Just as Lore was lowering his body, preparing to attack at Mother Zinogre’s command, what he received instead was a low, soft growl from her telling him to stay calm and be patient.
Wait for what?
Lore was puzzled.
But after only a few seconds, this doubt was broken by the rustling sound coming from the bushes opposite.
“Snort!
Snort!
Hmph!”
Several gray, meaty projectiles—not large, but fierce and savage—rushed out from the opposite side, pounding their hooves as they charged toward the pack of feeding Jagras!
Lore was also intimately familiar with these figures; it was a group of Bullfango!
Their appearance was almost identical to the Bullfango he knew, but the Bullfango of this world had much stronger tusks and were much tougher.
“Hiss!
Ssha!
Hiss hiss hiss!”
Seeing the uninvited guests, the group of Jagras lowered their bodies and began to threaten them.
But Bullfango were single-minded creatures that only knew how to charge headlong; the Jagras’ threats were of no consequence to them.
Seeing that they were about to be driven away from the dinner table, the Jagras also put up a fight; relying on their agile bodies to dodge the savage charges, they became entangled in a brawl with the Bullfango.
Seeing this struggle for food, which looked like a street brawl, Lore couldn’t help but remark, “This is truly ‘life and ecology’ indeed.
Wouldn’t Sima Detian and TGY have an instant orgasm if they saw this?”
However, even a fight between small monsters could not be underestimated.
It wasn’t to say how powerful they were, but that it was brutal enough.
In order to earn one more bite of food on this land, several Jagras had already had their scales torn by the massive tusks of the Bullfango, with blood flowing out in trickles.
There were also a few Bullfango whose tough hides had been ripped open by sharp claws, revealing bright red flesh.
Finally, after a round of fighting, the Jagras really couldn’t overcome these blockheads and had to drag their wounds away, while those Bullfango let out high-pitched snorts, proclaiming their victory.
Seeing that group of Jagras roll out of their field of vision, the Bullfango finally lowered their bodies and began to chew on the corpse of that Tyrant Zinogre.
“‘When a whale falls, everything lives’—it seems this saying also applies to this world.”
Just as Lore was watching with fascination, Mother Zinogre suddenly issued the order to ambush.
Lore shifted his mindset and immediately entered combat mode; although Luna was a bit slow to react, she soon realized what was happening!
“Awoooo!!!”
With a sharp thunderous roar under the moonlight, Mother Zinogre pulled back the curtain on a new battle for resources!
She was the first to dash out, manipulating her giant front claws wrapped in a faint electric current as she pounced to kill an unsuspecting Bullfango!
That pack of Great Bullfangos had just gone through a fierce battle, and facing an Area Apex-level monster, they no longer had any strength to resist.
But unfortunately, Bullfangos were a bunch of brainless, stubborn beasts; seeing a new enemy appear, they still charged blindly!
Fortunately, Lore stepped forward and used [Growth], slitting the throat of a Bullfango that was about to ram into Mother Zinogre with a single claw strike!
Mother Zinogre felt truly comforted as she watched Lore’s agile figure,
but when she looked at her own daughter nearby, she couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed.
“Awoo?!
Awoo?!”
Luna was being chased and gored from behind by a Bullfango that had gone completely red-eyed,
and the moment its tusks touched the tip of her tail, a panicked Luna ran even harder.
Helpless, Mother Zinogre let out a fierce roar and, coordinating with the Thunderbugs, released a ball of lightning, finally shocking the Bullfango behind Luna’s butt into charcoal.
In no time, several injured wild boars fell completely into pools of blood,
and only after confirming that no other new predators were approaching did Mother Zinogre instruct Lore and Luna to eat quickly.
During the meal, Lore pondered the battle from just now.
“Even though Mother Zinogre clearly has the strength to completely wipe out the Jagras and Bullfangos, why did she choose to wait for them to fight each other so she could reap the benefits as a third party?”
After thinking it through carefully, Lore finally realized,
perhaps wild monsters try their best to avoid getting hurt when it’s unnecessary,
after all, wild monsters don’t have humans to heal them, and a single injury could truly cost them their lives.
Not to mention Mother Zinogre was already covered in wounds; if she added new injuries, an accident would be inevitable.
Looking at it this way, the intelligence level of large monsters in this world must be quite high.
At least the Zinogre species had demonstrated excellent thinking capabilities.
During the meal, Lore spit out a few mouthfuls of Leftovers, mixing them into the chunks of meat in front of Mother Zinogre,
Watching those wounds heal bit by bit, Lore’s heart finally began to settle.
Once the meal was finished, only half of that Zinogre’s carcass remained.
It seemed that quite a few small predators had also visited this place during the day.
Faced with the remaining Zinogre carcass, Mother Zinogre was naturally unable to carry it away,
but the carcasses of those Bullfangos could easily be carried in their mouths.
That was also hard-earned meat, and it could absolutely not be easily wasted.
So, with Mother Zinogre carrying two or three in her mouth, and Luna and Lore each dragging one, they returned to their nest at dawn.
This battle had yielded a bountiful harvest.
It was also this battle that made Lore reflect on his reckless idea of going out to hunt.
Everyone was trying their hardest to survive; aside from Lore, it was the same for the other monsters.
After a few more days of rest and recuperation,
Mother Zinogre had completely recovered thanks to Lore’s secret feeding.
This process wasn’t too fast, so she hadn’t noticed anything unusual.
Over these past few days, the carcass of the Tyrant Zinogre had also been completely devoured.
Devouring the Zinogre’s carcass didn’t increase Lore’s experience points, but those Bullfangos instead allowed him to level up to 23.
From this, Lore came to a conclusion.
Experience from large monsters could only be obtained by killing them, while experience from small creatures could only be obtained by devouring them.
Lore sighed, accepting this system setting.
If large monsters could provide two portions of experience points, that would indeed be a bit unreasonable.
It was just that his system seemed a bit underwhelming compared to those of other transmigrators.
It was hard to say, hard to rate.
But it was better than nothing; without this system, it really would have been difficult for him to pull off a counter-kill against the Tyrant Zinogre.
On this evening,
Mother Zinogre straightened her fully recovered body and set out on a hunting trip once again with her two cubs.
It was precisely these few days of going out that allowed Lore and Luna to learn a lot.
But compared to her initial excitement, Luna now showed a somewhat numb expression.
Lore’s attitude, however, was the opposite.
The more he immersed himself in hunting, the more the bloodthirsty nature in his bones was amplified!
He was a male Zinogre!
He was destined to become the new leader!
So on this outing, Lore actively took on the role of the “alpha wolf,”
staying one position ahead of Mother Zinogre whether scouting or pathfinding,
but suddenly, he came to an abrupt halt.
After twitching his nose a few times, he couldn’t help but frown.
“This scent…
is so unfamiliar?”
If it were just unfamiliar, Lore wouldn’t have cared that much, but that scent carried a faintly hidden threat.