The path was a mess. Aside from where I landed, the earth was completely covered by fallen leaves, empty husks of insects, and branches, all of which were bigger and clearly heavier than anything I’ve seen before, which made my slithering way slower than it should be.

There were large old trees all around, their species also differing a lot from the ones near the murder plant and the flower field. For starters, the ones here don’t have any production skill, their trunk is covered in a dark hue of green, and the leaves are yellow, some bright and others darker.

All of that, along with the lack of illumination caused by the thicket, created a slightly obscure, or rather mysterious sort of autumn ambience in my surroundings.

“It feels like I’m a suspense movie,” I whispered. “Something might just jump out of the shadows and—!”

As if waiting for me to jinx myself, a creature jumped out of one of the beds of leaves laying all over.

“Gnaw!”

And, without any hesitation, my body threw itself at it to catch it with my mouth. Perhaps an ‘eat first, question after,’ sort of instinct? I wouldn’t know. However I did get something hard, thin and plenty lively.

“Whad ish dhis?” I stared at it with a confused expression.

It was the size of an adult man’s thumb, and probably just as wide, six extremely thin legs coupled with the two front arms that stood forward like antennas, unlike its head and black eyes. Among those features, the blue skin covering its entirety was the least of my problems.

Because it tried to poke my right eye with that pointy arm of theirs.

“Fuul...” I strongly shook my head as I tried to suck even more of its body into my mouth.

Of course, they attempted to pull their lower body away by kicking me and the ground with those six legs, but I easily overwhelmed it with my grip strength.

Its struggle only ceased once I managed to take hold of its lower body, however that didn’t stop it from sticking one of its pointy arms on the ground while using the other to stab my face. Though, with my current power, it was a futile effort.

“Gaaw~”

With a rapid motion, I opened my mouth widely, stuck my neck forward, and immediately closed it when I had the rest of its body inside. Leaving just that other arm sticking out from my lips.

“Hmph...” My tongue smashed the insect against my palate. I waited until it stopped moving then pushed it down my throat with the tip of my tongue. “Gulp.”

My head naturally turned upwards and I felt it slide into my stomach without any issues.

“Haah,” I relaxed and spat out the limb of the creature that I cut off with my lips and tongue. “How many does this make? Seven? Eight? Should I even keep count?”

I looked at the trail of smashed leaves on the other side of this path. That used to be another bed of leaves that contained insects, animals, or whatever the creatures here classify as, which got stepped on by one of those bordrunts, or elephant-boar, as I like to call it.

After that big guy crossed this path, a load of insects sprung from hiding whenever I moved a certain distance. So much for not being visible if insects can, somehow, detect me anyway.

“This wasn’t supposed to take so long.”

Well, regretting going this way wouldn’t take me home any faster, so I willed myself to continue looking for what was shining in this dark place. Thankfully the blinking hadn’t stopped.

 

---

 

[Host has fed on sufficient nutrients. Strength +0.03, Endurance +0.02, Dexterity 0.01, Agility +0.01.]

“And that’s the third time,” I sighed. “Insects really count as lesser than raw meat to you, system?”

“Good thing that it’s over now.”

As the wind blows over the crown of the nearby trees, the few rays of sunlight that seep through the gaps in between branches and leaves reach the ground ahead of me. However, contrary to my expectations, what was attracting my attention through inconsistent shimmers of light was not a reflecting material of any sort.

“It was worth it risking the slime core to investigate this...” I paused in both my tracks and words for a moment to take in the sight. “This oddity, if I have to call it something.”

Glued to a silver base with a hook, was a very small crystal ball-like sphere with some sort of blue jewel inside of the glass, which sparked in a bright white light whenever the sunlight hit it.

I could be mistaken, but no matter how I see it, it looks just like...

“An earring?” I wondered. “That’s... not something that grows on trees, right?”

An earlobe, or rather something that might’ve been, or resembled one long ago, was keeping hold of the earring-like thing, at the lower part of a big old tree, its trunk covered in mushrooms from bottom up. The mushrooms at the lowest part were the largest I’d ever seen, almost the size of a child's umbrella from my previous life.

And their base didn’t seem to be rooted directly on the body of the tree, instead they were growing out of something that probably leaned against this tree a long time ago, based on how old both the tree and the fungi are.

“Expand on the species ‘assahangi,’” I asked the system.

 

Species Name: Assahangi Class: Fungi Element: Earth Description: A fungus that infects the body of living organisms past a certain age. Destroys the self-defense mechanisms of the host and takes over their motor functions to an extent. Its growth is easily noticeable as it pushes mushroom-looking plants out of the largest veins of the body and uses them to create spores. It reproduces through assimilation with the host and spreads through the air.

 

After reading through the profiles of both the fungus and the nearby trees I approached the fungi, guessing that I was too young for it to infect me, and as I closed in I noticed something beneath the mountain of shrooms. Silk, leather, and something akin to skin? I couldn’t really tell from how rotten everything was.

I climbed up, using the base of the shrooms as support, and swiftly reached the glowing earring.

“It’s so pretty,” I said, surprised at how different it looked from up close.

The jewel wasn’t just beautiful by itself, aside from its azure sky-like coloration it was also riddled with an uncountable amount of holes that expelled a bright white light whenever the sunlight entered them. And for a little while, after the light was shot out, it held onto a little of that brightness on its insides, making it look as if stars were shining even under the noon sky.

“And it smells good too,” I added, “it’s such a weirdly familiar scent...”

As much as I thought about it, I couldn’t think of anything from my previous life that resembled such a soft aroma, and since this life has been going for just a few days, it can’t possibly be—

“That! Right, it could be that,” I nodded, proud of my quick thinking. “It was worth practicing it a little on the way here—”

“Ah,” I realized I let my thoughts derail. “Stop me, stop. Haah. Okay, let’s focus on the earring and, show me its profile, system.”

[There’s no target in sight.]

“Huh?” I tilted my head in confusion. “What, why?”

“Did I use the wrong command for this? Uh, show me their profile?”

[There’s no target in sight.]

“What do you mean!? Why can’t you identify it?”

It remained silent.

“What a pain,” I sighed. “No, wait, let’s think positively. Maybe this is about that level thing that unlocks commands. Or the system simply doesn’t like earrings. Either way, I can think about this in-depth after I bring this earring back with me.”

For now, I focused on yanking the earring off the earlobe-looking shroom.

“Gee, this really looks too much like a human ear. It’s giving me chills from how identical it is.”

I coiled my tail around the base of a shroom right above the ear-like thing as I inspected it. My eyes had seen several dozen ears in my previous life, so I couldn’t be mistaken about this one thing.

“What if I target this instead?” I wondered. “Show me their profile?”

[There is no target in sight.]

“Ugh, show me its profile, then?”

Finally, with a ping sound, a screen appeared in front of my eyes.

“Hehe, now let’s see what are you...?”

My eyes paused on the topmost words on the screen.

“N- no way,” I retreated my body back up to a stable position.

“Why is there,” I looked down, at what was beneath my body, then back at the screen, “a human here?”