87 Monster Muncher

Limit Breaker wasn't the only skill perfectly suitable for Ackster. If Monster Muncher were what Ackster thought it was, it would also become a supporting pillar to the foundation of his strength in the future.

However, he wasn't sure about the skill. The original story didn't delve into the details of all the skills that existed in the world. It only mentioned and described in detail The Hero's skills and occasionally the skills of other important characters if their skills were interesting or pivotal enough to a scene, an event, or an arc.

The Dragon Slayer's skills were brought up since they were what made the Dragon Slayer the Dragon Slayer and because Kargas was an important character that affected the worldview with each move he made. Well, he had to potential to, at least. He didn't do as much as he could have since he was obsessed with dragons.

However, the character, or characters, with Monster Muncher either weren't important enough to be given an in-depth description by the author. Or, the skill itself wasn't important to those characters' strength and individuality. There was half an exception, which was why Ackster even had an idea about what the skill could do, but even they hadn't been given much attention. They had just been a warlock or the underling of one, and they became irrelevant to the original story pretty quickly after serving their purpose.

But at least they had a purpose and fulfilled a role in the original story. Unlike Ackster, they interacted with The Hero and changed his movements. Of course, it ended up with them and their warlock friend or superior – the author didn't mention their relationship in detail – dead.

But during Sessen's self-introduction, he mentioned that he and his buddy lived like they did and thrived in solitude thanks to eating monsters on the regular. It was far from the details Ackster wanted, but based on the name and how he must have gotten the skill, Monster Muncher should be related to eating monsters.

But since he had eaten more monster corpses than he wanted to count before it appeared, Ackster was sure it wasn't that simple. And that was where what Sessen had said came in. They thrived thanks to it.

Of course, it might be because they were warlocks, but it could also be the skill.

Ackster was far from sure, but he felt that it was entirely possible that Monster Muncher helped the user steal some of the consumed monsters' strength. Eating monsters helped Sessen and his companion grow stronger. And Ackster, although not in the exact same position, was also growing stronger thanks to eating monsters all the time.

He used the monster meat to rebuild his muscles into stronger, more refined versions of themselves after breaking them down by overexerting them in combat against the monsters he ate.

Ackster thrived by munching monsters. And if his hypothesis was true, and Monster Muncher made him stronger the more he monster munched, simply eating would expedite Ackster's growth as long as he ate monsters. And the more powerful monsters he ate, the more power he would gain.

It wasn't as direct or combat-related at Limit Breaker, but Monster Muncher would still be vital for Ackster's continued growth. If he were right, he would also have an easier time overcoming future walls of progress with Monster Muncher and Limit Breaker, but especially Monster Muncher.

Walls of progress were informal designations of the gaps between different ranks, which, to most, were insurmountable. The first such wall was the jump between E and D. Since it was the first wall, it wasn't that great, and Ackster had cleared it in one go. But many adventurers who had grown rapidly and burst through the first three ranks stumbled on the first wall, and their progress ground to a halt until they could break past it.

There were even a rare few who couldn't climb over it, either because they didn't dare challenge anything stronger than themselves or because they were simply incapable. Well, people like that usually weren't suited for the adventurer profession.

Ackster had cleared the wall in one go, but that didn't mean he would clear the ones ahead as easily, especially the ones in the higher ranks where the walls were more like planet-sized mountains.

But with Monster Muncher, it was only a matter of time. He just had to continue killing and eating monsters to grow stronger, strong enough to finally climb those walls.

Well, that was only if Monster Muncher worked like he hoped it did.

After looking at his Nomi a little more and feeling the differences in his skills ranks, he finished the remaining goblin meat. He hadn't even noticed he had already eaten it all until it was gone.

He had grown a lot with this and these additions to his skills, but he couldn't grow complacent. He was far from strong enough. At most, he has just taken his first few steps into the real world. He still had a long way to go before he could even start thinking about confronting The Hero. Fortunately, he still had almost an entire decade left before he had to do that.

And if he continued at this pace, he felt relatively confident he could catch up to The Hero in time for the end of the world.

Ackster shook his head.

'Nope. That's no good.'

The only thing driving Ackster to such extremes, what drove him to eat poison, torture himself, and put himself at the brink of death on a regular basis, was the overwhelming belief that he couldn't defeat The Hero unless he did those things. If he started thinking he had a chance, he would stop pushing himself to the limit, and his growth would slow down. He would lose his edge, and he would eventually die.

That couldn't happen.

Ackster wanted to live, even if he had to take dancing lessons with death to achieve it. And complacency, regardless of how minuscule it was, would be the one thing that would end up killing him.

He couldn't let that happen.