It shivered when the blade missed its neck by a few inches.
"You want to live?" I spoke while staring it in the eye. "Then work for it."
…..
….
…
..
.
Three Days later
"Don't let it escape!" The hound wolf howled to convey that it had heard my command. It increased its pace and I tightly clasped the wolf's fur so as not to fall off.
The hound wolf was running by jumping from branches of one tree to another. The forest had densely grown trees that made chasing a target on the ground difficult. It wasn't any different for my summons. However, with <Pathfinder> the hound wolves' had an easier time by using the trees to move.
'Dammit! It will escape us at this rate! I need to risk it!'
A shadow was moving rapidly on the ground. On closer look its features appeared more defined. It was a monster similar to a raccoon. A 4-meter-long raccoon, that is.
The monster was faster than Hound Wolves, and inside this thick forest, Jet Dragonflies weren't able to fly in a straight path to reach maximum velocity easily.
I decided to take my chances.
Making sure that my balance would not falter, I stood on the hound wolf's body. A card appeared in my palms and I pulled my arm back.
My muscles bulged and a thick coating of mana took shape around my arm. I launched the card while using the skill <Throw> and flicked my wrist at the end.
The card flew forward at a very high speed while rotating. It took over the raccoon monster.
'Release!'
A hound wolf suddenly appeared 30 meters in front of the raccoon. Like a trained acrobat, the wolf twisted its body in the air and landed vertically on a tree trunk.
Awoooooo—!
The wolf's howl revealed its location to the raccoon monster. The monster was stunned at the abrupt appearance of an enemy in front of it. It changed directions, however, it was already late.
The wolf I was sitting upon jumped over the head of the monster. I used <Bending Blade> and slashed.
My blade shrank in width and in return, its length increased. It moved like a snake. The monster tried to claw at the blade. However, the blade narrowly dodged its attacks as if it was alive.
Ding!
⟪You have slain…⟫
The tip of the sword impaled the monster through its eye before it could react.
This technique was an implementation of <Bending Blade> where I manipulated the blade's surface area to control its length and shape. Honestly, even I was surprised when I found that I could use <Bending Blade> in this way.
"You did good." I rubbed the wolves below their jawbones and thanked them earnestly. Had the raccoon monster escaped, it would've foiled the plan I had been working on for the past 3 days.
But with this, I killed the last monster who had seen me inside the middle section of the forest.
pαndα,noνɐ1,сoМ 'It will take time for Orca to come. In the meantime, I'll salvage the mana stone.' I extracted the mana stone of the monster and sat a bit away from the corpse.
Orca was the name of the Orc, the scrawny monster that I force… Ahem, that I persuaded to work with me. He had been delighted at my job offer. So much so that he went to the extent of crying and begging to let it work for me.
'Interface'
While waiting for Orca, I decided to check my stats for the first time in a few days. Inside the white room on Floor 0 of Tower of Babel, I opened the black dairy.
————
Name: Sol Lionel
Age: 19 years
Race: Demi-Human
Rank: Intermediate
Profession: N/A
Coins: 619,873
—
[Stats]
Physique: 41.89
Magic Power: 1209.00/1471.15
—
[Skills]
<Bluff> Level 5
<Celestial Swordsmanship> Level 3 → <Phantom Slash> Level 3, <Phantom Step> Level 4, <Bending Blade> Level MAX
<Bitch Slap> Level 7
<Body Strengthening> Level 8
<Increased Mana Absorption> Level 9
<Partial Body Strengthening> Level 9
<Mana Sense> Level 6
<Throw> Level 7
<Force Punch> Level 2
————
A small smile blossomed on my face. This was the status worth bragging about! I was already halfway towards becoming a millionaire!
With this amount of Coins, I stopped calling [Store] a Rip-off luxury store. Because that nickname was given by peasants who couldn't buy items from [Store]! And I was no peasant!
In the past 3 days, I eliminated roughly 200 monsters that would come to use the Lake of Purity every day. Other than those monsters, I cleared 5 mid-sized monster tribes and 11 small monster tribes in the middle section of the forest.
'Sigh, the information I had about the Forest of Silence was lacking. And it's because that edgy Jae-sung never confirmed the exact number of monsters!'
The number of monsters living in the forest of Silence was way beyond my imagination. There were at least tens of thousands of Mortal Awakening monsters while the number of Master rank monsters was a few thousands.
A mid-sized monster tribe consisted of roughly 300 monsters. All mid-sized tribes were led by one 2-star Master rank monster. The small scale monster tribes had one 1-star Master rank monster as their leader and their total population numbered 100 monsters on average.
In the Forest of Silence, there were 5 large monster tribes too. These tribes had a 5-star Master rank monster as their leader each, and their military might was over 5000 monsters strong. The number of 4-star to 1-star Master rank monsters in these tribes was unknown.
These 5 tribes were advanced enough to create villages, guard posts, borders, and other essentials.
'The monster tribes and their arrangements are too systematic to be a coincidence or work of nature. I'm afraid that the Griffin had been interfering personally in the matters of the forest.'
For monsters, the higher rank monsters are royalty and they would follow their commands the majority of the time. If there was someone who had shaped the lifestyle of the monster tribes the way it was, it had to be the Griffin.
'My Physique and Magic Power are also growing steadily.'
Using Lake of Purity every day boosted my growth even more. I was satisfied with my Physique growth, but my MP was a different matter.
It wasn't showing any sign of reaching its limit. No matter how much my mana reserves grew it felt like I was digging a bottomless pit!
I didn't have a single mana capacity increasing skill in my skill set. Yet, my mana reserves were comparable to elves who are known for their abundant mana.
'Everything is progressing smoothly except my skills. They've hit a wall and their progress has slowed down.'
After crossing Level 5, the growth of skills slowed down by a large margin. If I wanted to increase their level after this, I needed to train for a long time or fight more perilous battles that would force me to go all out.
My swordsmanship skills also leveled up.
The progress I had made in the 4 days since entering the Forest of Silence was tremendous, but I couldn't rest easy. Because I needed to reach the Port today or tomorrow.
Any later than that and it was going to get messy as Jae-sung would regress in 4 days.
Sigh, there was a lot to do.
I stepped out of the Floor 0 of Babel and saw Orca about to reach my location. He was sweating heavily. It seemed he would pass out from exhaustion if I didn't do anything.
"Take this." I threw a Stamina Potion I bought from Store to him.
He had taken some of those in the past few days. And he knew that they weren't dangerous. However, he was still hesitating to drink the potion I gave him. An ungrateful fellow, I must say.
Seeing that, I decided to encourage him. "Drink it, or I'll release the monster that is inside your stomach."
"I..I'll drink! Don't do that!" He hurriedly gulped down the drink.
Why had Orca been following me without question? Because I had made him eat a summoner card!
Then I showed him another summoner card and released the wolf store inside it. Orca was smart enough to understand that I could do the same with the card inside him.
After that, he cried tears of joy and begged me for job enlistment. This was what you call a perfect recruitment policy you peasants! Learn from me!
'I don't need to worry about him finding that the card inside him is empty. He is easy to read and with <Reader> I'll know the moment he tries to betray me.'
Orca wiped his mouth and spoke hesitantly. "A-are we going to do it today…?"
His words made me stop joking and I nodded seriously. "It's time we remove a few big tribes from the map of the Forest of Silence."
