Chapter 173 - New Creatures

I furrowed my brows.

"Do you see anything?"

The red piece of paper crumpled up slightly.

"Um, I see a strange creature with a large mouth in front of you."

I tilted my head to the side, looking at my front with my blindspot. Then, sure enough, I saw something. It looked relatively humanoid, but its skin was also black. The overall body was rather thin while the face consisted of one large jaw, as Noah said before.

Suddenly, this creature jumped towards me.

I immediately sidestepped out of the way. My vision of the creature was lost, but I could still generally tell where it was and thus shot my hand out in that direction.

Along with an uncomfortable squelch, I was immediately greeted with a warm fleshy feeling. Not planning on wasting time, I dug in deeper, mutilating whatever this strange creature was.

Once I turned to look at it, I saw that the creature was trying to bite my head off with its jaws, but was just barely out of reach. It struggled intensely in my grip, but it eventually slowed until it couldn't move anymore.

And with that, I retracted my hand and let the corpse fall onto the floor.

When I didn't directly look at it, my hand looked perfectly clean. However, I could tell from the strange feeling that it was definitely covered in blood and guts. After letting out a soft sigh, I clicked my tongue.

"I should probably get a weapon."

With that, I pulled out a random branch in a nearby tree and began to sharpen it. The piece of paper looked at me as though confused.

"Um, are you sure that will be a proper weapon?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Anything that is both sharp and doesn't make me feel weird should be fine."

The piece of paper fell silent, as though still confused. However, it didn't question me any further.

My other arm was still missing, albeit not too much of it.

Constantly tearing it off after healing it made it so that a rather large amount of blood and flesh was on the ground below me. As for what that could possibly attract, I wasn't exactly sure. However, I also didn't really care that much.

And so, after making the wooden stake, I continued to force the tree to grow so that I could continue eating. And to continue eating, I tore off the flesh on my arm and casted the healing spell.

My mind was beginning to feel rather exhausted. Although the healing spell was quite gentle, greatly suppressing the pain, the constant ups and downs of feeling hurt then not, was a ride I was not prepared for.

But thankfully, things weren't too bad. By the time the healing spell reached my wrist, I no longer had to peel away my flesh. Half of my hand regrew with the first healing spell while the rest of it came back after the second.

I slowly moved the fingers of my newly healed hand, getting used to the sensation once more.

And from there, I started to leave.

However, it seemed that not everything wanted me to leave. After all, there were quite a few of the creatures from earlier surrounding me.

I no longer needed to use my blindspot to look at them, as they were now completely visible to me.

I rubbed my chin with my thumb and forefinger.

"Well, this is probably not the best situation to be in."

The piece of paper seemed to panic slightly.

"Um, it seems that they can see you now!"

I nodded.

"Yeah."

Suddenly, the creatures charged forth, screeching loudly and with their jaws wide open. I raised my new stake to an arbitrary creature. Then, my eyes widened while my pupils constricted.

Right when the creatures were about to sink their jaws into my flesh, I disappeared. One of the creatures had a new hole in its body. In the next moment, it spewed out blood before collapsing.

The creatures immediately froze before turning to me. It was pretty hard to miss, given the wild winds whipping around me.

However, I didn't think they were ready.

Immediately upon reappearing, I began casting the vine spell. By the time I finished, the creatures began charging towards me. A tiny vine sprouted from the palm of my hand before rapidly growing.

I backpedaled rapidly, avoiding the creatures that closed in, waiting for the vine to grow further. The closest creature pounced towards me, with black saliva still dripping from its sharp teeth.

I retaliated with the vines, wrapping them around its body and restraining its movement. The creature struggled intensely, and was even on the verge of breaking out. But the vines continued to grow larger, and consequently more powerful.

It did not take long for its struggle to be rendered pointless.

As I continued to backpedal, the other creatures got much closer. They let out annoyingly high-pitched roars and were about to lunge for me.

But the vines coming from my hand had already grown too large. An audible series of cracks resounded from them, as the creature inside was crushed. With all the strength I could muster, I swung with the vines in a full circle.

Several loud crashing sounds resounded.

Large gales of wind were stirred up, shooting outwards almost like a shockwave. One after another, the creatures were smashed into pieces. Their blood and body parts scattered high into the air.

That was the same for the surrounding trees and branches. When the vines hit against them, they directly smashed through, splitting the trees and branches apart and sending them up into the sky as well.

For a brief moment, everything felt calm.

Then, the loud crashing sounds of everything falling onto the ground reverberated one after another.

I looked at the vines that had formed from my hand.

"These things are pretty useful."

The piece of paper's red light brightened slightly.

"You can even use the spell like this?"

I turned to Noah with a bit of confusion.

"What? Is there something wrong with the way I'm using it?"

The piece of paper began to mumble.

"But most magical users would use that spell to restrict others using it, as it would take far too long and far too much mana to actually use it in other ways. Not to mention, the lack of control."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Well, they grew pretty fast for me."

The piece of paper let out a soft hum.

"I suppose there are some mages out there that could replicate a similar feat, but they also have much better spells that are simply more effective than the vines one. Do you not have a better alternative than this?"

I let out a soft sigh.

"I don't know any better spells. The only ones I've gotten to learn so far were the elementary ones and this intermediate one."

The piece of paper let out a small gasp.

"You have such a strong mana aptitude despite knowing hardly any spells? How is your mind able to collect mana so easily?"

I tilted my head to the side.

"Well, I'm a constitution mage, so I wouldn't really know about that."

The piece of paper paused.

"A what?"

I raised an eyebrow.

"The mages that use their body to forcibly cast spells, does that not ring a bell?"

The necklace trembled.

"That doesn't sound familiar to me..."

I blinked a few times.

"I guess they weren't around during your times."

The piece of paper suddenly spoke up.

"Wait! I remember now. I've only heard it through rumors, but apparently, someone discovered that it was possible to absorb mana without aptitude if one uses their body. However, I thought it was fake as the people I knew without aptitude tried to absorb mana that way but were never able to succeed."

I raised both eyebrows.

"Really? It came pretty easy to me."

The piece of paper trembled.

"I remember... there was this one mage with low aptitude that did it for his particular element, but that was it."

I rubbed my chin with my thumb and forefinger.

"So I'm actually pretty good at magic?"

The piece of paper waited for a second to respond.

"I suppose so?"

I looked at the vines that sprouted from my hand. They had grown to be several meters long and began covering up my arm.

"Say, what if I continued to make this bigger. Wouldn't that just let me kill everything here even if they are super scary?"

The piece of paper trembled.

"Um... I don't think that would be a good idea. As the vines get bigger, one may find it hard to even keep them from moving. There was once a mage that accidentally killed himself in that fashion."

I narrowed my eyes.

"Huh, I guess this is an ok size for now."

The necklace suddenly interjected into the conversation.

"Hey, what are those?"

I looked over, to see what appeared to be weeds.