Rei’s right hand reached for the Skyfang’s magic stone.
Holding it in his right hand, he handed the Antlion magic stone to Elena.
「I’m sorry, but could you hold onto this for me?」
「Oh, that’s fine. It’s definitely a hindrance to wield the Death Scythe while holding a magic stone.」
Knowing what Rei wanted to do, Elena smiled as she held the Antlion magic stone.
Giving a small nod towards Elena, Rei picked up the Death Scythe from the ground and moved a short distance away.
「Well then, considering that the Skyfang is a powerful monster in its own right, there should be a high possibility that I will be able to acquire a skill……let’s see!」
Throwing the magic stone into the air with those words, he struck it sharply with the blade of the Death Scythe.
Sliced in half, the magic stone vanished like mist.
【Death Scythe has acquired the skill 『Wind Hand Lv.3』】
A similar announcement to the one when Set had his Optical Camouflage skill upgraded sounded in his mind.
「……What happened? As far as I can tell, it seems like you were able to learn a new skill?」
Elena asked when she saw Rei with a weird expression that was both happy and sad.
Hearing her call out to him, Rei shrugged his shoulders as he replied.
「I was able to upgrade a skill, but……」
Muttering out loud, Rei looked at the Death Scythe in his hands
「No, well……let’s give it a try. Wind Hand!」
Saying that, he activated the skill.
A colourless transparent tentacle extended from the shaft of the Death Scythe. In some ways, it wasn’t unlike Set’s Optical Camouflage, but its effect was very different.
……In addition, it use was also much more limited.
Only the tip of the tentacle could interact with the wind and it didn’t have much power on its own. No matter how hard Rei tried, it only had the strength of a light punch.
The true capability of the skill was really only demonstrated when it was used with other skills to create a fire whirl.
「……Oh, it seems like the effective distance has increased.」
At level 2, it could reach about 150m out, but using it now, Rei could sense that it had increased to 200m at level 3.
(100m at level 1, 150m at level 2, 200m at level 3……I think it’s fine to assume that it increases by 50m each time it levels up.)
If asked whether the skill was useless or not, Rei would definitely say it had its uses.
That was because it increased the effective range that fire whirls could be created at, the most powerful attack that Rei could currently use.
「Gururu~」
It seemed that Set knew that as well as he gave a cry to congratulate Rei.
「Yeah, thank you. ……If possible, I was hoping for a more powerful skill though.」
Saying that, Rei turned is gaze not to Elena……but the last magic stone she was holding.
Rei had an almost certain feeling that he would be able to acquire a skill from the Antlion monster, which was probably a fairly powerful monster on the desert floors.
However, when considering who would absorb the magic stone, Rei had to think. Whether it was Rei or Set, both of them had already acquired a skill.
That said, Rei’s upgraded Wind Hand was something that wasn’t really useful on its own.
Maybe because he understood that, Set rubbed his head against Rei to indicate that he was fine and that Rei should absorb the magic stone.
「Rei, Set seems to be saying……no, it seems like he’s trying to tell you something with his actions. Maybe you should absorb the magic stone?」
「But……」
Saying that, Rei turned to look at Set, who was rubbing his head against him.
「Gurururu~」
Set gave a cry in response and Rei stroked his head after seeing that.
「You’re right. If Set says so, I’ll let your words……no, cries, speak for yourself.」
「Guru~!」
Hearing Set’s cry, Rei placed his hand on Set’s head with gratitude before turning to Elena.
「Elena, pass me the magic stone.」
「Sure. ……I hope you can learn a skill.」
Receiving the magic stone that Elena handed over with a slight smile, he gave a small nod and moved a short distance away from Set and Elena.
(No, I’d like to learn a skill that I can use right away……please.)
Thinking to himself, Rei threw the magic stone into the air and struck it with the Death Scythe.
The next moment, the magic stone vanished like mist……
【Death Scythe has acquired the skill 『Corrosion Lv.3』】
Yes, an announcement sounded in his mind.
「……This is……」
Having no idea why he had upgraded that skill, Rei turned to look at the corpse of the Antlion lying a little further away.
「Gururu~?」
Why is it corrosion? Set also looked at the corpse in puzzlement.
Elena, perhaps wondering why the two of them were behaving like that, asked in confusion.
「Rei, what’s wrong? Looking at your reaction, not learning a skill……doesn’t seem to be the case.」
「Yeah. I definitely learned a skill, but the skill that was learned was……」
「Was it one you weren’t expecting?」
「It was corrosion. Not a new skill, but an upgrade.」
Elena tilted her head at Rei’s words.
「Corrosion? If I recall correctly, you learn skills related to the monster the magic stone came from right?」
「Yeah. For example, the Rock Spider gave Optical Camouflage……no, camouflage and invisibility are slightly different, but I guess it was similar enough……wait?」
As he said that, Rei looked at the corpse of the headless Antlion before suddenly noticing something.
Taking out his dismantling knife, he went over to the corpse and removed its shell.
Elena wasn’t sure what Rei was doing, but rather than standing around and doing nothing, she went over to help him.
After about 10 minutes, they succeeded in removing the Antlion’s whole shell, that was bigger than themselves, and cut into the body of the Antlion.
「……This is?」
Using his knife, Rei cut around organs he was unfamiliar with.
When the internal organs were shaken, one about 50cm in length made a sloshing sound as if there was some liquid inside.
「This might be dangerous, so back up for now.」
「Yeah.」
「Guru~」
At this point, they guessed what Rei was going to do and why his Corrosion skill had been upgraded. Elena’s expression tightened as she and Set, who was next to her, took some distance as they were told.
When they were far away enough, Rei threw the organ in his hand towards a rock and leapt back.
He did that just in case anything dangerous happened right after he threw it. The organ flew out at a speed that could be followed……eventually hitting a rock and tearing before spraying a reddish black liquid everywhere.
Smoke started rising at the same time.
The moment Rei saw the reddish black smoke, which looked dangerous, Rei landed next to Elena and Set.
A few seconds passed. After the reddish black smoke from where the organ landed started to clear up, what remained was a rock with a distorted shape, like a block of ice that had boiling water poured over it.
「I knew it. When it fought us, it didn’t have time to use it because it was quickly over, but that Antlion would normally have used acid as a weapon. I don’t know whether it would spit it out, coat its horns or inject it directly through bites though.」
「……Considering that, I guess we should be glad that we beat it quickly.」
At Rei’s words, Elena gave a sigh of relief involuntarily.
Of course, whether it was Rei, Elena, or Set, they wouldn’t go down so easily. That said, thinking of what could have happened, they didn’t want to risk needlessly damaging their weapons and armour due to corrosion.
Of course, almost all of Rei’s weapons were magic weapons that were impossible to create in the modern times and wouldn’t have been damaged by something like that.
「Any how, it won’t be much use against desert monsters, but it will certainly give me a significant advantage when fighting against enemies equipped with metal weapons and armour.」
Enemies, when hearing those words, the first thing that came into Elena’s mind wasn’t just humanoid monsters……but also people.
It was natural that humans outnumbered monsters when it came to enemies who used metal weapons.
「……Anyway, it’s hard to say if I’m happy with it or not……but I’m glad that I was able to upgrade two skills.」
「Guru~!」
Rei’s words were followed by Set’s cry, as if he were saying ‘That is right!’. Elena also nodded, shaking off the thoughts that passed through her mind earlier.
「That’s true. So, what do you want to do now? I think we should take care of that first.」
Saying that, Elena looked over at the corpses of the two Sand Ants, Skyfang, and Antlion.
Except for the for Antlion, only the magic stones had been taken from the corpses and materials had hardly been stripped from them.
After looking at the four corpses and thinking for a bit, Rei looked towards the Antlion corpse.
Its shell had already been removed and its bodied opened up and gutted, so it would be the fastest one to strip materials from.
「Let’s start with this one first.」
「That’s fine, but aside from the shell, do you now any other materials that could be used?」
「I’m going to just take everything that is likely to sell. If I store it into the Misty Ring, there’s no reason to not bring it all back.」
Elena gave an expression that it couldn’t be helped at Rei’s words and began helping to strip materials from the Antlion alongside Rei.
Set kept an eye on the surroundings to protect the two of them, ready to kill any monsters that might show up.
「Assuming the head can be left as it is……what else can be sold? The legs?」
「Don’t you have a book on monster materials? Is it not in the book?」
「I don’t think it was listed there……give me a minute.」
At Elena’s words, Rei took out a monster encyclopedia from the Misty Ring to take a look, but there was no mention of an Antlion monster.
「……I can’t find it. Is it a monster unique to this dungeon?」
「If it’s on this level, it should normally be found in deserts. In that case, would it be okay to just store the parts that are more likely to sell?」
「No, I’ll just store everything and check them out in the guild.」
Saying that, Rei stored the shell, head, organs and everything else into the Misty Ring.
「Well then, these two are the only ones left, which one do you want to start with?」
Elena looked over at the Skyfang, a snake with six wings, and the two Sand Ants, which had a protective colouring that allowed it to blend in with the sand.
Rei chose the Sand Ants without hesitation when asked which one to start stripping materials from.
The reason he chose them was because he already had experience stripping materials from Soldier Ants and a Queen Ant before and, above all, it was listed in Rei’s monster encyclopedia.
(Even so, Soldier Ants and Sand Ants. I wonder what’s the difference between them. Maybe it’s just the decision of the person who named them.)
While thinking about that, Rei stripped the shell, usable materials, and proofs of subjugation from the Sand Ants.
Of course, there weren’t just two Sand Ants. There were a lot more that they had killed that were stored into the Misty Ring.
After stripping all the materials from the first two Sand Ants, he took out more Sand Ant corpses from the Misty Ring and started removing their shells.
As for stripping materials, Rei and Elena’s roles naturally settled into Rei removing the shells and Elena taking care of the rest.
That said, the number of Sand Ants with intact shells was small, so Rei soon started helping Elena out as well.
This work continued for about an hour.
The Sand Ants were smaller in size compared to the Skyfang and Antlion, so the stripping of materials was done at a reasonably fast pace.
In addition, there weren’t that many dead Sand Ants, most having been burned to a crisp alongside their shells by Rei’s magic, so it didn’t take them long to remove all the materials they could.
The main reason it was done so quickly was mainly due to the few number of Sand Ants with intact shells, which were the most time consuming to remove.
After that, they continued to strip materials from the winged serpent, the Skyfang……which ended up taking another hour to complete.
************************************************
【Death Scythe】
『Corrosion Lv.3』 new 『Flying Slash Lv.3』 『Magic Shield Lv.1』 『Power Slash Lv.2』 『Wind Hand Lv.3』 new 『Terrain Manipulation Lv.1』
Wind Hand: A kind of colourless and transparent tentacle made of wind magic extends from the Death Scythe. Only the tip of the tentacle is able to interact with objects. At Lv.3 the tentacles can extend up to 200m.
Corrosion: Corrodes metal objects if they are cut several times. The number of cuts required decreases as level increases.
Rei’s right hand reached for the Skyfang’s magic stone.
Holding it in his right hand, he handed the Antlion magic stone to Elena.
「I’m sorry, but could you hold onto this for me?」
「Oh, that’s fine. It’s definitely a hindrance to wield the Death Scythe while holding a magic stone.」
Knowing what Rei wanted to do, Elena smiled as she held the Antlion magic stone.
Giving a small nod towards Elena, Rei picked up the Death Scythe from the ground and moved a short distance away.
「Well then, considering that the Skyfang is a powerful monster in its own right, there should be a high possibility that I will be able to acquire a skill……let’s see!」
Throwing the magic stone into the air with those words, he struck it sharply with the blade of the Death Scythe.
Sliced in half, the magic stone vanished like mist.
【Death Scythe has acquired the skill 『Wind Hand Lv.3』】
A similar announcement to the one when Set had his Optical Camouflage skill upgraded sounded in his mind.
「……What happened? As far as I can tell, it seems like you were able to learn a new skill?」
Elena asked when she saw Rei with a weird expression that was both happy and sad.
Hearing her call out to him, Rei shrugged his shoulders as he replied.
「I was able to upgrade a skill, but……」
Muttering out loud, Rei looked at the Death Scythe in his hands
「No, well……let’s give it a try. Wind Hand!」
Saying that, he activated the skill.
A colourless transparent tentacle extended from the shaft of the Death Scythe. In some ways, it wasn’t unlike Set’s Optical Camouflage, but its effect was very different.
……In addition, it use was also much more limited.
Only the tip of the tentacle could interact with the wind and it didn’t have much power on its own. No matter how hard Rei tried, it only had the strength of a light punch.
The true capability of the skill was really only demonstrated when it was used with other skills to create a fire whirl.
「……Oh, it seems like the effective distance has increased.」
At level 2, it could reach about 150m out, but using it now, Rei could sense that it had increased to 200m at level 3.
(100m at level 1, 150m at level 2, 200m at level 3……I think it’s fine to assume that it increases by 50m each time it levels up.)
If asked whether the skill was useless or not, Rei would definitely say it had its uses.
That was because it increased the effective range that fire whirls could be created at, the most powerful attack that Rei could currently use.
「Gururu~」
It seemed that Set knew that as well as he gave a cry to congratulate Rei.
「Yeah, thank you. ……If possible, I was hoping for a more powerful skill though.」
Saying that, Rei turned is gaze not to Elena……but the last magic stone she was holding.
Rei had an almost certain feeling that he would be able to acquire a skill from the Antlion monster, which was probably a fairly powerful monster on the desert floors.
However, when considering who would absorb the magic stone, Rei had to think. Whether it was Rei or Set, both of them had already acquired a skill.
That said, Rei’s upgraded Wind Hand was something that wasn’t really useful on its own.
Maybe because he understood that, Set rubbed his head against Rei to indicate that he was fine and that Rei should absorb the magic stone.
「Rei, Set seems to be saying……no, it seems like he’s trying to tell you something with his actions. Maybe you should absorb the magic stone?」
「But……」
Saying that, Rei turned to look at Set, who was rubbing his head against him.
「Gurururu~」
Set gave a cry in response and Rei stroked his head after seeing that.
「You’re right. If Set says so, I’ll let your words……no, cries, speak for yourself.」
「Guru~!」
Hearing Set’s cry, Rei placed his hand on Set’s head with gratitude before turning to Elena.
「Elena, pass me the magic stone.」
「Sure. ……I hope you can learn a skill.」
Receiving the magic stone that Elena handed over with a slight smile, he gave a small nod and moved a short distance away from Set and Elena.
(No, I’d like to learn a skill that I can use right away……please.)
Thinking to himself, Rei threw the magic stone into the air and struck it with the Death Scythe.
The next moment, the magic stone vanished like mist……
【Death Scythe has acquired the skill 『Corrosion Lv.3』】
Yes, an announcement sounded in his mind.
「……This is……」
Having no idea why he had upgraded that skill, Rei turned to look at the corpse of the Antlion lying a little further away.
「Gururu~?」
Why is it corrosion? Set also looked at the corpse in puzzlement.
Elena, perhaps wondering why the two of them were behaving like that, asked in confusion.
「Rei, what’s wrong? Looking at your reaction, not learning a skill……doesn’t seem to be the case.」
「Yeah. I definitely learned a skill, but the skill that was learned was……」
「Was it one you weren’t expecting?」
「It was corrosion. Not a new skill, but an upgrade.」
Elena tilted her head at Rei’s words.
「Corrosion? If I recall correctly, you learn skills related to the monster the magic stone came from right?」
「Yeah. For example, the Rock Spider gave Optical Camouflage……no, camouflage and invisibility are slightly different, but I guess it was similar enough……wait?」
As he said that, Rei looked at the corpse of the headless Antlion before suddenly noticing something.
Taking out his dismantling knife, he went over to the corpse and removed its shell.
Elena wasn’t sure what Rei was doing, but rather than standing around and doing nothing, she went over to help him.
After about 10 minutes, they succeeded in removing the Antlion’s whole shell, that was bigger than themselves, and cut into the body of the Antlion.
「……This is?」
Using his knife, Rei cut around organs he was unfamiliar with.
When the internal organs were shaken, one about 50cm in length made a sloshing sound as if there was some liquid inside.
「This might be dangerous, so back up for now.」
「Yeah.」
「Guru~」
At this point, they guessed what Rei was going to do and why his Corrosion skill had been upgraded. Elena’s expression tightened as she and Set, who was next to her, took some distance as they were told.
When they were far away enough, Rei threw the organ in his hand towards a rock and leapt back.
He did that just in case anything dangerous happened right after he threw it. The organ flew out at a speed that could be followed……eventually hitting a rock and tearing before spraying a reddish black liquid everywhere.
Smoke started rising at the same time.
The moment Rei saw the reddish black smoke, which looked dangerous, Rei landed next to Elena and Set.
A few seconds passed. After the reddish black smoke from where the organ landed started to clear up, what remained was a rock with a distorted shape, like a block of ice that had boiling water poured over it.
「I knew it. When it fought us, it didn’t have time to use it because it was quickly over, but that Antlion would normally have used acid as a weapon. I don’t know whether it would spit it out, coat its horns or inject it directly through bites though.」
「……Considering that, I guess we should be glad that we beat it quickly.」
At Rei’s words, Elena gave a sigh of relief involuntarily.
Of course, whether it was Rei, Elena, or Set, they wouldn’t go down so easily. That said, thinking of what could have happened, they didn’t want to risk needlessly damaging their weapons and armour due to corrosion.
Of course, almost all of Rei’s weapons were magic weapons that were impossible to create in the modern times and wouldn’t have been damaged by something like that.
「Any how, it won’t be much use against desert monsters, but it will certainly give me a significant advantage when fighting against enemies equipped with metal weapons and armour.」
Enemies, when hearing those words, the first thing that came into Elena’s mind wasn’t just humanoid monsters……but also people.
It was natural that humans outnumbered monsters when it came to enemies who used metal weapons.
「……Anyway, it’s hard to say if I’m happy with it or not……but I’m glad that I was able to upgrade two skills.」
「Guru~!」
Rei’s words were followed by Set’s cry, as if he were saying ‘That is right!’. Elena also nodded, shaking off the thoughts that passed through her mind earlier.
「That’s true. So, what do you want to do now? I think we should take care of that first.」
Saying that, Elena looked over at the corpses of the two Sand Ants, Skyfang, and Antlion.
Except for the for Antlion, only the magic stones had been taken from the corpses and materials had hardly been stripped from them.
After looking at the four corpses and thinking for a bit, Rei looked towards the Antlion corpse.
Its shell had already been removed and its bodied opened up and gutted, so it would be the fastest one to strip materials from.
「Let’s start with this one first.」
「That’s fine, but aside from the shell, do you now any other materials that could be used?」
「I’m going to just take everything that is likely to sell. If I store it into the Misty Ring, there’s no reason to not bring it all back.」
Elena gave an expression that it couldn’t be helped at Rei’s words and began helping to strip materials from the Antlion alongside Rei.
Set kept an eye on the surroundings to protect the two of them, ready to kill any monsters that might show up.
「Assuming the head can be left as it is……what else can be sold? The legs?」
「Don’t you have a book on monster materials? Is it not in the book?」
「I don’t think it was listed there……give me a minute.」
At Elena’s words, Rei took out a monster encyclopedia from the Misty Ring to take a look, but there was no mention of an Antlion monster.
「……I can’t find it. Is it a monster unique to this dungeon?」
「If it’s on this level, it should normally be found in deserts. In that case, would it be okay to just store the parts that are more likely to sell?」
「No, I’ll just store everything and check them out in the guild.」
Saying that, Rei stored the shell, head, organs and everything else into the Misty Ring.
「Well then, these two are the only ones left, which one do you want to start with?」
Elena looked over at the Skyfang, a snake with six wings, and the two Sand Ants, which had a protective colouring that allowed it to blend in with the sand.
Rei chose the Sand Ants without hesitation when asked which one to start stripping materials from.
The reason he chose them was because he already had experience stripping materials from Soldier Ants and a Queen Ant before and, above all, it was listed in Rei’s monster encyclopedia.
(Even so, Soldier Ants and Sand Ants. I wonder what’s the difference between them. Maybe it’s just the decision of the person who named them.)
While thinking about that, Rei stripped the shell, usable materials, and proofs of subjugation from the Sand Ants.
Of course, there weren’t just two Sand Ants. There were a lot more that they had killed that were stored into the Misty Ring.
After stripping all the materials from the first two Sand Ants, he took out more Sand Ant corpses from the Misty Ring and started removing their shells.
As for stripping materials, Rei and Elena’s roles naturally settled into Rei removing the shells and Elena taking care of the rest.
That said, the number of Sand Ants with intact shells was small, so Rei soon started helping Elena out as well.
This work continued for about an hour.
The Sand Ants were smaller in size compared to the Skyfang and Antlion, so the stripping of materials was done at a reasonably fast pace.
In addition, there weren’t that many dead Sand Ants, most having been burned to a crisp alongside their shells by Rei’s magic, so it didn’t take them long to remove all the materials they could.
The main reason it was done so quickly was mainly due to the few number of Sand Ants with intact shells, which were the most time consuming to remove.
After that, they continued to strip materials from the winged serpent, the Skyfang……which ended up taking another hour to complete.
************************************************
【Death Scythe】
『Corrosion Lv.3』 new 『Flying Slash Lv.3』 『Magic Shield Lv.1』 『Power Slash Lv.2』 『Wind Hand Lv.3』 new 『Terrain Manipulation Lv.1』
Wind Hand: A kind of colourless and transparent tentacle made of wind magic extends from the Death Scythe. Only the tip of the tentacle is able to interact with objects. At Lv.3 the tentacles can extend up to 200m.
Corrosion: Corrodes metal objects if they are cut several times. The number of cuts required decreases as level increases.
