Chapter – 21 …
As expected, she didn’t have to wait long before she felt the familiar tremor ripple through the ground beneath her feet.
Thoom!
At last, the enormous worm Liriope had been waiting for burst through the dry earth and revealed itself before her once more.
“What the hell is that?!”
Everyone recoiled at the sight of the strange creature.
In that moment, the only one happy to see the giant maggot was Liriope.
Still, Zed reacted quickly. A fireball he hastily conjured slammed straight into the worm’s black, gaping maw as it lunged toward them.
The worm let out a ferocious roar. The sound was so loud that the very air vibrated, whipping Liriope’s hair back.
“Move! Get out of the way!”
“There’s nowhere to go!”
“What kind of crazy bullshit—!”
Unfortunately, the other kids’ weapons barely affected the worm. The wooden shafts of their spears slid uselessly off its tough hide, and their axe blades were flung away like toys.
They tried to flee in any direction, but the massive pale worm and the burning fruit field blocked both front and back. There was nowhere to escape.
To make matters worse, the ground destabilized further where the worm had erupted, causing the kids to sink downward as the earth gave way.
Panicked and unprepared, Zed unleashed spell after spell without hesitation. He figured the fastest way out was to kill the worm first.
Blinding flashes from the chain explosions overwhelmed Liriope’s vision.
Relentlessly blazing red light, scorching heat carried with the sandstorm-like wind—it all assaulted their faces.
Thankfully, Zed’s magic inflicted a fatal wound, and the worm collapsed.
That makes nine.
Even as everyone sighed in relief, Liriope continued counting.
[Hey, contractor. I think you miscalculated something. I don’t know your exact plan, but weren’t you trying to harm that kid? You dealt with the swarm and the maggot, yet he’s still perfectly fine. What now?]
Just as the voice said, the worm lay dead, and although Zed looked slightly exhausted, he remained unharmed and steady on his feet.
“Everyone, run! Don’t stop—head back to the shelter as fast as you can!”
But at that very moment, Liriope was certain her plan had worked.
Rumble—!
“W-wait, why is the ground shaking again?”
The ominous tremor paralyzed Zed’s group.
Thud!
And then the source of their fear rose before them—a massive wall of white flesh erupted from the ground once more.
“A-another one?!”
Thinking about it, it was the obvious conclusion.
It was mating season for the worms, and they weren’t hermaphrodites. A creature couldn’t go through a breeding cycle alone.
Rumble!
No—there wasn’t just one more.
A second, third, and fourth worm rose from the ground, drawn by the commotion.
“Z-Zed! Do something! Do something nowww!”
“Please! Don’t let me die…!”
Zed’s face twisted in despair.
He had spent so long wandering only in safe zones, ruling over the other children alone. Everything had gone so smoothly that a moment of carelessness now proved disastrous.
Gritting his teeth, he threw aside hesitation and pulled a small gem-like stone from his pocket, hurling it forward with force.
KA-BOOM!
It was a magic stone with explosive properties—Zed’s secret trump card. But even that wasn’t enough to defeat all of the worms.
He conjured another fireball and hurled it, but the worms fell too slowly, while his mana drained too quickly.
The twelfth fireball, which had just begun to form, fizzled out like a dying candle.
“Fuck… what kind of bullshit—”
Just as his last curse rang out like a dying man’s final words, Zed’s entire group was swallowed whole by the giant worms.
* * *
“Aaaaah!”
“H-help! Someone help!”
The inside of the worm was slick and slimy, like being trapped inside a giant water pouch.
“Hey—don’t push me!”
“I’m sliding down! What do you want me to do, you idiot?!”
The worm had no distinction between esophagus and stomach. So Liriope and Zed’s group, along with heaps of dirt, slid endlessly deeper into its guts.
[Oh, for the love of— I’ve lived a long time, but getting swallowed by a maggot? You’ve really given me some shitty experiences.]
The voice echoed inside her head, full of disgust. Clearly, this situation had shocked him deeply.
Indeed, being swallowed alive and ending up inside a living creature’s stomach was an utterly surreal experience.
When they reached the deepest part of the worm, its innards began to excrete a sticky secretion.
Ignoring the screaming kids beside her, Liriope examined the surroundings. She noticed several spherical cocoons.
Upon closer inspection, they weren’t cocoons at all, but translucent, milky-white sacs made of mucus. Inside them were the worm’s earlier victims, curled up with their eyes closed.
Occasionally, bubbles formed near their noses and mouths—proof they were still alive.
This was the worm’s unique method of preserving food during its dormant period.
But for Zed’s group, seeing still-living animals stored like preserved goods sent them spiraling into hysterics.
Among the sacs, Liriope suddenly spotted someone familiar inside one of the half-filled mucus globes.
The red-haired boy saw her too and mouthed words at her, pounding desperately on the membrane.
Liriope’s purple eyes flew wide open.
Considering there were multiple worms, stumbling upon the red-haired boy here was an astonishing coincidence.
“Everyone shut up! You’re making my head spin!”
At that moment, Zed pulled a folding knife from his pocket and stabbed it into the worm’s inner wall with all his strength.
But the flimsy blade—far weaker than an axe—simply bounced off the elastic flesh, failing to leave even the smallest wound.
“Fuck!”
“S-someone get me out of here! I wanna go home! Mooooom!”
Vince panicked completely, clutching his head and screaming, while the others desperately tried to climb back up the worm’s throat, only to slip again and again.
To make things worse, pink thread-like bristles sprouted from the walls, stroking their bodies up and down as if washing produce.
Liriope shivered at the soft, ticklish sensation on her skin. Still, she knew this wouldn’t last long, and the knowledge steadied her.
Her guess was correct.
As the bristles secreted digestive fluid and siphoned moisture from the prey, the smooth walls behind her suddenly stiffened, as if stung.
WOOOOO—!
Then the worm convulsed with a violence incomparable to earlier tremors.
“Ahhh!”
“W-what now?!”
The floor and ceiling flipped wildly as the worm thrashed its whole body.
The captives were thrown around, colliding and tumbling over one another.
Zed’s group screamed as the rolling mucus sacs bounced and slammed all around them.
Liriope clenched her teeth to avoid biting her tongue and shielded her head. Then the space abruptly tightened as the contracting walls squeezed inward.
And with a violent heave, a powerful force yanked them upward—
* * *
RUMBLE—!
“Ugh!”
“Cough—cough!”
When she came to, Liriope was lying on the dry, dusty earth.
The worm had vomited out its prey, leaving them covered head to toe in sticky mucus as they writhed weakly.
Liriope gagged several times, spitting out saliva, worried she might have accidentally swallowed something she definitely shouldn’t have.
ROOOAAAR!
Suddenly, a deafening roar exploded beside her.
The worm let out a death cry as its massive white body collapsed.
Prepared for this, Liriope turned away and squeezed her eyes shut just as a tempestuous gust blasted across the field.
Dust whirled up instantly, obscuring all vision.
“W-what? Is the damn thing dead now?!”
“I can’t see anything!”
Blinded by the sudden sandstorm, Zed’s group failed to notice Liriope staggering behind them.
“Shit! This is such bullshit—! Hey! One of you idiots come over he—”
Thud!
“Guh?!”
A blunt, solid impact struck the side of Zed’s head.
He reflexively raised his arms to guard himself, but another blow rattled his skull, sending him crashing to the ground.
“Wh-who—?”
Thud!
“What bas—agh!”
Thud! Thud—!
Without magic, Zed was just an ordinary teenage boy.
He had no way to defend against a silent ambush from behind—especially from someone overflowing with malice, someone who had chosen to get their hands dirty and kill with intent.
Zed never even managed to see the face of the person attacking him. He was struck over and over, skull shaking, body convulsing, until he finally collapsed.
