Chapter 32: Vanity
Zac tried everything he could think of to activate the bracers, and by the end they were completely drenched in his blood. Still, there simply was no response from the items. They might just as well have been normal iron hoops.
Struck with realization Zac had an odd expression as he turned his eyes toward the almost comically large sword. Then he summoned the furniture out of the pouch. They had an elaborate ostentatious design, and the two chairs almost felt like thrones.
The bracers were fake. That was the most likely answer he could come up with. The demon had wanted to look impressive, bringing luxurious furniture and foods, a heroic great sword and a dashing breast plate. Perhaps he had wanted to give an even more extravagant impression, so he equipped himself with these fake bracers.
‘The female archer was a beauty…’ Zac reflected wryly. Had this demon tried to turn the scouting mission into a courtship outing?
That would explain why he never used the bracers during the battle, even when they were in a bloody dogfight.
It seemed crazy to Zac that the demon would be so indifferent to the dangers of invading an unknown world, but he also knew he himself was an anomaly. He both had the highest level in the world and a bunch of titles, making him extremely strong for only one month having passed since the integration into the multi-verse.
Had a normal human, or even a group of humans, met the demon they’d likely have been easily butchered. The demon leader hadn’t expected that his life was in jeopardy on this seemingly deserted island.
Zac didn’t expect that the demons would underestimate him for long though. Killing Vul could be explained with him tricking it into killing itself on the poles. But now 7 demons had died in a short while, a few of which were pretty strong.
He left the furniture where it was, as they were pretty good-looking after all. He also needed to free up some space in his new pouch in any case.
As half the day had already passed, he hurriedly set out. He was mostly decked in the demon leader’s gear now, not including the great sword of course.
He was starting to get quite hungry, and needed to find some prey. Luckily for him it seemed that the thick energy in the atmosphere was great for the animal population.
The native animals grew much faster, and bigger, compared to before. From what he had seen in his hunts some were already stronger than the barghest, and used them as prey. Most didn’t seem to be quite there yet though.
It was a bit troubling though for the world in general. The animals seemed to grow strong faster than humans did. Either they were more suited for absorbing cosmic energy, or the System helped them somehow.
Not long ago he killed a human-sized rabbit. Would he have to fight a train-sized snake in the future?
He soon found a small critter while walking, and tried throwing it into his pouch after catching it. He was surprised to see that it didn’t work, nothing happened as he tried to put the struggling squirrel inside.
Zac could only surmise that putting living beings inside didn’t work. He was a bit confused why the critter didn’t get zapped like the tip of his finger, but it didn’t feel like an important distinction.
There was no need to kill the critter, as the demon had stored both beverage and food inside the pouch with no problems.
When he was a good distance away from the camp he found a hole created from a fallen tree. He threw in all the food and drink the demon had stored, and also the two bracers. He was pretty sure they were fake, but he didn’t want to keep them in the camp on the off-chance their function was tracking their location. Like a revenge-killing tool.
He wasn’t worried about running out of food on the island, as it was teeming with wildlife, and many trees were bearing fruit as well. He filled the pit quickly after throwing it all in, and with his strength he was as efficient as an excavator.
With the unnecessary things in the pouch thrown away, he continued on his journey. He was still hurting from both the fight and the conversion, so he simply killed barghest at the outskirts of the island.
He also managed to find a supersized boar that would last him a good while, even with his enhanced appetite. He was surprised to see that the animal actually gave some nexus coins and experience now. However, he only gained a miniscule amount of energy, and only 21 Nexus coins.
It also gave progress on his Axe Mastery class. It seemed that something had changed lately with the beasts. The boar was quite a bit stronger than a normal human, but it wasn’t quite at the level of a barghest. It also didn’t seem too much stronger compared to the snake he had killed a month ago, yet the snake had given no currency for the kill. Neither had any other animal he had killed for leather or food.
Perhaps something had changed with the passage of the first month for the animal kingdom, just as it had with the incursion. Zac didn’t mind, as it only meant that there were more targets to practice on now.
It was a marvelous feeling fighting with his new and improved circulation pathways. Being able to use magic items and project cosmic energy wasn’t the only benefit. His powers hadn’t really increased, as there still was the limit of how much cosmic energy his muscles could take in. But the energy flowed far more smoothly through his body, making it effortless to switch between attack, defense and movement seamlessly.
He also seemed to use up less energy while fighting, as somehow the new pathways were more efficient. He wasn’t too surprised from that, as he had surmised that his usage before had been inefficient since the start. He had noticed how much energy was wasted pushing it into his muscles, compared to using his skill [Eye of Discernment].
Higher efficiency meant he’d fare better in a protracted battle. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so haggard after killing Vul if he had this level of endurance.
He kept killing demons and animals for the rest of the day, only returning to camp when the suns had practically set. His pouch was full of various large beasts he had killed. He thought he might as well stock up on dried meat in case something happened.
He also wanted to try just leaving some slabs of meat in the pouch, just to see how well they kept.
The fruits that the demon had kept in the pouch before were things he had never seen before, meaning it should have brought them from his home planet. They still looked pristine as though they were just plucked, so Zac hoped that the pouch would also work like a portable freezer.
That would come in handy in case of the weather changing. The weather had been great since the world changed, with only a smattering of clouds in the sky every now and then.
It seemed the trees didn’t suffer from the lack of rain. On the contrary, the forest had kept growing and mutating at an astonishing rate. Zac assumed it had to do with the cosmic energy in the atmosphere. It might work as a substitute for both sunshine and water for all he knew.
The island felt tropical by now, like the island was a primordial forgotten vestige at the edge of the world, where dinosaurs and other prehistorical beasts could be found.
That meant that there might come a tropical rain season. Zac really didn’t hope that was the case, seeing as everything got bigger and more extreme since the integration into the multi-verse. What would a torrential downpour powered by cosmic energy look like?
It took the better part of the night to skin and clean the beasts. He simply threw the skins on top of the car, not really bothered whether they dried properly or not. He didn’t really have any use for skins anymore, as the pouch and better armors kept him covered.
He was somewhat disappointed to see that he was unable to absorb cosmic energy from a Nexus Stones while doing other tasks. He first tried putting it in a pocket while he was cleaning a carcass, but he couldn’t sense the stone when he did.
Having it in one of his hands was too unwieldy, and slowed down his progress on the meat considerably. Finally, he stuffed the crystal in his mouth, hoping the contact to his body would make it possible to absorb the energy without occupying a hand.
The only result from that was that he almost choked himself to death on the energy rock. After a few more experiments he could conclude that he only could absorb cosmic energy from one crystal at the time and that he had to completely focus on the absorption for it to work. As soon as he tried to multi-task while absorbing a crystal the absorption simply would stop.
Disappointed, he could only put aside the crystal and keep it for a later date. He was planning on saving some of them in any case, as he wanted to give them to his father and sister when they met again. They were nifty, but only of limited use for him. But for people of lower levels, they’d be a great tool.
If they could be used to help his family protect themselves better it was worth saving, even if it meant slowing down his own leveling speed slightly.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel