It approaches me. No fear. These guys really just don’t care, do they? I’m still regenerating from what just happened, but this guy is just… Stepping right up to me. Sinking his teeth into my flesh. If I could feel pain, this would probably be really uncomfortable. But since I don’t, I can just sort of… watch it. Its shell has this kind of iridescent quality to it, making it actually look kind of pretty. It isn’t quite black, more like a very deep blue that glitters in cyan and purple when the light of the suns and stars hit it just right.

I’m regenerating too fast for it to actually remove any of my flesh. Which is…. impressive, I guess? It’s literally doing no damage to me.

Nibble nibble.

...Sure, I could eat it, I kind of need the points, but…

I sit down, letting my tired and tense tentacles collapse. The little bug keeps nibbling. Not a care in the world. I just need some time to regenerate. That’s all. And then you’re toast, you hear that, Buggy? I’m sure you do. Nibble on, boy. Nibble on.

Nibble?

No, no, don’t worry. I’m fine. Lookie, the tear on one of my tentacles has almost healed completely! I’m a miracle of modern engineering!

Nibble!

Wait, you don’t think I’m some sort of aberration, do you? I mean, sure, I did start out as some sort of slimy bag of something, but I’m different now! Now I’m like some sort of big tentacle network!

Nibble?...

...Yeah, I also think this might be a really bad ide-,

Oh, lookie, all my tentacles have regenerated! Isn’t that great, Buggy?

Wait. Uhhh…

Buggy, don’t stare at me with those big eyes of yours.

Nibble.

Yes, I know they’re very fetching, I’m looking at them right now!

Nibble.

...I know I said I was going to-

Nibble.

...Oh, by God, you’re right! Foolish I! Woe is me, you’re very much correct, Buggy. Looking into those eyes of yours that reflect the suns and that carapace of yours that reflect the stars, I know that I cannot eat you. I admit it. Though, again, considering that my regeneration is on par with your nibbling, I lose nothing when you do this.

Nibble?

Exactly. Here, let me just…

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

I gently grab a hold of Buggy, slowly placing him on one of my tentacles. He seems confused, but since I’m not doing anything and since he’s a stupid dummy bug, he just gets to work as soon as he finds a patch of flesh to gnaw at. And I just let him, because I lose nothing. Parasite, you say? Maybe, but it’s okay!

Nibble.

It’s only a parasite if the host loses something from the parasite, right? I lose nothing from this! Ah, but it’s not a coalition either, since I don’t exactly gain anything… Eh! It’s fine!

Enough about Buggy, time to explore this here asteroid! As much as I love the idea of just standing around and existing (with Buggy), I kind of really do need to get bigger. So that I don’t die. I kind of hope I’m not that big right now, like if I were to meet a human as I am now… We’ll just hope that Buggy here is the size of a normal beetle or something. That’d be good. But we’ll ignore that aspect for the moment, because I’m not even in the solar system, and last time I checked, interstellar travel isn’t very possible right now. I think.

Anyways! Exploration time!!

If the first asteroid I was on was a football, this asteroid is more like a car. Very, very big. It didn’t take long before I found a fairly large group of insects, all gorging themselves on what seemed to be the corpse of a fluffy three-legged spider, about the size of a chair. They turned to me. I turned on them. I glanced at Buggy. Yeah. I’ll need to keep them at a distance to keep Buggy-, er, myself safe.

I leaned my main body back, placing it fully on the strength in a single tentacle. This was clearly enough as the three arms and feet on its end was enough to hold up my entire body in a pretty stable position, everything considered. Even though I did feel like a defunct flamingo.

I brought up my four tentacle arms. It’s time for battle.

The insects charged on me, but since they were only around 9 and my four tentacles had a total of 12 little hands, I was easily able to grab them all at once with three hands to spare. The bugs squirmed and tried to nibble at my tentacles, but they all disappeared into the mouths on my tentacles.

6 -> 51

Nice!

I have no idea what to use this for!

I can’t increase in size, I’m perfectly happy with the tentacles I’ve already got…

Oh! How much does the next upgrade of Regeneration cost?

Upgrade Regeneration? Cost: 50 (you have 51)

Yup, that’s totally worth it. Let’s do it!

51 -> 1

Man. That is completely worth it. On the other hand, I was allowed to buy that skill with pretty much no preparation, so… I’m kind of wondering if there are any other useful skills I could buy?

…

Anything? Anything at all? ...No?

Okay, then…

Continue exploring it is!

As it turns out, exploring a completely barren landscape is kind of really boring. All I could find was more insects (1 -> 46) and, eventually, a pretty cool crystal. Just kind of poking out of the ground. Not much else that was any interesting… Oh! Except that Buggy fell asleep! He must’ve eaten enough to finally fall asleep, poor thing. I’m sort of holding onto him with two of the tentacles on my main body. To keep him from falling off.

Not that it would matter much if he di-,

Oh, a thing! A new thing!

Hey, it’s a living spider! Well, I mean… I’m pretty sure it’s a spider? It bears a striking resemblance to that week-old Chinese take-out I ate last month… Very white and fluffy. Only three legs. Black, beady eyes. Feets stabbing into the ground. Looks kind of weird, huh? there’s three of them too, but that isn’t very important.

They’re all a fair bit larger than the insects, but still smaller than myself by a fair margin.

I take the flamingo stance again, making sure to shield Buggy with my own body. Ha-chaa!

Almost exactly as expected, I’m able to grab one of the three-legged spiders with two of my tentacles and hoist it into the air. Its legs squirm widely, but it mostly just looks like a wind-up toy that’s been removed from the ground. Like it’s trying to walk but can’t for some reason. Oh well. Bottoms up!

My two tentacles holding it get straight to work eating it while the two others robotically approach. Since the spider’s body is larger than my mouths it takes a while to chew it, so in the meantime, I’ll have to fend these two off.

Which is easier done than said, they’re surprisingly light, so I only need one tentacle to hold each. And since they’re being held right up to another one of my mouths…

I just went right to eating. Haha! Easy peasy! Hell, I’ve already eaten the first one! Just two lef-,

46-> 56

Buy Skill Immunity? Cost: 35 (you have 56)