Chapter 45:

Chapter 45. A Familiar Situation

Want to live? Level up

My fall along with the tree dragged on as if in slow motion. I could still watch and think. Jumping to another tree was difficult—this was the tallest tree around, and I, like an idiot, was almost at its very top. The only chance was to jump at the moment the tree was already falling.

I waited.

Waited one more moment.

And jumped.

I crashed into the branches of another tree, but they didn’t hold—they snapped, and I flew downward again. Something hard slammed into my back.

Damn it.

A huge mouth full of teeth was rushing toward me. I wouldn’t have time to get up and move away. The only thing I could do was teleport into the training room.

Looks like I fell right onto the back of one of those caterpillars. Naturally, it immediately turned around and tried to eat me.

If I didn’t have the training room skill, I think I would have died hundreds of times in this world already. And for that, I’m genuinely grateful to the system.

I can’t just leave. I need to figure out how to deal with these caterpillars. What’s the plan?

I’ll do the same thing I’ve done before—in the dungeon and against the bandits.

But the moment I remembered the bandits, Emilia’s name surfaced in my head. It was a long time ago… but the pain in my heart still hadn’t gone anywhere.

No. Enough thinking about that.

Time to work.

There are, I think, at most a couple dozen thousand of these caterpillars here. Yeah, it will take time. But I think I can handle them.

Yeah.

No problem.

I teleported into the forest about thirty meters to the side so I wouldn’t end up right on top of a giant caterpillar again.

And I decided to start with the creature that had nearly eaten me.

[Hostile lifeforms defeated: Ramus Mundivori (Rank 3) ×304, (Rank 4) ×247]

[Gained: +55,498,656 experience points]

Eliminating the threat overall is going without any major problems.

Except for one small… or rather, big nuance.

I’m not killing the largest caterpillars. I tried dealing with at least one of them—and realized it takes too much time and strength. Too hard and too long.

But with most of them, there’s no problem at all. The small and medium ones die quickly—I simply cut off their heads.

So I decided to leave the biggest ones for later. There aren’t that many of them.

First I’ll deal with the small and medium ones, and I’ll come back to the big ones when the area is safer.

I’ve already destroyed quite a lot of caterpillars.

But for some reason, a strange feeling appeared—as if there weren’t fewer of them.

More than that… it almost felt like there were even slightly more.

Ah, no. I’m probably imagining it.

[Hostile lifeforms defeated: Ramus Mundivori (Rank 3) ×598, (Rank 4) ×346]

[Gained: +104,892,918 experience points]

No.

Now I was sure.

No matter how many I killed—there weren’t fewer of them.

I wasn’t even going into the field. I was moving along the forest edge in a circle, along the area they’d already stripped bare, methodically destroying every caterpillar in my path.

But the circle of devastation was expanding.

The forest was disappearing.

Trees were falling one after another.

And they… were becoming more numerous.

Not all at once. Gradually. But inevitably.

I need a break.

Water. Food. I don’t have anything stocked at all. I moved farther away from this place, deciding to first find a stream or at least something edible.

Damn… I hope there are red mushrooms here.

For some reason, I like them. That sharp, burning taste. And the sensation that lingers on the tongue afterward.

While I was looking for water and food, I noticed something strange.

I didn’t meet a single small animal. Forget big ones—there were none either. As if the forest had died.

I did find food, though. A couple mushrooms—no idea what they’re called. The taste… not bad. Edible, at least.

Water was harder.

But then I saw it.

Oh! Water.

A small puddle… no, not a puddle. More like a tiny body of water. You can’t call it a lake—too small. A pool? No, pools are made by people. Whatever, names don’t matter right now.

I leaned down.

The water looked… normal. Not perfectly clear, but not muddy either.

I drank.

And then I noticed—on the other side, mushrooms were growing.

Red.

The very ones. The ones I like so much.

While I was eating the red mushrooms, something strange happened.

A fog appeared.

At first it was light, almost unnoticeable.

And then it got thicker. Much thicker.

Strange. I’ve never seen fog in this forest before.

Although… does fog even happen in a forest?

I don’t know.

Fine. Doesn’t matter.

Time to get back to work.

So… it was that way, right?

Damn it, the fog makes it hard to navigate. Getting back to where the caterpillars are will be harder.

I listened.

The noise was coming from that direction.

Yeah. Then I need to go toward the noise.

That way I won’t make a mistake.

When the sounds grew louder, I started moving more carefully. Yeah, I’m close. Soon I’ll run into those things.

Their real name is too complicated. Whatever. Let them be devourer-caterpillars.

HRRRR–R–R–R–R–K!!

KRAA–AA–AK!!

BUUUUUUM!!!

Something heavy crashed down right ahead. No need to guess—a tree.

I saw it. The first caterpillar was already biting into the fallen trunk, greedily devouring the wood.

A little farther, something was moving. I could feel it, but I couldn’t make it out—the fog got in the way. Past thirty meters, you can’t see anything.

Damn it.

Fine. I’ll hope the fog clears sooner or later. For now, I’ll keep doing what I have to do. Destroy the devourer-caterpillars.

Ow! What was that? I reflexively slapped my shoulder, crushing some large beetle.

[Hostile lifeform defeated: Servitor Mundivori (Rank 1)]

[Gained: +175 experience points]

What? That beetle was also one of the targets I was supposed to eliminate?

So it’s not only the devourer-caterpillars, but these beetles too?

Still, the beetle shouldn’t be a problem. Even if it’s poisonous—doesn’t matter.

I have Poison Resistance.

Although there were problems anyway.

My shoulder was smeared with the beetle’s internal fluids. Disgusting… though no, not exactly. The smell was strange—not rot, not blood. More like the smell of grass.

How can a beetle’s insides smell like grass?

I remembered the dead caterpillars—they smelled the same. So it wasn’t the beetle.

Maybe because they eat so many trees and plants? Not just trees, but all green things. That must be why they give off that grassy smell.

Shvukh!

A beetle split in half by my blade fell to the ground.

Shvukh!

Shvukh! . . .

Okay, I can handle it. I can handle it.

Dozens, hundreds of split beetles fell to the ground. Yeah, there are a lot. But not so many that I can’t handle it. No problem.

And then I heard buzzing behind me.

I turned around.

Damn it.

Another swarm of those beetles was approaching from behind.

—Ah, damn…

I instantly teleported into the training room.

Damn it, I can’t fight them when they attack from all sides. I shifted about forty meters and teleported back into the forest.

I saw the place where I’d just been standing: it was already completely surrounded by those beetles. Here, near me, there were a few more—I cut them down the moment I appeared.

Oh. Looks like they noticed me. The beetles sharply changed direction and flew toward me.

And the slaughter began again. Hundreds of beetles fell to the ground, cut into pieces, but their number… wasn’t decreasing. Not at all.

And then I heard buzzing again—now behind my back.

Damn it.

I instantly teleported into the training room. Yeah, I suppose this is the best tactic for now.

But the question remained.

How the hell do they manage to surround me every single time?

This doesn’t look like a chaotic attack anymore. They’re moving in formation. Too coordinated.

As if someone is controlling them.

Fine, there’s no point wasting time thinking.

I’ll finish off these beetles quickly, and then I’ll return to the main target—the devourer-caterpillars. If I delay, there will be even more of them.

Better not give them time.

[Hostile lifeforms defeated: Ramus Mundivori (Rank 1) ×97,794]

[Gained: +16,892,918 experience points]

What the hell?!

Why don’t these beetles end?

I’ve killed tens of thousands already. No—maybe more than a hundred thousand. And they still keep coming and coming, as if there’s no end to them.

I should have dealt with the devourer-caterpillars a long time ago. They’re the main threat. But instead I’m stuck here, chopping these cursed beetles with no result.

And this fog…

It pisses me off. It gets in the way. It grinds on my nerves. Visibility is terrible, orientation is zero. Like the forest itself is trying to hold me here.

What is even happening here?

BOOOM!!!

What the hell was that?

That sound was clearly different from the crash of falling trees. It was different—dull, heavy.

It sounded like an explosion.

And judging by everything, it went off somewhere very close.

I started moving toward the explosion. I hope this isn’t yet another problem.

After seven or eight teleports toward the explosion, the beetles stopped pursuing me. They still showed up—one or two at a time—but that was no longer a problem. I think I’m close enough to the explosion site.

When I got close enough, I felt the ground vibrating. Something heavy was moving nearby. And not just one thing.

The closer I got, the stronger the jolts became under my feet. The ground trembled more and more clearly—as if a whole crowd of heavy creatures was moving somewhere close by.

I had a very bad feeling.

In the fog ahead, I noticed something glowing—about seven or eight meters above the ground.

When I got closer, my heart clenched unpleasantly. It was a stone giant.

On its forehead there was some kind of glowing symbol. The same light was coming from its eyes.

It looks like… a golem. A stone golem.

That’s exactly what I needed right now.

And it wasn’t alone.

In the fog around me, I could make out many more sources of light at the same height. So there were many golems.

So… now I have to destroy golems too?

But no. Strange.

Unlike the devourer-caterpillars and those beetles, I’m not being pulled toward them. There’s no feeling that I must kill them. The system is silent. No pressure.

Then why are they here?

And then a huge devourer-caterpillar crawled out of the fog.

It didn’t hesitate—it lunged straight at the stone golem’s leg and clamped its jaws onto it.

The golem moved.

Unnaturally fast for its size.

Its stone fist rose—and in the next moment, with terrifying speed, it slammed down.

BAH!!!

The ground shuddered with a violent vibration from the impact.

The devourer-caterpillar was crushed. The front part of its body turned into mush—like a squashed bug.

The golem’s stone fist was smeared with the caterpillar’s internal fluids, and its legs were too.

The golem quickly lifted its hand and moved forward.

Powerful. Very strong golem.