Chapter 98

〈 Episode 98 〉The Womb Thief

In any case, Asha finished off the Tentacle by burning it. Watching the Tentacle turn to ash, she suddenly wondered.

“Hey Lucy, can’t you command those Tentacles?”

Lucia used to be able to communicate with or command the Tentacles near her. Moreover, Asha was puzzled because she remembered that she hadn’t noticed the Tentacle and that there was a creature nearby. Lucia looked perplexed at her question.

“I… I don’t know. They’re a bit different from the ones that came out of Papa before. Like Mom said, I didn’t even know they were Tentacles until I saw them. Ugh…”

As Lucia struggled with a problem she couldn’t solve, Asha gave a bitter smile and stroked her head.

“That could be. Maybe they didn’t come from Lucy’s Papa?”

“But I think they did come from Papa? Ugh…”

“Okay, okay, don’t think too hard about it… I was just wondering if something was different. Even if a whole bunch of those guys came out, Lucy wouldn’t have any problem dealing with them, right?”

“Yeah! I can destroy them all at once, even if they fill this place up!”

“Then that’s good enough.”

At Asha’s words, Lucia shook her head and took Asha’s hand again. Holding her daughter’s hand, she turned on the system’s map function and headed towards the capital.

Initially, Asha had been thinking of a leisurely trip with Lucia, like when she first started this quest. But the trip she had imagined ran into difficulties from the start.

“Hiss!”

As the Wind Magic swirled around the flames Asha threw, the blazing fire intensified, burning everything in front of her to a crisp. Asha, who had split the Tentacle attacking from the side into four pieces with the sword in her hand, turned around.

Creak!

Next to her, the Tentacles that touched Lucia were being crushed as if they had been put into a compactor.

“Ugh… this isn’t what I was expecting…”

As the trip she had thought would be leisurely and peaceful was stained with the Body fluid and screams of Tentacles, Asha sighed deeply. Whether she did or not, Lucia was still excited after finishing her revenge on the Tentacles.

“Mom, how was it? I did well, right? Huh? Huh?”

“Of course, Lucy is amazing?”

Asha, who was now able to use Spell and Swordsmanship in earnest, was indeed much stronger than before, but she paled in comparison to Lucia’s power. Asha admired the sight of the Tentacle remains, crushed beyond recognition and lying on the floor.

“At that rate, they won’t be able to regenerate even if I don’t burn them.”

As she said, unlike the Tentacles Asha had cut into pieces, the Tentacles crushed by Lucia did not even regenerate and remained as a pulp.

“Lucy, aren’t you tired?”

“Not really? I’m not tired at all.”

“Then let’s keep going. There’s a village a little further on.”

“Okay!”

Unlike Lucia, who was still fresh even after the battle, Asha’s body was covered in the sticky Body fluid of the Tentacles. After wiping the remains from her sword, she hoped to be able to wash up in the village as soon as possible.

Asha, feeling uncomfortable and looking forward to washing up, walked quickly towards the village, but what greeted her was a village with a cold atmosphere. No, it was what used to be a village.

“This is…”

Asha recalled the conversation she had with Kate’s family, whom she had saved her sister from in the goblin village.

‘One place hasn’t been checked yet, and the other was just as it always was, as if they had no intention of leaving. Only the people were gone…’

As he said, only the people had disappeared from the village in front of Asha’s eyes, and it was enveloped in silence. Feeling a creepy sensation, she shuddered and slowly entered the village, wary of her surroundings.

“Lucy, be careful… there must be something here too…”

“Yeah, but I don’t think there’s anything else around here.”

“Really?”

It was a shame that there wasn’t a single person in the village, but it was better than having Tentacles greeting her in every house. Slightly relieved, Asha carefully opened the front door of the nearest house.

Creak-

In the silent village, the sound of the hinges rubbing echoed loudly. Startled by the noise, she opened the door and entered the house when there was no other reaction from the surroundings.

“I knew it, no one’s here.”

There was no trace of people in the house. It wasn’t like they had evacuated, and the entrance was moderately cluttered, and valuables such as pots were still in the house.

“It looks like they were attacked by Tentacles without even having time to escape.”

Only someone like Asha could resist even if a group of Tentacles rushed at them, but for ordinary people, it was impossible to stop the Tentacles that swarmed like ants.

There was no need to go far, Rex’s village, where the Village Chief was, would have been destroyed by the Tentacles long ago if it hadn’t been for Asha, Georg, and Walter. Asha was caught in the illusion that she could faintly hear the screams of the people who had fallen victim to the Tentacles in her ears.

“Ugh…”

Rubbing the goosebumps that had risen on her arm, Asha left the house. She could have taken the valuables in the village, but she didn’t want to loot the ownerless village like a thief.

“Lucy, I’m sorry… I didn’t know the village would be like this.”

“Ugh… it’s okay. It’s not Mom’s fault! It’s all the Tentacle’s fault!”

Asha was flustered by Lucia’s angry cry and agreed.

“Ugh, yeah… that’s right. The Tentacle was bad. But I think we can sleep. Lucy, let’s go into any house for a while.”

“Okay!”

After washing her body simply at the well in the center of the village, Asha chose one of the private houses and went inside. Fortunately, the furniture inside was intact except for a little dust. She gathered the dust piled up on the bed with Wind Magic and blew it outside.

“Judging from the fact that the dust isn’t that thick, it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long since the people in this village disappeared. It definitely hasn’t been a month…”

Asha, who had washed and dried everything from her armor to her underwear, entered the bed with a refreshed face. Lucia followed her and snuggled into bed. In the quiet village, the two mothers soon fell asleep.

Asha, who believed that the Tentacles had disappeared, trusted Lucia and fell into a deep sleep in the village, but she overlooked the fact that even Lucia hadn’t properly noticed the Tentacle this time. From the floor of the bedroom where Asha was sleeping, something the size of a grain of rice climbed up the wooden legs of the bed one by one.

“Ugh? Ugh…”

Lucia flinched for a moment, mistook it for an insect in her sleep, and fell back into a deep sleep. In this way, the ultra-small Tentacle, which had luckily avoided the most formidable surveillance network, succeeded in sneaking into Asha’s Yoni without anyone knowing. The defenseless she was fast asleep, unaware of what was entering her Womb.

The Tentacles that entered Asha’s Womb began to prepare for reproduction in earnest. These things, which were literally the size of dust, were nothing on their own, but when they combined with each other, they could have completely new functions. Dozens of Tentacles gathered and created their respective roles.

Some clung to the Womb wall, some created the nutrients needed for the Tentacle to be born, and so on. The Tentacles, which had settled in someone else’s Womb, began to work in earnest. Asha wiggled for a moment, unaware of what was happening inside her body, but did not wake up in the end.

Asha woke up to a voice calling her.

“…Mom, Mom!”

“Ugh, ugh… Lucy, what’s wrong…”

Asha, who turned to look at Lucia patting her arm and waking her up, felt a sense of unease.

‘Something’s wrong…’

“Ah, aah!”

Asha groaned, clutching her lower abdomen as she felt a bubbling sensation in her stomach. She realized that her stomach was rapidly swelling. The excruciating pain that turned her inside out was enough to wake Asha up immediately. She habitually took off the clothes that were about to stretch out and immediately put them in her Inventory.

“I don’t want to get used to this…”

Asha had experienced too much to just let her clothes tear while spacing out.

“No, more than that, when did this happen?”

Asha was flustered when her stomach suddenly swelled even though she had never been caught and attacked by a Tentacle.