-----???/Our MC-----

Welp. Here I am. The Elroe Great Labyrinth. Right before she leaves, Ariel sends me a message through her [Fartalk] Skill.

"I'll take care of those others for you like we agreed, so don't worry about it. I'll keep in touch." She says before she hops away.

The "others" she's referring to are, naturally, the other Reincarnators. Specifically the ones who die early on:

• Naofumi Kogure - Tears Shed
• Kouta Hayashi - Instant Response
• Issei Sakurazaki! - Dungeon Creation

Sure, I could possibly convince Ariel to go and save them from their ill-timed fates and possibly enlist them into the Demon Army... or I could put my new Ruler Skill to use.

Honestly, [Conquest] sounds kind of redundant with [Greed] unless I'm missing something. Also it turns out that grinding for [Greed] was stupidly easy. It's a known fact that the Sin/Virtue Skills gain proficiency when you act or adopt the appropriate mindset for them, and it seems like the meer existence of [Ruler of Instinct] made me super greedy. Well go figure, the mental influence of [Ruler of Instinct] is the drive to acquire as many Skills as possible. Take that and combine it with my miser-like attitude towards my Skill Points and there you go.

I was super confused about what [Conquest] does for a long time, but Administrator S was able to explain it to me. Apparently it's the System equivalent of what Kumoko did to kill the Queen Taratect that she called "Mother". The whole "eat your soul, steal your shit" thing.

With that in mind, my plans became clear. Eat the souls of the soon-to-be-dead Reincarnators and take their Exclusive Skills for myself. I'm rather curious about the effects of [Dungeon Master] in particular. It seems like it would have good synergy with my build. Which reminds me, I now understand why [Snatch] is considered a potential prerequisite Skill for Lamia besides the mythical connotation.

Lamia's curse was to consume her own children. [Snatch], [Usurp], and [Greed] are all about taking the powers of those you kill and "consume the souls of". I'm pretty sure the power play here is to generate children with their own souls which come with additional stats and stuff, then eat them to amass stats and skills for oneself.

It's a pretty fucked up and morally repugnant strategy, but if nothing else it makes for a decent enough fallback plan.

On the subject of children though, I feel that it's finally time to start putting my [Egg-Laying] Skill to work. With that in mind, I experience the sensation of depleting SP to generate several solid masses within my gut that I then squeeze out of an opening near my tail. I only manage to produce two eggs so far and they aren't really all that big.

See, spamming this would normally be a bad idea since depleting your SP's a fast way to die as Kumoko would prove with her exploitation of [Sloth] against Araba, but I realized something back when I was training with Ariel. I can't actually run out of SP.

Since SP depletion would count as "dying within the System", then [Immortality] halts my SP depletion, specifically the Red SP depletion, at 1SP so I can't actually starve to death.

I guess I should explain for those who don't know. There's two types of SP or "Stamina Points". The Yellow SP that seems to cover short-term rapid exertion such as sprinting or working out and the Red SP that seems to cover long-term things like hunger or providing energy/nutrients to keep the body running.

Obviously if you run out of food or whatever then you'd die, simple as that. But [Immortality] prevents me from ever running out of Red SP since that's a System mechanic. Admittedly I was concerned that this would end up siphoning energy from my soul and damaging it in the process, but Admin S was quick to assuage these fears.

Apparently it just pulls energy directly from the System's MA Energy storage to foot the bill. That sounds like a massive fucking oversight on D's part, but since no one was ever really expected to earn [Immortality], then she probably didn't feel the need to address it. Besides, it's not a particularly massive drain so I'm not too worried about it.

What this means is that I can just spam [Egg-Laying] without fear since the System's footing the bill for me. Is this a bad idea? Possibly. But hey, if it ain't broke...

Pfft, it just occured to me. "What if I end up draining so much energy from the System that the world dies from me laying eggs nonstop?" That would be a fucking hilarious way to end the world. The Egg-magedon. The Egg-pocalypse. Tallk about the Book of Egg-velations, LOL.

D would probably promote me to Godhood immediately if I pulled that off... assuming she doesn't die of laughter first.

So I'm just hanging around creating my throne of eggs until I finally get some fucking action. Some of the damned Frogs that call this layer home finally showed up, likely sensing an easy meal... or it's just a coincidence. Meh, whatever.

I slither out to meet them and start hissing at them, but predictably they aren't scared of me due to my low level and paltry offensive capabilities. Naturally, this leads to them spitting their Poison Spit at me which somehow seems to combine Poison Attack with Acid Attack. I deliberately let myself get hit a couple times untill...

Finally. Just what I was waiting for. With that out of the way, I fire up [Cursed Evil Eye] and let it rip.while preparing my true counter attack. I rush in towards the lead frog and bite them, injecting my Prismatic Poison. The result of combining all of my various Attack Skills together with Prism Attack.

Suffice to say, getting hit with [Light Attack], [Dark Attack], [Poison Attack], and [Heretic Attack] all at once quickly overwhelms the little shit and quickly kills it.

In that instant, I feel [Greed] and [Conquest] kicking in, but I take a moment to apply my first bit of practical Conjuring to tweak the effect slightly. Hopefully.

That is the Skill I was aiming for, but that could just be luck. Targeting a second Frog and biting them with my combo attack, making sure to throw in my newly acquired [Acid Attack] for good measure, I try my trick again.

That's two for two. Thankfully, there's one more Frog for me to test my trick on.

YES!!! IT FUCKING WORKS!!!!!!!

My first practical foray into Conjuring was an attempt at rigging the effect of [Greed] so that I could gain exactly what I wanted from my targets. This is perfect since it means that I can guarantee stealing the Exlclusive Skills of any Reincarnators I kill.

And it just occured to me how useful this is going to be stupidly useful for getting those damn Wyrm Skills. I guess it's time to see if [Divine Protection] will lead me to any Earth Wyrms running around.

At that moment, I hear cracking sounds coming from behind me. Turning around, I see that the eggs are beginning to hatch. Well shit, that was quick.

"Alright brats! We're going hunting!" I mentally project at them. They all start hissing back at me in response as they tear into the remains of the three Frogs I killed earlier. Well, they don't have [Immortality] so they actually need to eat unlike me, so I guess that's fair.

Once all the ones that seem to hatch are finished hatching, the unhatched eggs are consumed and the snake horde slithers forth to find my fresh Skills to consume. Oh, and some food for the brats I suppose.