After a few minutes, my eyes recover enough for me to be able to see again, but I keep them closed in order to continue meditating. Since I’ve got a feeling my situation is somewhat precautious, I use moving meditation as well just to speed things up a bit.

Nevertheless, after some time, I decide to peek my eyes open anyways, just for a second, if only to orient myself.

I’m lying next to the rounded wall, below a tapestry of a goat fighting a snake. In the middle of the room, I can see the motionless horse-sized snake I killed, with its bowels torn open. Thanks to this, I can see with some relief that at least the inside of the snake is RED. The wonderful scarlet has dyed a fair bit of the carpet underneath the dead snake, which gives me a bright idea.

See, since I’m in the middle of a snake attack, I can’t exactly waste blood and time by painting the whole room myself.

So why not use the snakes?

Wonderful! Inspired! Marvellous! Bravissimo!

Of course, before I put this ingenious plan into action, I need to recover a little. And that’s where it gets a bit tricky. I’m not necessarily talking about the fact that I can now see with my very own eyes that my entire body has basically been jellified, with not a single part being any other colour than a messy slobbery RED and the muddy WHITE of my bones and tendons. Hm. If I hold my legs tightly together while I recover, will they fuse into a single mermaid limb, or will they just regenerate normally? Very mysterious.

But my jellification isn’t the problem here. The problem, as I’ve now noticed, is that I’m actually not lying on the floor at all.

I’m lying on a vast collection of entwined WHITE snakes, all bundled together into a cold, sleek carpet that almost looks woven. This is suboptimal for my desire to beat the floor.

My only current solace is that, at least, they haven’t noticed me yet. A few of those lying directly beneath me seem less than comfortable, but the rest are fine. For now.

I just need to keep this position and hope that, somehow, my body doesn’t heal itself into a single fused ball of skin and muscle and flesh. That would be almost as bad as getting walrusified. Ugh, the thought makes me shiver.

I close my eyes again, hoping that things won’t go horribly wrong. Every now and then I try to shift my legs to make sure they don’t merge, but if I shift them too much I’ll alert the snakes, so there’s only so much I can do.

And after about an hour…

Uh, um, yeah. My body has kind of merged into one big meatball. I can’t undo the fetal position blowover even if I try. I’m just… a meatball. Haha, does anyone have any spaghetti lying around? It’s like I’m the meatball, and this whole room is a plate, and these snakes are the spaghetti, and my blood is the sauce! Haha!

I’m trying to distract myself from the existential horror of my transformation by making jokes, but if anything, it’s having the opposite effect. I can’t even really sob. My shoulders heaving just pulls on the skin connecting my knees to my chest. I wish I could somehow cut or bite this to make everything separate again but I can’t reach. I just can’t reach.

Before this moment, I never had nightmares that focused on the prospect of turning into a meatball, but if I ever have the misfortune of falling asleep again, I know what I’ll see.

From the corner of my eye, I see a massive snake, a little larger than a horse, slithering out of a woven carpet on the floor. After flicking its tongue out for a few seconds, it approaches the horse-sized snake I killed earlier, and without any apparent hesitation, it just eats it, whole and unpeeled. H—hey, I was going to skin that! That’s very rude. Ah, but, then again, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to skin anything ever again.

…Now I’m just making myself sad.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

But the sight of the snake is giving me an idea. A horribly murky and crushing and burning and melting idea that I hate to even consider, but as it is, I genuinely can’t think of any other option. Actually, there is one, but that would involve me numbly waiting for the next attempt, and then the next one, and then the next one, in perpetuity until the next grand conference at which I’ll ask someone to cut me free. But that would also involve me fully dropping every single one of the three marbles I still have left, and I just… I can’t. I just can’t.

Between complete insanity and a possible death, I know which one I’d choose.

Numbly, I roll towards the horse-sized snake.

Hello, mister snake. I have a weird request. Will you please eat me and then almost digest me but only almost? And no dying, please. Thank you.

Oh yeah, it can’t see me. Or smell me. Or hear me. Or taste me. Ah, I want to cry again. I hate this.

Once the snake settles down, I roll, dejected, towards its head. I force myself into its mouth but then it starts gagging and hacking and before I know it, I’m lodged in its throat in such a way where, apparently, I’m choking it? It’s trying to get me out of its throat but I’m just a bit too big so after squirming and writing for a few seconds it finally gets me down. I feel horrible. My ribs are broken again. Maybe I should just stay down here and die? That would be preferable to being a meatball.

My skin is starting to melt again. My flesh soon follows. I’m trying to make my limbs move but my brain is starting to feel awfully sluggish and for some reason, I really just want to go to sleep. Would that really be so bad? Sleeping is nice. You don’t need to think about anything. It’s just you, and the darkness.

Oxygen Deficiency Resistance Lv.9>

Oxygen Deficiency Resistance Lv.10>

Oxygen Deficiency Protection Lv.1>

…Except, on other hand, what if I go to sleep and I dream of becoming a meatball?

My mind jolts awake. I absolutely can’t have that. No way.

My whole body tenses and my arms rip themselves from their place around my knees and my legs finally straighten back out. With the frantic energy of a dying squirrel, I claw at the flesh in front of me, out, out, out, until I finally burst from within it like a certain sci-fi horror movie creature.

The snake tries to get at me but I like to think that since this is my second rodeo, I know the game by now. Instead of letting it slither around me, I head back to the hole I already made, rip it open even more, and then just to finish it off, I rip it open all the way up to its throat. But by the point I get to its jaw, it has already bled out. Bummer.

Alright, but now I know not to just relax. I need to keep moving.

I take a deep breath. Almost the entire floor is covered in snakes, and although most of them are pretty small, I can’t tell at a glance what effects they will actually have. A majority of them are probably just poisonous, but if I get bit by one with a more exotic status effect that my tolerances can’t handle, I’m done for.

But, first things first, I’d like to wear something. My leopard hide got digested in the first snake, and since this might unfortunately not be my last time doing this, I don’t want to waste yet another one. I’ll need something new. Luckily, I think I’ve got the perfect candidate right in front of me.

Hunkering down, I get to work. Even though this is my first time skinning a snake, it still feels very natural, even if I am doing it blind. Not my first time skinning something I can’t see, I guess.

The only trouble is that while I work, snakes will periodically show up to attack me, but I can fend off most of them by grabbing them and biting their heads off. Through this, I’m able to learn quite a few new tolerances, alongside levelling up a bunch of older ones. As time goes by, the snakes only get more and more numerous, but by the time I’ve finished skinning the snake, my vision has returned, making all of this a whole lot easier. The only problem with the hide now in my hands is that it is horribly, terribly WHITE. Bad.

But by sliding it around on the blood-soaked floor for a bit, I’m able to get it a nice, crisp RED colour. Neato. And then, I just need to wrap it closely around my body. This way, I hope, that should I get swallowed again, I’ll be more… naturally protected.

Anyhow, my flesh and skin is starting to slowly regenerate. Oh, except my right leg, which is unfortunately rotted and necrotic. Whoops, I wonder how that could have happened?

I put my hands on my hips and look at a snake lying a pace or so away. Fi—do!

Canned laughter plays and there’s a whoomp-whoomp trombone effect. You silly snake!

Grabbing it by the tip of its tail, I slam it back onto the floor a few times until it hasn’t got a head anymore, and then I slurp down the whole thing like a thick noodle. Hmm. Not bad.

Necrosis Protection Lv.2>

Indigestion Resistance Lv.3>

Neato!

Most of my body still seems to be covered with a thick layer of pink jello, and it aches to stand, but I should be fine. It’ll take me a while to recover, but once I do, these snakes won’t even stand a chance. Until then, though, I’ll need to fight back.

A snake coils around my necrotic leg but I rip it off first. It attempts to spray acid in my face, but I simply open my mouth and swallow it all instead, melting my already burnt throat into something that feels a lot like goo. I swallow the goo. The snake seems genuinely stunned by my actions, which is not an expression I thought snakes were capable of, but while it’s still confused, I shove its head into my mouth hole and chew its skull off.

One down, several thousand to go.

Well, nothing to do but get to it, right?