The Apprentice of Ouroboros [Monster Evo LitRPG Adventure]

Of all the ideas she'd had, this had to be the most dangerous one to date.

Yet, when Neska examined her list of evolutions, she realized that the applications of dimensional storage were limitless. Carrying a hidden object that no monster or humanoid could detect? Or to always have a pocket-explosive to get out of a sticky situation? No issues.

Or, perhaps more interesting, protecting fragile, volatile equipment. This part was what fascinated her as the ability prevented aging or degradation of an item.

She wondered how well eggs would keep using this ability. If it worked the way she thought it did, she would never run out of roadside snacks again.

The minus was that she had to swallow the object. Swallowing volatiles was likely the most dangerous thing she'd done so far.

Vivi was less than thrilled, as well.

Are you selecting [Dimensional Stomach] for your evolution? Please tell me you’re not doing this.

Yep. I’m doing this. She triggered the evolution with only a slight hesitation that this might be a bit of a gross-out for her peers.

Juni was going to freak out, for sure, so it was probably better that she was alongside Jurik for the moment.

Neska felt a slight tingling in her torso, right where her stomach would be, and partway down her lower half, since snakes and lamias had an extended stomach. Then, a surge of energy shot through her, and she clenched her claws, almost overwhelmed by that wave of power.

There was a slight flicker of her vision, and a small satchel icon appeared in one corner of her eyesight. She mentally clicked on it.

The display changed to show five transparent squares. That must be her new inventory storage. She wondered why everyone didn't get one; from what she'd heard from others, they seemed to be available only to certain classes.

I did not think you would actually pick this one. Well, this opens some opportunities.

Okay, here’s a rundown. If you take an item with the intent to store it, it disappears after it goes down your throat and then appears in the inventory. It must fit in your mouth, so you won't be able to swallow huge things: trinkets, small items, potions, things like that.

Items stored will appear on the interface display. They can be accessed and inspected at will. There's also a combination option for…well, never mind. That's not working right now.

There is a finite capacity to this ability, and it won't level up like other skill increases. It may be possible to upgrade with Essence Points, I suspect.

Here’s the not-so-fun part: you'll have to reach into your mouth to get the item. It will appear at the back of your mouth. I think.

I’m having a case of evolutionary buyer’s remorse. And I can’t even explain how I know what that is. Neska examined the satchel icon, again showing five empty boxes on her display when she focused on it. It could be made to disappear with a mental dismiss, leaving her vision unobstructed. How many items can I carry?

Right now, it looks like five unique items. Whether you could add more, I don't know. However, if it's a compact item, you can stack multiples up to 10 times. They need to be functionally identical.

Everybody looked at her expectantly. "Well?" Brent asked. "Any sudden urges to swallow objects like it's a magic trick?"

"Uh...let me check." She picked up one of her rations. Instead of trying to swallow it normally like she would food, she activated her ability. She felt a mental trigger as her inventory activated.

She placed the ration in her mouth. There was a weird sensation as it faded from her hands, as if erased from reality, and she no longer felt the weight on her palm. In the corner of her vision, one of the boxes of the dimensional stomach filled in with a rough depiction of a ration bar. She mentally focused on it, with more options appearing, including options for the item description, combining and removing it from inventory. And one more that was greyed out.

What the hell is an organic cauldron? She had a feeling that might be important, later. She focused on the immediate display, pondering what to try first. The safest option, in her opinion, was the query tool.

She activated the tool, and new data came up describing the ration.

This is a ration bar.

This isn't your preferred food, but I guess it gets the job done. It's a little dry, in my personal opinion.

She smiled contentedly, "It works. It’s stored.”

She opened her mouth and selected the item to release, and felt something appear in her hand as she read her hand into her mouth. She carefully withdrew it, looking amazed at the intact ration bar.

Hadley looked on with mild amusement. "Well, that's something. If you put anything fragile in your mouth, please be careful. Swallowing explosives is probably among my top ten ‘this is a terrible idea, don't do this’ list. You know?”

I forgot to mention that aging and decomposition of items are suspended inside the inventory. It's in stasis and can't be impacted by the outside world. I can’t determine if a living being would survive the process. Don’t test it unless it's time for desperate measures.

For what, exactly?

Swallowing friend-shaped foods.

Neska stared blankly into space at that unsettling idea. Let's never test that one. I think there are some things I don't need all the answers to, and plenty of lines never to cross. "So, does it work for anything, even volatile compounds?" Hadley asked anxiously.

Neska straightened up. “Well, I guess there's only one way to find out.” She then grabbed some of the oblong sticks of explosives and began placing them into her mouth one at a time.

Brent chewed one claw anxiously. “Divines, this is such a shit-tier idea, Cassia.”

“It will be perfectly inert and safe in my inventory,” she assured him. “I don't actually taste it or sense it going down my throat.”

Still, there were a couple of groans of disgust as she placed several of the explosives into inventory. Trevor and Brent, in particular. “This is the most terrifying ordnance control I have ever had the displeasure of being part of,” Trevor groaned, gripping his hat and biting the brim.

A crackle echoed through her lapel. “Jurik here. We're facing heavy resistance, and some new wasp variants, with talons for legs. How are things going on your end, Hadley?”

“The lamia got an evolution…and is swallowing an armory of unstable explosives I wouldn't touch with a hundred-yard stick,” Hadley relayed.

Jurik’s reply was delayed by several seconds. “Yeah. That's about how I figured this was going: unconventional ideas on her part. But how?”

“Evolutionary dimensional inventory.”

Jurik let out a resigned sigh over the relay. "On second thought, dealing with bugs that have razors for legs might be preferable. Sergeant Corvin, what's the status of your team?"

"Short version? Everybody gets behind Kasfew and supports him, while not getting crisped ourselves. It's surprisingly effective.”

Neska finished stowing away explosives, having repeated this uncomfortable action too many times for her liking. Only slightly more worrisome was the fear that if they were to ignite in her inventory, she probably wouldn't have enough time to say ‘oops.’ She trusted Vivi’s assurance they remained in a form of stasis.

“For the record? Goblin boom sticks are not exactly edible.” Everyone laughed nervously at that assertion. Internally, she weighed the merits of swallowing potion vials to smuggle them places, or keeping an emergency stash. Actually, that raised some very interesting possibilities for infiltration. She'd have to compile a list of opportunities later. This would require her to invest in non-fragile storage devices to mitigate risk.

The buzzing rose in intensity in the passageway. The wasps drew close for another attack. At the same time, Neska heard more goblins approaching from the adjoining tunnels

A lot more, and in more than one direction.

Then a berserker scream echoed through the tunnels. Multiple goblins rounded the corner in two different ways, and her eyes widened in shock.

The goblins were carrying lit explosives, dashing towards them at breakneck speed, lit fuses fizzling in each hand. “Take them down!" Hadley called out.

One went down, then two in a flurry of arrows and magical bolts, but there were more targets than there were projectiles, and some just kept coming even after being hit.

There was no vegetation anywhere near to generate her roots to stop them. Neska hastily cast out a scattering of seeds and cast [Verdant Weave], the vines and roots slowly generating; she needed to buy space, anything to keep them from being blasted apart by walking bomb goblins. The goblins might not individually present a risk, but their collective suicidal charge would terrify anyone.

Brent tried blasting away a group with a sonic blast. It slowed the creatures, but it didn't deter them from rushing down the corridor, arrows and other weapons sticking out of them. These goblins were in a frenzied state, weapon blows only delaying them.

Neska fired [Venom Bolts] from her tail while firing one of her alchemical foam arrows to block the path, slowing two and knocking down one. They kept trying to advance, one tearing through the foam and biting into it with a savage expression on its face–these goblins were fully feral.

One managed to toss a lit explosive, even as they fell. The ignited explosive banked off the cavern wall, spun, and bounced into the goblin boom stick storage.

Oh. That's bad.

Neska might be able to withstand the blast, but the others couldn't. She screamed for them to run and descend into the nearest tunnel, even with the incoming wasps. Brent grabbed Trevor and sped through the hallway, smashing through bugs as if they were little more than paper floats.

Roche covered Hadley, backing into an alcove and flaring his shield to life. Neska further reinforced them as she shielded them with her body, raising [Runic Barrier] to full power as the unswallowed amount of the cache detonated.

The force nearly bowled her over. The detonation left her ears ringing, and a wave of fire and smoke pelted down the hall, sailing past their position and frying any bugs still in the air.

It also had the unfortunate effect of detonating all the explosives-wielding goblins, and the entire cavern shook, the ground cracking beneath their feet.

Neska had no time to react as the floor collapsed into a yawning expanse, with her bouncing to the sides with [Coiled Strike]. Roche held onto a narrow ledge, muscles bulging as he held Hadley with the other, and she swung toward a less precarious position with an assist from the large warrior.

Neska grabbed onto a rocky ledge, but the entire cavern was collapsing down into the abyss. She braced herself with her barrier, drawing her body tight as the abyssal depths swallowed her. She let out a cry of shock as the wind whistled by her.

“Neskaaaa!” Hadley screamed out, reaching desperately, but she was too far away to reach her. As she fell, Neska tried one more desperate attempt to grab onto safety.

She tried her [Coiled Strike], but she needed to push off the ground for that to happen. She didn't want to lose all her gear in an instant, assuming it worked, so she didn't try her [Sudden Molt] and held it in reserve.

Instead, she tried something a little more desperate.

She coiled into a ball and triggered her [Spring Scales] as she saw the bottom of the chamber coming up to meet her. At the same time, she activated her [Runic Barrier], just as she impacted an angled surface, bouncing like a ball of coiled snake. Her barrier flared once, turned a startling red on the second bounce, then shattered on the third.

Her [Spring Scales] kept the worst of the blow from hurting her, though she felt sharp pains and aches from the impact. Eventually, she halted with a rolling stop, groaning.

That had been an unexpected outcome. Syrona screeched inside her bag, popping out, all her feathers standing on end. She nudged Neska, the familiar seemingly unhurt.

Hadley shouted from above. “Ne–Cassia, are you alright?! We’ve got bugs closing fast!”

Neska let out a hissing exhale and tapped her lapel. "I'm alive, Hadley. I’m a little banged up, but I'm alive.”

Rock continued to rain down into the large chamber, and Neska had no idea what was inside. She rose upright and took in the surroundings, switching between her normal vision and her thermal sense.

She'd landed on something squishy. On closer inspection, it looked like she'd fallen on a bunch of grublings that were milling about, now squished flat, with ichor splattered all over.

Well, this certainly must be a crime against witchy fashion: she was covered in glowing bug guts. Glancing around, she was stuck at the bottom of a bell-shaped room with hundreds of little alcoves, and grubs emerging sporadically. Presumably, it was a hatchery chamber, though there appeared to be very few wasps in attendance. A few drones screeched and startled at her presence, but otherwise flew off in different directions.

A large rock clattered down, dangerously close to her, and smashed into spraying pieces of stone. Bits of pebbles and small rocks continued to rain down, but the buzzing had abated.

For now.

“Hadley, we can’t hold this spot; we need to fall back, or we’ll be surrounded!” She heard Roche shouting out, and Hadley letting out a scream of outrage.

“Hadley, I’ll be alright! I’ll regroup once I find a way back up! Keep Trevor and the others alive!” Neska spoke with forced calm into her lapel, her heart hammering in her chest. She needed to find a way up, and fast. That would prove challenging: the chamber curved into an inverted ceiling, meaning snaking up it wasn’t possible at all, and there were no obvious grip points.

Several humanoid-sized tunnels were carved into the rocky, hive-like material: three at ground level, two at a higher elevation that only the bugs could reach if they flew up. She had no idea where to go, but she definitely couldn't stay here. "Hadley, you guys get to safety; I'll find my own way back up."

“No! Stay put; we can throw ropes and come to you! We are not leaving you behind, you crazy snake!”

The logical side of Neska said otherwise. “You're going to have the whole swarm on your heads in minutes! That blast was enough to wake hell itself. Regroup with Trevor and Brent. You need to lead the squad; I'll catch up with you when I find a way up.”

She tried to brush off the squashed grubs, but it just smeared the fluorescent green fluids further, though they didn't appear to have any toxic or corrosive effect on her scales. If anything, they had softened her landing. When she examined them up close, she concluded they looked exactly like normal garden grubs, except larger, and munching on little bits of carcass here and there.

Neska let out a resigned sigh when she saw how many corpses, mostly animals, were in here. A few worker wasps were completely oblivious to her, grabbing bones and then moving them to clear the waste by flitting into one of the upper tunnels.

Apparently, these wasps had no other tasks. She theorized they wouldn't attack her unless she attacked them. After a minute, the theory held; they showed no aggression toward her.

This was odd; did that mean they were Tier one? Or just not focused on aggressive behavior? Or perhaps this was just the nature of the insectoid Varadur, each one assigned to a role and rarely deviating from these predetermined objectives? It also spawned the question of how natural evolution factored in for monsters emerging, going from a larval to a pupa stage. Did that ‘natural’ evolution count as a Tier increase?

The vibration of wings remained an ominous background noise as Hadley spoke in a strained tone. "Don't die, Cassia. Whatever you have to do, come back alive. For us. And Juni.”

“If she asks, tell Juni I’ve got a bug hunt to finish.”

She began slithering towards the nearest exit. It was strange; they were untouched by the Instance conversions; it was all rocky caverns here. The papery, hive-like material, squishy to the touch, lined the walls only in a few isolated patches. Glowing grubs provided just enough illumination for her to make her way through, even without her thermal sense.

Her thermal vision told her a different story. The hive was thrumming with energy, and the grubs were the brightest source of heat. The hive-like material of resin and pockmarked holes carried the faint trace of warmth. She didn't know why that was; it should all be at a uniform temperature.

She theorized it must be related to the Instance creating ideal growing conditions for monsters to thrive. That means the environment was suited to these wasps in particular, such as warm temperatures…and a clinging humidity that left her scales damp.

She grabbed one of the wriggling larvae, which let out a tiny squeal, but otherwise was helpless when she used it as an impromptu light source. Not that she couldn't use a [Mana Bolt], but a grub would probably draw less attention.

The buzzing of more wasps nearby, coming up from another tunnel, made her accelerate her pace as she continued her descent.

Somewhere, in the depths, a shrill screech echoed. Something unlike the wasps.

Something worse. Something not of this world. And when it did, she swore the hive grew just the faintest bit louder.

That could not be good at all.