Chapter 351: Carboniferous Period 23
Perry Yates said, shooting Sage Bishop a look of disgust.
‘Now that I know how dangerous the Insect King is, I can’t just ignore it. I have to nip it in the bud before it has a chance to grow.’
Especially since an Executor’s hand was clearly behind this thing.
From the moment she became a Croupier, Perry Yates had been a thorn in the Executors’ side. She was more than happy to cause them trouble.
After searching for a while longer, a faint noise suddenly reached Perry Yates’s ears. It was a very young sound, like… a newly hatched insect, accompanied by the CRUNCH, CRUNCH of gnawing wood.
Perry Yates raised a defensive barrier, enveloping both herself and Sage Bishop, and then headed in the direction of the sound.
The two of them followed the sound around the vicinity, finally stopping in front of a tree.
“The sound seems to be coming from inside the trunk,” Sage Bishop said.
Perry Yates leaned close to the trunk and listened carefully, pinpointing a general location.
She then took a few steps back. The Spiritual Ability Gun appeared in her hand. She pulled the trigger and fired, all in one fluid motion.
As the trunk was pierced, the CRUNCH, CRUNCH of gnawing wood vanished. Immediately after, a clear liquid oozed from the hole.
After putting away the Spiritual Ability Gun, Perry Yates returned to the pierced section of the trunk.
This time, she took out a dagger and began to dig into the hole.
Soon, a few centimeters beneath the surface, she dragged a white, fist-sized insect from inside the trunk.
The insect’s body was completely deflated, but it wasn’t quite dead yet. It was still writhing, as if trying to save itself.
Under normal circumstances, the insect would have been doomed, and Perry Yates thought as much.
However, just as they were about to leave, the struggling insect on the ground—as if knowing it was doomed—suddenly erupted with terrifying power and lunged for their vulnerable necks.
But just as it was about to succeed—SPLAT!—its body slammed directly into the barrier. The impact caused the already-punctured creature to burst, splattering its fluids everywhere. It was a disgusting sight.
Seeing this, Perry Yates immediately set the not-quite-dead insect’s corpse on fire, burning it to a crisp to prevent it from “playing possum” again.
“That must have been the Insect King.”
Sage Bishop said, looking at the deader-than-dead insect.
“If your information is correct, that was it. The time and place match up, and so does the fact that it was in its larval stage.”
She’d seen so many giant insects lately that she had subconsciously assumed the Insect King would be massive, even in its larval stage. She hadn’t expected it to be so small.
Although it was dozens of times larger than a normal insect, it was dwarfed by the others she had seen. ‘Maybe this is a case of building suspense by starting small?’
Still, even though she was pretty sure that was the Insect King, Perry Yates decided to make camp there for the night just to be safe. ‘What if it wasn’t the right one? What if there’s more than one?’
When night fell, Perry Yates and Sage Bishop made a rare decision not to retreat into the Safe House. Instead, they built a campfire on the open ground.
Sage Bishop was trying his best to sell her on the insect meat, insisting that Perry Yates had to try it. “It’s really good! It tastes just like chicken, but with a faint, woody aroma.”
Sage Bishop said, holding up a roasted skewer.
While insects didn’t have much meat on them individually, their sheer size made up for it. In fact, the meat from a single large insect was enough for one adult’s meal. And once it was cooked, you couldn’t even tell what kind of meat it was just by looking.
Still, Perry Yates refused. “No thanks. I’ll stick to my roasted chicken wings.”
Why eat insect meat that tasted like chicken when she could just have the real thing?
Just then, the bushes nearby rustled. Someone was approaching.
Perry Yates looked up. A moment later, three men and a woman emerged from the other side of the bushes.
They didn’t look too surprised to see Perry Yates and Sage Bishop. After all, with a fire lit and meat roasting, any idiot would know someone was here.
Soon, they had started their own fire a short distance away. But while Perry Yates and her companion had meat, the newcomers could only gnaw on tree bark to fill their bellies. The fragrant aroma of roasting meat drifting through the air only made them hungrier.
After a little while longer, one of the men finally couldn’t stand it. He stood up and, ignoring his companions’ attempts to stop him, strode purposefully toward Perry Yates and Sage Bishop.
At first, Perry Yates thought he was coming to beg for food. But the man greeted them politely, then asked somewhat sheepishly, “Is that… insect meat you’re eating?”
Sage Bishop nodded. “It is.”
Hearing the confirmation, the man’s eyes lit up. “That’s fantastic! Could you please tell us which insects are safe to eat? We’re begging you.”
The man pressed his palms together in a pleading gesture.
Since the man had asked Sage Bishop, Perry Yates kept quiet. Sage Bishop, after accepting a single card as a token payment, explained everything: which insects were edible, which parts to eat, and which ones didn’t taste good.
When he was finished, he added, still eager to share more, “Did you get all that?”
The man nodded emphatically. “Got it, got it! I had no idea so many of these insects were edible.”
He thought of all the insects they had killed along the way and felt like he’d missed out on a fortune. The regret was so sharp it was hard to breathe.
After the man returned to his group, he conferred with his three companions. Soon, the three men left, leaving the female player behind to watch the fire.
About ten minutes later, the three men returned together, dragging a freshly killed insect.
Following Sage Bishop’s instructions, they quickly carved a piece of red, somewhat translucent meat from the insect’s thorax.
Without even taking a moment to celebrate, they eagerly placed the meat on the fire to roast.
They must have been starving, because they started eating it while it was still cooking.
The rest of the night passed peacefully, and soon it was the ninth day of the game.
“Nothing happened yesterday, so it looks like that white bug really was the Insect King,” Perry Yates said. “By the way, what’s today’s message?”
Sage Bishop glanced at his item and said, “The Executor is furious that the Insect King failed to hatch yesterday. He’s decided to send out his secret weapon to deal with us ‘reckless’ Dealer Players.”
Perry Yates: “…”
Sage Bishop: “…”