106. Padix Kingdom (1)
106. Padix Kingdom (1)
30 minutes after the creature attack.
"Haa... haa..."
Jenny, Vivian's friend who had also been transported to this other world, felt helpless against the creature before her.
Although she hadn't received a unique ability like Vivian, Jenny, who had trained harder than anyone else, had become a knight recognized by the Holy Kingdom's knighthood.
Her comrades had been a tremendous help in that process.
These comrades had approached her without any prejudice or discrimination when she first arrived in this other world.
Those same comrades were now dead because of the creature in front of her.
Its massive body, easily over 20 meters in size, and the tentacles attacking from all directions were not just large but also incredibly tough.
She had no idea what method she could use to capture the creature before her.
What was even more terrifying was that the creature in front of her wasn't the end of it.
A massive Worm Creature had appeared in the kingdom.
Its size was so enormous that it couldn't even be taken in at a single glance, and with every movement, the ground and sky shook.
First, to assess the situation, she used magic to scout the location where the giant creature had appeared.
The impact of a creature of that enormous size bursting out from the ground was beyond imagination.
A creature of that size must have drilled its way through the underground. If that was the case, then the creature had created a massive tunnel while coming through, so it was only natural for the ground to weaken.
If it had emerged on the outskirts, that might have been one thing, but it appeared in the center of the kingdom. And then there was the tunnel that this creature had drilled all the way to the kingdom's center.
That tunnel had completely collapsed when the Worm Creature emerged, devastating 20% of the kingdom's land.
If it had ended there, it might have been manageable.
The problem was that an uncountable number of creatures came pouring out of that creature's mouth.
With the massive Worm Creature and the creatures pouring out of it, the kingdom immediately declared a National Despair Level emergency.
A National Despair Level declaration was only made in the face of a crisis so great that the nation could be destroyed and other countries would also be threatened.
Adventurers and knights all took up their weapons and advanced, killing countless creatures as they moved forward to subjugate the giant creature.
Jenny also advanced together with her comrades, rescuing citizens.
That was when she encountered Gluttony.
For the first time, with no restrictions whatsoever, Gluttony was frantically devouring the humans around her.
The more humans she ate, the larger Gluttony's body grew, the more tentacles appeared, and the faster she consumed humans.
The Holy Knight squad Jenny was with immediately charged in to subjugate Gluttony.
They managed to deal significant damage while fighting Gluttony, but in that process, far too many holy knights met their deaths.
Although the holy knights died, Gluttony had also taken considerable damage, so everyone, prepared to die, continued attacking...
But Gluttony consumed the corpses of the holy knights who had attacked her with suicidal determination, recovering her wounds.
She would be wounded, then when they died, she would eat their dead bodies and heal those wounds.
In the end, to kill Gluttony, no one could die... but that was nearly impossible.
"Should a monster like this even be allowed to exist in this world...?"
Jenny couldn't believe that Gluttony, who endlessly recovered, and her comrades who had sacrificed themselves to subjugate Gluttony, had all died meaningless deaths.
==
Gluttony, who had grown significantly by devouring humans and holy knights.
All traces of her appearance from when she hadn't eaten many humans had vanished. Now the size of a house, Gluttony looked at the only human remaining before her—Jenny—and hesitated.
The reason Gluttony, who would normally devour comrades before her without any hesitation, was hesitating when looking at a human was because she was beautiful.
When Gluttony ate something, she didn't think at all and simply devoured everything before her, but there was one thing embedded in her mind.
The Queen.
She knew that recently, the Queen had developed a hobby of eating the brains of beautiful and strong women.
Although the Queen had never directly said so, Gluttony, living within the Queen's consciousness through the Hive Mind, couldn't help but know it implicitly.
And right before her was a human the Queen would likely like.
Gluttony, who devoured everything, suppressed her own greed and decided to offer Jenny to the Queen, extending her tentacles.
Jenny didn't give up.
Without closing her eyes, she swung her sword at the approaching tentacles.
But Gluttony, who had already grown powerful by devouring countless humans, knights, and holy knights, could not be cut.
Thwang!
Jenny, already exhausted to her limit, dropped the sword that a knight should never let go of.
'Damn it!'
Jenny hurriedly reached out to grab her sword, but Gluttony's tentacle grabbed her hand first.
Jenny thought Gluttony was going to eat her too and prepared herself for death.
.
..
...
'Huh...?'
Jenny felt confused as Gluttony held her but did nothing, remaining still.
'What is this? Why isn't she eating me?'
Until now, she had never spent time eating humans. She simply devoured them in an instant.
Gluttony opened her mouth to store Jenny inside her body instead of eating her.
Chae-eok
At the sight of Gluttony's mouth, filled with countless teeth and tentacles, Jenny finally squeezed her eyes shut.
Kwaaaaaang!!!
Just as Jenny was about to enter Gluttony's mouth, a powerful sword strike severed Gluttony's tentacles.
As soon as the tentacle was severed, Jenny came to her senses, grabbed her sword, and retreated.
"Are you alright?"
An adventurer wearing a healer's outfit approached Jenny, placed a hand on her shoulder, and began healing.
"Th-thank you! Who are you...?"
"We're S-rank adventurers from the Padix Guild. Leave that monster to us."
"Thank you again for your help...! First, let me tell you the information we've gathered."
Without letting go of her trembling hand on her sword, Jenny began speaking about the monster before them.
"That monster recovers its stamina the more people it eats, and it grows larger and stronger. If that monster is seriously injured, it might try to devour all the living people around it."
"Thanks for the info. Oppa! Did you hear that?!"
"Yeah! I heard it!"
The male adventurer, who was holding his own in a one-on-one fight with Gluttony, replied without taking his eyes off Gluttony.
"Holy Knight-nim, please handle the other monsters. We'll definitely subjugate that monster."
"Kugh... Understood...!"
Knowing that even if she tried to help, she would only be a burden, Jenny bit her lip as she looked at the blood of her comrades, quickly growing cold on the ground.
What mattered now wasn't the death of that monster, but saving the citizens.
'Damn it. If I had a unique ability... could I have won?'
Not every otherworlder receives a unique ability. Most are granted powerful abilities, but Jenny hadn't received a single one.
Because of that, she couldn't do anything even as her comrades died before her eyes.
She was filled with frustration, anger, and endless self-blame, but she had to use that time to kill another creature before her.
Screams that hadn't been heard during the battle with Gluttony rang out from all directions.
Jenny forced strength into her trembling hands and ran.
==
"Kyaaaaaaah!"
"Sa-save me!!!"
"Mommyyyyyy!"
"Uwaaaaaaagh!"
"No! No!!! Nooooooo!!!"
"I don't want to die! Save me! Someone, anyone, save me!!!"
"We have to hold them off here!"
When screams filled the air all around, a strong voice rang out, though tinged with fear.
An adventurer wearing armor that seemed to have weathered countless trials and hardships was shouting.
Although the sword he held was trembling, his eyes remained steadfast.
"We're going to save as many citizens as possible. But prioritize your own lives. Don't push yourself to save others. Remember—you have to stay alive to save more citizens!"
Even a veteran adventurer couldn't help but feel fear at the sight of countless creatures devouring people before their eyes, but he calmly gave a command that was nearly perfect for the situation.
As if answering his words, the adventurer comrades all raised their weapons simultaneously.
The adventurers hid their trembling hands and charged toward the creatures to save the citizens.
It wasn't that the adventurers couldn't handle the Ners.
They subjugated the Ners with experience built up through their long careers as adventurers.
But what meaning did that have against creatures that had already multiplied beyond measure?
Ners, watching with countless eyes and dashing forward at bizarre speeds on eight legs.
The most basic of creatures, yet possessing the greatest reproductive capacity.
The Ners, which had originally numbered only about three thousand, had grown to over ten thousand in that short time.
All ten thousand had come to Padix riding the Worm.
As more and more Ners poured out, the vibrations felt from the ground grew stronger, and the adventurers' fear increased.
Soon, when one adventurer fell to the Ners attacking from all sides, dozens of Ners rushed at him and began devouring the fallen adventurer.
The armor he wore was useless, sliced apart by the Ners' powerful teeth, and as the gruesome sounds echoed, the adventurers' mental fortitude, barely held together, completely crumbled.
Losing their will to fight, the adventurers began to flee along with the citizens.
No, rather, they pushed citizens aside as they ran.
Screams erupted, cries of despair filled the air, and fear spread everywhere.
Blood and flesh scattered everywhere. Not just from a few people, but from countless people.
Flesh torn off by Ners, bodies with limbs crushed by Chimeras, bodies torn apart by Maru.
Whether adventurer, commoner, or noble, all turned into small pieces of flesh.
Arms? Legs? Things like that didn't exist.
As the creatures passed by, they devoured any chunk of human meat small enough to fit into their mouths, leaving only tiny pieces of flesh and blood to tell that humans had been there.