Suddenly, my eyes jerked open. Crap! I have fallen asleep! How much time did pass? Why am I suddenly passing out for absolutely no fucking reason? My plan of escaping this cave as soon as possible got delayed because of this. No... I know why, it's because I'm still a crappy baby! And my stomach is grumbling like it is the end of the world, unfortunately, I can't do anything about it.

Move! Even if my limbs are still weak as a stick, I must move and escape. I pushed myself up and tried crawling out. However, in the corners of my eyes, I'm seeing naked ladies dancing with only a leaf covering their... you know, the part that you grab with your two hands. Of course, there is no freaking way that it is true. Hallucination is a symptom of extreme hunger and my mind is trying to give me an illusory form of their diet... yep, cute naked ladies. I felt my mouth suddenly drooling badly as I imagined this. Women of different breast sizes became equal in my eyes, each one I wanted to sink my teeth into their tender flesh. What the hell is wrong with me!?

I kept on crawling, crawling closer to the exit. I don't know what's waiting for me outside. This cave might be the safest place for me to lie down, and outside must have strong monsters that even if they are weaker than the manticore, they are capable of skinning me alive. But what choice do I have? I could die either way.

Just as when I'm about to go... A certain unprecedented event caused me to stop.

'Prrkkk'.

Shit! I shit myself!

And a chain of bad luck followed after. My stomach ached so bad that I needed to curl. I couldn't move, incapacitated by the pain that was swallowing my digestive tract. Such bad luck! And amplifying my bad luck...

"Are you trying to get away from here?", the manticore appeared right in front of me, carrying a gigantic monkey monster with her mouth.

"Hubabababa"

I tried to get away and hide as soon as possible, my body was trembling all over. How could I not be when the monkey creature in her mouth is bathed in pungent green pus and rotting? Worms of different sizes crawl out of multiple holes in their skin. What the hell is the beast thinking? The smell... It's nauseating. I tried my best not to puke but I vomited with nothing to release.

"Hiding? Again? Don't worry, I will not harm you. If I wish to terminate you then I have done it far sooner"

Yeah right, who knows if you are keeping me alive just to sacrifice me for a dark ritual? And how could you even talk with something in your mouth? Telepathy?

The manticore dropped the rotten corpse to the ground and sniffed the air for something.

"Something smells... different"

Oops...

The manticore tracked down where the strange smell was coming from. She located a dark sticky liquid on the ground where I previously was. It was my poop! No! Don't lick it!

"Ah... a baby feces. At least, I didn't step on it."

My soul can't handle this horror anymore! Why would she even do this!? Why would lick my shit!? The more I think about it, the more I fear. I could feel my body going limp. The manticore looked at me with questioning eyes.

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"You're not laughing? It's funny... right?"

It's not funny at all! It's frightening! I'm surprised that the manticore is trying to make a joke by licking my dung but hell, it's my dung! It's creepy!

"Strange, I definitely felt some intelligence in you. Am I mistaken? Well then... I suppose you are just an ordinary goblin, I shall exterminate you"

"Bwa... kakaka!", and then I forced myself to laugh. A laugh for survival. My throat was straining but I didn't give up laughing. My throat is still not suitable for this kind of thing. And then suddenly, the giant monkey corpse came back from the dead and started screaming hysterically.

"GROOGHHH"

That is, only to get its head blown by a single fireball from the manticore's mouth. Its brain fragment splattered everywhere. My face grew pale at that moment. How? I mean... How could it still be alive in that state? Its guts are already poking out of its side yet still it was alive? It's the same as before, the half-woman and the mountain of merging corpses... They just return from the dead. Necromancy? I don't know... I never knew such magic with that scale.

"Are you curious?", the manticore looked at me and asked. "This thing is supposedly a monster called Garbaloth. But as you can notice, it's different. It is distorted and rotting, a walking corpse that lost its spirit. Even if you cut all of its limbs, crush its heart, disembowel it, it couldn't die. It couldn't die since it was not alive in the first place."

Are you saying that there is a thing that makes people immortal? Cool, but as I could see it, it stopped moving after she had blown its head off. The weakness might be on the brain or something since it is the main control system of the body.

"They are pitiful creatures who were infected by the plague of the rotten. They are incredibly dangerous. Never let them bite you or you will turn out to be like them. However, that warning is already futile since you are already bitten."

My hands instinctively hover through the swelling skin on my neck. Right... I was bitten. If what she's saying is true, then I will become like them. I'm sick... My mind is boggling thinking about it and a severe pain runs through my forehead. I could still vividly remember Aku's death, how he died in excruciating pain while his flesh bubbled into fluid. And the thought races into my head, that I could feel my body grow cold. I don't want to die that way... No... That's not quite the correct phrase to state when the sickness makes them somehow harder to kill. I just realized... Dying is less scary than living sick.

"Never fret. As long as you're here, my essence will keep you safe"

I couldn't trust her word. Why would she go that far for me? For what purpose that she keeping me alive? And how? I studied a lot about diseases since Aku died, and as far as I know, there is no known sickness that makes people rot alive and makes them bite people to spread their disease. There is some similar sickness such as gangrene, mucormycosis, and the like but nothing makes their skull break open or keep them alive while having only half of their body functional. Just what the hell is this!?

*Brrghh*

My heart skipped a beat when I heard that groan, but that was just my stomach trying to remind me that it was digesting nothing. It's a short and low sounded grumbling but the manticore heard it. Am I imagining it or did she jerk up excitedly?

"Are you hungry? Don't worry, this will only take an hour or two"

Huh? What is? No... You don't mean... You're going to feed me that rotting monkey!? You just said that it is infected by some sort of sickness. Why would you feed me that!? Thinking about it for a moment, did she go out just to get me something to eat? Huh?

The manticore starts tearing the monkey, starting from its limbs, to the insides of its stomach. Maggots were literally flying everywhere like some sort of confetti and the pus was showering like the seaside with slapping waves.

"If you're afraid of amplifying the infection by eating meat of a rotten, then there is a special way to cook their meat and make it edible."

A couple of hours passed by, and the manticore cut the flesh of the monster to pieces, and with the water from the pond, she boiled the meat with it. Maggots start to pop out and die from the meat. After a while, she put a flower in the water... It's a flower with five white petals with purple edges. I know that plant, it's a Hilmaris, a flower that is used to neutralize bad odor. They are usually found in the middle of a frozen valley, or at the peak of a mountain where there is freezing temperatures.

After that, she simply fried the meat with her fire magic until the brown meat turned black.