The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary

Chapter 256: From Emergence to Fleeing

Proofreader: Xemul

(Xemul: Fair warning, due to the colorful description of disgusting content in this chapter, we strongly recommend you to refrain from consuming any food while reading.)

“Prepare yourself for whatever comes out.”

Loren wondered if such a thing was truly possible to do, and how much it would help. 

He supposed people could be prepared, but as for keeping your composure no matter what actually came up, he believed only those with great character would be able to accomplish. 

That was why, when the shadows peeking out from the bubbling water broke through the surface and appeared, Loren couldn’t help but scream out.

“Whoa?!”

What, in fact, emerged from the sewage was not a single being. 

The thing had a black head the size of a clenched fist and a torso as thick as a human arm. Its elongated torso was lined with countless thin, bright red legs. Two fangs, each the size of a human finger, protruded from its black head, making a hard clicking sound. If it was shrunk to one-tenth of its size, it would look a lot like a certain creature that Loren had seen before.

Loren would not have screamed, if there was only one creature. But as it continued rising, countless number emerged from under the water as one gigantic mass, their bodies intertwining as if they were knitted together. 

“These are… centipedes?”

It was no wonder that Lapis’ voice was laced with disgust. 

The centipedes looked as if they had been made up from human arms due to their sizes, and their countless shiny black bodies were writhing in all directions. The sight of these giant centipedes intertwined into a single mass was so hideous that the sudden appearance of such a thing out of the water left everyone present speechless.

“Centipedes?! Aren’t they too huge?!”

“But this shape looks like a centipede, doesn’t it?”

That being said, they certainly did not look like anything other than centipedes, but even so, Loren’s mind was unable to accept them to be centipedes. The bodies of the creatures continued actively stirring within the huge blob of intertwined insects. 

“W-well. Those things… seem to be increasing?”

Loren and the others, who had been rendered speechless by the creatures, were brought back to their senses by Gula’s comment. The swarm of wriggling centipedes Gula was pointing at certainly appeared to be increasing in number, as she had commented, with more and more coming out of the water.

“This is bad. Hey, which way is the ruin? Let’s run.”

Loren, who quickly assessed the situation, called out to Ivy. Ivy pointed in the direction they should go and started to run, but stopped immediately.

“We can’t go this way, can we?!”

There was nothing in the direction they were going, but Loren immediately understood why Ivy had stopped.

“The stench!”

The extent to which the pills Lapis had created could neutralize the stench was limited. The range was not that wide, and if they tried to follow Loren’s instruction to run, they would easily get out of that range. Loren considered just bearing with it and running, but the stench would make it impossible for them to continue running. 

Lapis immediately threw a pill into the sewage, but it took time, and the pill itself was not big enough to be thrown far in advance.

“It can’t be helped. Move as fast as you can.”

Loren urged Lapis, who was carrying the pills, to move forward and let Ivy and Gula go ahead of him while he took over their rear guard duty, watching the area where the swarm of centipedes had appeared. 

The centipedes, which were gradually increasing in number, were approaching the banks of the channel, albeit slowly. It appeared that they would be on the passage in no time. Once they reached the pathway, there would be nothing blocking their way, and on land they were usually moving at a very fast pace. They might not necessarily attack, but centipedes were carnivores, and when they were as big as a person’s arm, it seemed unlikely that they would ignore Loren’s team right in front of them.

“Can’t we intercept them?”

Gula, who had run forward from behind Loren, stopped to wait for him and asked, but Loren immediately shook his head.

The greatsword on his back would be able to easily cut down one centipede the size of a human arm, but no matter how one looked at it, their sheer number was way too high. If other centipedes were to attack him while he was cutting down ten or so, his weapon would be useless, and he could only see a future where he fell prey to countless centipedes while pulling them off his body with both hands.

As for burning, Loren did not think that it would be an effective method, considering the location. Using fire in a closed space was extremely dangerous, and since the place was a sewer, there was a high possibility that the gases floating in the air would be mixed with flammable substances. Loren had learned from his own experience as a mercenary that some of the gases released by decomposing things burn with great vigor.

“We have no choice but to run. You don’t want to be bugs’ food, do you?”

After saying that much, Loren asked Gula about something that had just come to his mind. 

“Can’t you just eat those things with your Gluttony powers?”

“…I wouldn’t mind if there’s a deep kiss after.”

Gula, replied, with a clear look of disgust on her face and her mouth twisted into the shape of a vicious smile. ‘Of course’, Loren thought to himself and asked.

“Is there a link between your stomach and Gluttony’s stomach?”

“It’s a secret. But when we do the deep thingy~, I’ll show ya exactly what centipedes taste like, so be prepared~.”

“I won’t force you to do it, so don’t make such a horrible face.”

Loren had known it would be impossible when he first asked the question. He hadn’t expected her to do it, so he wasn’t particularly disappointed. In fact, he felt guilty for having offended Gula by making such a suggestion. He lightly pressed a hand to Gula’s cheek, and though her displeased expression remained, the grimness disappeared from her face. 

“If nothing else can be done, I’ll do it then.”

“I hope it won’t come to that.”

While they were having this conversation, the centipedes were approaching the bank, and it seemed as if they were about to overflow into the passage. As Loren urged Gula forward to catch up with Lapis and Ivy, thinking that this was not the time for conversation, he heard Lapis’ shriek.

“Loren! Centipedes are coming from other places!”

“Are we cursed or what? How much do they want us…”

Loren cursed, remembering that when he had been alone in this sewer, Shayna had said something about the myriad of reactions of little lives.

But things didn’t end there, it was about to get even worse.

“Loren! This time it’s zombies!”

Ivy turned her head slightly to look at Loren and the others and pointed in the direction of a wet sound. Loren turned his eyes to that direction and was rendered speechless.

He saw a hand of a person coated in sewage sticking out of the water, followed by a hand on the edge of the passageway, and then a body was being pulled up out of the sewage. 

It was a middle-aged man who was probably a resident of the city, judging from his clothing. His hair was coated with sewage and filth, he pulled his body up into the passageway, spreading the stench of the sewage and the putrid smell was now added to the mixture of stenches. There were no eyes in the sockets, just two empty, black cavities. The half-open mouth revealed teeth that had fallen out in places, but what sent a chill down Loren’s spine was the centipede that had slithered its head out from the mouth. 

“He was eaten!”

One of the two arms, which had been thrust out as if in search of the living, fell from its shoulder. A centipede, which had a shiny long black body, pulled itself out of the freshly emerged opening and fell to the floor, sidled to the fallen arm of the poor victim and began to bite into the flesh with its huge fangs.

The large, swollen belly seemed to be from the characteristically stout figure of middle-aged people, but the irregular wriggling under the clothes made it immediately clear that it was not the internal organs nor the fat that was packed there.

Loren almost stopped to watch the gruesome sight, but he quickly realized that this was not the time for that and forced himself to go on. 

The centipedes that had first emerged from the water were already on the verge of reaching the passage, and at the feet of a middle-aged man who had apparently turned undead while being eaten by the centipedes, he saw another hand gripping the edge of the passage, just as the middle-aged man had done.

“This is getting out of hand.”

The swarm of centipedes alone was out of control, with the zombies joined in, Loren found himself in a state of urgency where he wanted to ask someone what they should do now.

The zombies themselves could be cut, but doing so would probably unleash centipedes inside their bodies, and the situation would only get worse.

“Damn it! Run, run, run!”

That creaky sound, was it the fangs clattering, or hard bodies scraping against each other? 

Loren, who was about to run away from the swarm of centipedes coming from behind, was stopped by Lapis, who was in front of him.

“If you run too fast, you’ll be out of the effective range of the pills, Loren.”

“Which do you want, to stink or to die?!”

Loren raised his voice, saying that this was not the time to be talking about the smell. To that, Lapis replied clearly and resolutely.

“I don’t want either.”

She was so resolute that Loren almost agreed. But, of course, he couldn’t just agree with her and stop under the current situation.

“Just run! If you don’t like the stink, just go all out and throw the pills!”

“They’re too light to fly far!”

Lapis whined, but the swarm of insects didn’t care, and continued to close the distance towards them. Even worse, they were pushing the zombies, who were crawling out into the passage one after the other, toward Loren’s group with unsteady steps.

“Hurry up, hurry up! If you don’t want to be covered in sewage, insects, or carrion, then run!”

“I should have made them bigger. Oh, I’m such an idiot!”

Lapis desperately threw the pills, but even with the arm strength of the demon tribe, the lightweight pills still did not fly very far. It couldn’t be helped, since they weren’t intended to be thrown far, but Lapis still cursed at her own lack of foresight.

Patting Lapis on the back, Loren was worried about whether they would be able to escape from the wave of insects that kept coming up behind them.