As I munched on the corpse, a mechanical voice went off in my head.

「 Conditions met: 《Heartless》 title acquired 」

Hm.

A title?

Typical of RPG fantasy settings.

But, uh. Why Heartless? Is it because I ate a fellow scorpion? There’s no way I’m going to be able to find any other source of food any time soon, alright!

That’s fine. It seems I got some “skill points” from it. Does this mean I can buy skills or level them up or something? How would I even be able to check anyway?

Maybe if I call for a skill store or something…

Alright. Skill store!

. . .

Alright, well, can’t say it wasn’t within expectations.

Anyway, I’m just a level 1 baby. It’s not like there would even be that many skills available for me at the moment.

Oh, I finished eating. Besides the tail. I'm not about to willing eat something that could possibly poison me. At least, not yet.

...

I should probably find some shelter or something.

I got up and looked around.

Hm, I’m a bit apprehensive about going into the forest so soon, but it’s not like I have many other options. I doubt hiding in the dirt would be a long-term solution.

So, first thing’s first: a temporary home!

Let’s see, let’s see… Mm-mm, it seems that resting a bit and getting a bit of food in my stomach was a good idea. I can move my limbs just fine now. Maybe I just had to get used to it?

Either way, it’s not a good idea to stay out in the open. Where should I make my home? A cave is an instant no-go; who knows what’s living in those.

Huh. I think I just eliminated 90% of my possible living spaces. Where other than caves can I live?

Hey, don’t judge me; I was just a normal student who’d never visited a jungle before all this! Whatever. Who am I even talking to?

I think I’m going crazy already.

Okay, okay, let’s calm down. Maybe I can find a hole in a tree trunk or something? These trees are bigger than any skyscraper I’ve ever seen, so it should be fine. They’re quite thick, too.

Alright, that settles it. Find an unoccupied hidey-hole!

I quickly make my way out of the open space and into the foliage. Unsurprisingly, as soon as I was under the cover of the roof of the tree’s leaves, it got instantly cooler.

I almost got whiplash at how different the temperature difference was. I climbed over large, protruding tree roots and carefully avoided any open areas or places where I could hear any sort of suspicious sounds.

Honestly, it took quite a while to find a suitable spot. The sun had almost completely set before I had found one!

Anyway, the most important thing is that I’m safe. For now. There’s not much leg room, but it could be worse.

I’m not sure if it was pure luck or what, but I hadn’t encountered anything else after the frog-monkey incident. Though I’m well aware that, while favorable for now, isn’t something I should be leaning on forever.

If I’m truly going to be the strongest being alive, I need to gain actual combat experience. And for that, I need monsters to fight. Though, uh, preferably ones at my level or lower.

I don’t want to be knocking on heaven’s door as soon as I man up and try to tussle with the wildlife here.

Now that I think about it, what skills do I have? I’m pretty sure just attacking things with my pincers and stinger are basics, but can I inflict poison or whatever?

I’m pretty sure I heard somewhere that scorpions are venomous.

Should I try it out tomorrow?

That probably wouldn’t be the worst of ideas.