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Energy Eater - Chapter 112 - Eater's Shell
🕑 Added 2025-05-03 02:50:32 +0000 UTCWhen I opened my eyes again, my face was rubbing against a large stone formation. I blinked slowly, trying to get up. Only to see that now I was staring at the giant Eater. There was a moment of fear before I remembered where I actually was. This Eater was dead. Not just that, but I had also just watched this very Eater attacking this city. I still wasn't able to properly understand what just happened, but at least my body seemed to be fine. There wasn't anything hurting or anything that I couldn't control, as it happened when I was inside that vision. And that was when the next strange thing hit me.
I was looking at the Eater, being this close to it, and I wasn't feeling anything. That sense of fear, that sense of wrongness, was no longer there. As a matter of fact, aside from the memory of it, there was no way to confirm that it was ever there. I was feeling completely fine. Unbothered by whatever was affecting me earlier.
I got up to double check if I wasn't hurt anywhere and looked around. Coming from the same street that I took to get here, I could see Astrid slowly in walking my direction. She froze when she noticed I was moving and tried to move her hand very gently. Not because she was worried that she would scare me or anything. But because she was still struggling with the fear that I felt when I got here. Her expression was the same as the moment she stepped back, refusing to walk into this street.
I raised my hand and gave her a thumbs up, hoping that she could at least recognize the gesture. Moving slightly her own hand, Astrid answered with the same motion. A thumbs up by the side of her body. She then flickered her eyes back, almost as if she was thinking about running away. I just waved her off so she would be able to return without a problem to the corner of the street where Michael and I had left her.
I turned back to the Eater once more, touching it to see if anything was going to happen again. But there was nothing. Now I could see that this wasn't an Eater, not in the real sense of the word. This was just the shell created by one of its skills. Maybe thanks to having died while it was using that petrification skill, the actual body rotted away, leaving behind this gigantic carcass for all to see.
'Sis, do you have any idea what just happened? Did I really see what the Eater did in the past?'
The System quickly replied, [That is correct. User was under the effects of an unknown skill. While System is unable to give the name or the details of said skill, System is able to tell the user what its function was. It was storing memories of the last moments of its user inside the skill. After it, the skill was waiting for someone in possession of a System get into contact with it. Allowing it to pass along the knowledge it gained during those few final moments.]
'But it is not here anymore. I'm just looking at the Shell. Right?'
[According to the information received by the Eater, that is a correct assumption. System theorizes that due to presence of particles belonging to Eater at the moment of death its, skill became a part of the stone shell left behind by the creature. Meaning that unless someone with a System was able to touch this shell and retrieve the information present on the skill, the skill would remain attached to the Shell as it was the last location where it existed.]
'But if the skill lasted this long, it should be very powerful, right? Or at least cost an absurd amount of Energy.'
[That is a likely scenario. However, it is also possible that the skill went dormant the moment Eater was killed allowing becoming active again only once it detected the presence of someone who also possesses the System. User was able to contact the skill before all its Energy had been spent, which allowed user to access the memory inside it.]
'Could that be why I was struggling to understand what the creature's System could do? The degradation of the Energy while it was dormant?' I asked, still touching the shell of the Eater in front of me. It was very different from what I was expecting. The rock plates looked more like armor than skin. Almost like the shell of a bug.
[It is possible. However System is unable to confirm if that was really the case. The reason is that it is also possible that being known as Eaters have a different type of language and user was only able to understand said language through the skill.]
I sighed, taking that explanation as the best I would get and let go of the shell. I went back towards the streets where Astrid had retreated to and decided to make my way towards my companions. They had waited for me for a while already. And it would be better to tell everyone what I thought.
Stepping away from the Eater, I half expected that feeling of wrongness to wash over me again, but it wasn't there. Even if the effect was very much active on Astrid, or at least that was what it seemed like. My best assumption was that I immune now. Maybe it had to do with how I saw through the eyes of the Eater and that changed me into some kind of halfbreed on the eyes of that effect. Or maybe it was just an effect of the skill itself. It could have a condition like only being active if the target has not made contact with the skill source.
Either way, that wasn't something I was going to figure out right now. The System had already confirmed that whatever effect was making us run away from this place wasn't something that I could get just by touching this shell. Likely, the only way to do that would be to stay in the dungeon for a while and then acquire the skill. But I had no idea how long that would take. And I had no interest in staying here for days on end, to hopefully to get a skill like that.
Once I returned to Astrid and Michael, both took a step back a couple of times just to be sure I wasn't bringing the strange feeling from the shell along. Once they were sure that wasn't the case, they noticed how I was no longer bothered by that feeling.
"How are you doing so well?" Michael gasped.
"Well, I genuinely do not know. I have some theories, but nothing that I can confirm right now."
"Okay, I'm listening," questioned Michael.
"I think that by touching the shell, I remove that effect. But, it can also be because I got technically inside the mind of an Eater."
"What?" Astrid asked.
I quickly briefed the two on my vision. How I saw the people who were fighting against the creature. How the Eater fought back and the types of abilities it showed. Even though the only one that was really unique was the petrification thing. That is, if we were not counting the strange orders, it was receiving as a skill. I also made sure to tell about the one single skill that I was able to uncover. Or part of it, at least. The skill that started with Hive."
"So, do you think they are some sort of hive mind or that they have some hive communication?" Michael asked, using the first thing that also came to my mind.
"Maybe. That kind of explains why they are so deadly. I mean, imagine if every time one person gets killed, everybody else would know what to do to not get killed that way. Making it so that every time that they learn something, all other Eaters would learn the same. I just don't know how that would interact with the System. Sis, any ideas?"
[System is also unaware of how such a skill would behave. It is possible that the skill allows some sort of long distance transfer of skills. However, that information cannot be confirmed without accessing a real living Eater.]
And that wasn't something that any of us really wanted to get. But hearing that, an idea came to mind. Maybe the reason why Eaters were so insistent on turning into fertilizer so quickly was because of that. Because they were protecting that Hive mind skill. That sounded like a very interesting prospect since it could reveal a weakness, but at the same time, a very dangerous one.
What if by getting one of those skills the new user would also get those orders sent directly to them?
Even if they were not as absolute as they were for the Eaters, once they followed one of them, it would be very hard to argue against following another. The feeling that Eaters got by doing what they were told was very addictive. Yet, the fact of the matter was this was all conjecture.
We had no way of knowing what would really happen if someone were to get that hive mind skill or if that was even possible. Maybe it was the kind of skill that could only work for the Eaters. Or maybe it was their own skill. Like the humans have {Mind Of Possibility}. Maybe Eaters have some sort of Hive Mind skill. Again, there were more questions and answers in the situation and after this long day, I think we had uncovered enough.
Michael and Astrid quickly agreed with me, but I had a feeling that they were more interested in getting out of this area than actually going back to the village. Still, we started our way, making our way back carrying the corpses of the coyotes along since we couldn't go back to the Village without our spoils. But, instead of a pretty calm journey back, we were met with something much more annoying on the way. Just outside of the territory of the dungeon, a few meters [ft] before that strange feeling of wrongness started, there was a group of people. All hunters being led by Conrad, who seemed to be waiting for us. I looked at them and let out a sigh before we continued to approach. At the very least, they allowed us to get out of that area, before speaking up.
"What the fuck were you doing in there?" Conrad spoke up.
"We were just checking the giant dead Eater. We are Monster Hunters. You said that there is the body of a monster that no one was ever able to kill before just resting there. How can we not go check it out?" I asked. "And why do we get such a warm welcome out of it? You never said that this was off limits or something. You just said for us to not go there. I figured you were talking about it being dangerous and now I think it is just because of that strange feeling you get when you get too close."
"And how close did you get?" the hunter leader asked.
"None of us got that close. We tried, but the most we could do was get to the street where the giant Eater is resting. I don't know the name of the street. Beyond that, we couldn't push forward. It felt just wrong to do that."
"You got that close?" One of the hunters gasped and quickly got a stink eye from Conrad.
"I still don't get why you came here. What good would it be for you to see that thing, especially after feeling what happens when you get close?"
"Honestly, I just wanted to study it," I replied, started shuffling.
Conrad scoffed, " Study? Why? Do you think you could kill it?"
I can and have. But that wasn't something I could say, "No, I'm not stupid enough to think that I can kill an Eater. I just wanted to see if I could find a way or figure out something that might save my life if I'm being chased by one of them. I honestly don't know what I was looking for."
After a pause, I looked at all the 12 people around us, "And this doesn't seem to be just you coming to check on us" I pressed.
"The girl you left behind in the village. She said you are all witches. You have magic powers," Conrad replied.
"And you believed her?" I asked.
"Of course not, even though her argument was somewhat persuasive. But she did say that you were lying for the reason you are here and that you are probably going to cause more problems for us instead of helping."
I cursed mentally, starting to really think why I didn't just ditch Pamela somewhere in the middle of the forest. "And do you think we are here to cause trouble? I mean, look at all these coyotes. We got rid of the entire pack for you."
"And that sounds very suspicious," Conrad replied, "How are you able to kill all of those coyotes?"
I rolled my eyes. "We are monster hunters. That is what we do."
"But you are not even hurt," another of the hunters gasped.
"Yes. Because we are good at what we do. I just said it. That is what we do. We hunt monsters. Those coyotes are monsters. We kill them. And that is it," I replied, making sure to sound really annoyed.
"You still have not said how," Conrad pressed.
"What do you mean, how? Michael shot them with arrows. Astrid has a massive axe on her back, and I hit them with my staff. What else do you want?"
"I want to know how you were able to kill an entire pack of coyotes and carry all of them here without suffering any injuries. Was that Pamela girl right? Do you really have some sort of power to help you?"
I shook my head. "Look, I said it once and I'm going to say it again. We are monster hunters. This is what we do. And we didn't fight all of them at once. That would be stupid. We fought them one by one and then found their den and made a few traps for them there. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't the hardest thing we ever did. There was this bear that we had to kill, and that one was a problem. This was just a bit annoying. I don't know what else you are asking for, but we don't have any special powers. We just kill the monsters and that is that. Besides, we didn't even try killing the King Toad."
"May I?" Michael spoke up, taking a step forward. I wasn't sure if I liked the idea of him speaking, but I assumed he understood why I was so defensive. Conrad just nodded and I let the Improvised Archer speak his piece.
"Like she said, we realized that the frogs were too much for us. Just dealing with one was really annoying. We fucked up once and almost got in trouble. The only reason why we did not get hurt and managed to escape it was because an ant appeared and took advantage of the situation. And that is why we decided to go after the coyotes. If we find something that is too dangerous for us, then we are just going to pull back. We could win against the coyotes. With some clever hunting and making sure that we are not ever surrounded by them, we managed to get them all. So, really, it wasn't anything that special. I'm sure you could do the same as long as the right people were on the job."
Michael glanced back at me and smiled before turning to Conrad again. "And about Pamela. Look, she is dealing with some stuff right now. We left her previous home because she found out that someone there killed her sister. So she is grieving. It really sucks, but I don't think she is in the right headspace for anything. I mean, she told you we had magical powers. Did she ever say which ones were there or told you a way to get them?"
"No, but she did say that we might be able to get something if we kill you."
"Okay, so you are going to kill three people just because you believe a girl that is mad with grief. Is that really what is going on here?" Michael asked.
"I don't know. I was trying to see if we could confirm what she said. As impossible as it sounds, it could help. But then there is the fact that the three of you managed to kill the coyotes. That alone is almost as impossible," Conrad continued.
"Being almost as impossible and completely impossible are very different things. But come on, are you really going to try to kill us right now? Right here? Don't we have bigger problems to deal with? We are bringing all this food back to your village. Why would we be doing that if we were here to hurt you or anything?"
"The argument was never that you were going to hurt us. Just that we might gain more from you with your dead than alive," Conrad replied.
Seeing that Michael wasn't going anywhere, I was about to step in, but Astrid was a bit faster.
"Try," the Frosted Lumberjack said. She stared down every single one of the hunters one by one and added. "We might die. But so will you. Many of you."
Her deadly gaze and intense words seemed to catch a few of the hunters off guard who were clearly frightened by her threat. Conrad kept staring back at her and I started to consider my possibilities. I doubted it would go sideways, and if it did, I really believed that we could take all of them. We would likely need to use the System, but protecting that secret did not mean much if we were dead.
Eventually, the lead hunter sighed. "Fine. Just come along. Do you need help with the coyotes?"
I grabbed the ones that I was carrying from the ground that I had dropped during this small confrontation and said, no. "We are good."
We were on our way back to the Village to share the spoils with the people there, and I hoped that at the very least we would get a decent price for the things we were bringing. But one thing was for sure. If Pamela ever showed up in front of me again, we were going to have a problem.
