Even when flesh was torn away.
Even when my body was crushed.
Even when I was sliced apart.
Even when my body burst open.
Even when my limbs were ripped off whole.
Even when I was pierced through.
Even when it was hard.
Even when it hurt.
I had never once shed tears.
Even when I trembled before the fear of a living disaster.
Even when I felt relief.
Even when I thought about surviving in the ugliest way possible.
Even when I resisted in the end and survived.
I never cried.
...Though I think I might have cried once before.
Correction.
I almost never cried.
But.
“Haa... uaaah... ha... ah.”
Tears of blood were still pouring from my eyes.
My vision was blocked, and I could see nothing but red.
That was how overwhelming the pain was.
“Hek, hek, heeek, hek...”
Breathing hard.
I got up.
...And collapsed.
I couldn’t get any strength into my body at all.
Why?
I replayed the pain I had just gone through.
...Because every muscle in my body had been twisted out of shape.
No.
It was more than that.
The entire structure had changed.
When I tried to bend my arm, the arm itself wouldn’t bend, and my fingers twitched on their own.
...Once I focused, the fingers finally stopped.
Thankfully, I could still make sense of my shoulders.
Analyzing the connected muscles, I lifted my arm.
It dropped.
I lifted it again.
It dropped.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
I lifted it once more.
The arm dropped again.
Instead of using that momentum to lift it back up, I put my weight into it and slammed it into the ground.
KWA-AAANG!!!
My upper body tilted back, and my gaze naturally lifted upward.
I checked the scenery around me.
I looked for something I could use.
Because of the pain-induced thrashing, a half-broken rock came into view.
I flailed my arm and turned my falling body toward it.
Thud.
I laid my upper body across the rock.
I started moving my tail.
Compared to the other muscles, it was one of the parts that had changed the least.
After swinging it the wrong way a few times, I finally got a feel for it and moved it properly.
I wrapped it around my left leg.
My legs, like my arms, didn’t really have proper sensation either.
Using my tail, I forcibly started moving my left leg.
One step, then another, then another.
So I could grow used to it little by little.
While memorizing how the muscles moved.
How many times did I repeat that?
Only then did I grow accustomed to the changed muscles in my left leg, and I let go of the tail and tried moving on my own.
It was a little stiff, but it moved properly.
Then, feeling as if I were moving in reverse, I twitched my right leg too.
After twitching it several times, I imagined and used a structure similar to the left leg.
At last, after moving it dozens of times, it became as familiar as the left.
With that, I put strength into both legs and planted them on the ground.
My waist muscles weren’t used to it, so I staggered, but I managed to raise my upper body.
I started moving my arms.
Since I had finished with the legs first, it was definitely easier.
Little by little.
Little by little.
And then, at some point.
At last, all my limbs moved properly, and I could breathe again.
I stared blankly at the moon hanging high overhead.
So this was the end of a long day.
I was too exhausted to think about anything.
Mentally, and physically.
Still.
I tried.
I tried, didn’t I?
Just a little.
Let’s rest for just a little while.
I burrowed deep into the ground and lay down.
Only then could I allow my vision to fade into darkness.
“........”
When I woke up, the sun was already beating down with full force.
[Daily Quest: Eat one monster within 24 hours (0/1)]
Right.
I’d wondered why it hadn’t shown up yet.
As always, the Daily Quest appeared in a blue rectangle.
First, get up—
Wobble.
“...Ugh.”
I couldn’t get any strength into my body.
...Ah, come to think of it.
Had I leveled up last night?
“...Agh.”
As yesterday’s pain came rushing back, chills and spasms ran through my entire body on their own.
Without question, it had been the worst experience of my life, one I never wanted to repeat, not even as a joke.
It was like taking a statue, smashing and splitting it to dust, melting it down, then hardening it again into a new shape... that kind of process.
Only I had gone through it with my own body instead of a statue.
So what happened?
For one thing, every muscle in my body had been twisted.
...No. More precisely... after being torn to pieces, they had been rearranged into a more efficient structure. That was probably more accurate.
For sure, my power output efficiency had improved dramatically.
It was just that I still couldn’t use my strength properly because the structure itself had changed.
Once I got used to it, the difference from before would definitely be obvious.
My tail had grown quite a bit longer.
At the same time, my arms had also lengthened considerably, and now they definitely felt more like forelegs than arms.
My claws had clearly sharpened...
“...What is this?”
...Wait a second.
Why did I only have three fingers?
When I checked, the toes on my hind feet had also gone from four to three.
On top of that, unlike before, when I had been fully upright, my upper body was now hunched forward.
If before I had felt like a mix of lizard and human, now I had changed into something more... theropod-like, maybe.
I’d turned into a dinosaur.
...No wonder I hadn’t been adapting well.
I’d basically gone from lizard-human to dinosaur-human, as if my species had changed completely.
The fact that the finger that had once been my thumb had disappeared was definitely a risk.
As for whether there was any benefit... I still wasn’t sure.
Come to think of it, had the positions of my internal organs changed too?
It was hard to tell where anything was anymore.
At least I could feel my heart beating where it should be, so that was a relief.
...So.
At least by feel, I had definitely gotten stronger.
My body was clearly lighter too.
And since my formerly plump body had become leaner overall, the effect would be significant.
But there was one critical problem.
“Gya, ugugugugugu...”
I really had changed too much, too fast.
My body wouldn’t move properly.
There was no way I could fight like this for a while.
Even if you handed someone a bazooka in a war, it was useless if they didn’t know how to fire it.
“Kikikikiki!!!”
“......!”
...A monster?
Already?
Damn it.
Why now of all times?
In this state, fighting would be a pain.
First, I needed to analyze the opponent and run—
“Kikiki! My name is Quitokatoki! Even reversed, it’s Quitokatoki! My specialty is hunting wounded monsters! People call me the ‘Monster Hunter’!!”
“...What a terrifying nickname.”
Monster hunter, huh.
What kind of middle-school-chuunibyou nickname was that?
...Still, if he had a nickname like that, he was probably skilled.
I analyzed him.
Was that maybe a poison arrow he was holding?
At first glance, he looked like a dwarf with green skin and a scrawny build.
But with those pointed ears and nose... creatures like that usually had sharp senses.
And more than anything, he might be hiding his true form.
I had fought a plant monster that pretended to be a withered little thing, then instantly grew huge and swallowed things whole when they came close.
It had whip-like vines too, and it was fairly strong.
I won in the end because of type advantage, though.
The reason was that the moment I dodged its attack and went underground, I saw its roots.
So I cut all the roots off and chewed through them to win.
Since it was the same pale green color, that memory came to mind for some reason.
That guy definitely tasted disgusting.
“Kikikiki! You’re dead now! Say goodbye!!”
Ah, wait.
While I was thinking, I forgot to run.
He was probably low-rank.
He looked weak for someone with the nickname Monster Hunter, but... he might have a hidden trump card.
First, I needed to guard quickly—
...No, too late!
This guy’s pretty fast—
Pshk!
“......Huh?”
“...Kikiki?”
...I had crossed my arms to defend my head.
And then.
While my arms were crossing, the guy had charged in.
As a result...
“Ki... impossible... this Monster Hunter... taken down so pathetiiiiically...”
I had unintentionally skewered him like a kebab with my claws.
...Or so I thought, but a moment later he shattered into chunks of meat and scattered with a wet splatter.
“........”
I didn’t care that he died stupidly or anything.
Just a second.
Something was wrong.
Even if my claws were sharp, slicing someone in half like tofu with an accidental strike was...
...My stats.
What the hell happened to my stats?
[Name: Slightly Stronger Lizard Monster]
[Disaster Level: Tiger (evolution conditions not met)]
[HP: 800/800]
[ST: 1100/1100]
[AP: 700/700]
[SP: 1000/1000]
[MP: 0/0]
[Available Points: 0]
[Skills (8/15): [Super Instinct] LV5, [Quiet Steps] LV3, [Sharp Claws] LV5, [Strong Teeth] LV4, [Tail Severing] LV2, [Hardened Body] LV3, [Super Regeneration] LV4, [Stealth] LV2,]
...What is this?
What the hell is this?
Why had all my stats suddenly doubled?
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