Demonic Devourer's Development

Only by hearing and touch, breathing through my mouth and as rarely as I could to avoid the pain that increased every time air passed over my acid burns, I found myself a convenient hole to rest. Thanks to my hunt, I had more than enough EXP to evolve until my senses would work again, but the only way to heal all the damage made to me was to rest.

'Pest, why you don't know any healing magic?' I grumbled inwardly. It would've been so much easier if he could patch me up.

'Because my progenitor, and their progenitor, and their progenitor up to the original curse, thought that it was easier to switch hosts than to heal… Well, they weren't stuck in you. I mean, who knew?' after the first biting remark, Pest quickly switched the tone. 'You are one in the world, Master.'

The bastard knew I would stop him from getting any EXP from me if I got too annoyed with him, and right now I let him drain me so he could level up his magic. In fact, most of the EXP I got from hunting went straight to him even since I went to the caves.

'Uh-huh.' To distract myself from the pain as I used my wounded mouth to spit out webbing, I asked, 'And where did the original curse come from?'

'It was made by someone who wasn't a curse… I don't remember more, but I know my progenitor implanted this knowledge in me somewhere. It was not important. Good thing I remember as much as I do!'

'Tell me if you remember who that was. If they are still alive somehow, I want to kill them.' I curled on my soft web hammock and used my spare pants and water from my flask to clean my face as much as I could. Then opened my evolution menu.

'Sure, Master, though I doubt they are. It's been, what, several centuries ago?'

Yeah, after so long I would be, at most, eat their bones, which would give me a grain of EXP at most, and even that doubtfully. I dismissed Pest and went to putting EXP into my sensory skills. I wished I just had regeneration… but an ability like that was extremely rare. It was possible that even the beast that wounded me had not it, but some similar analogue.

Both of my sensory skills were at level 15. I was afraid I'd need to get them up to 20 to be able to orient around again, but the damage must've been less deep than I feared; after only a couple levels into each skill, I found myself able to see and smell again.

Then, just in case—and to help myself in the future—I bought 'Adaptive Enhancing Hearing' which came with a pair of big triangular bat-like ears instead of my human ones. It was a skill often seen in the caves, usually on bats. Echolocation, though, wasn't a skill… But an enhanced spectre of voice tones was. Sometimes, the System's logic was really confusing.

After that, I made a simple plan of my future actions. My scent didn't stick to the cave walls, especially since I flew a lot of that way to avoid stumbling on everything, so I couldn't just backtrack to the river.

But since I was wandering aimlessly before, being lost wasn't much of a problem until I had to head back. Which meant I could keep wandering aimlessly and try to locate the river. After that, finding my way back would be easy.

I spent another day in the small cave and in my hammock to let my injuries heal a little more. It hurt to do anything with my face, and that included eating what I caught with a few webs I placed nearby, and drinking the water I had left.

When I was out of water, I went on wandering again, hoping that I would find the river soon enough. But I must've made a wrong turn somewhere, because despite my best attempts to recall the way I went while blinded, despite my best attempts to sniff out or to hear out water, the best I found were some small pools of moisture that dripped through the tiniest cracks in the stone.

But at least I met no more creatures I couldn't beat and eat, though the farther I went, the more progressively stranger some of them became; while others stayed the same giant insects and crawling creatures I've met closer to the entrance.

I spent another week just wandering like that in my fruitless search. I had no idea where I was, and only my generous time constraints made to myself stopped me from feeling panicky about it. At the very least, the stable, if not as big as I'd like, income of EXP let Pest do stronger spells, while I levelled up my most used abilities, first of all claws (which were the most expensive) and web.

And finally, my search was rewarded. A gentle murmur of flowing water echoed through the cave passage I was in, and I honed on it like a hound. I followed it, having to backtrack a few times when it disappeared—the stone made sounds tricky to locate—until finally reaching the water.

But it wasn't the river. It was just a small stream, one that I could jump over without flapping my wings once… and for some mysterious reason, the water in it glowed with a soft play of rainbow lights.

Where it was flowing to, and from where? Was it good to drink? I wished I had someone to ask these questions.

A sound of distant, but rapidly approaching stomping told me that a monster was coming, and judging by its steps, a big one. I liked big ones. To ambush it, I flew to the ceiling and hid myself amongst its crevices.

Too bad I won't be able to ask the coming monster about the rainbow stream before I kill and eat it.