It turned out this space had a day-and-night cycle after all, and seven full cycles had passed since then. Along the way, my naive hopes were utterly crushed.
I still felt hunger, and the Elixir did nothing to fill my empty stomach. The meager ration of black bread in my bag had run out long ago.
I was starving. My stomach felt as if it were sticking to my spine.
I had combed the surrounding area countless times since then, but not a single blade of edible grass was to be found. The only things here were those poisonous bugs.
No, not yet. If those poisonous bugs existed, there might still be edible grubs or larvae buried beneath the soil. I could still move, so I could hold out a little longer.
Another fifteen days went by. I dug up the earth with the [Unbreakable Stick], but in the end, I didn't find a single worm. By that point, I no longer had the strength to dig. I was at my absolute limit. If I went without food for a few more days, I would die. I was sure of it.
Above all, the sheer, overpowering agony of starvation had robbed me of the ability to think straight.
I suppose that was what drove me to do something so reckless.
"Khaha! I'm going to die if I don't eat anyway! If this hell is going to keep dragging on, I'd rather just end it all in one shot!!"
In my right hand, I held a caterpillar that looked small enough to swallow in a single gulp. According to Appraisal, this caterpillar was a [Hard Poison Insect—A bug possessing a deadly toxin that dissolves in stomach acid, potent enough to kill even a dragon in an instant if ingested. However, it also contains highly concentrated nutrients].
A poisonous bug that could kill even a dragon. Leaving things as they were meant certain death anyway. So, I poured Elixir into my wooden cup and chugged it down, repeating the process over and over. With my belly sloshing full of Elixir, I swallowed the [Hard Poison Insect] whole.
Thump! Thump!
Suddenly, a searing, magma-like heat erupted from the pit of my stomach, dyeing my vision blood-red.
"Acquisition condition for Weak Poison Resistance fulfilled. Granting skill—[Weak Poison Resistance]."
At the sound of that flat, mechanical female voice, I blacked out.
"I'm... not dead?"
My head was throbbing violently and I felt terribly sick, but I had somehow survived.
I immediately drank some Elixir, and both the headache and nausea vanished as if they had never existed. Even the agonizing hunger that had tormented me was completely gone.
That final female voice had definitely said [Weak Poison Resistance].
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Skill—[Weak Poison Resistance]: Grants resistance to mild toxins.
Acquisition Condition: Survive after ingesting an organism containing 1,000 times or more the lethal dose of poison.
Rank: Novice
Rank-Up Condition: Survive after ingesting 100 organisms containing 1,000 times or more the lethal dose of poison.
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Weak Poison Resistance, huh. I must have obtained it by eating that poisonous bug and surviving thanks to the Elixir.
I had never even heard of a poison resistance skill before, but then again, without a panacea like the Elixir, nobody could possibly survive eating something with a thousand times the lethal dose. It made sense.
At any rate, eating just one of those bugs had completely filled my stomach. I was finally free from that gnawing hunger, at least for a while. Though if the bugs ran out, I would be right back where I started.
Exactly one hundred days passed after that. Perhaps thanks to Weak Poison Resistance, as long as I drank Elixir, I stopped losing consciousness entirely—though the nausea and splitting headaches remained dreadful.
Eventually, I fulfilled the requirements to rank up [Weak Poison Resistance] and obtained [Poison Resistance].
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Skill—[Poison Resistance]: Grants resistance to poisons.
Acquisition Condition: Survive after ingesting organisms containing 1,000 times or more the lethal dose of poison 100 times.
Rank: Intermediate
Rank-Up Condition: Survive after ingesting 1,000 organisms containing 1,000 times or more the lethal dose of poison.
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When I drank some Elixir and ate another bug, even the headache and heartburn were gone.
Over the course of those hundred days, I came to realize something important: no matter how many Hard Poison Insects I ate, their numbers never decreased. Whether their reproductive rate was unnaturally high or some mysterious force was at work here, a fixed number of them always remained. Since the caterpillars never seemed to turn into moths or butterflies to breed, it was almost certainly the latter.
And so, the [Hard Poison Insect] became an indispensable food source for my survival.