A huge vertical cave gaping straight downward.
Right before entering it, I got knifed.
STA-B!
Something I took to be a tooth pierced into my side.
The moment I jerked my body back in surprise, follow-up hits came in at my back.
STA-B! STA-B! STA-B! STA-B!
A pointed, sharp pain ran piercing through the inside of my tender body.
'Quit it. I've had my fill already.'
Only then did I activate the 'Ironclad Skin' trait.
This hardening skill, gained from taking down the mimic, sets my body as hard as iron plate.
'I activated it a beat late on purpose, you punk.'
You might ask what use it is to harden your skin after being stabbed.
But this was all my plan.
SQUEEEEZE—
As the skin around the teeth lodged in my body turned hard as stone, I felt my opponent panic.
SQUEEZE— SQUEEEEEEZE......
It could no longer pull out the teeth it had driven into my body.
'You got to stick it in as you liked, but pulling it out isn't up to you, you know.'
Reciting a rather frightening line, I coiled my hard tentacles around the enemies.
'Now let's see the face of whatever bastard this is.'
My hardened tentacles coiled around the enemy's body.
In that state, I turned my light on low.
Before long, the attacker's identity was revealed.
'......!'
Startled, I opened my eyes wide.
What was before my eyes was a round, spiky monster of a blackish purple.
-<Hell Urchin Spiker>
-A sea urchin that carries a deadly poison.
Should you so much as step on one by mistake, you can suffer a permanent disability.
-Combat Power: 50
-Traits: <Deadly Poison Stinger>, <Ankle Mine>, <Ambush>, <Snare Trap>
A sea urchin.
It is a low-grade monster species that rules the continental slope of this seabed.
This monster, which looks like a wicked chestnut burr, forages by crawling very slowly over the floor of the deep sea, and once it settles in one spot it hardly moves.
The spines that bristle densely over its body can be stowed beneath its skin, and when the need arises it shoots them out like springs to stab an enemy.
A powerful poison lies in the tips of the spines, so once you are stabbed even a single time, your whole body is paralyzed.
However.
'I've got some degree of resistance to poison.'
I had been able to survive thanks to a trait called 'Basic Poison Resistance.'
And was my Combat Power not far higher than the sea urchin's to begin with?
I stretched out my hardened tentacles and tore the sea urchin open between its spines.
CRACK! CRUNCH!
When the sea urchin's body tore open, yellow innards popped out from inside.
I sucked out the sea urchin's soft flesh without hesitation.
SLUUUUURP!
Salty and fishy.
A taste with a certain freshness to it.
It was not much different from the taste of the sea urchin roe I had eaten at a Japanese restaurant.
'It's a taste the people who like it would like.'
I, of course, dislike it.
Because I don't much like seafood.
Just then.
-DING-DONG!
The status window changed.
-<Kraken 'Juvenile Form': Lantern Anglerfish Ghost Tentacle>
-The juvenile form of some cephalopod.
It has taken on a fair shape, but it is still weak and immature.
Trailing an eerie light from the tips of its tentacles, it swims the threshold of the abyss.
-Grade: ★ (1-Star)
-Combat Power: 1,606 [+50]
-Traits: <Absorption>, <Basic Poison Resistance>, <Cannibalism>, <Powerful Luminescence>, <Ironclad Skin>, <Sticky Ink>, [+]<Deadly Poison Stinger>
'Oh!'
I had taken one good trait from the sea urchin.
'Deadly Poison Stinger.'
A very decent trait.
-<Trait: Deadly Poison Stinger>
-Injects a powerful poison into the enemy's body. Reduces the opponent's Combat Power by 1 per second.
A highly threatening means of attack against an enemy with no poison resistance.
With this trait the body takes on a faint purple tinge, so it is also a means of defense that makes natural enemies steer clear on their own.
'Light, hardness, ink, and now deadly poison on top. There'll be hardly any chance of a natural enemy of my own class attacking me first now.'
Dazzling, hard, sticky, and carrying a bothersome poison besides, so who would take me for prey?
My early survival odds could now be said to have gone up considerably.
'It's a pity I have no attack techniques, though. If I hadn't eaten the star and been promoted to a 1-Star monster, I might have starved to death.'
As I was now, I had nothing you could call a proper attack technique.
I recalled the kin I had seen before.
The kin that had evolved into the higher species called 'Blade-Tooth Madam.'
'......That one had plenty of attack techniques, though.'
How good would it be to have even one technique like that right now?
Then I would be able to hunt prey far faster and more steadily.
'Still, it's because I'm alive that I get to feel regret at all.'
Had I not plastered myself with survival techniques and defense techniques early on, I would already be dead.
'First, let me raise my Combat Power a bit. If I meet a natural enemy with poison resistance, I could get eaten.'
I felt the need to raise my Combat Power for the sake of stable survival.
'For that...... I'll need a safe place where I can hunt and absorb over and over.'
Wandering around the cave alone like this was dangerous.
Because, as with the giant hermit crab last time, I could trespass on a strong enemy's territory without meaning to.
'I'd better make a territory of my own too.'
Only then would I be able to bring prey back and absorb it with an easy mind.
***
...BANG, BANG!
I was now building a house.
I had found a cave so narrow that a single body could barely squeeze in, and stood the mimic's shells up around it.
SPRAY—
When I stood the mimic's shells up, spouted sticky ink and stuck them to the wall.
SMACK—
They stuck fast, as if glue had been sprayed on.
After that, when I laid out a few deadly poison sea urchins around the mimic's shells.
'......Hideout complete!'
Sea urchins are only worth 50 Combat Power each anyway, so laying them out near the hideout like this is more of a gain than eating them.
The sea urchins kept trying to wander off somewhere, so I shared out the leftover bits of clownfish I had been eating, and only then did they settle down in front of the hideout without complaint.
'I'll give you my leftovers, so guard the house well. Don't go anywhere.'
With the mimic's hard shells and the sea urchins' poison spines, most enemies would not dare break into my hideout.
And on top of that.
'This place is warm for some reason.'
This small gap in the rocks, closer to a crack than a cave, was somehow nice and warm.
When I wedged my body into the dark gap and lay still, I went pleasantly limp, as if toasting myself on a heated ondol floor.
'Is there a hot spring or something running inside?'
Anyway, it was quite a stroke of luck to have found a place this dark, narrow and warm.
Warm places have plenty of prey too, so in many ways I had picked a good site for a home.
BLINK— BLINK— BLINK—
Hidden behind the mimic shells and the sea urchins' poison spines, I gave off light from a tentacle.
My light lure, twinkling on and off.
Before long, a piece of prey came near, bewitched by the light.
What mostly came were clownfish with a Combat Power of 1, or whiting with a Combat Power of 2.
-<Clownfish>
-A small, colorful fish.
It is also called the clown among the anemones.
It seems to be resistant to the poison of some anemones.
-Combat Power: 1
-Traits: <Faint Poison Resistance>
-<Whiting>
-A small, plain-looking fish.
It seems to be resistant to hot things.
It is on the tasty side.
-Combat Power: 2
-Traits: <Faint Flame Resistance>
The clownfish at least raises poison resistance a little, but the whiting is truly useless.
'Since there's not much call for flame resistance underwater.'
But every resistance has its use if you stack it up.
I diligently ate clownfish and whiting.
Now and then a skull octopus with a Combat Power in the 500s showed up, but.
'Take my poison stinger.'
The moment it was hit by the poison stinger on the tip of my tentacle shooting out of the hideout, its body went rigid, and it was dragged straight into the sea urchin field and poisoned to death.
'I feel like I've become an assassin in the dark.'
I thought, retrieving the poison stinger on my tentacle tip that I had driven into the octopus's neck.
-<Kraken 'Juvenile Form': Lantern Anglerfish Ghost Tentacle>
-Combat Power: 3,021
My Combat Power had risen quite a lot.
It was thanks to having finished off as many as two octopuses and eaten a great many clownfish and whiting in small bites.
'Hiding in a narrow, dark, warm place, armed with shells and poison stingers, luring prey with light? There's no farming this sweet as hell anywhere.'
Just then.
CLATTER— CLATTER— CLATTER—
Up ahead, more prey was approaching.
......But then?
THUNK— THUD— WHAM!
This prey approaching now was no ordinary thing.
With a build as hefty as mine, it was coming closer, sweeping aside the sea urchins around it.
WHAM! WHAM! THUD!
Judging by how it swept aside the deadly poison mines I had laid as if they were nothing, it seemed to have poison resistance or a very hard body.
Before long.
BLINK—
I shot my light straight at it.
With that, the unfamiliar visitor's identity was laid bare.
A hard chitin shell, a back shell angled in six directions, two eyeballs rising upward, thick pincers studded with spines.
-<Worker Crant-Nauplius>
-A bizarre creature with the appearance of a crab and the habits of an ant.
It endures its present weak period, waiting for the day it evolves into a higher species.
-Combat Power: 1,034
-Traits: <Nest>, <Servant>, <Burrowing>, <Scissor Cut>, <Pincer Hammer>, <Crab-Foam Bullet>
Overall it looked like a crab, but two more small shells were joined on behind its shell.
An appearance like a crab and an ant put together.
CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK—
This Work-Crant was crawling toward where I was, busily working its ten legs.
I scratched my forehead with a tentacle.
'Right. This zone was those things' hunting ground.'
Between the upper layer and the middle layer of the deep sea there exist several powerful colony forces, that is, the 'Cartels of Predators.'
I had to go down below to escape the end of the world, so I would inevitably have to pass through their territories, and friction was naturally bound to arise.
'Damn it. I thought this home site was too good to be true.'
I thought, hardening my whole body stiff.
I had the feeling that this might turn out to be quite a hassle.