Chapter 35: S#6. Jungle Soma (4)
by fnovelpia
“Bob, have you seen Officer Adolf?”
“Chomp chomp, Adolf? I’m not sure…”
Bob said, gobbling down the meat stew.
He was already overweight, but overnight, he had ballooned to an alarming degree.
He was more balloon than human now.
By the way, where is Adolf? Was he missing?
“Summer, look over there!”
Nancy pointed.
Adolf was seen standing on a hill.
I was worried he might have died burning inside a wooden doll.
Fortunately, he was fine.
Adolf was in front of the villagers, rambling about something.
It looked like he was giving a safety lecture, typical of a policeman, but it wasn’t that.
In Adolf’s hand was “Mein Kampf.”
As I approached, Adolf gestured towards me.
“Behold, this man is the new god! The ultimate power to slaughter the vermin of the forest!!!!”
He spoke as passionately as Goebbels.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“Officer, what on earth are you doing?”
“I’m enlightening the ignorant masses and liberating them!”
Adolf was inciting the villagers.
Using “Mein Kampf” as a textbook, he linked Nazi ideology with my power.
“Comrades! Don’t worry about the bugs. As long as we have the new god, we will prevail. Their end is near! Listen, insects of the forest, we’ll beat you so badly you’ll never forget it!”
The crowd’s reaction was even more ridiculous.
“Yes! We’ve been oppressed for too long!”
“It’s time to break the curse! Let’s go out and kill those maggots!!”
“We are not cattle!!”
“Now we have a new god! The new god will lead us with his mighty muscles!”
Just yesterday, they were worshiping me as a savior for killing a few giant maggots.
It seems their brains have gone haywire from living trapped in the middle of the forest.
Madness filled the air.
Suddenly, a strategy flashed through my mind.
I would mobilize the villagers to escape from the forest.
The maggots would be asleep next week.
Instead of waiting passively for a cliché horror climax, it’s better to break through the maggot blockade surrounding the forest.
I might have failed alone, but… with enough people, we could succeed.
The villagers would annihilate the maggots and free themselves from the curse, and we would safely escape.
Truly a win-win.
“Officer Adolf. Quite the thinker, inciting them to escape.”
“What, escape? I couldn’t care less about that! My goal is world domination!!”
Adolf’s eyes gleamed with greed.
Olivia’s cabin.
“…Get out of my house, Nancy. You’re annoying.”
“Olivia. You’re really a b*tch. You’re the one who told me to come to this village. Don’t you remember?”
“Lily begged me to invite you. I wrote the letter because it was getting annoying.”
“Wait, what are you talking about? Lily begged you to invite me…?”
“I don’t know. It’s all so annoying.”
Olivia turned away and lay down.
Nancy suppressed the urge to smack Olivia on the back of her head.
“Don’t just say it’s annoying, tell me. What do you mean Lily told you to invite me?”
“Nancy, I came here to rest. Just leave me alone.”
“Came here to rest? I thought you were looking for love?”
“Not at all. Who said that?”
“……”
She was momentarily stunned.
This was different from what Lily had said.
Olivia turned to look at Nancy.
“Here, I can rest forever.”
“Forever…?”
“……Hasn’t Lily told you yet?”
“Will you live your life as cursed livestock?!”
Adolf’s neck veins bulged.
“Or will you follow the Führer… no, the new god, support our army, and join the fight with strong resolve, until we achieve victory?!”
He was completely immersed in his speech.
“Now comrades, rise and create a storm! Fight!”
As Adolf finished his speech, the villagers in white clothes threw enthusiastic cheers toward me.
“The Savior will save us!”
“The only hope to rescue us from the curse…!”
“He is… the new god!”
“I believe! I believe!! I belieeeeve!!!!”
Before coming to the village, I was afraid of being brainwashed by some cult ideology.
Instead, it turned out that the villagers had been brainwashed by Adolf.
The situation had twisted significantly.
Madness spread faster than fire.
The villagers grabbed pitchforks, axes, and scythes.
They were clearly filled with rage.
They ran toward the forest, determined to carve a path through the encircling maggots, with me leading the way.
I announced the start of the battle by embedding my axe into the swollen back of a maggot.
Blood boiled.
I swung my axe, killing the disgusting insects indiscriminately.
The villagers charged with tremendous fervor, resolved to end their humiliation of being treated like cattle by mere bugs.
But soon, there were casualties.
“Aaaaargh! Save meee!”
A middle-aged man was swallowed whole by a maggot.
It was a regrettable sacrifice.
Disgusting maggots burst through the bushes and surrounded us.
An old man fiercely stabbed a maggot with a pitchfork.
Angered, the maggot opened its sphincter-like mouth wide and swallowed the old man from head to toe.
It was like watching an anaconda swallow its prey whole.
His death throes echoed.
The maggots’ long tongues shot out simultaneously from all directions.
People were dragged off like fish caught on a line and devoured.
It was hell on earth.
A maggot’s tongue wrapped around my waist.
But I didn’t get dragged off like the others.
Instead, I grabbed the tongue and pulled, bursting the maggot that came with it.
To me, maggots were an easy opponent.
But it seemed they were too much for the ordinary people.
The cries of the wounded were incessant.
Adolf fired his gun.
He shot wildly without proper aim.
A maggot burst out from the left, wrapping its long tongue around Adolf’s leg.
I threw my axe.
Whoosh—the tongue was severed.
The forest instantly turned into a chaotic battlefield.
My vision blurred with maggot flesh.
My ears filled with the screams of people and the gurgling sounds of the maggots digesting.
Adolf and I kept pushing forward.
Finally, we reached an area without maggots.
“We did it! We did… Huh?”
The thrill of escape was short-lived.
A chilling feeling made us turn around.
No one was there.
Not a single villager remained.
“Tell me, Olivia. Why did Lily lie to me? What’s this about resting forever?!”
“Stop it, Nancy. Are you trying to kill me with your nagging?”
“F*ck, do you think I’m joking?”
Nancy grabbed Olivia roughly, by the collar.
Thanks to Summer, she had gotten used to such rough behavior.
“…You’ve changed, Nancy.”
“It’s you who’s changed.”
Olivia’s eyes, half-closed and drowsy, were unbearably hateful and suspicious.
Just then, the door of the cabin creaked open.
A long shadow of a person reached the two women who were once friends.
Nancy turned her head.
Standing in the doorway was Lily’s younger brother.
Adolf was the only one beside me.
Maggots, swollen and bloated, were scattered all around.
All the villagers had been devoured.
And we hadn’t even escaped from the maggot encirclement.
Maggots surrounded us in a circle.
We were right in the middle of enemy territory.
They started chasing us.
I limped, half-paralyzed, retreating.
We returned to the village.
As I wiped the sweat from my forehead, Lily emerged from the cabin at the worst possible time.
“Huh. Why is the village so empty?”
“……”
“Summer, where are the others?”
“Uh, the others?”
“The villagers. Why don’t I see anyone?”
“……”
Adolf and I kept silent.
Lily’s pupils wavered.
The sight of Adolf and me, covered in green maggot flesh, was enough to explain what had happened.
Lily collapsed to the ground.
“Aaaaah… no… that can’t be…”
“Don’t be too heartbroken, Lily. They were insects sent by a God, after all. Everyone fought bravely.”
I didn’t mention that Adolf had incited them.
Lily said, looking heartbroken.
“…Guess I won’t be seeing meat for a while.”
“What?”
“There’s no one left to catch the bugs.”
“What do you, what do you mean…”
I thought about the meals we had last night and this morning.
The meaty stew—
“Could it be… the meat we ate… was maggot meat……?”
Lily silently nodded her head.
Stew, of which I had eaten three bowls this morning.
Ugh—right there, Adolf and I vomited.
I could see Bob Bojangles’ back, sitting at the outdoor table.
Breakfast was long over, but he was still eating.
Heaps of empty bowls were on his right.
On his left, more stew was piled up, ready to be eaten.
I staggered over to him.
“Officer! Stop eating! It’s maggots!!!”
“What…?”
Bob dropped the bowl he was holding.
Then he picked up another from his left and began wolfing down the stew again.
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