Quill moved to the far side where the cliffs were in hopes of dodging the monster. Since it was currently trudging along in the center of the strip, he decided to pick the side area that didn't have dangerous e-grade monsters to it. That lesson had been learned.
As they got closer to intersecting Grey started calling out inside his head trying to get the monster's attention. “Come on big guy! This human here is super easy to kill, free experience even! He even said it himself that he is super delicious and I can absolutely attest to that but perhaps not in the way you are thinking! Why I've never seen such an easy piece of prey in forever! Yum Yum Human meat!”
“Would you please stop. The thing can't hear you and all you're doing is giving me a headache.”
“ Again I can feel what you feel and I know you are not getting a headache. Also I'm trying to communicate with it telepathically.”
That gave Quill pause “ Wait, you can do that?”
“ I haven't been able to yet but I think given enough time practice and dedication it should be easy going.” Grey spoke with confidence
“Then I pity any fool who must suffer the same way that I suffer.”
“See you say that. but I have it on good authority that you still enjoy me and love it when I talk.”
He couldn't help but let out a laugh at the ridiculous statement. “And whose authority is that?”
“ Mine.”
He just rolled his eyes, of course she would answer that way. That woman had way too much self confidence.
“Is it really self confidence if you are always right? By the way you might want to pay attention to your surroundings and not get distracted by little ol me. There is a monster that is nearby after all.”
“What do you mean-” he stopped mid sentence as the giant fucking rhino looking thing was charging straight at him.
“ Please tell me you didn't just unlock the ability to communicate telepathically.”
“Sadly no, but all you're talking out loud sure got its attention pretty quickly.”
Great so it was a rhino that had super hearing. He casted a quick identify towards the creature to see what he was working with.
Landshark Bullet (adolescent)
level 36
These creatures can move through the earth like it was nothing more than water and will only pop out of the ground when hunting. The adults faceplate are quite prized for shields and armor
identify as leveled up!
So not a rhino and not anything related to a rhino. He didn’t really want to call it a shark though because it looked nothing like one. In fact, as it got closer he did notice the claws on the things giant paws that easily kicked up dirt as it ran making it look even less like a shark!
“You sure are being very relaxed about this. I mean I agree it doesn't really resemble a shark at all but are you sure this is where your mind should be going right now?”
“Eh, as weird as this may sound, while it does look threatening and probably is, I'm just not getting much of a threat from it on a personal level.” he responded as he backed a little more towards the edge of the cliff.
He didn't want to fight it initially because of the unknown and he didn't know how dangerous the monster was. Plus he just didn’t want to be killing unnecessarily. But if it was going to force his hand it was going to force his hand.
When the landshark got in a couple hundred meters of him it suddenly leapt up into the air and dove down into the ground like it was nothing more than water. He supposed the monster did have a shark in its name but what he just witnessed almost seemed like it went against the laws of physics.
“You know that brings up an interesting question about how magic fits into physics, or if even physics matter anymore? Assuming magic is even at play here”
He just shrugged in response and jumped to the side, not even needing his survival Instinct skill warning him about the attack that erupted from where his feet had been.
The monster burst from the ground, thrashing its head every which way only to be met with Quills' pizza cutter as it sliced down into the creature's face and carved through it. Then for good measure he manifested some of his spider legs and stabbed the thing in its main body before hurling it off the ledge and into the ocean.
You have killed a Landshark bullet (adolescent) lvl 36. Experience gained.
No level 35 but he hadn't really been killing anything after he got 34 so he didn't know how far he was from the level up.
To satiate his curiosity he checked the hole that the Landshark had burst forth from. It was dirt for maybe a meter or so down before turning into rock. The interesting thing was both the dirt and the rock didn't seem like something had dug through it but rather molded. The tunnels were completely smooth with almost no friction at all. not really something he'd expect with a creature that had claws. Perhaps the thing literally did swim through the ground and it was just system or magical bullshit.
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It was only a few more seconds after that did the tunnel start reforming. He didn’t mean the dirt and rock collapsed on itself but that it was literally reforming and quickly refilled the tunnel like it had never even been there. The only evidence that was left was the patch of dirt the shark had burst out of.
Zoologists and geologists would probably have a field day with all these new creatures and animals that were coming out. Assuming monsters even counted as animals. What would even be the difference?
“ thought you were going to wait till you were in a more secure and safer area before you started getting existential?” Greys voice held clear amusement over Quills thoughts.
He stood up and dusted himself off. “Just some light musing nothing more.”
But now that he knew that land sharks were apparently a thing he would need to watch out for attacks from below. He wondered though if there would be ocean camels, or flying moles since the system wanted to keep fucking with what had once been the natural order of things.
He continued on his journey, having fought and killed three more adolescent Landshark Bullets that tried attacking him and stuffing their corpses into his storage ring. The sun was now high in the air as the strip that he had been running on for who knows how long opened up into massive planes and rolling hillsides. The forest to his side curved away instead of running straight along in a parallel line to where the ocean was. The cliff itself also curved away making both of these things move away from each other.
In front of him was mostly just hills, planes, and a shit ton of wind grass. Quill scratched his head in contemplation before manifesting a pillar below his feet to get a better view of everything as he kept his enhanced eyesight turned on.
Once high up he spotted several points of interest that could mean something or have something for him to do. To his right, following along the treeline path and far off in the distance was a giant decrepit wall. He elevated his pillar he was standing on even higher to see over said well and it looked to be mausoleums and graves. What a graveyard was doing in the middle of some grassy Plains was beyond him, but he mostly attributed that to system fuckery. Despite the imposing look of it all, it was still far enough away that he wasn't terribly scared or worried.
To his right, following along the cliff with the ocean was much more inviting in the sense that the elevated cliffs sloped downwards until it hit a beach in the far off distance. He probably would have just gone straight towards that if it weren't for the fact that there were giant freaking crabs walking all over said Beach.
“On the bright side you now have very easy access to crab meat. Crab meat is supposed to be tasty right?”
At the mention of that he did feel his mouth water a little. “Yeah, they are supposed to be tasty.”
Quill then looked forward but there was nothing of interest in front of him. Assuming you didn't count the giant freaking light pillar that was shooting up in the sky just over several hills.
He had spotted it a little while ago on his journey and had made it his next destination initially until the plains had opened up before him. However, said light pillar was still probably the closest point of interest to him. Sure it was still a decent way off from what he could tell but that just said more about how far off the creepy graveyard and crab infested Beach were more than anything else.
“So the next destination is still the pillar of light then?”
“Might as well be.” He took off to a light jog, making sure to monitor any potential tremors below the ground in case another Landshark bullet tried to sneak attack him. It was a good thing too as the attacks started getting more frequent. They didn't pose any problem for him outside of just being plain old annoying. But it was becoming increasingly obvious that the frequency of the attacks had something to do with him getting closer to the light pillar.
It took maybe another hour of jogging, attacks notwithstanding, before he finally crested over a hill that overlooked the large valley where the pillar of light shot out from the center and it was just that. Just a regular pillar of Lights shooting out from the grass. there was literally nothing else.
He couldn't help but scratch his head in confusion. Just a random pillar of light with no rhyme or reason. Before he could continue to contemplate the weirdness of the situation he had to jump backwards as three more landshark bullets burst from the ground to try and eat him up.
He quickly dispatched all three thanks to his pizza cutter, rat tail and spider legs but that also sort of confirmed to him that he was likely in the land shark bullets territory as he had only been attacked by one at a time and this time it was three.
This now brought him to the question, was he curious enough about the pillar of light to brave going through what was likely a monster infested territory? The answer was a solid no.
“Oh come on!! Where's your sense of adventure! It's not like you haven't committed a mass genocide before! Who knows maybe the pillar of light is something very important.”
“Maybe it is, guess I’ll never know.”
“ at least cast identify on it! Pleeeeeease!!!!”
“Fine!” He promptly turned around and casted his identify
Unclaimed Territory pillar
That gave him pause. Normally he wouldn't give a shit about territory or whatever weird thing the system would tell him but his mind did go back to his village ticket that he still hadn't figured out how to work. Perhaps he needed some territory for the thing to operate properly and-
“You knew this, didn't you.”
“Eh. I had a sneaking suspicion but didn't know personally. Soooooo, whatcha goin to do now?” she had an unbearably smug tone to her voice that almost made him turn around out of spite.
Instead he went over to the holes the Landshark bullets burst out from and carefully examined them. They bore the same characteristics as the other holes he had seen which made sense. All the land sharks he had fought were adolescents between the levels of 30 and 40. He wondered if adults looked or acted differently and whether or not they would be higher level. His identify did mention they had face plates which the adolescents didn't plus they didn't really look like bullets either.
Putting his musings aside, next he placed his hand down on the ground and closed his eyes, turning off his other enhanced senses aside from touch so he could focus more on the potential tremors underground. They were faint but they were there, and they were a lot. Unfortunately he couldn't quite discern how many there were or the distance.
So now he just needed to figure out how they tracked him. He started with the most obvious one which involved him taking a war hammer out of his storage ring and slamming it into the ground repeatedly in a rhythm.
After the 10th swing he stopped and closed his eyes to see if he could feel their tremors getting closer. However none came and he let out a sigh. Guess they didn't track through tremors or through movement
Since they were technically sharks he decided to throw the murderous seagull out of his storage ring and into the ground and waited a bit to see if they would come for that along with their deceased brethren.
“ What are you hoping to accomplish with this?”
“ I mean they are sharks. Smell blood and everything.”
“You're expecting them to smell blood through all this ground?”
“Well they can fucking swim through solid rocks so why the hell not? Seriously, this whole thing is so confusing and inconsistent!”
Mini tangent aside, that also wasn't working so he threw the corpses back into his storage ring and huffed a little. It really did look like he was just going to have to step into their territory to get their attention. The pillar of light was probably a few miles away from his current position so unless they were all swarming around each other with barely any space. Hopefully he wouldn't have to face hundreds or thousands of the bastards. But there was really only one way to find out.
