After finishing the meal, I let out a sigh and closed my eyes, immersing myself in the delicious aftertaste.
“Right, I have these two tickets for the Water park. They were given out as a perk earlier. I don’t really have anyone to go with, so I’ll just stay with Wululu. I might as well give these two tickets to you guys.”
After Qu Le finished speaking, he pulled two deep blue tickets from his pocket.
“Are these edible?”
“They’re worth thirty or forty bucks. If you want to taste them, I guess you can,” Qu Le said as he handed the tickets to me.
I froze, my hand stopping mid-air as I was about to put them in my mouth. Thirty or forty bucks… that meant many, many small loaves of bread… many apples, and five or six cups of bitter rock fire…
‘I can’t eat these!’
I gripped the tickets tightly and suddenly stuffed them into the mouth on the stomach.
Then, I went back to dazing out.
Lu Xiu and Qu Le glanced at me before turning back to their plates, picking through the remaining chili peppers and seasonings with their chopsticks.
“I have an idea.”
“Speak.”
“I think Wululu and Amir should use a combined chain strike!”
“…” Lu Xiu was speechless, his lips twitching as he sighed.
Once we finished eating and Qu Le finished his nonsense, we all looked forward to a bright future.
I stood up, ran into the bedroom, and fished out a dried flying giant cockroach from under the sofa.
I then went downstairs to find Qu Le, who was watching Magical girl shows, and dropped the cockroach directly into his arms. “This! Is my repayment!”
I said happily, “You can thank me now!”
***
A moment later, a sharp, ear-piercing scream erupted from the living room.
“I told you not to give people these strange things!” After sending away a shell-shocked Qu Le, Lu Xiu dragged me over to the sofa and began to lecture me earnestly.
“It’s not a strange thing. It’s delicious.”
That one sentence caused Lu Xiu to fall into silence for half a minute.
“It’s not like there’s no food at home…”
“But it’s different. It’s like… apples are delicious, and Kuyan Fire Village drinks are good, but you still have to eat potato chips.”
About one minute later, he closed his eyes.
“How many more did you hide?”
“What?”
“Cockroaches. In the house.”
“Do you want to eat some too?”
“…… Are you trying to make an enemy of me?”
I stuck out my tongue and patted my face.
I stood up and pointed under the TV cabinet. “Over there, in the corner. There are three big ones and five small ones inside. I already ate one, and the rest are being kept safe.”
“In the bedroom, under the big bed, there are also three or four… in the bathroom… in the kitchen…”
With every location I named, Lu Xiu’s face turned a shade darker. By the end, it was so dark it started turning pale.
“Stop, stop, stop—! Don’t say another word!”
He clutched his forehead, feeling like his head was about to explode.
“When did you hide all these?”
“I hide them every day. You’re the one who said that every little bit adds up.”
Half an hour later, Lu Xiu carried two large bags of ‘spoils’ and tossed them into the trash bin downstairs. Meanwhile, I sat in the passenger seat, still mourning my lost food reserves.
But it didn’t matter. We were going to the Water park!
The Water park!
“Water—” My voice came to a dead stop.
“… Park?”
Looking at the ruins covered in fire before me, I blinked. I crouched down and picked up a small, charred stone.
It felt warm in my hand. Refusing to give up, I stuffed it into my mouth and took a bite. It tasted terrible.
I spat out the stone and looked up at Lu Xiu with clear eyes. “Where’s the Water park?”
“As you can see, it’s gone.”
He drew his sword, performed a flourish, and began walking slowly inside.
“I don’t want to fight monsters anymore,” I said, feeling a bit aggrieved.
“I don’t want to either, but we have to see what happened. Keep up.”
I stood up and lifted my clothes, revealing my soft, white belly. I reached my hand into the mouth on the stomach. It felt wet, slimy, and strangely snug as I rummaged around inside.
I pushed aside a few cookies and apples until my fingertips brushed against a hard, long, cylindrical object. I grabbed it and pulled with all my might.
The mouth on the stomach widened, and the tongue pushed hard, slowly shoving the massive object out of my body.
“What are you do—” Lu Xiu started to speak, but when he turned around, he froze in place with a look of pure shock.
My hand was gripping a pale sword hilt—a hilt crafted entirely from *white bone*. With the hilt pointing outward, a massive bone blade was being slowly pulled from my stomach.
Crimson blood dripped from the edge of the bone, transforming into blood-red thorns that spiraled around the blade, blooming with small red flowers.
*Hum—*
The mouth on the stomach gave a final push, spitting it out completely. The massive blood-thorn bone blade, which was as tall as I was, was fully ‘vomited’ out.
With a heavy *clash*, it embedded itself into the ground, causing countless cracks to instantly spiderweb across the earth, reaching all the way to Lu Xiu’s feet.
“… What… kind of underworld treasure is this?”
“A big sword!”
I licked the blood from the corner of my mouth and gave him a proud smile.
Hmph!
A super, incredibly big sword!
It looks terrifying just by looking at it!
This was the ability I had wanted to show Lu Xiu before, but I just never had the time. But now, it was different.
I tucked my battered tongue back into the mouth on the stomach and started dragging the giant sword toward Lu Xiu.
“Can you actually swing that thing?” Lu Xiu looked at the giant sword plowing a deep trench into the ground, his expression complicated.
“Nope.”
“Then why the hell did you take it out!” He looked like he wanted to cry.
‘Just focus on how cool it looks.’
*Rumble— Rumble—*
The bone blade left a trail as it was dragged along, carving out a path of blood. The surrounding flames seemed to fear it, parting ways and bowing in respect.
“Lu Xiu, I can’t walk anymore.”
“Who told you to drag such a burden along?”
“But it’s too big. I tried just now, and I can’t stuff it back in.”
As I spoke, Lu Xiu suddenly stopped, raising a hand to signal for me to be quiet.
Following his gaze, I saw a slender silhouette moving through the sea of fire. It looked like a snake, but its exact form was obscured by the scorching heat.
However, I couldn’t hold back anymore—the unsheathed long blade hungered for blood!
I looked at Lu Xiu, and after receiving his permission, I gathered all my strength into my feet. Layers of red patterns converged as I stomped down hard, launching myself into the air along with the massive blade.
Holding it with both hands, I used the weight of the greatsword to start spinning, diving toward the monster like a top!
*Boom!*
The entire earth cracked from the impact, and a huge crater formed at the center of the area, shrouded in thick smoke.
“Eh? I didn’t hit it?”
I looked at the empty ground beneath my blade, feeling confused.
Perhaps sensing an internal warning, I immediately let go of the blade and dropped to the ground, narrowly dodging a black whip that almost grazed my neck.
Turning my head, I saw the monster had already appeared behind me, revealing its full form.
It was a spliced meat monster made entirely of human parts. Countless pale white arms and legs were tangled together like meat paste, with various indescribable human organs growing randomly across its torso.
As I watched, they twitched slightly. Its head was the upper half of a female body with a drooping head, and a giant snake eye was split open on its stomach, staring intently at me.
“What, what are you looking at?!”
‘Don’t think I’ll be scared of you just because your eye is big.’
I grabbed the hilt of the sword and pulled hard.
Uh… it didn’t move.
I had to use both hands to finally pull the incredibly heavy bone blade out of the ground.
Taking a deep breath, the *taotie motif* began to bloom on the side of my face, and my lips pulled back to reveal a mouth full of sharp teeth.
“Hee hee.”
Die!