Chapter 203 203: Just A Very Giant Squid



The return scroll was an excellent item, allowing one to travel to any destination in a flash with the only prerequisite being that it was in cooldown mode.n,o/Vel/U,S.B--,c-O/m

With this, Val could escape to safety if he encountered a perilous situation he couldn't handle during his travel.

Thus, he felt more at ease with the idea of exploring the Forest of Dread.

His strides were long and confident as he stepped outside the barrier surrounding the cave.

He looked back at the cave and thought, "This will be my base in the future."

Because of the safety it provided, Val decided to assign it as the starting point for every visit to the forest. However, it should be noted that this arrangement was only temporary. Should he stumble upon a more strategic or fortified location, he would readily designate it as his new base of operations.

'When that time comes, I will strip the cave of all its resources,' he thought.

For the same reason, he resisted the temptation to gather the precious runic stones embedded within the cave's walls. Although they could sell for a lot back in the kingdom as there were countless desperate and unfortunate people who would do anything to gain a trinket that could provide protection against the devils, if he removed them, he would lose the only safe spot in the forest, which he had to visit if he wanted to level up his sub-class class.

"The information regarding the Class Advancement Quest has changed," Val noticed that after he opened the system interface and looked at the ongoing quest.

'The second layer of the dungeon demands the annihilation of the two strongest tribes of monsters in the outskirts of the Forest Of Dread to be considered cleared. It sure is going to be tricky. After all, I don't know a thing about my targets,' Val thought.

Besides, all he knew about the forest came from Alaric's diary.

Unfortunately, the diary primarily focused on the gradual degradation of Alaric's mental state due to the attack of the Unknown, rather than the uncharted region.

While Alaric mentioned encountering beasts and devils in his diary, there were no details about their strengths or weaknesses.

Likewise, Alaric hadn't attempted to establish any connections with the tribes of monsters present in the forest.

He likely either deemed it beneath him to interact with monsters or thought it would be futile.

After all, not every monster tribe, such as the tribe of Shadow Drake variants, could speak the kingdom of Victoria's national language. Also, considering the tendency of monsters to attack, kill, and eat humans as soon as they see them, establishing effective communication with them would be challenging and nearly impossible for a human.

Val had made the impossible possible only because he fooled the Shadow Drake Variants into believing he was a Devil God.

Technically, he was indeed a Devil God, but there was a vast difference between him and the renowned Devil God of the Forest of Dread.

Chitters!

The sound snapped Val out of his deep contemplation. Snapped out of his deep contemplation by the sudden chittering nearby, Val quickly turned to the source of the noise. What met his gaze was a bizarre spider creature rushing towards him while emitting a shrill screech.

This monster was twice as tall as him. Its upper half resembled a humanoid with six penetrating black eyes, while its lower half was distinctly arachnid - complete with eight long, hairy legs. And it was practically screaming murder.

'Seems like it's here to kill me,' Val thought with a smirk. 'Of all the things it could've chosen to prey on, it just had to choose me. It's really an unfortunate sucker.'

The very the next moment, Val's disposition underwent a noticeable change. The playful air surrounding him vanished, leaving only a cold-blooded and stone-hearted killer.

Without any warning, the half-human and half-spider monster had lunged at him, provoking him and earning his ire. While he didn't have the opportunity to inspect its stats in detail, its aura was discernibly weaker than the chieftain of the Shadow Drake variant tribe. Thus, he was able to determine it was not strong enough to overwhelm him as its presence was weaker than the chieftain of the Shadow Drake variant tribe.

'Since there is no reason to run away from this fight or even take it seriously, why not use it as an opportunity to test out the extent of my new ability?'

As this thought crossed his mind, Val responded to the sudden attack with the Shadow Bind spell.

From beneath the creature's many feet, shadows surged upwards, coiling around its legs and torso like tendrils, rendering it immobile. Although it thrashed around violently, it failed to free itself from the shadowy bindings. Even biting proved to be useless as its teeth left not a scratch on it.

'It is actually able to immobilize such a huge and ferocious monster. This spell performance rivals bloodline skills. And maybe this is not the extent of its capabilities,' Val thought as he began to move towards the immobilized monster to deal the final blow.

As he drew closer, the monster's struggles intensified. While trying to free itself, it spewed out webs from its mouth, but Val moved swiftly and gracefully like thunder and a gust of wind, dodging all the incoming projectiles while charging up to the monster.

"This is the end!"

With the creature securely bound by the Shadow Bind spell, Val, with swift precision, thrust his sword straight into its chest. The monster's three pair of eyes grew dim and lifeless.

'It is dead just like that? Maybe it's acting.'

Because of his suspicious nature, Val found it difficult to believe that a monster would have such a weakness that was common in humans.

However, a notification from the system made him realize he was being over-cautious for no reason.

[Ding!]

Congratulations, Host! You have successfully eliminated an Arachnidus Mortalis.

EXP earned: +300!

'So it's really dead,' Val discovered the greatest weakness of Arachnidus Mortalis. The notification that popped up from killing the monster was a clear confirmation that, much like humans, the heart was Arachnidus Mortalis's vulnerability!

With the monster now defeated, Val turned his attention to the expansive forest. The heavenly eye skill was once again activated by him. The forest was immensely vast, but its entire outskirts, which stretched for miles, became transparent to him much like a book he could read.

To his astonishment, he discerned that hundreds of tribes called the outskirts of this forest home. Identifying the two strongest among them was akin to finding a needle in a haystack.

And if he tried to resolve this through violence, considering he takes down three tribes a day before returning home so that he won't be reported as missing by Eliana, it would still take him a few months.

This estimate didn't even take into account the cooldown period of the Return Scroll, implying the ordeal might stretch on even longer.

Thus, Val realized he needed an alternative strategy to tackle the most time-consuming task of the second layer of the class advancement dungeon.

'There has to be another way.'

And so Val racked his brain to come up with a solution.

Communicating directly with the Monster Tribes was out of the question. The linguistic barrier made it impossible to reason with them or obtain information without resorting to violence.

With this in mind, he contemplated leaving the forest temporarily to seek help from the Kingdom of Lumorion.

The Lumorions, being native to this region, would likely have insights into the forest's political structure. They might be able to shed light on the identities and locations of the dominant tribes in the outskirts. Moreover, since Alaric had lived amongst them, there might be someone amongst them who speak his language.

'Chances are communication might not be impossible.'

The exit of the forest wasn't far from his location. It was only an hour's walk away. If he sprinted, it might take even less time. However, before he could undertake this journey, Voidslayer reported its odd finding to Val, "Master, there's something odd about that mountain in the distance. I think it's coming closer to us!"

There was indeed a range of mountains in the distance, and one of them seemed to have moved closer to their location.

But the truth was far more interesting and horrifying than how it was represented to Voidslayer.

It's because of the distance!

Because of the hundreds of miles of distance between them, only a silhouette of a mountain could be seen by Voidslayer.

However, due to his heavenly eye, Val was able to get a clear view of it, and what he saw left him shocked to the core.

He was like a man that had stumbled upon a devil. However, because he couldn't feel fear, his reaction was only one out of three parts similar to one.

"It's not a mountain. It's a brown squid that's so freaking gigantic its triangular head looks like a sky-piercing mountain from afar!" he exclaimed in a voice overflowing with surprise.