Chapter 333: Necessary Sacrifice

333 – Necessary Sacrifice

The treant stares down at me from above, an expression of shock on its face. My partner also doesn’t understand why I suddenly threw it, and looks up with round eyes.

I spread my wings to slow my fall, then snap my head up to flick Aro up and open my mouth towards her.

“Dr-dragon-god-sama!”

She panics and tries to stretch out to land on my nose, but I reposition and mercilessly catch her in my mouth. Her skin feels surprisingly similar to human skin, but soon my saliva dissolves he body, transforming it to mud. Oops, now’s not the time for that.

Hey partner, the petit nightmare’s thread is on you, right? Do you mind pulling on it and having it take refuge…

It was attached to her head, but detaches itself and drops. I guess it really didn’t want to be eaten. It would just be for a moment! Just a moment! It’s dangerous that way!

Its thread catches the wind, causing it slowly drifts away… It could do that?

W-well, with this Aro is taking refuge in my mouth, and the petit nightmare is far away. I also threw the treant. Now I can fight that adam thing freely in hand-to-hand combat.

It’s is springing up at me. The [High Jump] skills is surprisingly scary. When the cow used it, I thought it was a rather plain skill, but it seems to be surprisingly flexible. Though I have [Flying], so don’t need it.

It’s attack stat is high. Its movements are also fast, and its melee skills are substantial. It must be confident in its abilities to challenge a dragon like me in close combat. It must be looking down on me, thinking that it can dodge whatever my attack is, then kick me back. But I have a skill that has a good chance of making a reversal.

I throw my head forward, powerfully flinging myself forwards as I fall towards the adam. It’s the [Roll] skill. With this, no matter how much of a close combat expert it is, I won’t give it a chance to counter attack.

It stiffens for a moment in the air, then launches a kick towards me. But its leg is repelled by my scales moving at high speed. Its leg snaps as it bends in the wrong direction. I stretch out my tail as I spin, pursuing the defencelessly falling adam. It receives a direct hit and suddenly descends to the ground.

As expected, in a fight among monsters of similar stats, the advantage [Status Inspection] gives is huge. If it knew I could [Roll], it wouldn’t have recklessly tried to get close. Its back slams into the ground and in bounces up. I rush down toward it while rotating at high speed. The ground craters, and a thunderous crash resounds.

It stretches out its arm and, with a “Vaavaavaavaavaavaavaavaa,” it releases a peculiar scream. But eventually its scream breaks off and it its arm goes limp.

【4672 experience points have been acquired.】

【Due to the Title Skill [Walking Egg: Lv -], an additional 4672 experience points have been acquired.】

【The level of [Ouroboros] has risen from 92 to 96.】

It…. It’s dead. But as expected of an A- rank, it gave me an incredible amount of experience. I never thought I’d go up four levels at once, especially now my level’s so high.

Its dead eyes are open wide, staring at me. It was creepy how single-minded it was… It won’t get up later, will it? Its body is shaved away in places, and its bloodstained remains look like a prototypical human.

At any rate, I’m glad [Roll] was a clean hit. With the difference in speed and size, there was a chance it could have kept dodging me and brought me down through consecutive attacks. As it was forced into a situation where it couldn’t dodge my [Roll], the size difference ended up working in my favour. I was lucky. Its defence stat was also fairly high, so if that wasn’t enough to kill it, it would have become a protracted battle.

It might be better to keep in mind the fighting style that best suits an ouroboros for future battles. As I’m fighting now, I don’t think I’m making full use of the ouroboros’s strengths. Were to fight using my toughness and magic power, I would stand at the back while using [Fake Life] to repeatedly make allies to slow my opponent down, then when they’re weakened, swoop in to finish them off… Right, that would work best… But I don’t like using [Fake Life] much. Before that, I should try mixing [Plague Breath] and [Poison Fang] into my tactics.

I look up at the sky. The treant is just beginning to fall, so I stretch out my wings and skilfully catch it. Its momentum is killed by my wings bending, then it tumbles across the ground. It looks at me with dissatisfied eyes. I-I didn’t have a choice! That was necessary to beat it!

I suddenly remember and stick out my tongue. Aro slowly comes crawling out. Her entire body is covered in my sticky liquid and is dissolved in parts.

“…”

Crawling on the ground, she glares up at me. I quietly close my eyes and bow deeply.

The petit nightmare, who threw itself rather than be eaten, returns… Its intuition is seriously good. Taking action should be a bit easier now on this island at the farthest ends. I can’t imagine monsters like that adam will be scattered all over.

If we used [Fake Life] on its body, I’m sure we’d get a powerful monster, but I still don’t really want to. I guess I should bury it somewhere nearby… Hmm? Where’d the body go?

Glancing to the side, I see what looks like a flesh-colourd foot in my partner’s mouth.

『It’s surprisingly tasty.』

What are you doing!? Have you gone crazy!? I get that your stomach’s empty. I get that, but there are things you can and can’t do! Hey! S-spit it out! I don’t want to digest something that looks so human!

『So annoying…』

With a bored expression, she spits it out. There’s nothing left from the knee up.

『I ate it.』

Who are you going to eat next!? I don’t want to eat such a strange life form!