Becoming A Snake God 5 First Meal

This is great!

It seems that root skills give their own pa.s.sive effect in addition to abilities it unlocks as you level the skill up!

This should be enough to secure my safety while dragging the bodies to the hidey-hole.

By the way, I know I said that the s.p.a.ce in my hidey-hole is big enough just for one snake of my size... Well that is still half true, at least the entrance is too big for two snakes to come in, but that time when the big fire snake made a big fiery hole in the wall it shook up the whole fountain I am hiding under. Even the water came into my hidey-hole because of it. But because of that, the hole expanded from the inside!

I just had to remove some of the debris from the fountain out of the hole and tdah!

An expansion!

The dragged out debris was used to secure the immediate surroundings of my current base of operations by forming a small wall of rocks.

I know, it would be useless as a line of defense, as any one of my siblings can easily go over that wall which was high as two of my bodies stacked on top of each other. But, besides being useless as a wall it is actually used as an alarm system!

I would just mind my own business in the hidey-hole while paying attention if any of the outside rocks fall from their place.

It might seem primitive but it can save my life by alerting me of any danger around the entrance.

Off course, this contraption of mine isn't unbeatable at all. It was built in quite a hurry so there are some loose rocks that might fall by themselves, as well as some rocks that got jammed together, so they can't fall and do what they were meant to be doing.

Besides that, this wall is very close to the entrance, as I didn't dare leave the hole with the whole of my body and it can't be used to sense danger from above the entrance, from the fountain.

At least I am a bit safer, even if by a strand of hair... which I no longer have...

Anyway, this 'Serpentine Flow' skill seems to be one of the skills that higher level serpents would have, yet I got it so easily, well I might say it was easy, but my body still hurts from all that training...

Let me check my stats now that I got an agility booster!

[Status Reading...]

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level 1, unnamed, Snakeling Hatchling

Vitality:0,3; Strenght:0,2; Agility:1,2;

Resistance:0,9; Magic:0,8; ▓▓▓▓

▓▓▓▓ Total:3,4; Xp:4/5;

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Skills:

Venom Bite-Lv1(Act)(bio)

Smooth Scales-Lv2(Act)(bio)

Serpentine Flow-Lv1(√)

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My eyes must be deceiving me...

The agility actually doubled!

This means I am easily the fastest noodle in this hole!

And the screen even shows the √ sign for root skills. The screen really displays in a way the user will understand the shown information the best.

It also seems that even without killing or eating I can get experience, it should just be a lot slower this way as there is no much risk involved.

But it is good to know that when I get some free time, not surrounded by danger, I can train to level up. Even my strength rose by 0,1. It might not seem that much but once you see what stats my siblings have even after their evolution to fire babies, I got a pretty good deal out of this.

I was so scared that I would die here yet now, I have nothing to worry about.

I just need to stick to the plan which relied on my speed and since I am the fastest one of my siblings, that I know of, it should be a breeze... the same thing they will feel after I slither past them.

Heh, Sorry brothers and sisters, but this little brother of yours is getting a bit hungry right about now. Hungry for the xp you will supply me with, that is.

I almost feel sorry for them...

I mean, I did grow up loving snakes and all, but having to kill them for food seems wrong to me, probably because we are siblings and the human side of me doesn't want to do such a twisted thing.

But yet again, it is nature that made it this way so who am I to complain?

Hua~h...

~10 minutes later

Alright, now let the hunt begin!

I need to leave the hidey-hole with as much quietness as humane-... Serpently possible.

After I've done that, I need to look around to see which of my siblings is closest to my hidey-hole.

It seems that not many of my siblings are left in the den as well as there being more molten holes appearing on the walls...

The time for this hunt is just about right! The strongest of our generation have already left as they seek to find bigger and stronger food to evolve further.

And I will be joining their 'Big-boy' ranks very soon.

Fuwah, just need to find someone who is either sleeping or eating and... Bingo!

If my sense of distance and size is right and I am about 15 centimeters long, then my prey is about a meter away from the hidey-hole entrance.

He, my brother, is digesting our other brother while looking dazed.

The unfortunate sibling who is being digested probably managed to get some venom into his evildoer before being eaten alive.

I need to use this chance before paralysis wears off to kill and eat this "Two for the price of one" package deal.

I am slowly slithering from my brother's blind spot, from behind his inflated body due to the 'food' he is digesting.

He doesn't seem to notice me, as he is still quite dazed from the venom.

Just a tiny bit closer...

I just need to circle around this rock which he is resting on to enter my lunging range.

Because of his higher position, my strike will be a bit less effective but the surprise factor should still leave me with a more advantageous position.

Just a bit closer to his head...

And...

"HISSSS!"

I got close enough to pierce his skull through his right eye using my left fang.

His body was squirming and trying to sever the connection which my fang made with his eye almost piercing that tiny brain of his. I can see his desperation, trying to save himself from a deadly dose of venom which I am trying to inject with my fangs.

If I wasn't able to lock his jaws in place, he would surely try to regurgitate his meal in hopes of lightening his load and returning him his serpentine flexibility.

In that case, I would have been in a bit of trouble as he would have surely try to coil around my body trying to get an upper hand from on top of his rock.

But things didn't play out in his favor as I already took his possible responses into account while preparing my strike.

I instantly pumped out most of the venom from my fangs, but a major bit of it was wasted as I didn't manage to connect with my right fang.

So much wasted venom...

At least I managed to score a kill with the part that wasn't wasted.

[Level Up!]

Hey! This is so awesome!

I even get a screen which tells me when I level up.

This way I will always know when I am getting stronger.

I wonder if this world has something like points system which people use to level up and obtain new skills.

I will probably get to know that after 'Status Reading' stops being picky about what information it can give me.

Now for the completion of my mission, I just need to quickly return with this meal into my hidey-hole and enjoy this tragic feast.

Huff, huff, huff...

YES!

I did it!

This was the first success and hopefully the first success of many to come in this mission of mine.

I succeeded but, but what now?

In my previous life I saw how snakes feed on their prey, but how am I supposed to do it.

Me who lived as a human...

This feels wrong!

How am I supposed to eat this???

Just thinking about it makes me go into a gagging motion...

I need to figure out how to eat this without my previous life's memories interfering.

Alright!

Let's begin. Itadakimasu...

I'll try eating it from the head down and see where it goes from there~.

This feels so we~ird.

My jaw completely dislocated in order to swallow this double-sized horror noodle.

If I were to ever feel this awkward feeling in my previous life I don't know what I would think about it, it really is very hard to describe the feeling of the lower jaw being unhinged...

I also just now remembered that my lower jaw is connected by a stretchy ligament...

SO WEIRD!!!

I need to use my meals body to keep two of my three jaw parts anch.o.r.ed in order for the third one to further envelop my prey.

My jaw finally unhinged enough for my meals head to finally begin going down my throat.

I feel its scales brushing against my insides as it travels to my stomach.

More than halfway there.

Good thing that this body comes with the snake's natural instincts because gagging reflex would have made it almost impossible for me to eat with that weird feeling of my prey traveling to my stomach.

At least there is almost no taste involved...

Oh yeah, I don't really use my forky tongue that much now that I think about it...

Maybe it will be more useful once I get a skill similar to what snakes from my previous world have.

I'm talking about using the tongue to push the air into my chemical receptors close to where my nose is.

I wonder how will that look like...

...

How do I see in this place???

There is no light source to be seen ever since the sparkly water disappeared and my vision didn't even change that much from before.

I feel like my good ol' pal 'Status Reading' left out quite a bit of information that I should know...

I guess that I have some sort of night vision skill or something, maybe it is a skill shared by all monsters?

Maybe 'Status Reading' is just acting like a rebel.

How about I look into that once I leave this place?

Being strong in this world seems to be the only thing that actually counts so I have to become stronger to deserve the information that I need.

Also, if possible, I will need to research how to create something like a human form if I intend to visit the outside world.

If my novels aren't wrong, there should be a lot of different species living in this world alongside humans. There should be many species like charming elves, pet.i.te dwarves, and cute beast-people...

There should also be skills or magic which should be able to turn me into one of those species, even if for a limited time.

When I gain control over this den I will look into skill points and if they really do exist, I will need to research how to use them and what skills to unlock with them.

I will also need to research how should I use the 'Touch of Divinity' thing and find out what those unreadable stats are.

"Nom~"

Finally ate the whole thing...

Now it is just a matter of time how long will it take me to digest this whole thing.

From what I know, my digestion should be many times faster than the snakes from my previous life so this shouldn't take too long.

Hmmm~...

I could even take a nap right now.

If only this cave was a bit warmer...