The Rise Of A Tribal Deadbeat - Chapter 42

Zok had seen and done a lot of weird things ever since Wilderness became his home. But what he was seeing right now was completely unacceptable, even for him. Even the beasts that he knew of did not indulge in this kind of thing and yet this girl was enjoying feeding on her kin? Just what happened here in this cave?

‘Maybe this girl is a shapeshifting monster?’

Since he was in a cave, that was his first thought. He didn’t know about the existence of such a monster, but he was desperately looking for anything that could explain why the girl was eating people that looked like her. but the more he thought about it, the more he realised it wasn’t possible.

However, he was aware that the caves sometimes could mess with the heads of those who enter them. Also, he knew about monsters who could mess with one’s mind, thanks to the updated index. One of the twins knew about it and when he killed them, Zok took their knowledge for himself and thus knew about such a beast.

‘Kaira, Cero. Are there any monsters in this cave? Can you smell them?’

Cero let out a firm but short grunt while Kaira shook her head. This meant, either this girl had killed the beast occupying the cave, or that the beast left the cave before these people arrived there.

In either case, it did not give an explanation for what this girl had done there. Not to mention she even attacked him, maybe consuming her own kin wasn’t enough for her and she wanted to taste something new.

‘Should I kill her? Maybe I should. That way I could get some knowledge points and could gain some depravity at the same time. Win-win for me!’ He then turned towards his familiars, ‘Don’t interfere. I’ll handle her. You guys just be on the lookout for any other beast or someone like her.’

The beasts nodded and slowly stepped back, letting their master handle the frail-looking Occunian. Zok readied his spear, waiting for the girl to make a move, however, the way Zok had evaded her attack and also struck her back seemed to have made her wary of him. She simply refused to attack him.

Zok tried to entice her into attacking her, but his attempts failed miserably. He had had enough of it and no longer wanted to waste his time. He was only trying to get the girl to attack him because he wanted to test out how his dodger class would react upon entering combat with a seemingly low levelled opponent.

But now that the girl was refusing to attack him, it did not seem likely that he will be able to test it out. And since he couldn’t test it out, there was no need for the girl to be alive any longer. Zok rushed in to kill the girl in one sweep, however, just when he was about to kill her, he got an alarming text flashing in front of his eyes.

[The Depraved One warns you to not touch the girl or be prepared for the consequences.]

As soon as the text flashed in front of Zok, he jumped back. He didn’t know what he had done to get the one who had blessed him, in such rage. Just who was this girl for the Depraved one to get all threatening to him? He had hurt her before, and the Depraved One didn’t bat an eye then, so why now?

Thankfully, the Depraved one did not keep him waiting for long. The following moment Zok got another mission. However, this mission was unlike any other he had received till then.

[Special Quest: Befriend the Cannibal girl.]

[Rewards: Depravity +50%]

Although the quest was a bit weird, the rewards for the quest was something Zok could not let go of. Increasing his depravity was a perilous task. Not to mention how long it took him to get the depravity to a bit over 12%. When compared to that, getting 50% in one go was like a dream for him.

‘Alright. No more killing I guess. Well, the first reason I wanted to kill her was to increase my depravity. Now that I am getting that, there’s no need for me to kill her.’ He thought before pulling his spear behind him, ‘I’m socially awkward myself… how the hell do I befriend someone else? Eh… I gotta try either way.’

Zok took a deep breath to get rid of the adrenaline in his blood. For him to have any shot at befriending her, he had to be as calm as possible first. After that, he sat on the ground, trying to make himself seem as harmless as possible and gestured the girl to do the same. To his surprise, the girl actually did that and sat across from him. She still looked to be a bit anxious but at least there was a start.

“Um… what’s your name?” Zok asked the girl and she gave him a blank stare, “Can you speak?”

The girl pointed at her mouth and shook her head in an attempt to inform Zok that she couldn’t speak.

‘It’s not like my familiars can speak either.’ Zok was lost in his thought, ‘Let’s try this.’

[Do you want to use Hivemind to establish a mental link between you and A-grade level 5 Occunian?]

‘Yes.’

[The other party has accepted the request. You can now communicate with each other.]

‘Woah, I wasn’t even sure this would work.’ Zok smiled, ‘But what is up with this request acceptance? It never appeared before.’

However, the system didn’t answer his question. Instead, it gave Zok some good news.

[Skill: Hivemind has been upgraded to Level 5. New perk unlocked!]

[Lie detector: You can use this perk to know if someone is telling a lie or stating the truth. You do not need to establish a hivemind connection with the one to use this perk.]

“Did I do something good in the past or something?”

Zok was wide-eyed, he couldn’t believe what was happening right now. A skill that could detect lies would be very useful to him especially when he was up against enemies who liked playing mind games… like that shamanka bit..ch.