For this very reason, from the moment he'd decided on this flowery marsh zone as the location for his first hunt, Asterion had already prepared for the possibility that the big guys frequenting this area might interfere.
From Barroth to Rathalos and Rathian, and naturally, that included the Jyuratodus that had just leaped out to attack him. To be honest, even if some bizarre, never-before-seen dragon had popped out, Asterion could have accepted it.
In nature, anything was possible.
But now, the thing that had landed and was eyeing him like prey was just a Jyuratodus.
It looked like a giant fish that had grown legs, its entire body covered in muddy-yellow carapace and scales. Its pectoral and tail fins were still swaying back and forth. It had a huge mouth filled with flat, sharp teeth, and its tiny eyes were brimming with greed and killing intent.
It wanted to kill the cub before it. For a Jyuratodus, which occupied the middle tier of the Wildspire Waste's ecosystem alongside Barroth, the Glavenus cub that had suddenly appeared was a supreme delicacy, rich in bioenergy—nutritious and delicious.
A Jyuratodus didn't normally get to enjoy such a feast.
It was even still chewing on half an Apceros, munching away before swallowing it down.
Honestly, Asterion felt his already-red eyes instantly turn an even deeper shade of crimson.
That was the prey he had worked so hard to catch!!
His grand feast!!
The first meat of his dragon life!!!
And it just got stolen by another monster?!
And now the monster that stole his dream meal was eyeing him, wanting to turn him into a delicacy too?!
Anguish! Misery! My hatred burns in the Wildspire Waste!
Do you know how much I've suffered this past month!
Do you know how badly I want meat?!
You naturally evil Jyuratodus, sooner or later This Old Man will—!
"ROAR!!"
Asterion let out a low growl, trying to intimidate the Jyuratodus.
It was no use; he truly couldn't win this fight.
Based on a visual estimate, this Jyuratodus was a good thirteen meters long from head to tail. While that wasn't enormous for its species—probably a "Small Gold" crown—Asterion still had to tilt his head way back just to see its face, even with its feet partially submerged in the mud.
The size difference clearly demonstrated the gap in power. Asterion wasn't some hot-headed fool who'd lost all reason. He knew why the Jyuratodus hadn't immediately charged in to kill him—it was wary of the adult Glavenus that should, by all logic, be protecting the cub.
But Asterion knew perfectly well: he had no adult Glavenus protecting him.
However, that didn't stop Asterion from bluffing. He stared fixedly at the Jyuratodus, slowly backing away, all while letting out roars that sounded like calls for his mother.
It worked well.
Asterion knew that if he simply turned and ran, he'd never escape. This was, after all, the marsh zone—the Jyuratodus's home turf.
The mud in the marsh would slow down Asterion's short legs, but for the adult Jyuratodus, this terrain only made it faster and more agile.
Thanks to this strategy, Asterion seemed to have successfully intimidated the Jyuratodus. It just watched him quietly as he slowly retreated. Finally, Asterion turned and ran out of the flowery marsh zone without looking back. Right up until he rounded a stone wall and vanished from the Jyuratodus's sight, he could still feel its greedy gaze.
His stomach full of anger, Asterion wound his way back to the small cave he had hollowed out one mouthful at a time. The sun was setting, and his Kulu-Ya-Ku brother clearly had no intention of working a night shift. It was currently nestled in a small corner of the cave, only lifting its head to glance at him when he entered.
"Koo?"
"Roar!"
After the brief greeting, Asterion flopped down listlessly in his usual spot.
Glavenus @ Not feeling it.
His hard-earned prey was stolen, and he himself was almost eaten. If he hadn't managed to snag a few bites before escaping, Asterion felt like he might have actually become depressed.
He was angry, but being angry was useless. Hunting was inherently full of variables. While hunting in the flowery marsh zone offered the advantages of avoiding large Apceros herds and providing good cover, it also meant facing attacks from large monsters like Jyuratodus.
Besides, how could hunting ever be without risk?
Honestly, given Asterion's current size, the sheer number of species in the Wildspire Waste, and the open terrain, he was in danger anwwhere he went, just by being outside.
Compared to running into a maniac like Anjanath in the open wastes, Asterion much preferred dealing with a Jyuratodus.
At least the Jyuratodus wouldn't chase him out of the marsh. An Anjanath, upon seeing a Glavenus cub, wouldn't care about anything else. Even if an adult female Glavenus was right there, those brutes would charge in, ignoring any injuries, just to kill the cub.
They were completely insane.
—But that didn't mean Asterion was going to let go of this grudge!
A Jyuratodus, was it?
Just you wait! Sooner or later, I'll eat you!
Thinking angrily, Asterion curled his tail tip over his head, preparing to sleep.
Get some sleep. Tomorrow was a new day; he'd forget all this unhappiness.
"Goo-ki?"
Hearing the sound of shifting pebbles, Asterion moved his tail tip slightly. He saw his Kulu-Ya-Ku brother approaching, holding an egg in its foreclaws.
"Roar?" (For me?)
"Goo-ki!"
Probably thinking Asterion was depressed because he hadn't eaten enough, the Kulu-Ya-Ku brother skillfully cracked the eggshell with its blunt beak. It placed the egg in front of Asterion and then, with a few soft "koos," walked back to its own nest, leaving Asterion stunned.
This was true comradery!
For a moment, he actually felt the urge to tear up. Asterion greedily lapped up the egg yolk and albumen, not even sparing the shell in the end.
He had to get stronger! It was the only way he could repay his Kulu-Ya-Ku brother!!
Sleep!!
Compared to the Old World, the New World possessed a more abundant flow of bioenergy—that is, life energy. As a result, the creatures living here had a much more vigorous life force than their Old World counterparts.
They reproduced more, grew to larger sizes, and existed in greater numbers. Even the beetles by the roadside were enormous—bugs over a meter, nearly two meters long, were something Asterion couldn't possibly have imagined in his previous life.
It was like something out of a horror movie.
"Ptooey!"
Tasted awful.
The beetles tasted strange—a bit sour and astringent. But the juices inside their bodies contained bioenergy, so Asterion wasn't picky.
Enraged that their companion had been attacked, the beetles were circling Asterion, attacking him relentlessly. Unfortunately for them, their attacks couldn't penetrate his carapace. After several more beetles became his next meal, the little things finally started to flee.
To be fair, Asterion felt he was acting like a Deviljho these days. He had to take a bite out of anything remotely edible he passed, not even sparing the dirt on the ground. If a patch of soil looked like it might have a mineral vein underneath, he'd start gnawing on it. A Deviljho probably wouldn't eat dirt, right?
But he couldn't help it. Everything was for the bioenergy that would let him grow.
Perhaps it was because he had a goal—or more accurately, a monster to take revenge on. Spurred on by the desire to one day eat that Jyuratodus, Asterion now refused to pass up any source of bioenergy, or anything edible at all.
Unfamiliar bug? Eat! Dirt with ore in it? Eat! A scale that looks like it's from a Rathalos? Eat!
In short, he wouldn't even pass up the scales other monsters shed to mark their territory. After all, there had to be some nutrients in them.
At first, Asterion had worried about eating this way. What if he got sick, or poisoned?
But as time went on—perhaps because a Glavenus's stomach truly was incredible—he found that after a few tentative tries, his body only felt healthier. And so, Asterion's dietary restrictions completely disappeared.
Under this insane feeding strategy that almost no other monster would imitate, Asterion's body began to fill out rapidly. And stranger still, some changes began to occur that Asterion couldn't make heads or tails of.
First, the bioenergy within his body became much more abundant. That part was fine. The issue was, Asterion wasn't sure if other Glavenus were like this. Everything he ate, more or less, converted into bioenergy. Even eating dirt did it. That level of energy conversion efficiency was a bit terrifying.
It was true that bioenergy flowed beneath every corner of the New World, but most creatures couldn't absorb it directly. They could only accumulate it layer by layer through the food chain.
Plants absorbed the energy, herbivores ate the plants, and large monsters ate the herbivores. That was the general process.
Or take the monsters that feed on small insects; those little things also contain bioenergy, and eating them builds it up.
But getting energy from directly eating dirt was just too much, even if the amount of bioenergy in each mouthful was minuscule.
But Asterion could truly feel the energy in his body increasing, tiny bit by tiny bit. The sensation was intoxicating, just like watching an EXP bar fill up in a video game.
It was highly motivating.
But the thing that made Asterion truly realize something might be wrong with him was... well... he wasn't pooping.
Don't laugh. This was a serious problem.
At first, Asterion assumed it was because he'd only been eating the eggs his Kulu-Ya-Ku brother stole for him. Eggs were highly nutritious and easy to digest, so it wasn't that strange.
Nothing to poop. Made perfect sense.
But then things got weird. Starting with that Apceros appetizer, Asterion hunted and ate many small prey, consuming everything from meat to bone, and still didn't poop. Even he had to admit this was an anomaly.
After all, in this world, even a Deviljho poops.
So, the question was: if nothing was coming out, where was all the stuff he ate going?
Asterion tilted his head slightly, clearly seeing his own carapace. Normally, the majority of a Glavenus's shell plating should be a sharp, thick crimson. Only the tail and the heat-venting shells on its back were supposed to be azure blue.
But he was completely different.
Yes, the base color was still that crimson-red, but on the surface of this crimson carapace, patches of azure-blue or grayish-blue material had appeared.
Asterion tried to scrape these patches off with his tail tip, only to discover in surprise that they were being secreted from his own shell—like an extra layer, they were part of his carapace.
Without a doubt, these secretions were the minerals from the ore he had been tirelessly digging up and eating. Asterion was familiar with such secretions, because a Glavenus's tail was covered in this exact kind of mineral deposit.
It was precisely these secretions that made a Glavenus's tail as sharp and hard as steel. It was from eating so much Machalite Ore that the tail took on its azure hue. If a Glavenus ate too much of other ores, the "blade" forged on its tail would take on the color of those minerals.
This was also why a Glavenus's tail blade could be severed. What actually broke off was the mineral weapon forged onto the tail from the ores it consumed. Once the tail blade was broken, the Glavenus had to find more ore to eat and forge its weapon anew.
A blacksmith among monsters, basically.
This was what shocked Asterion. The mineral secretions that should have only appeared on his tail were now appearing on his torso. And they were much thicker than the ones on his tail, almost as if he were wearing a suit of armor, or as if ore were growing right out of his body.
This was another aberration!
When Asterion first noticed these abnormalities, he was quite worried. Given a Glavenus's physiology and combat habits, he absolutely had to maintain efficient internal heat dissipation.
A Glavenus possessed an extremely high body temperature. Its tail alone rested at around 300 degrees Celsius. When a Glavenus became enraged, entered combat, and began breathing fire, its core temperature would rise even higher.
If these mineral secretions blocked his body's heat vents or lowered his cooling efficiency, it would be disastrous. Even if it increased his defense, Asterion had no desire to become a living bomb, exploding before an enemy even touched him during an all-out fight.
However, after a period of nervous observation, Asterion breathed a sigh of relief. The mineral secretions seemed to spread according to his will. They cleverly avoided the flame-shaped shells on his back, not only not blocking the vents between them, but even forming a new, more efficient heat-dissipation channel right where Asterion wanted it.
This was a good thing.
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