I Got a Gallery in the Wild - Chapter 813

A woman whose appearance changed visibly as the language she spoke shifted.

While her entire body remained as pale as haze-white fog, subtle details had underwent a major transformation.

The scrawny frame of a young girl had somewhere along the line turned into that of a mature woman.

Her features were grotesque, making it seem like there wasn’t much change overall, but her ears were the sole exception.

’Her ears look like they’ve grown long like an elf’s...’

How could someone’s appearance alter like that?

Even as I pondered this, I never loosened my tension for even a moment.

As I felt during our test of strength earlier, she possessed immensely powerful physical strength.

On top of that, her durability was on par with Adamantium.

-Keureureureuk...

As I watched silently, the pale woman made a bizarre move.

She began crawling on all fours like a beast, letting out grotesque noises.

Slithering backward into the thickest blanket of fog, she was clearly intending to take advantage of the mist.

I couldn’t just sit by and let her do that, so I immediately formed a plan.

"Lackey. I’ll give you an oil flask, so throw it when I tell you to. Got it?"

"Understood."

"Wait a minute! Bone dust is scattering everywhere right now, so if it catches fire, it could be dangerous."

It was just as I was about to resort to a fire attack, which is always useful against highly regenerative foes.

Looking at the mounds of bones piled up like mountains around us, Elia vehemently tried to stop us.

Just as she said, setting fire in a place where bone dust was fluttering around carried a high risk of causing a chain reaction explosion.

"It’s fine. We can handle that much risk."

"I just need to use wind magic to prevent the dust from reaching us."

Since this wasn’t our first rodeo, we had long since prepared an appropriate countermeasure.

Soon after handing the oil flask to Lackey, I charged toward the creeping, retreating enemy.

-Kyaaaaak!

Sensing that full-scale battle had begun, the pale woman launched her attack.

As if her crawling earlier had been a setup to build momentum, the enemy lunged at me with terrifying leaping power.

I was slightly taken aback by her speed, which was much faster than before, but I didn’t let it bother me and reacted immediately.

Hwirik—

Right before the pale woman pounced on me, I fluidly deflected her, sending her tumbling across the floor.

Normally, I would have faced her head-on, but realizing her strength was far beyond expectations, I intended to probe her out first.

’There’s a high chance that her physical abilities aren’t the only thing remarkable about her.’

Like those countless tongues sprouting from inside her pitch-black mouth.

Or how her physique shifted the moment her language changed, and so on.

Kkwaddeudeuk!

Just as I expected, another change occurred in the pale woman’s body.

Having recovered her stance after rolling on the ground, long spinal bones burst out from her waist alongside a gruesome crunching sound.

It was not just a single bone, but multiple branching ones, their tips eerily resembling scorpion tails.

-$%%$%$%$%$%$%!

Spouting incomprehensible gibberish, the pale woman rushed forward nimbly.

Bounding on four limbs like a beast, she was nothing short of a mad dog.

However, since her form had changed, her attack patterns were bound to diversify as well.

"#%$!"

Just as I was waiting for her to draw near, Elia cast her magic.

At that instant, the solid concrete floor turned slick and smooth, causing the pale woman to slide right out of control—jureureuk—.

Jjaenggeurang!

Not missing this opening, Lackey hurled an oil flask with all his might, drenching her in oil.

He made an exceptionally wise judgment even though I hadn’t given the word.

Hwareureureuk!

-Kyaaaaah!

With the follow-up fire magic, the pale woman’s whole body burst into flames.

I worried that the bone dust from the vast heaps of bones might cause an explosion, but thankfully, no such thing happened.

It seemed the fire didn’t catch due to the peculiar moisture in the fog.

While the pale woman burned frantically, I gripped the Sword of the Heavenly Demon and lunged forward to sever her head.

’There’s a high chance she’ll survive even if her neck is cut.’

Since she endured stubbornly even after an arrow pierced her head, she would surely survive losing her head.

It was similar yet different from when I fought the Flesh Golem in the tunnel back then.

Seogeok!

First, I sliced through the pale woman’s neck to stop her from thinking.

Normally, she should have fallen like a log, but she was still thrashing about like a mad dog.

Chwareureuk!

On top of that, she indiscriminately brandished her scorpion-tail-like spinal bones.

Every swing possessed enough force to slice through not only the bone mounds but even the hard concrete floor like tofu.

Seogeok!

In case it might harm my companions, I neatly severed those as well.

Finally, I sliced off her wrists sprouted with sharp claws, stripping away all her offensive tools.This chapter was copied from novelpin‌g.com without permission.

All that remained was to wait for the pale woman to burn away, but...

-Kyaaaaak!

Along with a shriek that seemed to issue from nowhere,

Ssuuk! Ssuk!

The severed ends regenerated at high speed, rendering my efforts meaningless.

’What the fuck is this bastard?’

I was utterly flabbergasted.

Usually, creatures with high regenerative abilities see their regeneration slow down drastically when burned.

That held true for the Flesh Golem, and it held true for the Manatology survivor living inside the Sky Whale.

Yet the pale woman rendered all of that null and void, bewildering me to no small degree.

Bulluk- bulluk-

That wasn’t the end of it.

Masses of flesh seemed to swell bizarrely from her body before completely swaddling the pale woman.

Soon, once the flesh had completely enveloped her entire body, even the raging flames were fully snuffed out.

"What in the world..."

I was rendered speechless as I watched flesh sprout like shoots to cover the pale woman.

Flesh layered over flesh until it took on the form of a cocoon.

Even the Manatology members I’d encountered so far weren’t like this; this individual was beyond imagination.

However, there was no time to gawk. Becoming a cocoon meant she was incapacitated for the moment.

Siing!

Without delay, I brandished the Sword of the Heavenly Demon.

Ujijik!

A burly, muscular arm burst out from the cocoon and violently grabbed the blade.

Startled by this, I quickly yanked back the Sword of the Heavenly Demon to retrieve it.

Fortunately, it didn’t seem to have the strength to snatch the Sword of the Heavenly Demon completely, and the blade slipped free along with the sensation of slicing through flesh.

Ujijik! Ujik!

Countless arms and legs erupted from the cocoon-like heap of flesh.

There were burly arms like the first one, and delicate female arms sprouting out as well.

-Eueoeoeo...

-Save me...

-I don’t want to die...

What was even more astonishing was what happened next.

Humanoid figures began awkwardly crawling out from the cocoon.

Each had a different gender, appearance, physique, and so forth.

It was as if demonstrating that the true nature of this mass was scores of humans mashed together like a meatball.

And there was only one faction capable of doing such a thing.

’Manatology.’

Kkeumul-kkeumul-kkeumul—

Simultaneously with that thought, the people trying to break free were sucked back into the flesh.

They extended their arms desperately to escape, but the reabsorption was far quicker.

Some were even dragged straight back in to prevent them from getting out at all.

-I want to go home...

Finally, ending with the miserable sobbing of a woman, it returned to the complete form of a cocoon.

"..."

I quietly stared at the mass of flesh that had reverted to a cocoon.

For some unknown reason, a grim and profound sense of sorrow emanated from it...

... not.

...-isiyeo. ...

I narrowed my brow in that instant. Again.

A voice that seemed to echo in my mind.

Just what was the identity of this voice?

It was difficult to make sense of, but thanks to it, I snapped out of my thoughts.

’Dousing it with Holy Water should do the trick.’

Manatology was a faction that could be considered the origin of the undead.

Therefore, splashing Holy Water on them would yield great results—a fact already proven against the Manatology entity inside the Sky Whale.

Chwaak!

Without hesitation, I doused it with the Holy Water I had received from Asella.

Immediately, a drastic reaction erupted from the cocoon.

Kkumteul-kkumteul!

The fleshy cocoon began thrashing about like mad.

It visibly bulged and deflated all over, looking ready to burst open at any moment.

Chwaaaak! Chwaak!

-Euaaaa...

-Save me... Save me...This story is hosted at novelping dot com.

-I don’t want to die...

-I want to go home...

Just like earlier, countless humanoid entities attempted to escape from the cocoon.

Perhaps because its cohesion had weakened significantly, not just their upper bodies but even their legs began pulling free.

Cheolpeok! Cheolpeok!

However, escaping the cocoon proved meaningless.

Whether their bodies lacked bones or it was simply a futile struggle...

The moment they hit the floor, they liquefied into goo and completely dissolved away.

Chiiiik!

Among them were fluids so highly acidic they could melt solid stone.

If I had been drenched directly in that acidic liquid... just imagining it was horrible.

-Uweeek!

The cocoon from which the bodies escaped wasn’t fine either.

Its size seemed to gradually shrink before it started vomiting jet-black fluid from a massive mouth in the center.

And around that mouth, it slowly, ever so slowly, morphed into the shape of a human.

And the true form thus revealed was—

"...She looks completely normal, Master."

"She’s an... ordinary woman."

"..."

Just as my companions said, she looked like a genuinely ordinary woman.

Not completely bleached like the pale woman from before, but a woman with brown hair and average features.

Apart from her tattered rags, her exposed skin was remarkably clear.

It was almost hard to believe she had lived in a place like this for a long time.

"Kek... ke-ek... uwek..."

Retching up jet-black liquid repeatedly, the woman gasped heavily for air.

She then slowly lifted her head and looked up at us.

Instead of pitch-black eye sockets and a dark abyss of a mouth, she was a person with clear blue eyes.

"A-A human...?"

"..."

"It’s a human... a human...!"

It was a familiar language. But it wasn’t the tongue of the Messiah Empire, nor the Central Plains, nor Alfheim.

It was unmistakably the language of the Holy Kingdom. Hearing it, I knitted my brows.

"...The language of the Holy Kingdom?"

"Ahhh...! Thank goodness... Please save me! I don’t want to die...!"

Ignoring Elia’s muttering, the woman crawled toward me.

I took a step or two back at an inexplicable sense of revulsion, but the woman paid no heed.

She seemed desperately eager to grab onto my pant legs by any means necessary.

However, driven by an instinctual unease, I couldn’t bring myself to let her near.

"Don’t run away... Please... Please..."

Did the woman also sense something off about my behavior?

Her mouth stretched into a grin that looked as though it would split from ear to ear, and then—

"Become one... with me..."

"..."

"And survive together...!"

Wearing a smile where one couldn’t tell if she was crying or laughing, she reached her hand out toward me.

Just as I felt an eerie sensation emanating from her hand and prepared to react—

Tang!

Along with a familiar gunshot,

Peok!

The woman collapsed like a log, spraying brain tissue and blood.

The moment I saw her collapse to the ground, I whipped my head toward the direction of the sound.

I was genuinely flustered, as I hadn’t sensed even a sliver of presence beforehand, but—

"Master! Her head! Her head!"

"Hm?"

Lackey frantically pointed at the woman lying on the ground.

Turning my gaze back, an anomaly was taking place with the woman.

Pushiiii—

Like steam venting from a pressure cooker, smoke spewed from the bullet hole in her head, and then—

Shaaaa!

The smoke enveloped us in an instant, making the fog even denser.

We didn’t even have time to prepare for the series of strange occurrences, but thankfully, no tragedy occurred.

Only that—

[Please...! I beg you, please have mercy on me...!]

As if the billowing smoke had turned into a screen, it merely projected a scene.