Chapter 63: Stone Pillar

Alec distracted himself from his hunger by fiddling with the spell formation Taryeon gave him until night fell. He ended up diverging from the original spell a lot, but he didn’t think Taryeon would mind.

After making sure that everyone was asleep, he left the camp. He couldn’t contain his hunger any longer.

As he left the camp, he noticed another boon from the cursed skill, [Gluttony]. His senses and instincts grew sharper the hungrier he was. He could already see well in the darkness of the night, illuminated by Miteria’s three moons.

The nights here were brighter than they were on Earth, not counting the brightly lit cities. But with his hunger honing his sight, it was almost like daylight.

Alec easily tracked down a suitable prey. It was a stage one pig monster similar to the ones that attacked the caravan yesterday. Since it wasn’t like the sheep with a bunch of defenses around its head, he could kill it in one go with a slightly modified Pebbleshot.

Alec’s version created a sharper and heavier pebble at the cost of slightly more mana. Since it let him kill the pig in one go, it was more than worth it.

Alec sighed as he looked at the corpse.

He wanted to be picky. He wanted to feel some aversion to just digging in, some doubt about gorging on an animal he just killed.

He wanted to feel a need to drain it of blood and clean it properly.

But his hunger overrode all of that.

’Taryeon-inspired barbecue it is.’

Alec used Cleave, a metal attribute spell, to slice off some meat, and then a modified version of Flamethrower to roast it. Both spells consumed a lot of mana, especially Cleave. For whatever reason, Alec had noticed that all metal attribute spells were costly.

But without a blade or even the skill to use one, he didn’t have much of a choice.

Besides, he would recover his mana from eating the monster.

While eating, he took the opportunity to study his body with Scan and his mana sense. He also used it on the dead pig, but it didn’t reveal much other than the pig’s unnaturally sturdy and dense body.

But that could just be the body of a pig living in the wild. He didn’t know if it was related to its monstrous nature or not.

Alec ate until he was no longer hungry and then some. It was the first time he felt properly full since condensing his first magic circle.

His need for food only went up as time passed. It probably wouldn’t take long until first-stage monsters were no longer enough.

’I really hope that Poem will help.’ Alec patted his stomach in satisfaction. As hungry as he was before eating, he was as content afterward.

’Hey, wasn’t there a quest about killing and eating monsters?’

[Quest progress – Minor Quest: Kill and eat five monsters.]

[1/5 Monsters killed and eaten.]

’Right.’ Alec looked at the screen provided by the system for a moment. This quest wanted him to eat monsters. The other ongoing quest he had made it clear that eating monsters increased the risk of undergoing monsterification.

’Ah, whatever.’

Alec returned to the camp and collapsed into a food coma in his tent, blissfully unaware of the gaze watching him from the darkness.

The next morning, they set off as soon as the nobles had eaten breakfast. It didn’t take long for them to arrive at a stone pillar by the side of the road.

It looked like a simple road marker. But it had an ancient air around it. And on a closer look, it bore clear signs of age that made it clear that the stone pillar was far older than anything around it.

[Appraisal successful.]

[Bjerion stone pillar marking the entrance to the Hall of Achievements.]

’’Hall of Achievements?’ Didn’t they say it was called the Treasure Room?’

Shim walked up to the stone pillar and put his hand on it. He sent some of his mana into it. A moment later, the ground split up on the other side of the pillar, revealing an entrance into the underground ruin.

“As we enter, you will see that the path splits into multiple routes. Your assignment is to enter one, reach the depths of the ruin and replace one of the tags on the wall with one of these.” He held up enough wooden tags with metal hooks drilled into the top for each student to get one of their own.

“Needless to say, if you lose this tag, you are not allowed to grab one from the wall. And if you lose the tag after making the exchange, you are not allowed to take a new one. I will know if you cheat. Cheating or losing the tag means failure. Killing enough monsters might make up for it. Killing monsters while still having the tag is bonus points. No interfering with other teams. Any questions?”

No one had any questions.

“Good. You lot, split up and join the other teams,” Shim ordered the group of commoners with a cold look. Before they could snap out of their dumbfounded look, he continued.

“You go there, you there, you there, you there, and you go with them. Whoever wants the last one can raise a hand.”

Taryeon and Erio were sent to the group of outcast nobles who were part of neither Benjamin’s nor Victoria’s groups. Maura joined Victoria, and Reece and Isidore joined Benjamin’s trio.

Shim was kind enough to let the nobles choose whether they wanted Alec or not, considering what he had done the day before. He was honestly expecting them to say that they didn’t want him, which would justify him putting Alec in his own team with the reasoning that he was too dangerous to any potential teammates.

But to everyone’s surprise, Victoria raised her hand.

“Are you sure about your decision?” Shim asked with a frown.

“Yes, I am, Sir.”

Shim sighed and shrugged.

“Suit yourself. Go on inside.”

Although surprised, Alec and Maura followed Victoria, Ticka, Nia, and Madelynn into the ruin.

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