Tim woke up at the crack of dawn. He felt a lot less sore now, and most importantly, he was alive, so perhaps it wasn't the worst thing in the world to faint once in a while. He had thoroughly enjoyed the long nap!
However, as he tried to regain his composure, he discovered something really weird. He was covered in this thick, smelly liquid, and he was covered head to toe with it!
“Gross!!” He squealed.
Although he couldn't nearly understand how he was covered in this weird, purple juice, he did eventually recognize the smell after countless whiffs. He had smelled the same scent on the last bug that he killed, before he fainted a few hours ago.
“Looks like one of these ugly bastards had one lick of my ass, and spat me out.” He guessed this was one of his theories.
Tim wasn’t left to theorize for long, however, because one of the city guards found him. This was one of the same guards who had escorted him, and the other volunteers to this place to begin with, and he seemed as angry as he was relieved.
“Oh, you're alive? We've been searching everywhere for you!” He exclaimed.
Tim wiped some of the gooey muck off of his face, and then said. “I can understand why you had a hard time finding me, sir, I think I was in a beetle's gut for a few hours.”
“That's impossible! Your armor would be corroded if you spent even ten minutes in its gut, and I can see that your armor is fine, it's shining even through the goo.” The other countered, and unfortunately, he made a lot of sense. “I should know, because some beetles ate two volunteers of ours last night, we found their armor!”
Tim then wracked his brain to figure out what could've happened to him while he was asleep, he tried his best. His memory failed him, however, so he was stumped.
A second later, the system popped up in his head, and explained. [You've been sleepwalking last night, you sleepwalked only once, and I've tracked everything. I could tell you what happened, however, you can also use the Soul Grabber ability to track where your soul has traveled to throughout the night, it's a relatively cheap trick, mana-wise. You can easily use it on the count of your current, mana quality.]
Tim was surprised by that offer, and of course, he then got this impulsive urge to try this trick. He ignored the guard entirely, and walked around him, with the hope to get things started.
“Ah… it feels so nice to walk again.” He sighed, and then he activated the Soul Grabber ability.
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However, since his own soul was the target, he had to turn his palm towards his own chest, in order to target his own soul. Using his pinky finger, he unleashed a fraction of the power on his chest, and thankfully he didn't accidentally paralyze himself in the process, he did good.
A second later, he saw a transparent image of himself, walking around the hill. He followed it, and ended up near the carcass of the last Demon Beetle that he had killed.
Then, he saw himself slicing a portion of the beetle's shell using a concentrated ray of fire, and apparently he had done so just to climb inside the beetle’s shell afterwards! He had stayed two minutes in there, before he walked out of it covered in goo, and from the looks of it, he then had walked back on the field, and slept at the spot where he originally fainted. The system explained that this little episode happened an hour after he fainted, she was very specific about the timeline.
“Fascinating,” He thought, “Even when I’m unconscious, my survival instincts do not fail me. I even remember dreaming about this, the insides of that bug smell even worse!”
“What are you walking around for?!” The guard then interrupted him, he seemed fed up.
“Looks like I fainted, sir, because I strained myself killing five of these demonic bastards! I seemed to have sleepwalked into that big guy's shell, to cover my scent from the predators. I'm assuming that I looked like a pile of goo at night too, so that's why neither of you could find me.” Tim explained, he was mostly honest about it.
“So you killed all these bugs!?” The guard asked, and when Tim nodded, the guard screeched like a little girl. “That's amazing! I managed to kill two at most myself, but you killed five?! That's definitely worth mentioning to the Guard Master, he'll be pleased.”
Considering the overall enthusiasm from the other, he assumed that he wasn't in trouble. His mission to attain the third blessing from the priest was as safe as ever now, and he was quite happy about that. He wasn't as happy about the rotten-egg scented goo that was on his skin, though, so he ended up rolling down the hill just to wipe the goo away.
When he got to the bottom of the hill, he noticed that the guard had not followed him for some reason. This was intriguing, so he climbed up the hill for the second time to see what the guard was up to.
Once he questioned the guard, the other answered. “The tunnels that these beetles crawled out of, are awfully close to each other. I'm guessing that there's a nest below us, so it's best if we stay here and patrol the area. I'm going to send out a distress signal now, we need more men and women on board effective immediately!”
A second later, he shot a type of fireball towards the sky, and then shot two more. The fireballs crashed with each other up in the sky, and created a sort of multi-colored firework display, which was sure to grab the attention of anyone who could recognize the distress signal!
The guard then said, “Let’s hope that we don't have to fight more of those bugs, because we're quite weak alone, with all respect to you, and your recent kills, there's unity in numbers. Also, I hear that your friend almost died last night during an encounter with one of the Demonic Beetles, she almost died while she was looking for you.”
“Oh shit!” Tim exclaimed, “Is she alright?”
“Yes yes, she's fine. A couple of bruises never killed anyone, and she did spear the beetle through its neck after all, she killed it. We discovered that its neck is its weak point thanks to her! But regardless, it’s stupid to face off with a bug alone.” The other expressed.