Drip...
...What's that sound?
Feeling groggy, I slowly open my eyes.
It's pitch black around me. I can't see anything, even with my night vision.
Night vision requires little light to see things, less compared to normal vision, but it still requires light. It's not like the fabled dark vision that allows someone to see even in total darkness.
I didn't see such a thing among the multitude of options during the development of my physical structure information that the voice helped me with.
Drip...
Something feels off about my surroundings.
Last event I remember, is that I laid myself next to a tree and covered myself in leaves before I fell asleep. Despite hiding myself, I was in open space.
But it feels cramped in here.
As I move my arms, I touch something gooey and slimy, and a soft wall.
I push against it.
It feels soft, like meat.
"!"
Shit!
As my mind turns fully awake, I quickly realize the terrible situation I'm in.
I quickly extend my tentacles and claws, and spin them 360 degrees around me, top to bottom, scratching, carving against the soft walls.
As if to confirm my fears, the walls started writhing.
I scratch harder!
Some liquid starts seeping out of the places I repeatedly carve.
The walls start thrashing!
The confined space I'm in and myself along with it, goes for a ride.
I started getting dizzy, but I don't stop scratching.
My titanium claws are probably the closest thing to pure titanium in my body. If it can't cut me out, nothing can.
After several more breaths, slow and torturous breaths considering how little air is in here and how bad this place smells, I finally feel a claw poke through and touch true air.
RIPPPPPP~!!
Crawling out of a newly ripped hole, I fall out of that thrashing place.
I roll on the leaf-covered ground of the forest, the slime on my shell sticking to the leaves and dirt.
I look back, and there it is,
a worm as big as wide as a log, thrashing about with a hole the size of my body in the middle of it.
I was fucking being eaten!
If I didn't wake up as soon as I did, I would have suffocated to death inside its stomach and then gotten digested.
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This is the consequence of not finding proper shelter before going to sleep.
Worms don't have eyes, so it probably sensed me hiding some other way, through heat or vibrations or something.
After a good dozen seconds, the worm is still thrashing about with that hole in its stomach. It's still not dead!
Since it tried to eat me, I won't have mercy on it.
Extending my tentacles, I claw at its head!
Worm blood spills out, and the worm lets out a soundless scream.
It turns its head at me, baring open its teeth-filled mouth.
...Should I be glad that it didn't chew its food?
No, if it did, I would have woken up before being swallowed. It must have been smart enough not to do that.
The worms lungs at me, its body stretching greater than its original length.
First time in this world I see a monster that can stretch like me.
I roll to the side and dodge.
Then I extend my tentacles and claw at its center, at the hole I cut open before.
Latching to it, I work on widening the cut.
The worm trashed. It even tries to turn and bite at me while I'm atop it.
I dodge and continue cutting at its center from another angle.
Soon,
RIPPP~!
The excessive movements of the worm, coupled with my hard efforts, ripped the worm's body in half.
The 2 halves of the worm fall over.
...Why am I not getting an EXP notification?
The halves of the worm writhes, both of them.
It's still not dead...?
And BOTH halves are moving?
The half with the head turns to me.
It's probably an illusion, but I think it's angry.
I extend my claws on all 4 tentacles and stab at its head. My short titanium claws pierce into its log wide head over and over again, drawing worm blood and making many holes.
The worm lets out a wordless scream and lunges at me. I dodge it via a roll and claw at its elongated half of a body multiple times.
It tries to wrap itself around me, to constrict me, but I use my tentacles to strike the ground and jump away.
I spit poison ink into its wounds,
but I doubt it would have much effect on this high vitality insect.
My poison ink, although deadly, takes a long time to kill even birds that are much smaller than this giant worm. It can't really be relied upon in actual combat for anything other than blinding my opponent's eyes, which worms don't have.
I hoped it would at least slow down the worm by giving it some pain, but it doesn't seem to be working.
The worm is as lively as ever.
Though, probably for the same reason of it not having eyes, its attacks aren't very accurate either. They're like telephone punches, easy to dodge.
No matter how much I scratch at it, how much blood I draw from it, it doesn't die.
Instead, I'm the one getting exhausted.
Now that I think about it, back on earth, there are worms that have multiple hearts, anywhere between a handful to a dozen, I think.
Could it be the same for this one?
I decide to test that theory.
Striking my tentacles against the ground, I leap up and latch onto the worm's head.
Exerting strength, I stab into its neck? with my titanium claws and start ripping at it.
With me on its head, it cannot bite at me, but it does start whacking me with its bisected other end and slamming me into the ground and onto trees.
Ow.
I can feel the impact,
but I rely on the endurance of my soft titanium shell while resolutely continuing my work.
Soon,
RIPPP~!
I rip off the worm's head.
...It continues writhing.
I'm certain now. It definitely has multiple hearts.
But the writhing part doesn't turn its attention towards me. It seems it sensory organs are not there and are all left in its head that I cut off.
I take my time clawing this part and the tail part of the worm.
They don't fight back at all. They only react to the wounds by twitching away.
Finally, these parts too stop moving.
Killed stage 1 level 18 Hexhia Wor. Gain 320 Exp. Level +1 +1 +1 +1
Woah... This is the largest amount of experience I've gained in one battle.
Excerpt from Aberna's Cyclopedia of monster:
Hexhia Wor - a stage 1 worm-type monster with 6 hearts. At adulthood, its body can grow to the width of 1.4 feet and stretch to a maximum length of 4.2 meters. It can burrow into dirt, moving stealthily underground, and often swallows its prey whole. It has sharp-looking teeth at in head, but those are in fact just decoration, brittle to hard leather, used only to scare off predators. Its actual strength isn't so great, causing it to usually go after small and weak prey, but its endurance is the opposite. It won't die unless you accurately pierce all 6 of its hearts. Conversely, you can off its head, disconnecting the rest of its body from its brain, turning it harmless, and wait until it runs out of energy and dies. Note: Don't leave small pets outside. Otherwise, they might get eaten by this monster.