Its shell was hard, and the moment it was attacked it turtled up—so did it have any exposed weak spots?
Staring at the mimic ten-plus meters away and the ground beneath it, Gauss had an idea.
He used Message to tell Alia to back off a bit. Then, while firing a three-bolt burst of Magic Missile to make the mimic retreat into its shell, he pulled a flask of lamp oil from his pouch and splashed it across the floor.
Once that was done he continued to fall back.
The mimic, suspecting nothing, kept scuttling toward him.
As soon as it hit the oiled patch, its tiny pseudopods skidded and the whole “chest” slid forward a dozen centimeters before its dozens of little feet regained purchase.
But the oil wasn’t there to imitate a Grease spell.
In the split second of its slip and recovery, Gauss surged forward to close the gap, bone staff already braced across both hands.
He channeled his mana—
—and shoved both palms out.
A wide fan of flame roared from his hands.
Riding the lamp oil, the blaze surged up. Even with the environmental dampening he’d felt, a hungry fire took hold.
A wall of fire nearly two meters high swallowed the mimic whole.
Normally, turtled up, a mimic’s hardened shell could shrug off flames. But the lamp oil had already wicked up through the forest of feet and into the body cavity, and the cavity at the bottom—if Gauss was right—was one of its weak points.
A muffled, oddly shrill screech came from within the flames.
A strange aroma spread—part char, part a uniquely meaty fragrance.
Engulfed in fire, the mimic sprang out and kept hopping madly; flames stubbornly burned inside the retracting foot-ports under its base.
Another sheet of fire blossomed under the mimic.
He also tossed out a small wind cantrip; the fire caught the wind and climbed higher over the monster and the ground around it.
With that mouthwatering scent wafting thicker and thicker, the hopping slowed, then stopped. Only a char-blackened shell remained.
He still hadn’t seen the compendium prompt. Playing it safe, Gauss gave it one more Burning Hands.
In the new flare, the chest jerked a few final times.
So it had still been clinging to life, waiting for him to come close for one last bite. It hadn’t counted on Gauss having this kind of long-range “autopsy.”
With the kill, his fourth elite entry lit up. Dıscover more novels at novel{f}ire.net
[Elite Path, Stage 2: Slay 5 distinct types of elite monsters (4/5). Reward: Randomly draw one elite-monster racial trait.]
[New Title Earned: ‘Mimic Hunter.’ This title upgrades with kill count.]
[Current Effect: Piercing – Against mimics, your attacks have a chance to pierce, dealing effective damage to what’s inside the shell.]
Gauss read the flickering text one by one.
He’d now slain four elites: Mantisfolk, Half-Ogre, Mud Golem, and Mimic.
Only one more to go before the trait draw—could he actually wrap that up on his first delve and make money while finishing five elite entries?
He drew a long breath.
From those four—Mantisfold, Half-Ogre, Mud Golem, Mimic—what trait would he pull?
In theory he should hand-pick five targets to constrain the pool, but reality didn’t afford such luxury. And with a random draw, even strong monsters could yield dud traits; there wasn’t much point over-optimizing.
As his kill counts and variety grew, he was getting a better feel for how the Adventurer’s Manual worked. The new title’s effect was great too: “Piercing” was tailor-made for mimics—next time, even without fire, a cleanup would be much easier.
Thinking that, he sent Mage Hand to open the chest.
A rich, peculiar aroma whooshed out as the lid lifted.
A huge tongue, braised-red from the bake, lay quietly inside the box.
“Did… that get cooked?”
On the other side, Alia and Ulfen had already finished the adds. Ulfen tipped up his head, gray nose twitching until his eyes locked on the chest by Gauss.
Gauss’s stomach growled.
He drew the steel longsword and skewered the mimic’s tongue—shrunken from the roasting—and levered it out, steam still curling from the meat.
He set a cast-iron pan and laid the cooked mimic tongue inside.
“Is this even edible?”
He wasn’t sure—but it smelled great.
After several rounds of hard, all-around high heat, the mimic differed from a typical grill: more juices were sealed in, and the feel when the blade went through had been quite springy.
Still, he hesitated. He’d seen that tongue drenched in corrosive slime—what if it smelled good but was poisonous?
Gauss pulled out The Complete Guide to Foraging around the Jade Forest and flipped through the index. The book was thick; he hadn’t read every page. He found the “Special” section and the page for mimics.
“Mimic: A carapaced shapeshifter that commonly disguises itself as a chest to trap prey. Tongue: ~60% of body mass. Delicious; tender, rich like beef tongue; edible, but must be treated at high heat and the surface layer shaved off to avoid ingesting slime. See processing steps below. Tongue root: fused cluster of brain, ganglia, and heart-pump—inedible. Chest shell: inner walls coated with semi-digested matter—inedible. After thorough cleaning, the shell can be repurposed as a sturdy storage chest.”
So it really was edible?
He’d never tasted elite monster before—only low-tier beasts. And the entry even emphasized “delicious” and “tender” in bold; the rusttoad and frostsnek pages hadn’t.
Inside him, the Energy Glands seemed to stir, urging him to get that monster meat down—valuable essence for the body.