Becoming a Monster

66 Chapter 66: Monkey See, But Shouldn’t Do

A/N: There was gonna be a chapter yesterday, but decided to do it today so I can make it longer.

...

"Uh…Hey, excuse me. Can we talk to you for a second?"

Noah stopped what he was doing and looked towards the unwelcomed voice with a narrowed gaze.

Ishii, when he saw Noah's eyes, instinctively gripped his sword unlike the others who backed away in fear. Noah's gaze turned intrigue when he saw this, even more so when he could subtly see small sharp objects begin to wrap around the girl from before.

He had finally noticed that these two also had the same type of outfit as him. Granted that they had more items to loot since they were groups and that meant more chest. They still had to fight a decent amount to receive a high enough tier chest to obtain it.

After being intrigued by the two people's reaction, he unknowingly had a smile. It was nice to meet people with the mentality of surviving and the courage to back it up.

He again observed Isshi, he was clearly shorter than him. Ishii was about 5'9'' tall and didn't appear very muscular underneath his gear. However Noah could tell that the person was very experienced at least using the sword so he knew that even with Ishii's small statue, he was definitely in shape. Ishii had long black hair, Noah couldn't tell how long since he had it in a bun. If he had the right armor, Noah would really believe that he was a samurai.

Ishii saw the almost playful smile on Noah's face and inwardly shuddered when he realized what he just did. He easily took care of the hoard of zombies by himself and the two monsters behind him appeared more menacing than what he encountered so far.

Ishii may have strong ability and martial prowess, but it can only take him so far. He soon began to release his grip on his sword nervously and attempted to smile back. He noticed that Noah's expression didn't change, but he did notice his creatures behind him stopped eating and both turned in their direction.

At this point he wished he could go back in time, he thought everything was going well. At leasts as well as they could be going considering everything, but that voice worried him. Worried him for what they would have to start encountering towards the future, especially if they didn't somehow prove 'something' to the voice before.

'I almost messed everything up…' He said to himself in frustration, while thinking up to here, he waved off to the people behind him to stand down to give off a good impression.

"I guess you want to talk about teaming up right?" Noah began the conversation after finally organizing everything in his bag after taking out the other bow and setting it aside. The bag didn't escape everyone's notice after seeing an object bigger than the bag itself being pulled out. Ishii was then even more convinced that this person is someone they needed to follow, he would gladly give up his leadership to him.

"Ye-yes that's right! We won't hold you back either if that worries you. We all want to leave this place and we feel that with you it would be easier to achieve that together."

"We can even share our loot with you!" Ishii loudly blurted out the last part while looks of astonishment could be seen from the people behind him. Especially from the girl controlling the daggers in the air, she knew how valuable the drops were. She couldn't believe he was willing such a huge incentive to a stranger that reeked of blood and looked more dangerous than the monsters they fought so far.

However Ishii felt that he had to say it, he could tell from Noah's lack of expression in his eyes that he wasn't even entertaining the idea of letting them follow. He hoped that this would change his mind, he hoped that Noah wasn't someone with an immoral character and ask for something like the girl's bodies in exchange.

Ishii's suggestion caught Noah off guard, the thought was certainly enticing, but there were a couple of problems.

'Even if I could get their loot, I would still need them to hold it or get myself a base and would have to rely on someone to guard it. I would also have to deal with the leeches that are still in the building...' Once he thought up to this, he had already made up his mind, he soon slung his back over his shoulder and walked to grab his sword.

The group watched him anxiously in silence before he looked towards them again.

"You make a good deal, but I'm better off on my own." Ishii and his group were actually surprised that he had still turned them down. Some believed he was just too arrogant, but Ishii didn't care about that, if anything he just felt disappointed that even their loot wasn't enough to convince him to let them join him. However Noah left them with a piece of information that made him regain hope.

"If you want to be in a group so badly, head to the cafeteria. There's a large group there that may benefit you, well some of them at least." His thoughts went to the annoying people like Mark, Neal and Regina. His original thought process was to not care about the other peoples progression at all, but that mentality changed for him after the words he heard earlier.

He needed for humans to pull their own weight and if they could only do that by grouping together then he could at least point them in the right direction.

"Wait! What's your name?" Ishii screamed towards Noah's back. Noah was more like a background character in school and with his mental and physical changes, it was almost impossible for anyone to know who he was unless they had regular interactions. Different from what Ishii expected, Noah had still given him his name even though he came off a bit arrogant.

Ishii repeated the name a few times, he vowed to commit Noah to memory as a reminder that he needs to work harder.

They planned to regroup in the building to inform everyone of their next goal and plan out what to do next, but when they turned again to look towards Noah out of curiosity, they viewed him doing something disturbing.

Noah walked over to the bodies of the two zombies that were the first to be killed by him and brought out his dagger to carve out their hearts. He didn't want to struggle so he used his ability to exchange ten percent of Fenrir's strength to his own.

He was trying to be quick so he couldn't help the excessive blood splatter. The heart of the zombie was just as enticing as the human heart he ate before, but he was more aware of himself this time to control his urges.

He didn't think twice about the prying eyes on him when he saw the pearl hidden in the non-beating sac. He could hear the whispers behind him when he did so, but he was more concerned about the notifications buzzing in his mind. The feeling was going on way before he had pried open the heart, he was sure that it had something to do with Fenrir leveling up.

[Tamed creature Fenrir Level Up! +5 attributes]

[You have consumed the mana source of your compatible species. Mana and progression of your skills linked to the mana source has been increased.]

'.....'

'Why am I compatible with a zombie and not a human? Does it have something to do with that title? Or maybe it's the ring…But atleast that means I can abuse this! Lets get more of those pearl thingys or should I just call them cores? It doesn't matter, we can check my stats afterwards, oh man I'm getting excited.'

Even in his excitement, he didn't forget to check on Fenrir's stats so he could distribute his five points.

[Player: Fenrir

Race: Werewolf

Class: Lycan

Lvl: 8

Exp: 1571/1600->7/3,200

Health:80%->82%

Stamina:75%->70%?

Mana: 10

Attributes

Strength:50->53(54)

Agility:41->44

Constitution:60->65

Stamina:33->35

Magic:5

Spirit:38->40

Unassigned Points: 5

Skills

Active

Bloodlust(Lvl 0) Progression:.6%->1.2%

Passive

Lycans Blessing(Lvl 0)Progression:N/A

Lunar Empowerment(Lvl 0)Progression:0%

Supernatural Senses(Lvl 0)Progression:.9%->1.8%

Lycans Regeneration(Lvl 0)Progression:1.3%->2.5%

Becoming deadly weapons(Lvl 0)Progression:N/A

Noah first used Fenrir's points, adding three to his agility so next time he levels up he would obtain his perk for reaching 50, while spending the last two on his strength. His 'decree of equivalent exchange' skill can only be used with Fenrir and what he felt the most he would need to exchange with was Fenrir's strength so he decided to focus on that for now.

However, while looking at the stats, a few issues came to mind that were causing him some inner turmoil.

'I've seen Fenrir eat zombies and humans whole before, he should be considered a zombie right? Why aren't those core-like things affecting him? Is it because his race is a werewolf and not a zombie? No…Even I don't have zombies included in my race. But where am I supposed to find werewolves then to help increase his skills faster?

And at this rate he will completely overshadow Arachne…Hopefully when I 'pass my limit' I'll be able to find a way to help her grow stronger…'

He soon began to look around at all the zombies' corpses, a glint appeared in his eyes before he grew a crazed smile.

Soon almost everyone that was in the library became an audience of Noah, watching him run from zombie to zombie and removing their hearts. Every moment watching him became more disturbing than before. At first they were curious to what he was doing, some of them noticed Noah removing a stone-like object from the hearts. 'What's special about the stones?' They began to wonder and converse amongst themselves.

But then when they saw him swallow the stone that was covered in blood and whatever else was inside the heart, they started to become disgusted, fearful and more curious at the same time. Not mentioning how disgusting it would be to taste human/zombie blood and innards, zombies were supposed to be infectious! 'Did he just commit suicide?'

However as they watched, they grew horrified when they clearly saw him take a bite from one of the many hearts he removed. Few of the women screamed out in shock while others puked from the bizarre display.

They began to doubt if he was even human, that or something was mentally wrong with him. Minutes went by while the similar interactions repeated itself. At one point Ishii really wanted to go over and stop Noah before he traumatized everyone, not to mention he was afraid that Noah would really turn if he continued to ingest the zombie's blood. He didn't want to watch the person that made his goal behave in such a manner, but watching him made him have contradicting thoughts.

'Is he so strong because he's been doing this the whole time? Should we be doing the same thing?' He really wished that wasn't the case, but watching the overzealous figure of Noah excitedly going from corpse to corpse, that thought was growing stronger in time.

"HahaHA! Now let's see my gains!" He couldn't wait anymore, he was still on one knee after removing the last core before checking his stats. He was feeling an itch in his mind indicating notifications, he was excited to find out what he just achieved.

[You have consumed…..]x47 He saw a long list of the same notification over and over and quickly scrolled through before he saw something else.

[You have achieved the first limits of 50 stats in mana, perk based on class Monster Tamer obtained; 'Monster tongue']

[Monster tongue(lvl 0)- To help your cause of taming monsters, it's easier to communicate with them first. The first layer of communication has been open and you can openly discuss with monsters through limited intentions. Leveling up the skill will advance the language barrier.]

Noah didn't really feel like he needed this skill with his spirit being so high, but he also understood that the skill may benefit him in the future and it was a free skill. He was sure that other monster tamers would scream in joy to obtain it. His interest quickly waned before going to the next notification.

[You have reached the limit of the effectiveness the current mana stones have on your mana. Mana gone from the ratio of 1:1 to 1:0.1]

[Player: Noah

Race:Human? Chimera

Class: monster tamer

Gold: 3056->381

Lvl: 9

Exp: 543/6400->943/6400

Health:50%

Stamina:36%->49%

Mana: 10/68->16/116

Attributes

Defense: 25