Chương 103: Interlude: The Blessing Of The Worm God (1)

Murai Taki is a hunter. Not the best hunter that's for sure. But he's not bad. He's specialized in small game, rabbits, hares, squirrels, foxes, raccoons, beavers, birds sometimes, when they fall in his traps. Murai Taki would be what you call a small game specialist. He kills the kind of animal that can easily be taken care of with an easy arrow, and a bit of focus, he kills the kind of animal that has repetitive patterns and fall in his traps, herbivores and omnivores mainly.

He never had any problem with surviving. Even with the war. He never had... too much trouble. Times were hard. Yes. He passed most of his time hunting and building traps, putting them in careful and secret spots he found were fruitful. Sometimes, after bad hunting days, he did find himself starving.

But it never went that bad, he had money from the pelts and the prime cut of meals he sold, he usually kept the carcasses and the parts nobody liked to make good original meals that weren't inferior in any way, and when he had enough money and friends, he even managed to transform a side of his house/shop into a ice room where the meat he hunted could be kept fresh for a pretty damn long time. Overall. Murai Taki had a job, pretty stable, not the easiest, not the hardest.

Overall, Murai Taki is a good hunter in his village standards. Lifting the dead body of a worm, Murai Taki roll the dead body into a ball. This kind of worm isn't that tasty. But that's the worm god preffered prey, so he keeps it still and carefully stored. Hanging the rolled dead worm over a long sturdy stick of wood. On the stick? There's dead animals. A lot of dead animals. Giant worms. A lot of them. Birds. A hare. Two snakes. A total of ten carcass. And a shit ton of weight to carry. That's why.

Feeling the worm god lust for blood. And being ready for it after those months of life changing experiences, he goes back on his trail, and tie the wooden shaft with meat on a low branch. Then he pulls out a sort of insulated leather blanket and cover the meat with it. He'll remember the spot. He'll come back soon, but right now-! A whistle makes him look up at the sky. He tends his ear, turns his head. Look one more time at his current dead game, and start stalking toward the sound.

Making real careful progression as this part of the forest is dangerous. That's probably why the worm god can still find small game, because the worm god goes deeper in the forest than any other hunter. Murai swallows his nervousness and keep going. Knowing the worm god protects him. He clasps his hand together and gently whistle back to pray. To his savior and god. As nobody but a god could save his life, his life that took the worst turn some months ago. It all started with a fireball.

A gigantic fireball, a monstrosity that shouldn't come out of a human mouth. It is a travesty for something as such to exist. It went close. Really close to the village. And right in the middle of his livelihood. The next day after it, the results of this explosion, apart from a constant sense of dread in the street, wasn't easy to see Everything was normal. Everything but one thing. Food.

A good part of the farmers work has been burned, but even then, it wasn't that bad, they'll just have less food compared to usual, they'll be a bit more hungry but it wouldn't kill anyone. Anyone in the rich district at least. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. And it wouldn't kill Murai and his wife. Especially since he's a hunter... A... hunter. A hunter without any prey to hunt. Murai was a small game specialist.

He knew perfect spots to put his traps, after decades of hunting, he knew the routines, everything was controllable. It wasn't anymore. Murai. And a lot of other hunters truly started to... struggle. He managed to keep afloat for a while with his reserves, but they started to dwindle real fast. Every piece of meat sold or eaten reminded him of the day. Of every single one of his days, where he went in the forest for hours. Staying in bushes, searching for tracks, for animals, for... prey, for food.

And the only thing he found were dead charred carcasses. The only hopeful traces lead to nowhere, well, they lead to somewhere, but not somewhere he could go. Deeper in the forest. Away from the crater, and... where the monsters laid Where giant monsters lays. Where ninjas pass. Where Matsuoko Hidefumi doesn't patrol. Every single day. It was the same. Go out. Search for food. Find empty traps. Lose more and more food as people start to realize that a meat epidemic was starting.

Get back home and fight with his wife when she saw that he still didn't found any prey. He started learning how to fish, using his small already existing skills and polishing them, finding new spots to try and fish. Unfortunately, it was too late. Other hunters specialized in fishing already put their marks. And it was pretty clear that sharing was the last thing they would do. People can get pretty ruthless when it concerns money. Everything got even worse when his wife cheated on him.

Probably started a long time ago. Even then, it destroyed his finance even more as her part of the collective money got taken out of his ryos stash. His little butchery started to get depopulated. Less customers. Less money. Less contacts. Less everything. He was slowly seeing his life being thrown in the shitter while everyone around him stared, hoping they weren't the next ones. Nobody helped. Nobody but god. The worm god. It all started a month later. When his money ran dry.

When his belly was screaming for food. When all his stocked meat was gone. When no customers came and even if they did they couldn't buy anything. He left. He went into the forest. Deeper. Deeper. Deeper. Deeper in the forest, where no control has been established, where the horror tales of ninjas raping and torturing villagers for fun has been running around his village, where giant monsters gobbled you up and down the second they saw you. He kept going deeper. Until everything around him was silent. Pure silence.

As if every animals were staying very still, as if every animals were scared of something, predators mayhaps. Or maybe someone. The first time he saw it. He thought he was crazy. He thought he was getting paranoid, that he started to see things. But no. They were here. After stumbling in silence and keeping his breath restrained to avoid any predators. In a small dark clearing shadowed by a demi-circle of trees was a massacre. One. Two. Eleven. Twelve. Thirty giant worms.

All exploded from the inside, the middle of their body dead and bleeding on the ground as they tangled in a mess of blood and wriggly death. Some were stuck on the trees. Almost as if they had been impaled there before whatever imapled them was gone.

Some were tangling with each other as if the killer tried to categorize his kills, or put them in a neat little pile, a pile he abandoned as worms started to pop out of the ground everywhere, some dead before they even came out of the ground, dirt mixing inside their body, some were thrown around in nonsensical limp and bloody patterns, as if a kid played with their body and threw them around as best as they could after they died. That was his first encounter with the worm god.

And that was the first time the worm god took notice of him. After he took his time to gather the worms. Terrified and looking everywhere around for whatever kind of MONSTER did that! Why? For fun? If you told him his life would change that day, he'll probably believe that his life would change because he'll die. However. He didn't die. The opposite really. For a first. With the good amount of worms he managed to take. He finally could eat, and even sell some. But soon enough, the same night, he realized something.

That's free meat. That's gonna rot if he doesn't take it... free meat that can save him. So swallowing his fear of whatever did THAT, he came back again. And it was there. Again. In all this... massacry glory. Time to get some food. He gathered the food. The worms. One by one. Holding them, it was the first time he hunted some, or held some, he never really knew how to hunt those worms. But food is food. So he figured out techniques. To get back faster from the forest to his house.

Every single time he was entering the dark forest, the dark silencious forest, he was scared to death, no sound, pure darkness. And a massacre without any sign of whatever did that or any predator that's trying to eat this free buffet. Nothing. Until the fourth time he went in, until he came back for more worms. And as he was digging his hand in the blood to carry more. He finally heard a sound. A rustle. A growly sound. His heart stopped at this moment. His life flashed before his eyes.

And for two minutes he stood still. Squatting close to the worms. In the end. Nothing. He took the worms. And ran back hom-! Until he stumbled on a dead wolf. Right there. Behind a tree. A hole straight between it's eyes. Dead and limp. Impaled, a hole the same shape and size of what imploded some of the worms. And then? A whistle. One that didn't care about the silence of the forest, one that pissed all over the silence and screamed whenever it desired to scream, rules not applying to it.

A loud whistle resonated above him, it was close, in the dark canopy of the trees. Again he froze. But nothing happened. Nothing but a meaty wolf waiting for him. The next time he went to grab the rest of the worms. The same whistle. Then again. Then again. Until one day, the whistle came from afar. He followed it. And found more dead worms. The rest? Well. The rest is history. Just like what's laying in front of him will be history. Close to a gigantic crater.

A giant snake, easily the size of his house, longer than his house. Blood that reaches up to his ankle circling behind and around the snake, hundreds of holes covering every inch of it's body. Looks like worms are stronger than snakes.