I Got a Gallery in the Wild - Chapter 292

Suddenly, the genre had shifted from survival to horror. No, would it be more accurate to say the two had merged?

If it had been nighttime, I would’ve lost my mind in more ways than one. That’s how hideous it was.

Kwajik!

The head it hurled smashed into a tree, splitting the trunk clean in two.

The skull remained completely intact. Because it was a skull, it was astonishingly durable.

I was shocked by the sight for only a brief moment before hurriedly raising my shield to block the follow-up attack.

Kwaang!

"Keugh!"

The lion mutant’s fist struck my shield dead center. It was a powerful blow.

Even though everything above its neck was gone, the lion mutant didn’t stop thrashing.

It defied all common sense, but this was fundamentally a fantasy world.

Much like the case with the Immortal King, it was a place where necromancers or the ’undead’ existed.

"Hey! Paladin ahjussi! I think this bastard is an undead, do something with that holy power or whatever!"

I shouted while dodging and blocking the attacks of the headless lion mutant.

Up until now, Ludwig had only provided support without directly stepping forward.

However, given his profession, perhaps he couldn’t let an undead slip by.

"#$%$%# $#$%%"

Gripping the Mythricon sword with both hands, he muttered something under his breath.

It was the prayer he recited in front of Cain every morning, noon, night, and before going to sleep.

Shaaaa—

Simultaneously with Ludwig’s prayer, the Mythricon sword began to radiate light.

Normally, aura possessed a blue hue, but holy power was a white close to gold.

I didn’t know what principle governed it, but I was told it could only manifest if one held true ’faith’.

Furthermore, it was fatal to the undead and could boost overall physical attributes.

However, because it fundamentally relied on ’mana’ as its foundation, manifesting it within the Forest of the Four Seasons was difficult.

Normally, a figure of Ludwig’s caliber would have manifested holy power without even reciting a prayer.

Chwaaak!

Still, since the manifestation itself succeeded, it was fine.

While I kept the lion mutant occupied, Ludwig sliced its torso clean in half.

Not horizontally, but vertically. Since the creature had been focused solely on me, it had been defenseless, making the cut effortless.

Jjeojeojeok—

Accompanied by the sound of decaying flesh tearing apart, the lion mutant’s torso slowly split open.

Because it had been cleaved vertically instead of horizontally, it ripped wide open to both sides.

Normally, the headless lion mutant would have collapsed, but....

Kkumul-kkumul-kkumul!

It didn’t. I could see it clearly with my own two eyes.

Inside the lion mutant’s body, split in half, earthworms were swarming.

No. Since they were inside a body, it would be more accurate to call them parasites rather than earthworms.

Those parasites squirmed, and before long, they began pulling the split sides back together.

As if they themselves had become thread, they pulled the halved body together to restore it to its original state.

[...I feel sick to my stomach.]

"You don’t even have a stomach."

Of course, I wasn’t feeling any better myself.

Parasites filling the inside of a body. That wasn’t a simple figure of speech; it was literal.

From the looks of it, those parasites were the ones moving the lion mutant.

’But at that rate, shouldn’t they have already sucked out everything there was to drain?’

It was strange, considering they should have moved to a new host long ago.

I wondered if it had a separate core, much like the Immortal Herb Colossus.

Either way, now that I realized this lion mutant wasn’t an undead, I had to find a different method.

’Could I force-feed it deworming medicine or something?’

After that brief, useless thought, I dodged the lion mutant’s attack.

While I dodged, Ludwig launched counterattacks, but oddly enough, the creature showed little interest in Ludwig.

Seogeok! Seogeok!

With Ludwig’s clean sword strikes, the lion mutant’s arms and legs were neatly severed.

However, unlike its head, every time a limb was cut off, it was quickly restored.

It wasn’t regeneration; it looked like a doll being sewn back together with thread, making it utterly grotesque.

’No. If you’re going to do that, why did you throw your head in the first place?’

Wondering if it simply treated its head like a ball, I glanced toward where it had thrown its head.

Since it had smashed into the destroyed tree, finding it wasn’t hard.

However,

’Where did it go?’

It was gone. The lion mutant’s head that had been thrown was nowhere to be seen.

For something that was just there to vanish was a very dangerous sign in the Forest of the Four Seasons.

If I wasn’t careful, I could be ambushed, so I hurriedly searched for the head.

Kkumul-kkumul-kkumul—

Surprisingly, finding it wasn’t difficult. The head was moving, too.

Underneath the lion mutant’s head, octopus-like legs had sprouted, and it was heading somewhere.

Before long, the place it arrived at was none other than the lion mutant’s torso.

The lion mutant grabbed its own head with both hands and ’equipped’ it onto its neck.

To repeat, it equipped it. It treated its head entirely like a helmet.

"Kwaaaaaa!!!"

And it even let out a vocal roar. I was so dumbfounded that words wouldn’t come out.This chapter was taken from novelрing.com without permission.

It was as if life existed separately in the head, the limbs, and the torso.

Each part had parasites or organisms responsible for it, escaping whenever a crisis arose.

’If they split up, won’t it get even more troublesome?’

If I didn’t dispose of them all at once, the things inside the body might scatter in every direction.

Not only would catching them individually be difficult, but in the worst-case scenario, they would hide all over the Shelter.

I had to kill them all in one blow—and that meant exterminating every single creature inside the body.

’If I burn it with fire, will their survival instincts make them all split apart?’

Parasites were creatures with strong survival instincts.

Some parasites attached themselves to organs or even lived inside the brain.

There were plenty of troublesome ones, but this creature had taken over an entire body.

Kwaang!

While I was contemplating, the lion mutant launched another attack.

To be sure, its attack power itself wasn’t particularly outstanding, but its recovery speed and the cleanup required were tricky.

At least the Immortal Herb Colossus had a clear weakness; this bastard was just a disgustingly annoying case.

’Besides, if I were to get infected by those parasites....’

I didn’t even want to imagine it. I quickly pondered a solution.

What should I do to ensure I disposed of this guy cleanly?

First, to eliminate any lingering threats, scorching it with fire was a certainty.

Seogeok! Seogeok!

Ludwig cut off both of its legs at the right moment. Simultaneously, the creature’s body began repairing itself.

In that short window, I purchased oil bottles from the auction house.

Kwajik!

I hurled the oil bottles at the creature sprawling on the ground, drenching it in oil.

However, this wasn’t the end. I shouted to Ludwig.

"Ahjussi! Cut off its legs and light just the legs on fire! I’ll give you oil bottles!"

Ludwig heard my shout and followed instructions precisely.

While the lion mutant’s aggro was locked onto me, Ludwig severed both of its legs once more.

Hwareureuk!

Then he poured oil over the severed legs and lit them ablaze.

True to their parasite nature, the moment the fire caught, they began to thrash violently.

Kkumul-kkumul-kkumul—

The burning legs, unable to endure the heat, sprouted octopus legs like the head had earlier.

They began crawling around as if searching for a new host, but Ludwig resolved it immediately.

Kwajik! Kwaak! Kwak!

By stomping them into a pulp with his boot. Since they were already ablaze, I wasn’t worried about the cleanup.

Thanks to this, the regeneration—no, the repair—of its legs stopped completely.

Parasites squirmed like noodles at the cut surfaces, but it wasn’t a major problem.

Hwareureuk!

Because Ludwig set fire to them right away. We repeated this process.

Having lost its legs, the lion mutant completely lost its mobility.

We painstakingly severed its arms and legs one by one and burned them.

"Kwaaaaaa!"

Was it because its brethren responsible for the limbs had vanished?

The lion mutant screamed and thrashed. Of course, the head portion hadn’t caught fire yet.

Though I had doused its whole body in oil, that was strictly a contingency plan; the basic strategy started from the limbs.

Sever the limbs, and burn each severed part with fire.

My plan was to burn the whole body if they showed signs of splitting apart, but fortunately, that didn’t happen.

’Feels kind of like Heracles fighting the Hydra.’

The endlessly regenerating heads of the Hydra. Yet Heracles stopped that regeneration with fire.

The final remaining head was immortal, so there was no way to destroy it, but Heracles offered a real man’s solution.

By personally crushing it under a massive boulder. Of course, I’m not Heracles, so that’s impossible for me.

In the first place, Heracles was an extreme example of ’if your body is strong, your head doesn’t have to work as hard.’

Kkumul!

While we painstakingly purified it stitch by stitch with fire, the head detached itself.

The detached head sprouted octopus legs, just as I had seen earlier.

Chwareureuk!

"Uagh!"

As if making a final desperate struggle, the parasite bearing the lion mutant’s face latched onto me.

Immediately after, it wrapped its tentacles around my neck as if trying to snap it clean off!

A startled Ludwig rushed over, but I raised my hand to stop him.

If it transferred to Ludwig for no good reason, he might end up harmed.

"Kgueeeek...!"

"Kiiiiik!"

As if signaling its final struggle, the creature also let out a bizarre shriek.

I grabbed the cluster of tentacles with my hands and pulled with all my strength.

Having had a similar experience with an octopus in a river before, I was able to peel it off quickly.

Udeudeuk! Udeuk!

Before long, the head was ripped free from my neck. The squirming tentacles were utterly hideous.

I stared at the creature still thrashing in desperation, then raised the shield in my left hand. And then.

Kwaang! Kwajik! Kwajijik!

I slammed it down several times, completely shattering the head.

Normally, brain matter should have exploded out, but as if it had devoured the brain as well, the creature’s main body was revealed.Read the latest chapters at novelping . com.

It looked like a real octopus rather than a worm. The problem was that it looked like an alien organism.

Kwajik! Kwajik!

I battered it a few more times with the shield, cleanly killing the main body as well.

I didn’t forget to set it on fire as a finishing touch.

Tadadak! Tadak!

The lion mutant’s body burned, beginning to turn into a heap of ashes.

If left like this, the smell could spread elsewhere, or it could cause a disease.

"Phew... Ahjussi. Let’s go grab shovels."

"Understood."

"Before we go, let’s take a sip of Elixir each."

I only now realized how terrifying a parasite infection could be.

If it were outside, it would have ended with just feeling unwell. But the Forest of the Four Seasons controlled even the body.

And it didn’t end there. In essence, the owner of the body had been replaced.

’Wait. Then what about Wonmo and the others?’

If they got infected by a parasite like that, it would be disaster.

The silver lining was that Starlight Lady had made Elixirs for animals as well.

I felt I should ask her for some deworming medicine while I was at it. There wasn’t just one or two things to worry about.

"Grylls."

"Yes?"

While digging the ground, Ludwig called out to me.

Looking at him, I saw he had a subtle, complex expression on his face.

After staring intently at me for a long moment, Ludwig spoke.

"By any chance, Goddess Aris-nim..."

"Forget it."

I had no intention of believing in a god. No, to be precise, I had no intention of following one.

Now, one might ask if I didn’t believe in gods at all, but it wasn’t that I disbelieved.

In the first place, my falling into this place felt close to a divine prank.

’No matter how much I think about it, I really don’t get why I was dropped into a dump like this.’

I paused my digging and patted my lower back.

Having fought battles back-to-back today, exhaustion was starting to set in.

To the point where I didn’t even need separate training. This was more than enough.

’I need to build a new house quickly.’

Nothing came out except a sigh.

It had been four consecutive battles. And every single opponent had been far from easy.

Ludwig looked at Grylls, who had essentially subjugated such monsters all by himself.

’I heard it has only been two months since he dropped here.’

Astounding survival skills. At the same time, admiration welled up within him.

To the point where he wondered if Goddess Aris herself was directly protecting him.

It wasn’t for nothing that Ludwig had sincerely extended an invitation to him.

Of course, Grylls recoiled, perhaps due to a deep-seated resentment toward gods.

’It’s not that he completely disbelieves in gods. He’s closer to hating them....’

He was closer to hating them, so why had he received the choice of the heavens?

If one considered the current events as ’trials’, Grylls’s rate of growth was nothing short of astonishing.

Furthermore, wasn’t every single step he took bringing massive upheaval to the world?

Ludwig grew increasingly curious about his identity. Did he truly have a great connection to the divine?

’Perhaps Goddess Aris-nim guided me here for this very reason.’

It was a thought possible only because Ludwig possessed a faith in the divine no less devout than the Hero’s.

"Ahjussi. Dig a bit faster."

"Mm."

Even so, the fact that he was a ’former’ paladin remained unchanged.

Right now, he was nothing more than an excellent source of manual labor unit 1.

The inconvenience in one of his feet didn’t even count as a handicap—in many ways, Grylls was a remarkably fair human being.

’This sort of fairness is mind-boggling every time I see it.’

Ludwig chuckled softly and looked down at the ground. He had dug enough to bury it now.

Just as he snapped his head up,

"...?"

Grylls had vanished. Only the shovel Grylls had been using remained, standing alone.

Wondering what on earth had happened, Ludwig looked around. But he couldn’t see anything.

He definitely hadn’t sunk into the ground. There were no traces of that.

If so, the only place left was....

"Hey, you bastard! Let me down! Let me down!"

"...."

It was the sky. Ludwig could see it clearly with his own two eyes.

Grylls being abducted by a giant crow.

The sight of him thrashing about while caught in the crow’s talons.

And....

"Kkaaak! Kkaak!"

"Didn’t I tell you to let me down?!"

Before anyone realized it, he had climbed onto the crow’s back and was controlling it—no, looking less like a survival king and more like a survival monster.

He was ripping out the crow’s wing feathers with his bare hands, forcing it into a steep crash landing.

At that sight, which was distant from ’normal’ by any metric,

’...I should just dig.’

Ludwig gave up on thinking.