The outside world faded around me as I was captured by the sweet taste of meat, I knew that It had only been a day since I ate maybe a little longer but the smell of this pathetic orc roasting was enough to send my hunger into overdrive.
I ate everything until there was nothing left and after the world came back into view I noticed that the crowd behind me had stood there with mouths agape and in mixed expressions of shock or horror. I looked around and could see blood splatters and other viscera scattered around me as I assume yet again I had lost self control and became a mindless eating machine.
"Wow so I can totally explain this if you'll just relax and listen." I say as I finish wiping off the blood from around my mouth which seemed like the starting action to finally bring them back from their shocked trances. They started screaming and several of them started running away into the cave.
The few who stayed were thankfully the ones who I formed a quick bond with. The fox woman, the mole, the ratman, the armadillo demihuman, and the harpy I smiled happily as I walked over to them.
"Thank you for staying guys I know this came as a shock but I can explain." They looked at eachother nervously at first but shortly with eyes that shone resolution they looked back at me and nodded as a group. Sylvania was the first to speak "We knew you were different and I am sure each of us has our own secrets to keep, but we started our escape thanks to you, I personally cannot leave a debt unpaid."
The others followed suit and said roughly the same thing I went into the explanation. "Thank you guys so much it may have only been a short time since we met but a traumatic event like almost being sold off like merchandise by slavers is definitely a bonding moment in my book. But back to the reason that I devoured that dumb orc was because I was born with the gift of the Sin of Gluttony."
As I said that they all gasped. "Vexsus you mean to tell us that you have the power of a Sin? Don't you know how rare that is but also that the whole world is looking for Sin holders solely for the purpose of killing them. The kings of this world are jealous of the power you and the others like you wield and have tried countless times to extract that power only to fail endlessly to the point where they put a bounty on anyone who even suggests that they have a sin."
I was a bit shocked by this new information. I knew that Sin held great potential but to be hunted down because of it? That.... was honestly something I see humans doing, ok that makes sense. I nodded in understanding as Kitsoma told me this. "Yea I can see that happening, Humans are weak by nature and in turn seek out any source of power they can get. I know that feeling all to well myself." I stopped saying anything further unless I wanted to give away my secret of reincarnating from another world.
After the talk between us, they decided that we should go ahead and finish the tunnel ourselves and use the others as bait to lure the slavers away. The bad news was that Sondar and Digger were the only earth users but Digger specialized in using the earth to move faster through it while Sondar specialized in defensive earth magic. I was able to combine their efforts where I would have Digger go through the earth towards the outside and leave the loosened earth behind me as a way to mark our path and using that I had Sondar use his defensive earth magic to create a small "Shield" on his hand in which to use as a shovel.
"Wow this is a unique way to use my magic, I never would have guessed that by concentrating my Earthen body skill on my hand and shaping it could I ever form something like this. This has opened up my eyes to other possibilities." Sondar said as he used his enormous strength to shovel mounds of earth around. We quickly ran into a problem of where the freshly shoveled dirt would go and after thinking for a few minutes I offered a solution in which I could use my abyssal Stomach skill to consume the dirt.
They were a bit shocked that I possessed such a skill but I just told them that Gluttony was a Sin that was commonly viewed as Eating mass amounts of food so a skill like this would be obvious to have. They nodded after hearing that and so for hours we continued doing that Sondar shoveling huge amounts of dirt and me chewing on mounds of dirt. We would take breaks every now and then and I would have Digger go straight through the ceiling till he hit the surface to let some air flow down to us. I remembered old stories where miners would asphyxiate and choke because of how poor the air quality was back in the old days of Earth.
Howy asked why we didn't just dig straight up after Digger and escape that way which was a good point that I unfortunately did not even think about I was only worried about air quality and had completely overlooked it. At which point I almost face palmed Until Kitsoma spoke up saving me from the humiliation. "Don't you think Vexsus already thought of that, I can only assume that he figured out that there would be guards all over the place on the surface so he is using small air pockets to instead help us breath down here so that we can go unnoticed for aslong as possible."
I was internally dumbfounded at how amazing her analytical skills were. That was until after everyone got back to work and she leaned over to me and whispered. "I knew you hadn't thought about that but I wasn't going to say anything so you owe me one. But since I think your pretty interesting I'll wait to name my price." She smiled at me and winked before turning back to the others like nothing happened.
I...I....I Just what the hell happened here? She knew I was an idiot from the get go? I am gonna have to step up my game and get better at planning stuff out. She is a dangerous woman, and in more ways than one as I notice a short swish of her tail and her lightly swaying her hips back and forth as she walks in front of me.
'OOOOOO this chick is definitely dangerous, She's gonna start something that I may or may not want started.' I chuckle lightly at that thought and continue eating dirt like the moron that I am.
Some rather inconvenient news came shortly after as Digger came rushing back. "Boss, Boss we got bad news up ahead is what looks like a small cavern, thankfully there's no humans but bad news is that there are what look like a small goblin outpost."
"Shit, also I'm not your boss, But Shit this is bad news we need to keep going is there a way around it?"
"Yes your the boss now boss, and no there is some strange hardened stone that is blocking me from scouting around it the only way is to either go to the surface or tunnel into the cavern with the goblins."
'Ugh great I wasn't wanting any bad news like this but ahwell.' I shook my head and I turned to Kitsoma and asked her opinion. "Hey Kitsoma, so remind me does this world have dungeons? I have only lived in isolation for the better part of my life and have only read of such things existing but have never entered one." Again they all looked shocked at what I told them before shaking their head.
"Yes there are dungeons in this world but most of them have a surface entrance that has already been found and are often monopolized by the humans by way of a dungeon guild."
"Great so from what I have read the dungeons are surrounded by a hard indestructible material correct?"
She opened her eyes wide after shortly realizing what I'm implying. With a nod at her I look at Digger. "Ok man this is the plan we are going to enter the cave this is a dungeon and we are going to use it to get back to the surface. We can also use this as a good opportunity to get stronger in the process."
A small argument over the benefits of doing such a thing ensued where eventually they all saw it my way and we tunneled towards the goblin dungeon. On the way I devised a formation where upon entry Sondar would be the main tank and draw their attention while me and Howy deal damage under the cover of my smoke. Kitsoma will either hinder them further with her illusion magic or cover our retreat with fire magic should they prove to difficult. Sylvania was assigned as Kitsomas guardian to make sure no stray goblin decided to take out the mage. Digger lastly would be the sneaky assassin who would deal as much damage as possible in any way he could and then run away using guerilla tactics.
We agreed and decided to rest before we made the final push through the weakened dungeon wall. I took this time to try out a new idea I had and started circulating the mana through my body before pushing small amounts of it into my eyes and while they were closed I warned everyone to hold their breath as I let out a huge Smoke breath and filled the tunnel until nothing could be seen.
I open my eyes and concentrating on the magic in my eyes I try to focus on seeing the heat from the others. After a while I was slowly able to see a faint silhouette of the others through the smoke before I started hearing coughing from the others. Yet again I didn't think things through and in a panic I started sucking in the smoke in huge gulps of air and also used small spatial bullets tossed at the back of the tunnel to help suck away the smoke. Thankfully after a quick check up nobody was seriously hurt and was quickly healed by using a combination of MP Share and Life steal using myself as the target I was able to take away some of my health to heal the others.
After that fiasco I was able to get the skill Heat vision which was the original purpose of my experiment to help with what we were about to do but I was interrupted by a hand slamming into the back of my head.
"You asshole what was that for, You could have killed us by doing that." Sondar said as he rubbed his hand. The others also glared at me in anger.
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I swear I was just trying to get a new skill to help me with our plan, I didn't mean to do anything harmful to you all. Plus I made it better by healing you guys didn't I?" I said shamefully.
"Yea I guess but man you gotta give us way more warning than a 'Hey hold your breath real quick' I barely got a breath in before I was covered in smoke. And what skill were you trying to get and you had better say you got it." Howy said
"I got a skill got Heat Vision that would let me see a Silhouette of a targets Heat signature even if my vision is impaired say like if smoke was concealing their position."
"Oh well that will come in handy sorta like a snake right?"
"Yea like a snake, even though I'm a dragon and deep down I get a feeling of being insulted but yea sure like a snake."
"Hey Dipshit your the one who almost killed us I think you being referred to as a snake is ok." Sondar said still understandably upset.
They others voiced similar opinions laced with barely passable words of congratulations. After that we take a longer break to recoup and after a quick discussion and a quick scout from Digger we decide that the coast was clear enough for us all to take a short nap to really get a mental refresher.
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[Smoke Breath] 3 -> 4
[MP Share] 1 -> 2
[Life Steal] 1 -> 2
[Heat vision] 0/50 - User is able to sense the heat of others when vision is otherwise impaired.
[Life Share] lvl 0 0/10 - User sacrifices health to heal others.
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