I wonder what there is to do up here besides eat, Adon thought.
His stomach growled loudly once more.
Shut up! he thought. Dietary discipline was going to be even harder to exercise in this life than it had been in his previous one. Wait, aren’t caterpillars one of those species that has to eat a lot? Like, maybe as much as their body weight or something crazy like that?
That would explain why, on his first day of life, before he’d established any bad habits, his body was constantly—
His stomach rumbled again.
Okay. Remember, if these eggs are other butterfly eggs, one of them could be your future mate. Adon half-consciously used one of his front legs to smooth back the nonexistent hair on his head. The actual result of this effort was that he smacked himself right in the antenna.
Ow! That body part was unexpectedly sensitive, and hitting it affected his perception, making his smell and already crappy vision go a little haywire for a few seconds. Need to protect the antennae. Got it.
His stomach’s sounds resumed now, and they began to resemble a roar more than a growl.
Need to find something now!
Adon forced himself to look away from the eggs. He turned and started crawling up the plant stem as fast as his legs could carry him. A cluster of leaves began to come into view. Relief washed over him.
I know caterpillars eat leaves, he thought. He pulled himself up faster.
Finally, he reached the nearest leaf, and he clamped down with his mandibles.
Munch munch, chomp chomp, gobble gobble. Gulp.
Yes, he could eat them. The same eating haze descended over him as before, and before he knew it, he’d consumed five leaves. For the moment, his hunger was sated, though he could sense it would shortly return. Perhaps this was the life of a caterpillar. Eating and crawling, crawling and eating, all the time.
But there was a problem. The leaves didn’t taste like anything! They were incredibly bland. What’s more, they didn’t fill him up. It seemed that he could eat vegetation in this body, but just like when he was a human, he wouldn’t feel fully satisfied or nourished if his meal didn’t have a protein component.
So I need to find something else to eat. Something that moves. He thought of the eggs. I’d really rather not do that. And in the end, that’s only a limited supply of food if I did resort to it. I’ll have to learn how to hunt in order to have a fully satisfying diet. But what can I even do? What’s a newborn caterpillar body capable of?
He didn’t know. Adon had been decent in biology classes in his last life, but it wasn’t as if he was an entomologist.
Adon found himself wondering if this world had a magical system. He had been reincarnated into worlds he would have called “fantasy” before. In about half of those lives, and even around a quarter of the “science fiction” worlds with futuristic technologies he’d lived in, there had been reality interface systems.
System, he thought loudly. Um, status?
A table appeared in his field of vision. It was remarkably clear and detailed, and he could see it in color, unlike everything in his physical environment, which appeared in grayscale. The table was a rich blue, and the text that populated it was white.
User: Unnamed Butterfly Larva
Age: 1 hour (newborn)
Sex: Male
Status
Health: 10/10
Strength: 4
Agility: 2
Perception: 3
Dexterity: 5
Constitution: 2
Intelligence: 85(!)
Will: 90(!)
Charisma: 1
Skills: Identify, Impeccable Memory, Past Life Connection, Shed Skin, Spiritual Sight
Evolution Points: 2
Biomass: 5/15
Holy unbalanced stats, Rat Man! Adon thought. I have a 1 in Charisma and a 90 for Will? What gives?
He started looking at different places in the Status table, trying to get more information. He started from the bottom. What’s biomass? As he focused on that term, a description populated.
Biomass: A measure of satiety, correlated with a user’s consumption of nutritious matter. This metric slowly decreases over time whenever the user is not consuming nutritious matter. If biomass is filled to beyond its maximum capacity, it may trigger physical changes in the user. If biomass drops to zero, the user’s physical Health will begin to decrease.
Alright, now we’re cooking! Nice that this world’s system is pretty interactive. I think I’m starting to understand how this works. So I need to eat just about all the time, unless my biomass is full or close enough. Otherwise, I’m basically starving. Somehow, Adon thought that he could manage this.
We’ll figure out what “physical changes” they mean when we get to a hundred percent satiety. Somehow he suspected that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. What about Evolution Points?
Evolution Points: A measure of biological success, correlated with a user’s consumption of novel and nutritious food and successful navigation of obstacles to survival. Passively increases over time if a user places itself in a position that increases its odds of survival without further effort. Evolution Points may be spent to increase Status points in any category, or they may be used in the Evolution Store, to purchase Skills, Adaptations, or Evolutions. Open the Evolution Store?
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Adon’s curiosity forced him to answer a strong “yes” in his mind to that final question.
Evolution Store
Adaptations
Evolutions
Skills
Very cool! In Adon’s mind, his goal of self-improvement throughout his second life seemed already half-accomplished. It was a bit like being born and finding out you already had a savings account and a job that were accruing interest.
He focused on Adaptations, and a long list of possible Adaptations appeared, with their prices in Evolution Points visible alongside them.
Unfortunately, almost all of the names were in grayed out text, which seemed to indicate that he couldn’t afford them. When Adon hovered over any of those, he got the same message.
Insufficient Evolution Points saved.
So I have to have money even to window shop, basically. Well, that was fine. Just seeing the names of some of these Adaptations was almost as good as getting a proper description. “Communication Pheromone Glands I” seemed like a pretty self-explanatory Adaptation. So was “Color Change I” and “Spiny Bristles I,” although Adon wasn’t sure at first what the Roman numeral for one appearing in all the names meant. Probably that there was a better version of each Adaptation that he could update to after getting the first one.
The only Adaptations he could actually afford with his meager two Evolution Points were “Extended Antenna I,” “Poison Generation I,” “Stench Defense I,” and “Size Enhancement I.”
That last one feels like I clicked on a shady Internet link, he thought. No, I don’t want any “size enhancements,” thank you!
He read the description for that, and it was just a straightforward increase in the dimensions of his body. He didn’t see much sense in increasing his size and making himself a bigger target for predators when his Stat points were still so low.
Adon was about to look at “Stench Defense I,” but he heard a sound below him. It was the sound of something brittle cracking. He turned his whole body around on the plant stem to see what was going on.
Goddess damn my crappy vision! Adon had a grainy image of what was happening below him. He could vaguely sense some motion in the area of the eggs he’d left behind. His stomach rumbled very unhelpfully as he looked.
There! One of the eggs, further away from him, was larger than he’d noticed. It had a big crack running down one side, and it looked like there was a tiny leg poking through a hole nearby. Soon one of his siblings would be fully born.
Hey there, little fella! Adon thought. I’m your big brother! I wonder how I’ll communicate with them. Maybe I need to save up and get those “Communication Pheromone Glands.” 20 Evolution Points can’t be that many, right?
As he contemplated the likely economic value of Evolution Points, the head of the new hatchling poked through the shell. And a cold watery feeling ran through Adon’s body, as if he instinctively knew that whatever this creature was, it wasn’t friendly. Its mandibles looked shorter, sharper, and spikier than Adon thought his own were.
This thing was made to tear other insects apart.
The body of the hatchling emerged slowly from the shell. Adon couldn’t look away. His mind raced, trying to analyze the monstrous beast’s appearance and consider escape options. He could barely think, though. The creature’s body seemed almost designed to strike fear into his heart. The more of it he saw, the less Adon liked.
He couldn’t distinguish colors, but Adon could tell shapes apart. The monster’s build reminded him of an alligator. Long, segmented, and ugly. Covered in what Adon interpreted as thick armor. Sharp spines covered its back. Adon pictured himself trying to jump on the hideous thing from behind and impaling himself on those pointy weapons, and he shuddered.
I don’t think that’s what I look like. This was the absurd thought that his mind came up with after what felt like an interminable time staring at the creature and trying to understand the problem.
Of course he didn’t look like that. He had seen and felt his body’s flexible, elongated shape already, albeit with his terrible vision. Adon was confident that the tank-like organism below him didn’t share DNA with him.
Then the real implications of the new hatchling’s appearance hit him. Perhaps the multitude of other eggs on the plant with him weren’t caterpillar eggs after all.
Maybe he was sharing his little plant stem with a bunch of monsters. He looked down at the eggs. Now that he tried to really look at them, he could see there were scores of the nasty things. And they weren’t the nice, round shape that Adon’s egg had been. They were more pill-shaped.
Adon remembered his Skills list suddenly, and he used the most obvious one on the newborn monstrosity.
Identify!
—
“Princess Rosslyn, please be reasonable!”
The princess in question resisted the urge to throw a pillow—or something heavier—at Baranack of Varia. Yes, his tone of voice was impertinent, and she was certain no one would have dared to speak to her in like fashion when her mother was alive. And it was particularly galling to be lectured by a foreigner about the circumstances of her own country.
But Baranack was one of her father’s advisors, and a noble, so any assault on his person in the palace would be a direct insult against the King. Rosslyn could not lose the high ground, especially not in front of her father.
“I think I have been quite reasonable, my lord,” she responded icily. “Surely you have not yet given up on finding a match for me?”
Lord Baranack looked pleadingly at the King, who averted his eyes as if he was distracted by the star-printed wallpaper. Only Rosslyn could tell from the cast of his face that he was struggling not to smile. Ever since the late Queen’s death, ten years before, she was the only one who knew how to make the King laugh. This creature from the new Queen’s court was outmatched.
“If you could but see your way to a bit greater open mindedness, Princess…”
“I know the importance of this decision, Lord Baranack,” Rosslyn replied in a slightly warmer tone. “I cannot believe that my lord would wish me to rush into an ill-advised match. The ideal match for me, if I understand my father’s will correctly, will be the defender of this kingdom. Since it is the carefully considered opinion of all of my father’s councilors that I cannot fulfill that role myself.”
Despite the fact that I’ve proven myself competent enough as a commander of soldiers in the past, she thought, unable to keep resentment from showing through in her expression.
“My dear Princess,” Lord Baranack began, his tone simpering now, “none of the learned scholars who advise your father would presume to question your capabilities, least of all myself.”
Yes, but you’re about to, Rosslyn knew. He would discuss how neither her physical capabilities nor her nearly nonexistent magical capabilities were sufficient to inspire fear and dread in enemies. If she occupied the throne, it would only cause allies to desert Claustria and perhaps embolden the resurgent Demon Empire.
“That’s enough, Lord Baranack,” the King interrupted.
Rosslyn was slightly startled, and she saw a twinkle in her father’s eye at the knowledge that he’d surprised her.
“The Princess knows her own mind,” her father continued. “She will fulfill her duty in her own time and in her own way.” He gave her an uncomfortable but firm look. “And you will stretch your capacities and resourcefulness to find her better prospective matches, more worthy of her consideration. As she has just returned from her term of national service, she is undoubtedly more than familiar with our military situation.”
The King was laying down the law with both of them, in his way. Sternly reminding Lord Baranack of his place, and also commanding the Princess that she must marry—albeit not being so gauche as Lord Baranack, by trying to pressure her to do it soon.
“You and I will withdraw to the great chamber,” the King went on, “so we may discuss the other pressing issues of the day, and leave the Princess to her tasks in the star room.”
Rosslyn had to struggle to keep the smile from spreading across her face now. It wasn’t that she had won the day. She knew Lord Baranack’s quest to marry her off, as undoubtedly pushed by her stepmother, would continue.
But the King’s decision to bring their conversation to the great chamber felt like a favor to her. Princess Rosslyn was almost certain that the King knew about the secret passageway from the star chamber. He had grown up in the palace himself, after all, and slept in the same room she now occupied. One of the places the passage led to was the wall behind the great chamber.
From that position, anyone with keen hearing could listen in on any conversation taking place in the great chamber.
As soon as they exited her chambers, she rushed into the secret passageway to eavesdrop.