Chapter 9 - 8

Who was it again that thought fighting five Giant Frogs simultaneously was a good idea? Well, that was me. And I freaking regret that decision…

'Shit! Shit! SHIT!!' Now, four Giant Frogs were chasing after me. 'I'm a freaking idiot!! Just because I evolved and gained some new skills, I thought I could fight those things en masse?! That's just ridiculous!! Damn, I hate my past self!!' Honestly, at first, it was going well. I even managed to kill one of them because of my surprise attack, but it only goes downhill after that. After killing the first frog, I rapidly charged towards the second nearest one and bit one of its legs. And because of my new and stronger fangs, I managed to pierce its skin and break its bone. Unfortunately, before I managed to finish the job, another Giant Frog had launched an attack. Of course, I managed to dodge. But then, the three goddamn frogs launched a barrage of tongue attacks simultaneously.

If it was me before evolution, I'm sure I would already be dead meat by now. But probably thanks to my newly found strength through evolution and some assistance of my new skill Swiftness, I managed to dodge those barrages of whip-like tongues. Well, that was until the fourth frog recovered and joined the fray. And now, here I am once again running for my life… 'Maybe I really deserve that title…'

Fortunately, I am way faster than before, so it didn't take too long before I lost them. While I was trying to catch my breath, I saw a new notification.

[Skill Swiftness has ranked up]

[Skill Swiftness is now at Rank C]

'Well, at least I got something good out of it. But still…' My stomach growled. That's right, ever since I woke up in this newly evolved form, I felt really starved. It was just my guess, but most likely, during the evolution process, one needed enough nutrition to sustain the process. 'This is important info. I'm not sure what will happen if the body's nutrition isn't enough, but I guess my body will automatically search for nutrition while I am asleep. In short, I will sleep eat. And if I didn't find any food… I would probably… die…' Of course, all of that was just merely my speculations. But I had a feeling that I was right. 'Looks like evolution is not all good things. I need to prepare for it next time. After all, I don't want to die in the middle of an evolution.'

While I was thinking about such things, I saw a new monster that I haven't seen before just a little distance away. 'Now that's new. Looks like Giant Frogs is not the only monster dwelling in this area.' I thought as I gazed at the clueless monster drinking on the lake. 'Oh yeah, I haven't been able to use it earlier against those Giant Frogs but I have the Assess skill. Alright, let's test it…' And so, I used Assess for the first time… But… Huh? I tilted my head in confusion because of the result.

From what I could remember from my time playing MMORPG's, it was possible to look at the details of players and important in-game objects and items. That was why when I first saw the effect of my skill Assess, I thought that I would be able to do the same. Unfortunately, the reality wasn't that convenient because the only information I saw was…

[Lizard]

And that was it… 'Hey, are you kidding me? I didn't even need to use a skill to see that.' It was seriously such a letdown. I mean, I was even excited to use it at first because it might help me get more information about this place. 'Oh well, it is still at Rank D after all. And from what I can tell, that was the lowest rank. This means that if I managed to raise its rank high enough, it might turn out to be actually useful. Besides, it isn't a rare skill, which means there are a lot of people who also have this skill. Of course, there's also a chance that it was just a trashy skill that is easy to acquire, but let's just be positive for now.'

With a sudden burst of incredible speed, I rushed at the lizard. Because of my surprise attack, the lizard wasn't able to react in time and I easily bit it in the neck. But even then, the lizard didn't just die instantly and was in fact still stubbornly resisting. I tried to hold it down by stepping and putting my weight on its back. But since it was about the same size as me, holding it down turned out harder than expected. Unfortunately, I was more stubborn and I increased the strength of my bite until its neck snapped and it finally stopped moving.

'Well, this thing is incredibly tenacious.' As I pay my respect to the lizard's tenacity, I looked around to check if there was any other enemy nearby. Once I made sure that there wasn't any, I started to drag the dead body of the lizard behind a huge boulder. 'Okay time to eat. Thank you for the meal!!'

***

It has been a few days now since I awaken to both my memories. Well, I couldn't really tell the difference between night and day in this area, but I have that convenient thing on my Status Screen that would always tell me how long I have slept so I used it to estimate how much time had passed. Of course, to survive, I always hunt for prey to eat on my way to God knows where. Well, it was not that I didn't have a goal. In fact, now that I remembered what happened, my ultimate goal was to get out of this dungeon and search for my little sister.

Based on what happened before I was allegedly teleported into this place, I'm pretty sure that my little sister was taken by those three humans. But that would also mean that my little sister was currently in a human country somewhere so searching for her meant that I need to venture into a human-populated country eventually. The problem was, I am a monster. And judging by the behavior of those three humans before, I am quite sure that the relationship between monsters and humans wasn't that friendly. The only reason I could think why those three didn't immediately kill us was that we were still a Dire Wolf Cub at that time. Probably, humans could tame monsters as long as they raise them from childhood and that's why they took my sister. So, for now, I could only hope that my sister was still alive and safe.

And so, being that the problem was I am a monster. Then I just needed to look like a human even though I wasn't one. How would I pull that off? Well, it was through evolution. Huh, you didn't understand? Okay. You see, since there was such a thing as evolution in this world, and being that I am also a member of the so-called Wolf Species. I started to think that maybe the race of Werewolves also existed in this world. And probably, I could become a member of that race since technically, Werewolves were also part of the wolf species. I mean, it was even in the name of the race itself! It may just be my speculation, but being this is a game-like fantasy world, that may actually be a thing. My only problem was how many evolutions would I need to undergo before I reached that point. That was why in the past few days, I hunted not only to eat but also to gain some levels.

By going on a hunt every single day, I managed to reach level 14. It was still a long way before evolution but it was still a form of progress. During these past few days, I hunted and ate a lot of those lizards and also some frogs. But to kill and eat a Giant Frog, I needed to find one that was separated from the others and ambush it. It was actually going well, and I was actually starting to get used to it.

Of course, being that I hunt and move around every day, I also saw some new monsters. One was also a lizard (Courtesy of my skill Assess), though it was probably the next evolution of the lizard since it was larger and looked more powerful. The other was clearly the next evolution of the Giant Frogs. That frog monster has four eyes, and it was bigger compared to a normal Giant Frog. And yes, I'm not kidding when I said it was bigger. I mean, even I thought that those Giant Frogs were big enough, I called it giant after all. But imagine my surprise when I saw something bigger than that. Yeah, I almost went nuts. And of course, I am not crazy enough to fight that thing as I am now. The same goes for the evolution of the lizard monster because I was still having a hard time killing a normal one.

Anyway, today I caught and killed three lizard monsters. Yes, I said three, and I would definitely eat all of them. Seriously though, I couldn't believe I could eat this much. This was actually one thing I have noticed. Apparently, now that I have evolved, my appetite also increased. 'I wonder if it is because I am a rare monster? Or maybe for Dire Wolves, this much is normal?' While I was eating and thinking such useless things simultaneously, I once again heard the Mechanical voice.

[Received Title: Predator]

'Oh, I got a new title!'