[Llyne's Side]
"Hm… I don't see any monsters so far…"
I scratched my head, brow furrowing.
'Did I hear wrong?'
The intestine walls pulsed faintly, alive and squirming. And it wasn't just the walls.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of finger-like tendrils swayed in the current. Slow. Hypnotic.
"The only things here are these finger-jelly… seaweed… things. Ugh."
I leaned closer, squinting.
"...Though if you tilt your head… they kinda look like sausages. Slimy, disgusting sausages. Yuck."
I gagged.
Then a thought struck.
"Ah! Wait—I've seen these before. Iz was reading about them."
I raised a finger, mocking his know-it-all tone.
"These are villi. They help absorb nutrients through blood vessels."
Silence.
'...They won't try to absorb me, will they?'
My throat bobbed.
'Nope. Out. Out, bad thought.' I slapped my cheeks like I could exorcise the image of being slurped like a protein shake.
I flopped back into the chest-boat with a groan.
"I'm bored. Where are the exciting things already?"
Creak.
My gaze drifted upward, to where I had fallen from.
"I wonder how Rona and Ronald are doing…"
A chill crawled down my spine.
'Without Isaac, I'd be their only guardian…'
"Uh-oh."
Panic bubbled up.
"And I'm down here. While they're out there. Crap. Crap! I need to get back!"
I jammed the paddle into the current and rowed like a madwoman, arms pumping.
Unbeknownst to me—
I was already surrounded.
ᴀ ᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀ sɪɢɴᴀʟ ʜᴀs ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴛʀɪɢɢᴇʀᴇᴅ.
The walls of the small intestine pulsed—once, twice—
Then stilled.
From the shifting shadows of the villi, dark shapes began to emerge.
Their bodies were slick with mucus, thin as eels but coiled like serpents.
Fangs glinted in the low light, three-pronged spears in their hands, each tip gleaming with poison.
They weren't supposed to be dangerous. That's what made them deadly.
Parasitic Villi-Hunters.
Creatures born from the very walls of the intestinal dungeon—fluid, silent, and patient. They did not chase. They did not roar. They waited. Nestled in the folds of the twitching villi, like needles buried in grass, they moved with the current and struck when the host was most distracted—paddling, breathing, blinking.
Their bodies were serpentine but solid, covered in a membrane slick with digestive mucus. The slime didn't just protect them—it cloaked them, bending light, warping sound, letting them vanish into the living tunnel like ghosts made of meat and bile. If the dungeon breathed, they were its breath held back. Waiting.
Each one wielded a grotesque weapon that grew from its own bone—a three-pronged spear tipped with venom glands, glistening with a toxin designed not to kill, but to paralyze—to lock the prey in place and begin the process of Nutrient Drain.
It wasn't a metaphor.
Once wounded, the Villi-Hunters would latch on and feed—through their skin, through their mouths, through their weapons. Their muscle tissue flexed like cables beneath that slime-coated skin, drawing in blood, mana, stamina—anything they could break down.
And worse—they grew stronger with every bite.
Wounds sealed mid-fight. Reflexes sharpened. If even one of them landed a hit, the battle could spiral out of control in seconds.
But they never came alone.
One to distract. One to strike. One to finish. A pack of three could dismantle a team in minutes, not because they were strong—but because they were efficient. Efficient in the way that spiders were. In the way that leeches were. Cold. Biological. Unfeeling.
Inside the small intestine where sound warped and light bent, they became nightmares made real. Not monsters you saw—but ones you felt too late.
Their only sound?
The faint, wet hiss of them whispering a single, broken word in the darkness:
"Food…"
They moved in silence.
No growl. No hiss. No warning.
They were already inside the water, inches away from my makeshift boat.
And I didn't even notice.
"Haah… I've been paddling nonstop. I deserve a break," I sighed, tossing the paddle onto my lap and wiping sweat from my brow.
That's when I felt it.
A shift in the current.
Too smooth. Too quiet.
My eyes sharpened.
"...Wait."
I turned my head—just in time to see a dark blur lunging straight at me from the water.
Whoosh!
Something snapped in the air. Instinct screamed—move!
SHLNK!
I ducked just in time as a spear whistled past my ear, embedding into the intestine wall with a sickening squelch.
"What the—?!"
The villi around me exploded into motion—monsters erupting from the soft walls like parasites breaking free of rotten fruit.
Thin, glistening bodies. Jagged fangs. Spear-arms with barbed, triple-pronged tips.
They struck from every direction.
Clang! Cling! Clank!
I spun on the treasure chest boat, blade flashing, deflecting blow after blow. Each hit sent vibrations rattling through my arms, nearly throwing me off balance.
"Gah—!"
I stumbled, the unstable floor beneath me wobbling. The chest rocked violently in the current, and one wrong step would send me plunging into the stomach-acid-like fluid below.
'I can't fall. Not here. Not now!'
My sword barely kept them at bay. I ducked under a jab, rolled to the side, and slashed—taking one of them down. The creature shrieked as its body dissolved into the digestive flow.
But there were more.
Too many.
Their movements were relentless, like coordinated insects, stabbing in perfect timing.
The intestinal current roared louder. A new force had entered the battlefield.
I looked up—and my eyes widened.
The digestive juice was beginning to swirl into a massive whirlpool, centered deeper inside the tunnel.
I could feel it—the suction growing stronger, dragging me, the monsters, even the villi themselves.
Mist rose, acidic and suffocating. My lungs burned.
"Ugh—what is this!?" I hacked, waving a hand uselessly. "It smells like a sewer gargled vinegar!"
Grrrrrrrrrroooooaaaar.
A deep, animalistic growl resonated through the intestinal tunnel like a drumbeat from the abyss.
I froze.
So did the monsters.
The trident-wielding creatures whipped around, their eyes wide with primal fear. One by one, they vanished into the villi, diving between the folds like rats fleeing a sinking ship.
"Eh…? Did… Did they just abandon me…?"
I was left completely alone.
The sound echoed again, deeper this time—closer.
I gripped my sword instinctively, breath shallow. Muscles tense.
Something was coming. Something worse than everything before. I raised my guard, ready for a monster—
Then I saw it.
Not a monster.
A drop.
Correction—
The drop.
"What in the digestive system…"
The tunnel ended abruptly ahead of me. A massive waterfall of acidic juice plunged into the unknown, churning and roaring like a thousand screaming ghosts. My treasure chest-turned-boat was sliding toward the edge fast—too fast.
Slosh. Slam. Swirl.
The juice churned violently beneath me, smashing against the intestinal walls, kicking up waves that slammed into the sides of the chest. I was being tossed like a leaf in a hurricane.
"Wait—waitwaitwaitWAIT—!"
I leaned forward, squinting against the mist.
The juice vanished into a bottomless haze. Vapor hissed upward, forming a dreamlike cloud that glowed with eerie bioluminescent light. Below it… nothing. A curtain of fog, a roar of liquid death, and the sensation that the world was about to tilt upside down.
"Oui... The path is missing!"
I looked down. My stomach sank.
"Ack! Wait a minute... The juice is falling downwards... Uh-oh."
My sword slipped from my fingers and clattered to the floor.
"Nope! Nope, nope, nope!"
I dove down and clutched the inside of the chest tightly, bracing myself like a toddler in a toy box tossed into a tsunami.
The box rocked violently, teetering on the very brink.
The current tugged.
The edge loomed.
I could feel gravity readying its punch.
Creeeak...
The chest rocked forward.
Back.
Forward.
Back.
The rhythm lulled me.
Like the slow swing of a cradle.
A strangely peaceful rhythm filled my ears.
Soft. Lulling. Almost nostalgic.
"Ah... this reminds me of when Ma used to rock me to sleep…"
My eyes half-closed.
CRACK.
The boat tilted forward.
Suddenly, my eyes burst wide open.
'...Wait. Wrong memory!'
"—This isn't how I imagined I would end my life!!"
I shrieked and slammed the lid shut as the box tipped over the edge and plunged down the waterfall.
FWOOOOOOOOSH!
The box rocketed downward, swallowed by the waterfall's fury. I could feel the air whooshing past me, my insides flipping inside out. My ears popped. The roar was deafening.
Then—
SPLAAAAASH!!
The chest crashed into the pool below with a bone-jarring impact. Waves erupted in every direction, splashing against the fleshy walls. The chest bobbed violently, spinning in dizzying circles before settling into a slow drift.
Silence.
A sticky, humid silence filled with nothing but the distant dripping of intestinal juices and my own ragged breathing.
Creeeaaak.
I peeked out of the chest, drenched.
'Oui… alive another moment.'
I clutched my heart.
"Oui… it nearly popped. I'll never forget that."
Still gasping, I reached over and grabbed the paddle again.
No more pauses. No more distractions.
'I had to get back to Rona and Ronald.'
Splash. Splash. Clank. Clink.
My hands trembled slightly as I paddled forward. The echoes of battle still rang in my bones, the sting of acidic mist clinging to my clothes like a second skin.
My sword lay shattered from the earlier ambush. Only the hilt remained.
I sighed. "Great. First my pride, now my sword."
The intestinal current calmed, eerily still.
Too still.
"Who knew there'd be so many monsters in the small intestines?" I mumbled, running my sleeve across my face. "It must be because all the rabbit eats are junk. Fast food, candy… soda?! No wonder this whole digestive system is a war zone."
I gritted my teeth and shoved the paddle forward.