Reincarnated in a Wyrmhole

Chapter 5: Getting the Ball Rolling

I awoke, eyes still half closed, and stretched. Strangely enough, I felt completely refreshed. Hadn't I been in agonising pain when I went to sleep? I suppose the transformation finished, then. Wonder what I look like. I was curious about what the painstaking transformations had yielded, but being in cave, it made sense that there weren't any mirrors lying about. At the amount of stuff that goes on in here, the cave would be due thousands of years of bad luck!

I decided that I needed to have a set target, otherwise I wouldn't accomplish anything. Okay, what did I aspire to do in my last life? Well, despite hating my job, I was an extremely competitive person, so I always wanted to be C.E.O. How would that translate to here? I remembered what Gail had told me last night; ...each cave, forest or mountain range has an immensely strong 'end boss' as you would say, dominating the competition... That's it! I'll become the boss of the Stratos Caves!    

'Gail?' Mmh. Yes? So she has to sleep as well. This might be worth making a mental note of. 'Where can I see what I look like?' Go check in a *yawn sound* puddle. 'Okay. Thanks.' As soon as I stepped out of the cave, I could notice something was different. For a start, I could smell a hell of a lot better. I was wondering about why this was, when as jerking sensation occurred in my mouth. I looked to my left, and saw a giant, black muscle stretching about what looked like a meter away from me. (A/N baring in mind that he's still about as small as a medium sized cat, and the frog he fought was about as big as a bathtub. Great analogy, I know, but it means that it's a meter from his perspective, not a human's.) Then I realised it was my tongue. 

From around it, rose a few flies, alarmed by the seemingly instantaneous movement. Ah, that makes sense. Since I'm part frog now, my tongue is a lot longer, and since reptiles smell through their tongue, it would make sense that now that my tongue triple the size, I can smell a lot better. Wondering why my tongue had spontaneously shot out, I furled it back in, and, by straining my eyes, could see a big, fat fly on the end of it. To my horror, my mouth began to water.

I suppose it can do me no harm, but I should check with Gail first. 'Gail?' I tentatively asked, knowing that she was still "asleep". Yes? 'You're awake now, good. Is this fly a monster, or is it a regular fly?' You don't know? 'No?' I must have forgotten to tell you. Think about it. How do flies eat? 'They steal food from places, then regurgitate it, then eat it again.' Correct. So if I gave you these two pieces of knowledge; that the only things edible here are monsters, including the edible fungi, and that the only thing that can eat monsters is other monsters, how would this fly survive without being a monster? 'Good point. So if I were to eat this, I would go through the whole agonising pain thing again?' To some extent, but not as much. Like I said last time, every time that happens, the pain becomes less and less. Eventually, it will be no more than a brief twitch. Backed up by the fact that the fly was depressingly small and weak, I doubt you will undergo any major changes, let alone feel anything.' 'Another question. If I eat this, I go through the transformation. But if I eat this and something else, I'll go through two transformations at once?' 'I suppose you would.' 

Armed with this knowledge, I set out once again. Along the way, I tested out my other frog abilities. One of them, being able to be in water and drinking it, was mildly useful, while the other one was interesting, through Gail, I learnt that I was now immune to all venoms and poisons below the level of deadly, meaning I could now eat most of the fungi that surrounded me. The final thing that I was told was that I had learnt what was called a "skilled attack". This was where instead of just scratching and bashing with rocks, there was a specific attack, which usually involved an ability. My one was being able to lash out with a venomous tongue, either poisoning or paralysing the target.

A question popped into my mind. 'Gail, what does the end boss of the Stratos Caves look like?' Like, imagine a gigantic black dragon with dark orange and black wings, fangs bigger than you and horns twice the size of that. Now double all that and triple the scariness. 'But surely if it has consumed so many monster beasts, then it would look like a circus clown wearing all the props in the tent?' No, because the process of evolution means that species have to recognise each other so that they know who ma- 'That's enough of that, thank you!'   

Seeing as the fly had been so easy to kill, I suspected that I wouldn't garner much from it, but every little helps. Because of this a I wanted to kill a bigger prey. I had managed to kill a frog with no extra DNA and no scales, so I was sure I could take on a more fearsome opponent with my new hardened scales and skills. As I was walking, I stumbled across a small alcove like mine, with a faint buzzing coming from inside. I wonder what's in here? 'Gail, is that one of my brothers or sister's caves?' No, it appears to be a hive. 'Hive? Of what?' Difficult to say, as there are many species of monster who have hives, but it's most likely to be bees, this early on. 'Are they powerful?' As a species, the workers are 10x bigger than normal bees, the drones are 30x as big, the guards are about your current size, and finally the queen is twice the size of the frog you faced yesterday. 'That sounds awesome. They'll do as my snack for today.'

This time I believed I could do it. Due to my new immunity to poison and venom, the stings wouldn't pose a problem for me except for maybe the queen, who I suspected would have a more powerful sting which I would have to avoid. When I was about to sneak into the hive, a fat, yellow and black insect came buzzing out. Since it wasn't very big, I assumed it to be a worker. Once again, my tongue snapped out, and before I knew it the poor thing was lying dead on my tongue. I sighed internally, hoping that this wouldn't happen inside the hive.

After a short trip back to my original cave to drop of the bee and the fly, I was back outside the entrance to the hive. After knowing that the workers wouldn't really be a challenge, I was confident that I could take it on. The first room was a large one coated with yellow goo which Gail confirmed to be honey. Once I stepped inside, the workers immediately noticed me, watched me for a second, then went back to their jobs. Strange. I expected them to attack. That was when a much larger buzzing could be heard from the tunnel to the next room. Through it came two bees the size of me. The bees, which I realised to be guards look at me menacingly, as if urging me to back out. 

However, they looked like they would be powerful, and valuable assets to my ever growing collection. After realising that I wouldn't be intimidated, they split up. They're trying to pincer me. I was ready, and as one of them charged, stinger first, I jumped. He flew under me, and crashed into the other. They were discombobulated, and I took this as my chance hitting the ground again, I jumped onto one of them. 

Crashing to the ground as I had planned, it tried to shake me off. To counter this, my tongue whipped out of my mouth and wrapped itself around the guards neck. Now that I was sure I wouldn't be shaken off, the only thing I needed to be wary of was they other guard it was getting up, and I needed to finish the guard who I had trapped before the other one could attack. Although I wouldn't be affected by the poison, the stinger looked like it would hurt if it got through my skin. I tightened my tongue, and gradually the guard stopped trying to shake me off. I checked the pulse, and it was dead. Now to deal with the other one.