Crash

'...'

Gazing at me with her two round dots I didn´t know what to do. Thankfully, Sahra turned around and began to walk away while stretching her body. 'I wonder what she is thinking about right now...'

Going back to what I wanted to do, I opened the leather top of the backpack. Instead of a small mountain of cores, I could see an egg that was happily absorbing one of the remaining eight monster cores.

*Slurp* *slurp* *slurp*

...

I mean seven.

Seeing the egg consuming another monster core my eyes widen, as I readied to pull it away and keeping it from eating all our ration.

'How does it even do it?! It is an egg for god's sake... All our hard-earned monster cores just gone like that?!', seethed I in anger.

But remembering the burst of happiness I just received I clenched my mouth shut and let it go. 'Tss, I will let you go this time. Those monster cores are useless to us anyway...'

Finishing checking on the egg I slithered past the rubbles and helped Sahra search for an away when I heard a sudden explosion.

*Boom*

*Crash*

Crashing next to us a cloud of dust and debris flew through the air. Being engulfed by the dust I went into a coughing fit and waved my tail in front of me, trying to clear the air. 'Damn it, what now!'

Getting annoyed at everything about this world, except Sahra, I cursed whoever or whatever just crashed only three meters away from me.

*Ding*

[You teased death gaining 3 intelligence!]

Well, at least I got some intelligence...

A few seconds later the dust settled and I could see something twitching inside the crater. Sahra rushed towards me after hearing the loud crash and stood beside me. Focusing my eyes I could see a bloodied creature laying in the middle of the crater. I could hardly recognize that it was a bear with all those wounds on its body. It was barely breathing with a dent in the skull, two missing legs, and bones poking out.

Looking in the distance I could see nothing but trees. Seeing the dying monster´s eyes begging me to kill it my eyes turned sharp, 'I won´t say no to free exp.'

Slithering down the crater I looked at the mutilated bear that was three times the size of a normal grizzly bear. Sahra just silently stood on the edge of the pit and watched me with a worried gaze. Bearing my fangs I bit into the bear's neck before pouring my venom in it, killing it in seconds.

The bear´s eyes slowly closed as it took its last breath.

*Ding*

[You have slain a young inferno bear!]

[241 Exp gained!]

[You leveled up!]

'It wasn´t even fully grown! And how strong must it have been to give me so much exp just for last hitting it?!'

Imagining a giant 10-meter long bear swinging its paws a shiver ran down my back. Now that the bear was dead Sahra walked towards the bear and plunged her dagger into its side. Seeing Sahra digging into the flesh I slightly grimaced at. Carving out a good chunk of meat out she pushed both of her arms inside the bear before pulling out a massive red monster core. It was 4 times the size of the purple one that I found inside the Nagirus infested temple on the first floor.

Putting the core to the side, she began to skin the giant bear while occasionally cutting small pieces of meat off and eating it. Seeing her munch on the bloody meat I slightly drooled. As if feeling my gaze she sliced a few pieces of meat into bite-size and laid it in front of me. 'Damn that looks like a fine uncooked steak. If only we had a fire to cook it... Never mind that beggars can´t be choosers and I am too hungry to somehow cook it anyway.' and swallowed the small cut pieces one after the other.

The disappointment I felt after realizing that I couldn't state my hunger was enormous, but I continued to eat as the meat tasted delicious... even if it was bloody and raw.

A few minutes passed when Sahra began to dismantle the inferno bear. She laid the fur on a flat stone in the sun and cleaned it from any flesh stuck on it. 'I wonder what she is doing with the bear fur.'

The bear now looked even worse than before, with now a skinned body and big chunks of flesh missing. I grimaced but didn´t feel any disgust at the sight. 'Maybe I am already getting used to the sight of gore and mutilated monsters... is that a good thing?'

Making myself useful I slithered back towards the backpack, but on the way back I notice a hole that was uncovered due to the bear crashing down.

Not taking any risk of getting jumped by a random monster I tossed a stone down the hole. After a few seconds of silence, I slithered down the hole. To my surprise, it was quite wide and was 50 meters long. The whole tunnel looked man-made and was out of stone. Seeing a light at the end of the tunnel I unconsciously speed up. I soon reached the opening but had to shield my eyes from the bright light. Peeking my head through I saw another forest, but this one had more fauna and the air was ever so slightly moister than the first and second floor. I could even hear birds chirping and some monsters in the distance roaring.

Not wanting to stay here too long and get ambushed by a monster, or worse a human I slithered back up so I could inform Sahra about my finding. Once outside the hole, I could see Sahra searching for me with a panicked face. Spotting me peaking out of a hole in the ground she rushed towards me. Grinning at her I signed at her to follow me. Pushing a few rubbles away she made the hole big enough for her to go through. Stepping on the grass she looked at the forest in front of us and smiled. I didn´t know why she was so happy about reaching the third floor, but I am just glad that she is happy.

Getting back we packed our things, but while Sahra was carrying the backpack noticed it getting lighter and almost ate the egg after noticing that it consumed all the cores that we gathered. Now, all we have left is a big monster core from the bear and its fur. Luckily I could calm her down, but she still shook and threw the egg out of anger and now I had to carry it with my mouth.

Reaching the third floor, stepped inside the forest and were immediately being attacked by a tree.

It opened its bark as dozens of sharp branches shooted towards us. Dogging them effortlessly Sahra cut the tree monster down with a swift strike. The monster was pathetically weak, 'wow that was easy...'

Noticing that the monster didn´t have a monster core we continued our walk, but not even going hundreds of meters another appeared. After crushing this one, I noticed something strange. It didn´t give any exp... 'Hmmm strange, but at least they are easy to deal with.'

Getting slightly suspicious about those monsters we continued, just to see two of them appear Killing them as fast as we could we began to fasten our pace.

A vain nearly popped as now three of those walking trees appeared.

'It surely is just a coincidence, right?'