CHAPTER 135: EXPLORING A DUNGEON FOR THE FIRST TIME [4]

"35 for you... 13 for me... and 12 for you. Cough..."

After doing some math, I gave Selene and Glutton their share in the mana cores as I coughed aggressively.

Fortunately, because of my blood manipulation, I didn’t cough blood.

"Ignore the mana cores. You have to rest! Stop moving if you don’t want the pain to increase!"

Selene yelled at me, her trembling eyes stayed fixed on me with visible concern as her cold, silver light continued to heal me and push away the pain from.

[Why am I getting only 12...?]

I ignored Glutton and scanned my current state. It wasn’t that bad I guess. Selene was just overreacting, right?

Just some broken ribs here and there. A few broken bones. A small crack in my spine. One missing eye. Half-burned body that had the smell of well-cooked meat. A missing arm and a half missing leg. Some internal injuries.

Well, maybe she wasn’t overreacting. The only reason I didn’t bleed to death was my blood manipulation. It was really useful.

But hey! My hair was still there! Only a few strands were missing. Don’t ask me how because I don’t know myself.

So what had caused all that?

It was a cat. I always considered myself weak against cats, but I didn’t expect it to be also in a literal way.

When I ordered Glutton to go out and search for monsters, using half the mana cores as a price for his job...

[Then why did I get only 12?]

...He spotted a few monsters and I started trying to know anything useful about them using the information in the guidebook.

But among them, there was a monster that wasn’t in the guidebook. It was a small lava cat.

We began to hunt them one by one, deciding to leave the unknown monster to the end. Eventually, its turn arrived as we started to fight it.

Well, a fight was an exaggeration, because it died from the first arrow! Everything was done by a single attack.

Or that was what I thought.

Everything about it was screaming dead, but when I went close to it, crouched, and moved my hand to its core...

BOOM!

It EXPLODED! Leading to the activation of my bracelet which was the only reason I wasn’t completely dead.

I really couldn’t understand my sense of danger. Sometimes it saves me from something, other times it activates too late.

We were now in the cave because I refused to leave the dungeon. And after I refused to drink a healing potion — my natural healing could easily save me — Selene put me carefully on her lap and began to heal me herself.

I looked into her face, seeing the concern in her eyes, I said:

"You know... you don’t have to do this... my condition isn’t that bad."

"Just SHUT UP! Don’t distract me!"

"...."

I stopped talking and let her continue. Why would I complain anyway? My spine never felt better because of her healing!

The only problem was the few strands of Selene’s hair on my face. I wanted to move them away so badly, but I didn’t want to ’distract’ her just for that.

[Hey! Why did you give me only 12?!]

Hearing Glutton’s voice, I tried to turn my head, but then Selene held it firmly and stopped me.

"Are you stupid?! Why would you try to move your broken neck?!!"

"...."

"...Sorry."

She was becoming more protective than Aria for some reason. Did she forget that I had pain resistance? Both her and Aria were really strange.

I stopped trying to move and answered Glutton inwardly:

’I accepted to give you half the mana cores, but not Selene’s mana cores. I can’t give you her share without her acceptance. What if she thought I was taking advantage of her?’

[You fucking scammer! Wait, and why did you give me even less than you?]

I rested the urge to shake my head, afraid that might anger Selene.

’Was I supposed to cut a mana core in half to make you happy? Sorry, but someone had to endure the loss.’

[Why me?!!]

I wanted to say "Because you are easy to scam." but I kept that fact to myself.

But wait, I was getting stronger whenever he got stronger... Was I actually scamming myself? Should the priority be my own growth or Glutton’s growth?

I resisted the urge to look at Glutton and asked Inwardly:

’How do you get stronger exactly? Sometimes you get stronger physically, and sometimes it’s only your core. I need to know about those things as your father.’

Glutton’s eyes lit up, looking at me as if he found an opportunity.

[It’s simple. If I eat flesh, my body gets stronger. If I eat something that contains mana, both my body and core get stronger. If I absorb a mana core, then only my core gets stronger.]

[That means if you want to get higher talent in space, then feed me more! My sixth sense is telling me that I’m close to a threshold!]

My eyes twitched, but then I thought about something.

Was that related to how his humanoid form was getting closer to the age of 18? Was he finally hitting his adulthood? Would that make the new ability even better than anything from before?

The idea of getting a new shared ability was really exciting!

But then I might have to pay too much to feed him. That gluttony bastard drank all the potions that Lunara had given him!

[Trust the process!]

As my body kept getting better with every second, I wondered about how I was supposed to inform the academy about that new cat monster.

If someone other than me was there, they could have died! I wouldn’t be surprised if someone died because of a similar cat already and the reason stayed unknown.

That was a reminder.

Trusting a simple guidebook blindly could lead to someone’s death. It was better to always stay cautious.

After a moment, my missing eye returned, allowing me to see Selene’s face clearly again, but the hair strands were in my sight.

’Those strands are really annoying. I’ll try to move them away slowly.’

Using gravity, I carefully moved the hair strands to the back of Selene’s ear, just like the movies I used to watch.

Her face was now as clear as a moon. And in some way, she was indeed like a moon. As she continued healing me, I couldn’t help but smile.

’Perfect.’