Chapter 3 - Pain

When I was a demon, all I wanted to experience was pain. I was gifted since birth and called a prodigy and no other demons my age could beat me in a fight.

Or even make me experience pain.

Even when I was the demon lord and had to fight some of the most powerful heroes I still never got to experience pain.

The only pain I could relate to is stubbing my toe but I never got to experience REAL pain.

But now, as a maggot, I am burning from the heat of the environment. I have a swelling pain on my side from the maggot that nibbled me earlier. And what can I say about this pain?

It feels good.

I love the thrill of being on the verge of death and I have to find a way to survive.

It hurts, for sure. But I love it.

I feel another maggot nibbling on me from the side.

I twist my body around to get it off of me and then nibble it back.

It tries to squirm away but I nibble it again.

[Nibble has reached Lv 2]

[Defeated Maggot Lv 1]

[Gained 1 EXP]

I feel close to death. I'm glad I got nibble Lv 2 but I decide to check my status.

STATUS!

[Status:

Species: Maggot

Lv 1

HP: 1/5 (Burning)

MP: 0/0

Strength: 2

Armor: 1

Speed: 1

Skills:

Nibble Lv 2, Crawling Lv 1, Acid Puke Lv 3

Skill Points: 0]

1 HP!

I need to heal quick. It doesn't seem like eating regains HP like I thought but I still eat anyway.

I hear a maggot squirming over to nibble me.

It's time to try out that Acid Puke attack.

I will not be dying today punk!

I vomit out acid all over the maggot that attempted to kill me.

How do you like that?

I hear the maggot writhing in pain and then finish it off with a little nibble.

[Defeated Maggot Lv 3]

[Gained 3 EXP]

[Maggot has reached Lv 2]

[HP and MP fully restored]

[Max HP increased to 6]

[Strength increased to 3]

I'm glad my HP is fully restored but I'm still burning.

I guess by leveling up I can restore my HP.

That's neat.

I have also got used to the feeling of being burned.

In the past fire would just deflect off of me and bounce back to the hero who cast it. They would scream in pain as they were burning so it made me curious what it felt like to be burnt.

I can say I'm not dissapointed.

It feels a LOT more painful then stubbing my toe.

The reason I like pain is because I never got to experience it.

It made me envious.

Well now I am a small, defenceless maggot.

I can experience pain.

And when I can experience pain I can experience stress.

The thrill of the fight as they call it.

In my past life I had none of that.

Oh I guess I'm rambling on again. I should focus on the situation.

I did gain a skill point from leveling up. I wonder what it does?

Does it give me some kind of skill?

Well, it is called a skill point so it probably does.

I call out with my nonexistant voice:

SKILL MENU!

[Available Skills: None]

Wow.

That.

Is.

Amazing.

So it looks like it does nothing.

YET!

Maybe when I get to be a fly I can use the skill points.

Well, that doesn't matter now.

What matters now is becoming stronger.

I need to defeat more maggots and get stronger.

I also would like to get out of the area where I was born.

See the world and what kinds of powerful monsters I have to slay.

Just as I am thinking about powerful monsters I hear something large squirming about.

It's a giant maggot!

Maybe it evolved from a basic maggot or maybe it was born to be large.

Either way I have to defeat it.

After all, it is coming right my way!

I sqirm in a direction towards the giant maggot in order to avoid its giant lips.

Maggots don't have teeth. So its just lips.

The maggot is uniformly squirming in one direction.

What a narrow minded maggot.

I squirm and find myself right by the maggot.

I squirm up its large body and find myself on top of the giant maggot.

[Crawling has reached Lv 2]

This idiot.

Ignoring me will lead to your doom!

I nibble and swallow some of it's large fat body.

It's disgusting.

The maggot doesn't seem to notice me even after nibbling it.

We'll see how you feel after my acidic vomit!

I throw up acid onto the behemoth.

It notices the acid and howls in pain.

It tries shaking me off but I have my lips stuck to the beast.

[Nibble has reached Lv 3]

I continue to bite down and throw up over and over again.

[Acid Puke has reached Lv 4]

The monstorous maggot keeps trying to shake me off despite me being in its blind spot.

What a foolish maggot.

Accept your fate!

The hole I have been making inside of the maggot finally reached its intestines.

It's over.

I puke on its intestines, and the acid tears through the body.

[Acid Puke has reached Lv 5]

[Acid Puke has reached its maximum skill proficiency]

[New options availible]

I'll check that out later.

The large maggot has stopped moving until eventually I hear the message.

[Defeated Mega Maggot Lv 1]

[Gained 20 EXP]

[Maggot has reached Lv 3]

[HP and MP fully restored]

[Max HP increased to 7]

[Strength increased to 4]

[Armor increased to 2]

[Maggot has reached Lv 4]

[HP and MP fully restored]

[Max HP increased to 8]

[Strength increased to 5]

[Armor increased to 3]

I must be a lot stronger.

Of course I am still a maggot, but still. I'm Level 4 now.

I also seem to have 'new options available'.

I'll check that out soon.

But first I have to devour the remains of this enormous behemoth.