Drip.Drip.Drip.
The sound of water echoed in the damp, smelly space.
Elvira, who had run out of mana, slowly regained consciousness.
Normally, she would stay in a daze for a few minutes before her mind cleared.
This time, the pungent stench hit her like a slap and forced her awake.
"If you're awake, use your magi to make us float.
You can do that, right?" Ben asked in a rough voice.
He felt her shift slightly on his back.
"Where are we?" Elvira asked.
Her tone was confused.
In all her past lives, she had never seen or felt a place like this.
Other than the damp air and the constant sound of dripping water, everything around them was pitch-black.
Even with her sharpened eyes, she saw nothing at all.
For Ben it was different.
He could see clearly.
Her question reminded him of her limitation, but he did not care much about that.
He had a more urgent problem. "We're inside the hell worm."
"What!?" Elvira's eyes widened.
The hell worm was a walking catastrophe.
The idea that they were still alive after being eaten did not make sense to her.
Her mind started to fill with questions, but Ben cut her off.
"Stop asking meaningless questions and make us float," he said in a stern tone.
Elvira lowered her gaze.
Since Ben had asked her to make them float, the danger had to be below them, or maybe above.
Her heart tightened when she saw what was happening.
Her expression softened, and a small smile appeared on her lips.
"You're always cold to me, but I know it," she said. "In reality, you care about me.
My beloved."
"Spare me your fantasy," Ben replied. "If you die, I die.
You think I'll let that happen?
Anyway, hurry.
My biomass is running out."
After they were swallowed by the hell worm, Ben had found them inside its intestine.
The title of walking catastrophe was not an exaggeration.
Its digestive liquid could melt anything given enough time.
At first, Ben had tried using rocks and bronze ore as makeshift platforms.
Both ideas were useless.
The blocks did not even last a second in the liquid.
In a panic, he had kept spawning as many blocks as he could, one after another, just to buy a little more time and push through the digestive fluid.
While doing that, he tried to shape a boat or any structure that might last a bit longer.
Nothing worked.
When the last block melted and he fell toward the liquid, Ben had really thought it was over.
Even with his regeneration, if his whole body sank and stayed in the fluid, the result was obvious.
He would die.
Elvira's situation made it worse.
Unlike him, she could not regenerate endlessly.
If she died, he died.
In that desperate moment, he had raised Elvira as high as he could above the liquid and prayed.
"God, Buddha, or whoever sent me here, please let me survive," he had muttered.
Fortunately for him, whoever wrote his fate still needed him alive.
The digestive liquid was shallow enough that he could stand and walk in it.
It constantly melted his body, and his regeneration constantly repaired it.
He had been walking like that for an hour.
Elvira let out a small chuckle.
She did not mind his blunt answer.
Even while he denied her words, she could feel his concern in his actions.
As an Aetheris, her values were different from a human's.
If she had been in his position, she would have cut off parts of her own body to reduce the weight so they could move faster.
Her body was not fragile.
She could stay alive for days with only her head and limbs.
Later she could regenerate everything again with mana.
She raised her index finger and cast two spells.
"Lumina.
Feather Glide."
A sphere of light appeared beside them and lit up the wide space.
At the same time, Ben felt a soft current of wind gather around them.
Their bodies rose, just enough so that the bubbling acidic liquid no longer touched him.
With the light, Elvira could finally see Ben's condition.
On one of his legs, only bare bone remained.
The other leg was covered in melted, half-dissolved chitin.
To save time and biomass, Ben had focused his armor only on the parts he needed to keep moving.
As long as he could stay upright and walk, he did not care about the rest.
Despite his regeneration, that should be painful as hell, Elvira thought.
Now that I think about it, has anyone ever treated me like this?
Guilt and happiness mixed in her chest.
Ben had no idea what she was feeling.
He was fully focused on finding a way out.
The surroundings looked like a huge tunnel.
The only difference from a normal tunnel was the wall.
In a normal tunnel, the wall would be concrete.
Here, everything was made of flesh, uneven and slick.
The flesh walls were not weak.
Ben knew they were far stronger than concrete.
At his current strength, he could easily punch through a normal wall.
But this meat wall gave him a bad feeling.
He already knew it was better not to attack it.
He had no idea what kind of reaction the hell worm would have.
The only entrance is the mouth, he thought, but those sharp teeth...
I don't want to go through that again.
Then where do I go?
Toward the tail?
He was not even sure how worm biology worked in this world.
Do they even excrete anything?
With how strong the acid was, he doubted the creature needed to leave leftovers.
I should have paid more attention in biology class, he thought with a heavy sigh.
With no idea what to do, he turned to Elvira.
"Elvira, do you have any idea?" he asked.
"Ah?
Oh, yeah, sorry.
I spaced out a bit," she said. "If you mean escaping this hell worm, then no.
I have never heard of anyone doing that."
"Tch.
So what now?
We're stuck?"
"Well, even my mana will not last forever," she said. "If we keep going like this, our fate is sealed.
For now, how about we explore?
This worm eats everything.
Maybe we can find something useful."
Ben agreed with that logic.
Anything that could survive the worm's digestive liquid would be a treasure to him.
He also did not have any better ideas.
"At least tell me how long this worm is," he said.
"I don't know," Elvira answered. "No one has ever seen its full body.
The worm often moves between layers.
I guess it is at least a few kilometers long."
Ben's lips twitched.
He stared down the seemingly endless fleshy tunnel.
"Let's just hope we find something, then," he said.