It would seem that my body is amorphous and my real form isn't actually
humanoid at all. I could tell when I turned into the human king because it felt
like my body practically melted down in the process and changed in its basic
structure. Then I became a proper human not just on the outside, but on the
inside, too. For the duration of my transformation, I felt my heart beating, my
lungs drawing air and my muscles flexing as I shifted my body weight from
one leg to the other.
In other words, I'm like a mimicking slime that can recreate anything down
to the cellular level, using genetic information gained through consumption.
This means I should be able to gather the pieces of my body that I lost and
add them back to my mass by reabsorbing them.
But I have no idea where to find my pieces. It's not like I was on a train and
they fell out of the window; I can't just find them by walking back along the
tracks. It'd be more akin to traveling at high speeds in a jet plane and
dropping them at different points. In other words, it's practically impossible
to find them again.
Basically, I'm stuck in this loli form for now.
Fortunately, this is a forest, so there are no wild beasts around that could be
enticed by my appearance and attempt to eat me up. In the sexual sense.
Unfortunately, this is a forest, so there are bound to be wild beasts that could
be enticed by my appearance and attempt to eat me up. Not in the sexual
sense.
Of course, all these thoughts are moot, because I'm actually staring into the
eyes of one such beast. And not the kind I could scare away by pulling the
latch on a crime prevention buzzer.
It's a wolf-like creature with a row of sharp and pointy spines running
down its back. With shoulders about as tall as I am in my current form, it's
easily the size of a tiger. And at my diminished height, it looks more like a
giant bear.
Why is the first more dangerous monster in these kinds of stories almost
always a wolf? I got past the slime level solely based on the fact that I basically am one myself, so it instantly jumped to wolves next?
For now, neither of us is moving, but as if realizing that I'm alone and
helpless, the beast begins to sneer. At least that's how I perceive its facial
expression, as it bares its sharp fangs and takes a step forward.
Maou-mama, you didn't teach me how a Crawling Chaos fights. Floating
into my mind is the image of her in the elven queen's form, avoiding looking
at me, winking and sticking out her tongue. I can picture her say 'tee hee'
while knocking herself on the head.
I flip a table in my mind.
I run away in reality.
There's nothing I can do with my small stature and little mass, and against a
monster that seems more likely than not to be a member of a pack no less. If I
hurt it, it will most likely call for its companions, and I'll have a dozen of
them on my tail. At least I'm confident in my ability to run away; after all, I'm
a track and field ace.
Obviously, I forgot that I'm not really myself right now.
As if my short legs could outrun a canine's four legs! In fact, even if I were
at full size, a wolf can still run faster than a human! It catches up with me in
no time and pushes me down.
Ahn, I'm going to get eaten~
Sorry, now is not the time to make such jokes, I'm seriously in a pinch
here.
With just its front paw on my back I'm completely pinned and unable to
move. Its saliva drips on the ground next to me, and the dried leaves begin to
sizzle and dissolve from it. Acid saliva on a hunter-predator? Why is that a
thing? Only the god of fantasy knows.
Then I hear a sniffing sound from very close to my ears, and a shiver runs
down my back. That feels like the last stage before a test bite. I'm seriously
going to get eaten! The story of Chaos-chan is going to end here, Maoumama. I'm sorry to disappoint you...
With a whimper, the creature takes its paw off of me and runs away with
its tail between its legs, as if it just smelled something foul.
I cry.
Hey, come back! Take responsibility and eat me!
I don't stink!
So that's how a Crawling Chaos fights in the wild? By being unpalatable?
I'm sorry for being born, world. Nobody would want to eat something that
would take precedence to a cockroach when getting a mosaic applied to it,
right? Even though right now I look like I did when I was ten years old.
With that in mind, I feel like crying some more...
Since the immediate danger has been averted, I have time for such idle
thoughts. Maou-mama said that we would begin with my training right away
before I was teleported here. Does that mean I have to survive in the wild on
my own for a set length of time and she'll come and get me at the end of it?
Or will I have to find back to the palace on my own?
In either case, it would appear that at least I'm not a member of the natural
food chain around these parts. But there may always be a monster that eats
even things that look unappetizing or inedible.
Like me.
In fact, I'm feeling so hungry that I could eat myself. It should have been
less than an hour since I had basically a whole human body as breakfast, but
I'm already starving. There's no cute rumbling noise coming from my
stomach, as would usually be the case in these situations. Instead, it feels like
I'm actually eating myself from the inside out, dissolving my body to create
energy to keep me going.
And it's a really uncomfortable feeling.
There the wolf is again, or maybe it's another one of its species, I can't tell
animals apart too well. It's eating a small furry animal it just hunted, and I can
feel my insides churn at the sight of blood and guts. But for some reason, it's
not nausea as one would expect, but rather pure and unadulterated hunger.
My mind seems to go blank at the sensation, and my conscious thoughts feel
jumbled.
I want to... no, I need to eat!
Noticing my approach, the wolf moves around to keep me within its line of
sight. I won't fight you over that small thing since it won't satisfy me in my
current state.
I'll have you instead!
Dissolving my appearance, I transform into the shape I had earlier this
morning. My arms and legs are made of tentacles, so if I spread them out,
they should become longer. It's really strange, I somehow know what I'm
capable of, how to move all these individual appendages and use them to
their full potential. These must be inborn instincts.
The wolf yelps at my sight, and I can see that it's terrified by my
appearance. But that only seems to fuel my hunger further.
Unraveling my leg tentacles at blinding speed, they expand like a spring,
and I lunge forward like a horizontal Jack in the Box. Taken by surprise, the
wolf flinches and is unable to respond in time. I latch onto it with my whole
body, like a squid grabbing onto a whale, making sure to seal its mouth so
that it can't call out for its pack if it has one.
It thrashes around and slams me into the ground, but I don't even feel the
impact because of my elastic body. As I cover its entire head, I begin to
strangle it with my unexpectedly powerful tentacles. All the while, my mind
is filled with delight at the thought that I'm taking a life to feed myself.
But for some reason, it doesn't feel wrong.
Finally, the beast stops moving and only twitches a few times, before it
slackens completely. Just to be sure, I stay attached for a little longer, until
I'm sure that it's dead. Then I let go and peer down on the lifeless body on the
ground before me, a single thought overwhelming my mind.
Eat.
It's already been around two hours since I've come to this world, so if this
is a dream, it's quite the long one. Still, within this time, I had a man inside
me, and now I'm taking in a beast.
My body seems to be significantly bigger on the inside, so I have no
problem taking my prey in, even though it's more than five times my mass. A
Crawling Chaos' body seems to defy the laws of physics since, at the end of it
all, nothing shows on the outside.
Also, it would appear that I'm actually quite strong. If I had been a normal
human, this wolf would have mauled me to death, and I wouldn't even have
been able to put up a fight. But now, anything that I can take inside me can
serve as food.
Now that the immediate danger of starving to death has been averted, it
slowly dawns on me what just happened. I just killed a living creature in a
very gruesome way, and I did it ruthlessly without questioning my actions at
all. Even the excuse of starvation doesn't explain how I could do what I just
did. Is that my true nature? Am I a natural-born killer?
But this is a dream, so I shouldn't think about it too much.
Let's gather some information about this place and myself. Even if I could wake up at any moment, I should try to enjoy the ride for as long as it goes
on. This is an adventure after all.
First things first, I need to find out where I've been transported to. It's not
like I know any landmarks other than what I saw from inside the palace, but I
guess you could say that the barren landscape with the jutting jagged rock
formations would indicate proximity to the castle. In other words, I need to
get my bearings first and see how extensive this forest is.
Therefore, I climb the tallest tree I can find. Halfway up I realize that using
my tentacles would be faster than doing it in my human form. But it's strange
how quickly it naturally comes to me that I can utilize a method I wouldn't
even have dreamt of using before.
Well, I guess now I am dreaming of it.
Same for eating by directly taking things into my body rather than through
my mouth. Now that I've experienced it, I can't help but think that it's much
more efficient. If only I could do this in reality.
When I reach the top of the tree, all I can see is a sea of dark green leaves,
surrounded by mountains on all sides. This place is most likely a valley
inside a mountain range. Maou-mama, why did you send me somewhere this
far away without even a return transportation circle for when you come to
pick me up? Don't tell me she just abandoned me here? Did I do something to
anger her?
I snap my head around and stare into the distance, where a huge
cumulonimbus cloud moves into view between two mountains. It catches my
eyes because it's faster than feels natural for a giant cloud like that.
Then it stops.
Now it begins moving back to where it came from, against the direction of
the wind, as if it has a mind of its own. That's no cloud...
And if those mountains are as tall as I think they are, that thing must be as
tall as Mount Fuji. So that's a living being? That's scary! Now I know which
direction I will not be going in.
Or actually, this is a dream, so why don't I go and check it out? I'm sure
that's the most fun way to spend an adventurous dream. Yep, I'll laugh danger
in the face and rush headlong towards it.
When I descend the tree, I find myself surrounded by a whole pack of the
wolf-like creature I ate earlier. There are at least a dozen of them, staring at
me with their piercing yellow eyes. A low rumbling growl comes at me from all sides, and they begin to tighten the circle slowly.
I'm sorry for laughing you in the face, danger!
Forgive me for killing and eating your friend in such a gruesome way, too!
But he attacked me, so I had no choice!
The one closest to me lunges forward, and I use a tentacle to pull myself
back up the tree. The wolf-like beast isn't so stupid as to hit the trunk, and
stops just short of it, bearing its teeth at me from below.
I think for now I'm safe since I'm sure that wolves can't climb on trees with
their claws. But normal wolves also don't have spines growing out of their
backs or possess acid saliva.
Now is the time to explore how my body works. My teeth are as hard as the
real deal, even though my actual form is so soft and malleable. In other
words, I should be able to create claws or even blades out of teeth or bones.
Kind of like a certain alien race that takes over a human body through their
heads and can grow all kinds of appendages with blades and spikes.
When I try to visualize changing my hand into a curved blade, I feel my
actual hand dissolving and morphing into a new shape. It comes out pretty
well, and it took only a few seconds. While it doesn't look too sharp, I should
be able to refine it more through training my visualization skills.
Now I understand my mother's plan in throwing me out into the wilderness.
It's for me to learn through experiencing dangerous situations that force me to
think of ways to utilize this body's abilities. Then again, would somebody
without the knowledge of all kinds of games and movies have been able to do
the same as I just did?
I refine the blade as best as I can by visualizing an actual knife, before
testing it by slashing a nearby branch. My blade hand makes a clean cut, and
the branch drops down to the wolf-beasts below, which hop back in surprise,
before growling up to me again. With this, I can fight them.
Still, I don't want to jump down and face these numbers straight on, since
my body isn't back to its full size, even after having eaten an entire wolf
earlier. It seems that a Crawling Chaos has a pretty dense body, which
requires more mass than one would think when looking at it from the outside.
I can extend my arm like a whip, by turning it into one long tentacle. This
way, it's both flexible and prehensile, and I can exert much better control over
my swing. And my attacks should be pretty powerful since I noticed that my
tentacles do seem to have quite the strength in them despite not looking likeit.
All I have to make sure of now is that I don't fall off my branch like a
moron. That wouldn't even be funny as a gag if I were to swing and miss, and
then also fall. Turning my lower body into a mass of tentacles like I did when
I attacked the first wolf-like beast, I grab onto the trunk of the tree and anchor
myself in place. With this precaution out of the way, I finally turn my
attention to the enemies below, which have started to circle the tree.
I snap my whip arm down towards one of them. It tries to dodge, but isn't
able to avoid it completely and receives a deep gash in its flank. Whining
from the pain, it jumps back and tries to lick its wound. The others from its
pack witnessed it and immediately take some distance, before looking up at
me with their teeth bared in impotent anger.
A brave one runs forward, jumps up and tries to increase its reach by
bouncing off the tree. I'm too high up, so it drops back down without having
even come close. Swinging my arm just before it lands, I make sure it can't
dodge at all. The bone blade cut off one of its front legs, causing it to howl in
pain and scramble to get away from me.
This is going really well!
Without any warning, all the wolves seem to enter a frenzy, as they leap
forward and bite at the tree trunk.
Have they gone crazy at their impotence?
No wait, they have acid saliva!
Large sizzling holes open up in the tree where they bite into the bark, and
the support is beginning to shrink. With the weight above the trunk, it'll break
and topple soon.
I'm sorry I got ahead of myself again!
Now that it's come to this, I can only try and quickly finish them off before
the tree falls over. Swinging my arm all over the place, I cut deep wounds
into several of the wolves' bodies. Those that are hit especially hard quickly
take their distance, but the others endure it to finish their work.
Snapping sounds emerge from the trunk, and the world tilts before my eyes
as the tree slowly bends and falls. Before I get entangled in the branches, I
jump off. I land right on the back of the wolf-beast whose leg I cut off. It
yelps in surprise and fear, but can't shake me off.
Wrapping my tentacle legs around it, I begin to pull it inside my body.
With this, I gain some extra mass for the battle.
At the same time as the tree hits the ground, the unfortunate creature is
completely absorbed. Several of the remaining ones are wounded, but it
doesn't change the fact that I'm outnumbered. And without hesitation, they all
lunge at me with their fangs bared, ready to bite down on me and dissolve me
with their acid saliva.
They run into a wall of spikes.
I changed the surface of my skin into sharp spikes made of bone and
extended them outwards at an explosive rate. All the beasts impale
themselves on me due to their speed. Let alone affecting me with their acid
saliva, their mouths can't even reach my main body as they twitch in their
death throes.
When I retract the spikes and change back into my human appearance, a
circle of carcasses has formed around me. I've seen something similar with a
slime-like creature in a game I played a while ago, although it only used that
to attack the player during its turn rather than as a defensive tool.
I'm sure this is where I would have leveled up if this was a game-based
setting. But in reality, resourcefulness beats raw parameters. Or I guess in a
realistic-feeling dream in this case. As seen with these beasts, I could defeat
them with very simple yet effective methods. If the attacks with my
transformed blade had been based on stats, surely I wouldn't even have
penetrated their skin. And the spikes would most likely have broken from the
impact of their bodies, rather than impale them.
In either case, I don't want to be known as someone who wastes lives and
food, even in my dreams. So I'll eat them all if I can.
I said bigger on the inside before, but now I know that my body is like a
bottomless pit. No matter how many of the wolf-beasts I consume, it doesn't
show on the outside at all. Is it possible that I have a black hole for a
stomach? Are glutton characters still considered cute these days? I think my
species might actually need to eat a considerable amount all the time, so I
can't help it.
Even with all of them inside me, I don't feel them weighing me down. I
must have eaten about a ton of those wolf creatures just now, but there's no
weight gain either. I'm still as light as I was before, which kind of defies all
laws of physics.
Then again, this is a dream, so those laws have no meaning here. It'sanother indicator that this is just a dream. Just a dream!
That aside, these animals are pretty bland in their taste. Well, I say taste,
but I'm not really using any taste buds. The sensation they give me while
dissolving inside my body is nowhere as good as the ones I got from the
various dishes made from the human king.
I can feel that I have more mass to work with now. After losing the lower
half of my body and my arms during the teleportation, my matter had been
severely limited. But now that I consumed so much and dissolved a lot of
matter into my body, I can grow it all back.
No matter how I think about it, I'm really just like a slime. But I'm nowhere
as weak as one; I mean, if I were a slime, the story would have ended with
me getting hit once by a human I just caused a mild inconvenience to
somewhere on a field, who will later grow into the fated hero who defeats the
demon lord. Instead, I easily killed a bunch of monsters that seem more like
midgame content. Alright, enough of these gaming analogies.
Now, let's aim for that huge cloud-like mountain-sized monster over there.
Come what will, I'm invincible as long as I can change my body into the
shape of a giant hedgehog with hard spikes.
Sea urchin? I have no idea what you mean; it's a cute hedgehog!
Hearing the rumbling of heavy footsteps, I hide in a brush and wait. While
I doubt it's something I couldn't defeat, it's better to be wary in any case; I
don't actually feel like waking up just yet.
What approaches is a giant Tyrannosaurus-like robot that could flatten me
with a single step of its massive feet.
Most of its body is plated with gray steel panels, and the spaces between
them show that cables are running through it, which are all covered in metal.
In other words, everything about it is tougher than what I can produce;
Hedgehog Mode will be useless against it.
I got carried away again, I'm sorry!
As if to mock my hubris from earlier, the robot dinosaur bites into the trunk
of a tree, and the sound of a machine buzzing emerges from inside its
metallic jaws. Splinters of wood fly everywhere and the tree is sawed down.
That's one of those tree-felling machines I saw on TV once!
But it seems to be more than just a machine, and it's walking on two feet.
Well, it looks like a herbivore, so it shouldn't pose a threat to me. With it
being so loud, there's no way to be surprised by it, so it can't be a hunter-predator.
A metal foot slams down right next to my hiding place, and my body jumps
into the air a few inches. Turning my head, I look into the maw of another
such cyber-dino.
Those are quite the impressive teeth, but are you brushing properly? You
got some meat and fur stuck in there, you know?
Rolling on the floor in an unsightly fashion, I dodge the jaws of death. The
brush I just occupied is crunched and disappears into the robot's mechanical
stomach effortlessly.
That was too close for comfort!
Then I see its eye from up close. It's more like a camera lens, with what
seems to be a floodlight lamp right next to it. The head somewhat resembles a
box-like car - if a car could split at the grill and instead of an engine, it had a
collection of saws and blades in there.
Wait, why are you looking at me like that? I'm inedible, so don't even think
about it!
The other one also notices me and begins to approach. I can't fight these;
they're practically living construction equipment!
I'm on the run once again, chased by these two huge cyber-dinos. Saying it
like that sounds like a gag in a trashy movie, but when their jaws are
humming with buzz saws, and their metal soles create small earthquakes with
every step, I can't laugh about it at all.
What's with the sharp increase in the level of this area? The wolves are in a
completely different league from these!
Speaking of wolves, why am I running in my human form? It's far less
efficient when compared to that of a quadruped, especially in a forest.
With this though, I reach into my mind for the information I acquired
through their genetic material and morph into one of those beasts still
dissolving inside me. When I feel my new body, elation fills my mind at the
thought that I can be anything I want and I forget the looming danger for a
second.
The sound of saws buzzing behind me pulls me back into reality, and I take
off running as fast as I can. With four legs made for sprinting, a whole new
sensation washes over me. The wind in the fur feels really nice, as I speed
through the forest effortlessly, and much faster than I have ever traveled in
human form before.
The cyber-dinos soon give up when they realize that they can't catch up to
me at all. While I have a feeling that they'll never tire, since they're literally
machines, they must have some reason for not continuing the chase. In either
case, as long as I remain in this form, I'll be able to outrun them easily.
Still, how am I supposed to fight them? I don't think bone or teeth are
enough to even scratch them, and while they look slow, getting stepped on by
them, or ending up between their jaws spells certain doom. In other words, I'd
better steer clear of them until I know more about how they work, such as
weak spots in the form of exterior gas tanks or something silly like that.
I've certainly learned a lesson from my encounter with the cyber-dinos;
there's always a bigger fish.
And here I am, making my way towards the cloud-mountain thing again,
which is most likely the biggest fish in this world. I'm sure there won't be any
dangerous monsters around it, and since I'm so tiny, it won't notice me.
But if I could eat it, what would happen to me? My interior seems to be
limitless, so if I can only create an opening big enough to pull that being
inside, I'd be able to swallow it whole. I'm sure I'd have to really stretch
myself open to take that giant thing inside me, though.
Somehow this has become a journey of eating various kinds of monsters.
But I'm not a master combat cook who travels the world to gather rare
ingredients for the ultimate meal. I just swallow things whole with no room
for enjoyment of taste.
That doesn't make for a great adventure, though.
I spot a lone wolf-beast again. Without hesitation, I lunge at it and wrap my
body around its mouth, before taking it into my depths. This is getting easier,
and my reluctance has completely disappeared. In only a few hours, I've
become a participant in the struggle for survival in this untamed wilderness.
There's no room for thinking about the sanctity of life if nobody else around
you does it.
For example, over there a gorilla-like creature with an incredibly muscular
frame and orange stripes on its fierce face is leaning over the carcass of a
wolf-beast and ripping flesh from it with its bare hands. So, these wolves are
only small fry in this place then? To think it felt like such an achievement to
defeat one at the very beginning.
Ah, it saw me.
Well, it doesn't look like this ape has metal skin, and it's only barely larger
than the wolf-beasts, so my offensive and defensive abilities should be
enough to handle it.
It stands up and looks at me curiously. I'm back in my sports uniformslash-body paint, so it should be something it has never seen before. It sniffs
the air and grimaces, then pumps out its chest and beats it a few times, just
like a gorilla.
Then, without warning, it sprints towards me on all fours and throws up
both arms to let them crash down on me. Ending it with the hedgehog move
would be the fastest, but it's boring, isn't it? Instead, I extend my right hand
into a blade once again, dodge underneath the muscular arms and stab at the
ape's exposed abdomen. Feeling it connect, I step sideways and cut open the
beast's belly, from which a bunch of organs falls out.
While grabbing at the intestines to push them back into the gaping wound,
the gorilla's eyes roll up in their sockets, and it collapses forward. Well, that
was really easy; I half-expected the pattern where it calls out its friends and a
whole army of its kind will arrive to take revenge. This one was most likely
quite a bit stronger than the wolves, but I'm on a whole different level
compared to these. And now that I'm getting a better grasp of my capabilities,
I'm going to leave them in the dirt.
There has to be a monster between these and the cyber-dinos that I could
get a little more thrill out of without having too much of a level difference.
Actually, I'm interested in seeing how I would fare against a human warrior
now. But from on top of the tree, I didn't see anything resembling manmade
structures, so I guess that's something for the future. I mean, the demon queen
did say that the humans and elves attacked her gates yesterday. So if I don't
wake up anytime soon, I will get to experience a war between a human-elves
coalition and the demons eventually.
Well, I won't take this half-eaten carcass of a wolf, but the ape goes inside
my pocket dimension of a stomach, where it quickly begins to dissolve. I'm
getting faster at digesting stuff, so I wonder if I can also slow the speed and
keep something alive inside me? I'll experiment a little next time I come
across something living.
Which just happens to be another wolf-beast.
This is getting repetitive...
I quickly ensnare and absorb it, while willing myself not to outright digest it within seconds. I can feel its heart beating in the depths of my body, but I'm
sure its breath will run out sooner or later. I haven't been inside myself, so I
can't tell whether there is even any space in which something can remain
without getting crushed by my matter. Regardless, this is an experiment I can
conduct while on the move.
How many hours have I been here now? I think at least half a day of
walking and eating has passed, but I don't feel tired at all. Must be part of my
constitution.
But mentally, I start to feel exhaustion creeping up. I've been on my toes
since coming here, and I've done things I would have been either grossed out
by or never even considered doing before. Just earlier, disemboweling the ape
came naturally to me and I didn't bat an eye at it, but when I think about it
from the point of view of a simple high school girl from peaceful Japan, I
suppress a shudder.
Really, what's wrong with my subconscious? Is this dream trying to
process some repressed urges I never knew I had? Do I have the hidden
desire to kill all kinds of living beings and eat them? Am I a closet murderer
and cannibal?
Ugh, when I think about it so much, I'm beginning to feel sick. What would
happen if I threw up now? Of course, a sparkling, rainbow-colored fountain
of half-digested animal parts would come flying out.
I stop for a moment and heave a sigh. I never knew being surrounded by
nature could be so nerve-wracking. I enjoyed running in the fields and on the
forest paths when visiting my grandparents' home near Aomori, but real
nature is completely different. Here, I don't have a way to retreat to humanity
when I feel overwhelmed by all the greenery; aside from being in the depths
of an untouched forest, I'm also a monster.
Suddenly, I feel like waking up from this long dream... I can give myself a
little pain and do just that, right?
I pinch my cheek since I'm in a human body and have fingernails. But
instead of pain, I only feel my skin extending more than it should. At the
same time, it's clear that I do have sensations in my body. Otherwise, I
wouldn't have been able to feel the stuff I swallowed, or my skin extending
just now.
Don't tell me this isn't a dream? I really died and reincarnated as the daughter of the demon queen, ate a human's steamed head by inserting it into
my chest, and just absorbed more than a ton of wild animal carcasses that I
killed, using my monstrous body?
Then the heartbeat of the wolf-beast I tried to keep alive inside me stops.
Urp...
A sparkling, rainbow-colored fountain of half-digested animal parts shoots
up into the sky.