Is It Wrong To Devour Monsters In The Dungeon - Chapter 13.1 (Patreon)

…Enchantment?

And that command…chant.

The feeling she got, it was just like…Ariel? No…more potent?

Ais Wallenstein once again could not help but stare at the boy she had just come across as he let loose a howl of glee and rushed forward to meet the army of monsters shooting towards him as a massive group.

He thrust his arm out and unleashed a wave of flame that rushed towards the group, washing over multiple of them and roasting them alive.

Enchantments were rare, but Ais had seen a few, she'd even once seen a girl years back who had a powerful flame enchantment of her own.

Yet…it did not measure up to the one she was seeing right now. The closest she could approximate it to…was her own Ariel spell.

Which she was only capable of, because of her mother, because she had the blood of a powerful spirit running within her veins.

'Who is he?' Ais wondered as she stuck back, out of the way and watched.

The flame enchantment he used, was powerful and potent. As he finished roasting near ten of the monsters alive with a single wave of his hand, the boy sped up and leaped powerfully into the air.

He overshot the entire army of rushing monsters and fell like a blazing meteor towards one of the Infant Dragons.

A double handed hammer blow came down towards its head and would have crushed its large reptilian skull, if the Killer Ant did not leap into the air to block it.

Even still, despite its massive frame and enhanced power, it was slammed into the ground hard.

'It protected its ally.' Ais realised, and not for any nice reason she was sure. Because, it left the boy stopped in mid air for a moment.

A moment long enough for both Infant Dragon's to open their mouths wide and spew out a pair of huge gouts of flame towards him.

Her hand twitched towards her sword, only to stop as she heard the boy laugh, "Nice try!" he shouted and she blinked as the fire under his feet seemed to…swell?

He kicked off with it and split through the gouts of flame, clawed fingers punching into and through the eye of one of the Infant Dragons a moment later.

The dragon did not even have time to roar in pain as the clawed fingers pierced its brain and its huge body at four meters tall went limp and toppled over.

It barely even fell a meter before the boy was kicking off of its snout and shooting through the air towards the other one, fire exploding from his feet and propelling him forward.

The Killer Ant rose from the ground where it hit at the same time and shot for him, clawed hands outstretched to pierce into the boy.

Only to just barely miss, the enhanced ant monster shooting through thin air while the boy stabbed both of his clawed gauntlets up through the Infant Dragon's mouth, piercing up through its skull and killing it just like the first.

The Killer Ant let loose a furious screech as its monster comrade fell and a multitude of Bad Bats fell upon the boy.

Who merely waved his arm and lashed out with an arc of flame that slashed right through them.

It took his attention enough for the Killer Ant to rush him and the other monsters he'd overshot to regroup and as one swarm towards his back, pincering him between both.

Yet, the boy did not even spare them a glance and shot towards the Killer Ant. It lashed out with its clawed arms, only for the boy to duck underneath them and stop down on its knee.

A horrible crunching noise echoed as the huge bipedal black ants knee-like joint broke on impact and it howled in pain.

"You can't fight for shit mate." the boy laughed, even as the twin arm-leg stingers at its abdomen shot out to pierce him in a flash.

He spun around around and lashed out with an elbow that caught the enhanced ant in the jaw, wracking its skull and burying it into the ground again.

He was right. The ant was more intelligent and way more powerful than its normal brethren for sure.

But it was new and while the monstrous instincts it had allowed it to adapt to its growth easily, it did not know how to use its power to the fullest extent.

Instinct could only take one so far.

From what she saw, the boy wasn't any faster, in fact, by her estimates, he was just about even with the Killer Ant as far as speed went. But, he so easily predicted how it would attack and targeted its weak points to debilitate it in mere moments.

Despite apparently only being a level one, even if his strength did not reflect that. He knew what he was doing in a fight.

He had been in many a fight, that she was sure of.

With the ant down, he turned and shot towards the rushing monsters trying to take him by surprise, "Bada-boom!" he cried out…as a war cry?

He lifted his hands up, fire swelling into a sphere held between both of them before lowering it and thrusting both hands.

Like the first time, a wave of fire leapt from his hands, though this time, twice as big as the first, if not larger.

The rushing monsters had no chance to dodge and literally ran straight into the wave of flame, their cries of agony echoing as they were burnt alive, before going silent.

The only noise left being the roaring of the flames before they two dwindled away.

With that done, he turned away from the burnt corpses he'd just left littering the dungeon floor to look at the Killer Ant just staring at him as it clutched at its leg.

It was surprisingly quiet and still again.

Most likely, its new intelligence was warring with its instincts. The instincts of a monster were different from a mere animal, or even the monsters on the surface.

Their instinct was to kill the mortal races above all else, even at the cost of their own life.

Yet, she'd saw it before. How with their intelligence they realised they could not win and it would be smarter to run and fight another day.

The wings on the ants back began to flicker rapidly once more as the boy approached it, a sigh leaving his lips, "Guess I should have held you down a bit more and force fed you some more magic stones, would have got a better fight out of you." he mused.

He was looking down on its strength.

And it understood that.

The monster hissed through its mandibles, rising into the air with rapid beats of its wings. Instinct and intelligence were both cast aside in favour of anger.

Anger over its pride being hurt.

It did not try to be fancy or smart.

Instead, with all its might, the enhanced Killer Ant blitzed through the air towards the boy, razor sharp claws on its hands stretched out to claw into him, the razor sharp limbs thrusting from its abdomen to pierce him through.

It was a charge meant to take anything the boy threw at it head on and keep going, even if it died it would take the boy with it even with just its corpse.

In reply, the boy thrust his hand out a wave of flame erupting from it once more and washing over the charging monster.

It screeched in agony, yet did not stop, Ais could see its dark shape pushing through the torrent of flames with all its might and it erupted from the other end, corpse alight with fire.

For the first time, she saw the boys eyes widen in surprise.

…He was not expecting it to be able to do that?

Neither was she in fact.

So much so, she was not fast enough to even reach her sword before the beasts claws were inches from the boys bare neck.

CLANG!

Her eyes widened, so to did that of the Killer Ant's as its claws struck something shining blue and metal-like that appeared out of nowhere, blocking it from gouging out his neck.

So stunned was the beast, it could not react as the boys own hand shot forward, clawed gauntlet punching through its chest and coming out the other side, covered in gore and grasping a magic stone.

The enhanced Killer Ant gave a shuddering creaking groan, "Beruuuu…." before its body burst into smoke and it disappeared, all that was left of it being the magic stone held within the boys grasp

In the end, despite the intelligence it gained. A monster was a monster in the end. It was born to kill and nothing more.

Gaining intelligence did not make them see the error of their ways or anything asinine like that. It just made the instinctual murderous beasts, better at it.

And that was why, it could never have fathomed running away only to live. Only to live and kill again. That was its existence and why it charged as it did and died for it.

As it deserved.

The boy in her gaze touched at his throat, eyes wide and staring at the magic stone in his grasp, "…Alright, I take it back, you actually were a bit of a threat in the end. I got lucky there, if not for my power I would've been dead." he spoke and Ais' brows furrowed.

It sounded almost like he was complimenting the monster for almost managing to kill him with its suicidal charge.

And then…he brought the hand holding the magic stone in it to his mouth, opened it.

And bit down, his teeth crunching straight through it as if it were a piece of candy.

'Eh?' if Ais tilted her head to the side anymore in her puzzlement, she would topple over.

Why…was he eating it?

Right in her view, he munched down on the magic stone, breaking it down into tiny crystal fragments and then swallowed.

Before turning around and walking to the corpse of the Infant Dragons and tearing out their magic stones…and then eating them as well as their corpses burst into black smoke.

Before turning on his heel and making his way towards the monster corpses and one by one, tearing out their magic stones and…eating them.

'Do magic stones taste good?' Ais wondered. She'd never thought to eat them before.

Were they full of nutrition or something? Or was it some kind of dominance thing like Bete loved to brag about over 'weaklings'?

Wouldn't it hurt actually? He was swallowing sharp stone shards after all.

Ais continued to stare as he picked up the few drop items left over from the corpses and made his way over to the pile of them.

With no monsters in sight, Ais moved, making her way over to him as he piled the drops up properly and admired his loot.

"…Why did you do that?" she asked when she got behind him.

The boy jumped, whirling around, a fist lashing out on instinct, "Jesus-fuck Mary and Joseph!" he exclaimed as he did.

Ais caught his fist easily, noting that even without that flame enchantment the punch was well beyond what any level one should be capable of.

He stared at her, mouth agape.

"…Sorry for startling you?" she said. It was polite to apologise, she gave him a scare after all.

"What the fuck?" he mouthed, "Ais Wallenstein, the hell are you doing here?"

"I was returning to the surface and saw you?" she replied. What else would she be doing?

He continued to stare at her, before sighing and pulling his hand back, "Of fucking course, just my luck I run into the crazy Sword Princess already," he huffed in pure annoyance and Ais found herself frowning a bit, she wasn't crazy, was she? He looked her up and down, before shrugging, "Eh, you're alright, but you don't compare to Hestia at all. Dunno what that idiot was smoking, he totally needs his eyes checked."

Hestia? That name was familiar.

Wasn't that the goddess Loki didn't like? She met her once if she remembered right, after she had just descended.