I watched with interest as Blue began worming his way towards the corpses.

  Other than the wyvern, this was by far the biggest meal he'd had.

  A large portal opened in the tunnel, sucking everything inwards.

  "It's concerning every time I see it."

  Even if I had accepted Blue as a part of me, I couldn't help but ask what exactly he was supposed to be.

  He had been attached to me as long as I had been in this world, so maybe he was some cosmic aberration that had attached himself to me when I entered the world.

  Of course, I had tried doing research to try figure out what he was, but even the Notoria library had no information on whatever he was supposed to be.

  As for my master, he too seemed confused by Blue's appearance.

  On top of that, there was a high chance that he had some sort of relation to my status screen, or at least I thought so.

  I seemed to get a headache from overthinking it, so I abandoned the train of thought.

  "No use in complaining, I guess."

  So far Blue had only benefited me, so I had no room to complain.

  Shuwooom!

  The portal closed, leaving no traces of anyone behind.

  "How about these?"

  I showed Blue the golden sword, necklace and hairpin, seeing if he made any reaction.

  Since they were magical equipment, it seemed plausible to me that they could be eaten.

  Blue stared at the small pile of equipment whilst tilting his head, seemingly uncertain of his own capabilities.

  "What, not sure? Why not give it a try."

  After hearing my slight encouragement, a small portal opened, sucking in all the equipment.

  "Okay, let's see the result."

  "Sheesh."

  'I think this is the largest screen I've seen so far.'

  It took me a minute to go through everything.

  To put it simply, magic bullet had increased in level, swordsmanship had ranked up, my reflex had improved, my magic had improved, and my fire affinity had increased.

  There were multiple surprises.

  Magic bullet levelling up was a given, obviously.

  Swordsmanship levelling up... I mostly chalked it up to Flight, as well as the other few adventurers who wielded swords.

  It was likely that my swordsmanship ranked up due to them.

  Next, apparently I had absorbed the 'survival experiences' of the adventurers, increasing my reflex stat.

  This was surprising to me, as this had never happened before.

  I was entirely unaware that my reflex could be increased in this manner.

  Logically, if I could increase my reflex and magic stats through devouring, wouldn't it only make sense for me to be able to increase my body stat as well?

  Unfortunately, there had been no change in that stat.

  "Actually, maybe it goes to you?"

  I had noticed that Blue seemed to be getting larger at a slow pace, so perhaps their vitality was going entirely to him?

  It was just a guess, but if that were the case I didn't really have much right to say anything.

  I was clearly getting the lions share, after all.

  My magic stat had also apparently increased, but not enough for a change in 'word'.

  Right now, it sat at layer three - low.

  Another interesting point was that my fire affinity had increased.

  It was a tiny increase, totalling only one percent, but the fact it could increase by absorbing mages who held said affinity was a huge discovery.

  It would have been nice if I could absorb the rest of their affinities, but it seemed that I could only gain their affinities if I already possessed the same one, meaning that I would only be able to increase my fire and shadow affinities.

  "All in all, it's a good harvest."

  I had absolutely grown stronger from before, and I now had the opportunity to test that strength.

  I started walking deeper down the tunnel.

  ...

  With my magic bullet reaching level five, the improvements I had expected came about.

  It wasn't akin to me going up a layer, instead, every time my magic bullet levelled up it was as if my proficiency and understanding of the spell automatically increased.

  For other mages, it would probably take them months upon months for this kind of progress.

  Though, of course, other mages also had the ability to learn an endless array of other spells, an ability I was sorely lacking.

  Reaching level five, my casting speed had improved significantly.

  In other words, even without utilising dirty magic bullet, I could cast fast enough to the point there was no delay between my spells.

  Full auto fire.

  Despite this advancement, I did not feel that dirty magic bullet had become obsolete.

  Rather, it simply meant that dirty bullet would shoot even faster.

  Even if I had full auto with my regular spell now, utilising dirty bullet meant that my fire rate would nearly double, though the attack potency would surely decrease.

  Since my whole gimmick was overwhelming firepower, something like that clearly still had its uses.

  And regardless, my usage of dirty magic bullet had been a very important discovery.

  I was not entirely limited when it came to using the basic version of magic bullet.

  Obviously, I couldn't use different spells, but I at least had the flexibility to slightly alter the composition of magic bullet, not to a huge extent, but enough that there were changes.

  Right now, I lacked the knowledge to alter the spell in meaningful ways, but perhaps in the future that road would open.

  My thoughts were interrupted as yet another wave of monsters appeared in the tunnel.

  Skeletons crawled out the earth, and slimes fell from the ceilings.

  The two seemed to fuse together, creating some strange amalgam skeleton knight wearing a slime as armor.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  And as expected, the 'elite' monsters were nothing.

  Even if they had slight magic resistance, it wasn't enough to overcome my firepower.

  And now that I was alone, I could devour them to my heart's content.

  Aside from that, I wondered how I might fare against the sub boss.

  My original plan consisted of the entire party fighting the sub boss and then launching my betrayal after everyone was tired and injured.

  Now, I would be fighting solo.

  By all means, that was my preferred way of combat, but I couldn't be confident against an unknown sub boss which I was supposed to have fought with an entire party.

  "No use in running away, is there?"

  Honestly, I would be ashamed of myself if I killed this many people just to feel fear at the thought of fighting against a boss.