Demonic Devourer's Development

In total, I got about six million EXP from the village. A good chunk to get at once. And of course, I had a protege now, who had a really green face for a while after we have left the village, and stank of shit for even longer.

Gi kept to himself most of the time, which was fine by me. He wasn't much of a burden, either. He walked quietly, without attracting unwanted attention, and though he smelt, that must've diverted more predators from us than attracted. When I had to kill some beast or another that attacked us, he hid away without a need to be told to, and stayed there until I was done. His poor eyesight wasn't a problem either, since I was a walking, talking lamppost right now.

Sadly, he had his limitations, too. After a few hours of walking, I noticed him lagging behind more and more. He started to move the bag he gathered from the village from one shoulder to another. A few times I stopped to let him catch up, then had enough of it and the hungry grumbling that was coming more and more often from his stomach.

I stopped dead where we were. "Make camp, pipsqueak! I declare nighttime."

"You aren't tired yet. I can keep going, too," Gi said with a stubborn expression.

I hissed at him. "Don't ever you lie to me, or I will make you sign a magical slave contract when we get to the surface. Do you know what it is?"

Gi wordlessly shook his head.

"It's a piece of nasty, but very useful magic. I can write anything for you to follow, and if you fail in that, it will drain your stats. First slowly, then faster and faster, until you die. I heard that it's very painful." I smiled at the memories of Pest's pained howls. "Encourages trust, isn't it? I think forcing one on you would really be clipping your wings, pipsqueak, but don't think I won't do that if I have doubts about your trustworthiness."

"I-I get it."

"Great. Plus, denying your weaknesses does nothing to destroy them. Remember that."

After imparting these words of wisdom on the boy, I set up a few webs around the place to protect him while I would be out, made sure he knew where they were—not like he could see them—and left. I took Gi's primary source of light with me, of course, but he had some spare glowshrooms with him. Not that I'd leave him the stone if he hadn't; I wasn't trusting him with it.

I wandered around until I found a giant spider. With my improved stats and abilities, even this insect overpowered on rainbow water wasn't close to a match for me. Just a prey… a snack, one can say. I ate most of it, but left behind half of the legs for Gi. The crunchiest and the juiciest bit, if you ask me—this is how crab legs tasted like in my imagination.

My generosity astounded me, truly.

"You dinner, pipsqueak. Eat a lot, it makes people stronger… Even if they aren't me." I dropped the batch of legs, each as long as I was tall if you straightened them out, but curled into circular shapes.

Gi didn't hesitate. In fact, instead I saw, for the first time, some joy on his face. It disappeared when he looked at me again. Yeah, I wouldn't expect gratitude from him. "I can eat all of them?"

I looked at the legs, then at Gi, then at the legs again. "If you manage, sure. I will get more later. I have to hunt a lot while I can, anyway." This entire area with uber-monsters that once were so dangerous, now became a hunting ground where each monster was like a "kill one, get five times the EXP" special offer.

Gi said nothing more and bit down into his food. Rawness of it didn't bother it like I half-expected… Though, these cave dwellers didn't use fire, anyway. And yes, Gi ate the legs just like if they were a crab's, by sucking the meat out of them.

When he was done, I crunched down the chitin—it was full of EXP, too, and tasted a little salty because of the leftover meat on the inside—in front of wide-eyed Gi and went hunting again, taking only a short nap closer to the established by me "morning".

This is how it continued to go. I had to stop more often than I did on my own with Gi as my company, but I compensated for it by spending time hunting, and gathered EXP to level up my abilities again, and to feed some to Pest.

I had some tough choices to make. Say, my stinger fell to disuse now that my claws became so OP. These claws cost twelve times as much, so it balanced itself out, but now I wondered if it would be worth it to level my 'Poisonous Stinger' up.

Then, there were my sensory abilities. A part of me really felt like gathering an entire set. Maybe it would unlock some rare merging? That would've been nice. Then again, if we were going senses, I'd need 'Magic Sensitivity', too, wouldn't I? And I've only seen Pest with it before.

I'd eat him in a moment if only I could.

There were new abilities to pick up from the monsters around, too. Nothing that stood out too much, though. Yeah, ability to run on walls is nice, but why would I need it when I can fly? A whip-like tail you could use both as a weapon and for balance was something I thought about more, but in the end, found it a waste of EXP. It wouldn't raise my power tremendously, and picking up attachments for the sake of small increments in it would end up just turning me into a chimera that can barely walk without stumbling on its own feet.

But, some choices I did make.