The Death Mage that doesn't want a fourth time

71 If there's nothing to eat, you can eat Goblins, can't you?

"... I don't know... I really... don't know..." the bandit leader whispered with the eyes of a dead fish, saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth.

Vandalieu gave a small groan. "You really don't know. Considering that, your timing is quite strange, isn't it?"

The day after the traveling merchant's attempt to poison the villagers, bandits had tried to attack another cultivation village. It was too strange to be a coincidence.

But none of the bandit leader's subordinates had any information that could be clues, either.

The bandits had apparently been moving territories, bought the locations of the cultivation villages for cheap from the information broker in the closest town to this place, a town called Niarki. They had learned that the villages were easy to attack as there were no adventurers in any of the villages other than the Seventh Cultivation Village, so they had come out here.

The information broker that had information on the internal affairs of the cultivation villages that only a small portion of people ever traveled to, such as the traveling merchant in question, seemed suspicious. But nobody had known the bandits' names, and their faces had been concealed by cloths below the eyes.

With this, there would be no way to chase the bandits.

"I suppose I'll try pouring a little more, just in case," said Vandalieu.

"S... stop... please..."

"If you've ever stopped killing, raping and selling innocent people, I'll take that into consideration. So, have you ever quit?" Vandalieu asked.

"N... no..."

"That's what I thought."

Vandalieu placed his claws, which had a liquid dripping from their tips, into the gaping mouth of the bandit leader. The fluid being secreted by the claws dripped out.

That fluid was what is commonly referred to as truth serum, secreted through the Venom Secretion (Claws, Fangs, Tongue) skill.

The Venom Secretion (Claws, Fangs, Tongue) skill that he had acquired with the Venom Fist User Job was a skill that allowed venom secretion, just as its name suggested, but unlike the Ghouls' skill, the poison he could secrete wasn't limited to paralyzing venom.

Before acquiring the Venom Fist User Job, Vandalieu had the idea that he might be able handle poisons and drugs better, so he tested this idea after acquiring the Job. He found that toxicity of the venom he created was weaker than the poison he created using death-attribute magic, but he gained the ability to secrete toxic drugs with various effects from his claws, fangs and tongue.

And so Vandalieu had become a living pharmacy who could create truth serum, antiseptic solution, anesthesia, digestive medicine, sunscreen, eye drops and even vitamin pills.

... But it did have the flaw of using the nutrients in Vandalieu's body rather than Mana, so he couldn't use it consecutively like magic.

One more time, Vandalieu asked the bandit leader the questions he had already asked, but before he could answer, the bandit leader began convulsing and then died.

"So, what's the answer to the question I just asked?" Vandalieu asked the bandit leader's spirit, as if nothing had happened.

"I don't know... I really... don't know..."

Not discouraged by the fact that the answer hadn't changed, Vandalieu grabbed the corpse of the recently-deceased bandit leader's corpse and bit into its neck.