Chapter 12 Terrible Confinement

In any case, the watch light that suddenly lit up was able to illuminate some places, allowing me to see where I was. Although the range of light was limited, it was much better than the absolute darkness I was in just now.

This was indeed a narrow gap. In front of me was a huge slab of rock that was relatively smooth, while beside me were broken rocks, both large and small. The smallest ones were as big as an ostrich egg while the largest were about the size of an average doorframe. All of these various-sized rocks stacked together made it particularly easy for a cavity to form.

Between me and these rocks were countless black sarcoma-like things, which all seemed to be growing from these rocks. It was these things that filled all the gaps between me and the rocks here.

I was absolutely certain that they were the same kind of thing as Shigong’s mole, but the sarcomas here varied in size and looked even more disgusting.

The area I could see was very limited because I couldn’t move my head. At this time, I could clearly feel that the space where my head was located was definitely smaller than the circumference of my skull, which meant that my head was completely stuck and must be slightly deformed now.

The human skull had a very subtle elasticity to it so it would remain intact even if it was stuck in a narrow gap like this. But based on how tightly I was wedged between these rocks, I knew that my scalp must have multiple lacerations that were deep enough to expose my skull.

Imagining this kind of thing had me feeling absolutely terrified, but my many years of adventuring enabled me to calm down almost instantly. Once that happened, I began to carefully see if I could feel the pain of each laceration. If there was complete numbness or no feeling at all, then the part of my skull in that place must have been completely exposed. Fortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case because everywhere hurt like hell.

I knew that there was a button on the left side of the watch that would broadcast all the information on the screen by voice, so I twisted my wrist hard until that button pressed up against the nearby rock.

“Countdown 5 minutes, humidity 15, heart rate 125. Please exercise moderately,” said the watch.

Wasn’t the countdown over? What happened? What did I just bump into to make the watch light up?

I wasn’t familiar with this watch, but I knew that some switch must have been turned on just now for it to light up. Today’s electronic devices were different from the ones before. In the past, all the switches had a button, but now, maybe you only needed to shake it a special way for it to work. Or maybe the watch’s outer ring could rotate. There was also the possibility that it would automatically light up when your heart rate reached a certain level.

Whatever the case, it didn’t matter. The watch would go dark after a while, so I’d be able to try and figure out where the switch was.

Looking at the nearest Shigong’s mole, I could see that these things really were growing out of the rocks here. These tumors were also very similar to the ones we saw on the trees outside, so I figured it probably had a lot to do with the ecology here.

What to do? What to do? There are still five minutes left.

I couldn’t do anything in five minutes.

The watch went dark, and a strong sense of despair threatened to overwhelm me. Whether it was five minutes or five days, I couldn’t do anything here.

I adjusted myself in the dark as best I could and then started twitching my hand, trying to figure out how to get the watch to light up again.

After rubbing the outer ring of the watch on the nearby rock, I found that it could indeed rotate. I kept rubbing it against the rock until it rotated three times, and then the watch lit up again.

This time, I saw something as thick as a slug slowly squeezing through the cracks in the rocks in front of me, just like honey.

At this distance, I could finally see that creature’s true form—it really was a bunch of bugs. I had seen this kind of bug before, but it was very different from the ones I had seen before.

These beetle-like bugs were translucent, but their bodies were wrapped in mucus like slugs. I didn’t know if the mucus was part of their bodies or just a kind of lubricant they secreted, but it seemed to keep them all connected together.

That bug was very similar to a corpse-eater but was way more primitive, almost like it had come from a distant ancient time.

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Author’s note: A tentative counterattack against Caitou’s AI painting.

Is there some kind of spirit inside?

<Chapter 11><Table of Contents><Chapter 13>

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I think NPSS was playing around with photoshop or AI painting programs or something but I liked the picture so I decided to include it lol. And I think Caitou is his friend since the name is mentioned a lot in his author’s notes, but I’m not 100% sure.