Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 21

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 21
As expected, they didn’t have to wait long before the familiar tremor of the earth rose up through the ground beneath them.
Boom-boom-whoosh!
And at last, the massive creature Liriope had been waiting for burst through the Dry Land, surfacing before her once more.
“What in the world is that?!”
Everyone recoiled in shock at the appearance of the strange creature.
In that moment, only Liriope welcomed the giant worm’s arrival.
Still, Zed had sharp reflexes. A hastily conjured Fireball struck the creature’s massive body head-on as it lunged forward with its black maw open wide.
The wounded worm roared savagely—a sound so deafening that the shockwave rippling through the air sent Liriope’s hair whipping about her face.
“Run! Get out of here!”
“I—I’ve got nowhere to go!”
“This is insane, what kind of damned luck is this?!”
Unfortunately, the other children’s weapons proved useless against the creature. Wooden spear shafts glanced off its hardened carapace and skittered away; axe blades were sent spinning into the distance.
They tried to flee in any direction, but the massive white worm barred their path on one side and the blazing Fruit Field on the other—there was nowhere left to run.
And as the worm erupted from the earth, the crater it left behind began to collapse, dragging the children down with it.
Caught in an unexpected crisis, Zed abandoned all caution and unleashed a barrage of magic. He’d decided it was better to dispatch the creature in front of them as quickly as possible.
A chain of explosions so bright they stung the eyes left Liriope’s vision swimming.
Red light flashed without pause, and the scorching heat mixed with sand gusted across her face.
Fortunately, the worm struck by Zed’s magic suffered a mortal wound and collapsed.
‘That makes nine.’
Even as the others exhaled sighs of relief, Liriope never stopped counting.
[Hmm, I see. This Zed fellow—he’s been crudely hurling Fireballs since the beginning, but his versatility and Mana control are woefully lacking.]
A cool, analytical voice echoed through her mind right on cue.
[Though it seems you miscalculated too, doesn’t it? I’m not sure what your plan is exactly, but you were trying to harm him, weren’t you? Yet you’ve already dealt with the bees and the worm, and he’s still standing there without a scratch. Now what?]
Just as the voice suggested, the worm had fallen, and Zed, though looking somewhat fatigued, remained entirely uninjured on both feet.
“Everyone, run! Starting now, don’t stop—fall back to the Temporary Shelter at full speed!”
But in that moment, Liriope was certain her plan had succeeded.
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
“Wait, why is the ground shaking again?”
The ominous tremor that came a second time made Zed’s group go rigid.
Boom-whoosh!
And then at last, making their fears manifest, another towering white wall reared up before them.
“There’s—there’s more than one?!”
When you thought about it, it was obvious.
This was the worm’s breeding season, and unless the creatures were hermaphrodites, common sense dictated they couldn’t go through mating season alone.
Boom-boom-whump!
No—there was more than one mate.
A third and fourth worm soon heard the commotion and began erupting from the ground.
“Z-Zed! Do something, please!”
“Help me, please!”
A look of dismay crossed Zed’s face.
For so long, he’d wandered only in safe territory, holding dominion over these children. Everything had gone smoothly during that time, and a moment of carelessness born from that ease had brought about a devastating blunder.
He gritted his teeth, cast aside his hesitation, and withdrew a small jewel-like object from his pocket, flinging it forward with all his strength.
Crash-boom-bang!
It was a Magic Stone with explosive properties—Zed’s trump card. But even that wasn’t enough to dispatch all the worms.
Zed conjured another Fireball and hurled it at the creatures, but his Mana ran dry before the last worm fell.
The twelfth Fireball, barely ignited in midair, snuffed out like a candle.
“Damn it, what kind of—”
With that final curse, like a dying man’s last words, Zed’s entire group was swallowed whole by the massive worm in a single gulp.
* * *
“Ahhh!”
“S-save us, someone!”
Inside the slimy worm’s body, it was like being trapped in a colossal water bladder.
“Stop pushing!”
“I keep sliding down, you idiot! What do you expect me to do?!”
The worm had no distinction between esophagus and stomach. So Liriope and Zed’s group, along with a pile of soil the creature had swallowed, slid endlessly deeper into the creature’s viscera.
[Oh, good heavens. To think I’d end up in the belly of a worm like this—I’m gathering quite the collection of miserable experiences!]
Hearing that voice ring out with exasperation in her head, she realized the presence had been genuinely shaken by the situation.
Indeed, the experience of being swallowed alive by a living creature and finding oneself inside its belly was profoundly strange.
And the moment Liriope and Zed’s group reached the deepest part of the worm’s stomach, its inner tissues began secreting a viscous slime.
Ignoring the children’s chaos around her, she surveyed the surroundings and spotted what looked like several round cocoons.
Upon closer inspection, they weren’t cocoons at all but rather translucent, milky-white membranes made of mucus, and within each one lay creatures the worm had swallowed earlier, their bodies curled tight with eyes shut.
From the noses and mouths of these stored meals, small bubbles occasionally rose—a sign they were still alive.
This was the worm’s peculiar method of preserving food to survive the Hibernation Period.
Naturally, Zed’s group, upon witnessing living animals reduced to preserved food, screamed and panicked.
During the chaos, Liriope noticed a familiar face trapped in one of the mucus-filled spheres that had filled halfway.
The Red-haired Boy, spotting Liriope, opened his mouth soundlessly and began pounding the membrane with his fists.
Liriope’s violet eyes widened.
Given that there were multiple worms, encountering the Red-haired Boy here was an extraordinary coincidence.
“Everyone shut up, you’re driving me mad!”
At that moment, Zed drew a Folding Knife from his pocket and drove it with all his strength into the worm’s inner wall.
But the blade, weaker even than an axe, only bounced off the elastic flesh and failed to leave so much as a scratch on the hardy intestinal tissue.
“Damn it!”
“Let us out! I want to leave! Mom, where are you?!”
Vince screamed in panic, shielding his head with his arms, while Zed’s other companions thrashed about trying to crawl back up the worm’s throat, only to slip repeatedly.
To make matters worse, pink bristle-like structures protruding from the inner wall began moving up and down, scrubbing their entire bodies as if they were ingredients being rinsed, and the sensation made them tickle.
Liriope’s skin crawled at the soft touch against her flesh, and she trembled. But she knew this ordeal wouldn’t last long, so she endured it.
And Liriope’s expectation proved correct.
Just as the worm’s bristles were secreting a special digestive fluid and gradually absorbing the moisture clinging to the prey, the smooth inner wall that pressed against their backs suddenly stiffened as if stung by a wasp.
Rrrrrooooaaaarr!
Then, a violent convulsion began—one incomparably more intense than anything that had come before.
“Argh!”
“W-what is this now?!”
As if the worm were thrashing its entire body, the floor and ceiling of its inner walls flipped back and forth wildly.
The prey inside tumbled together, colliding and falling over one another.
Zed’s group screamed in fresh terror as they were bounced about by the heaving walls and slimed cocoons.
Liriope clenched her teeth to keep from biting her tongue and wrapped both hands around her head. Suddenly, the space within the belly contracted sharply, and the convulsing inner walls squeezed in from all sides.
Then came a powerful pressure that wrenched her body upward as if tearing it free.
* * *
Boom-boom-boom-whoosh!
“Blegh!”
Cough, cough!”
When she came to her senses, Liriope was rolling across the barren ground.
Other prey that the worm had expelled writhed about, still covered in sticky slime.
Liriope herself retched several times, spitting out stringy saliva in case anything inedible had made its way into her mouth.
Roooaaarrr!
Just then, a sound like a ruptured eardrum tore through the air beside her.
The worm, having released a final death cry, collapsed—its massive white body crumbling.
As Liriope, who had been prepared, turned her head and squeezed her eyes shut, a storm of wind came rushing at her.
A cloud of pale dust engulfed her vision in an instant.
“Did—did that thing just die?”
“I can’t see anything!”
Zed’s group couldn’t open their eyes against the sudden sandstorm.
They didn’t notice Liriope staggering to move behind them.
“Damn it, this is absolute hell! Hey, you idiots, someone come this way—”
Thwack!
“Urgh?!”
In the next instant, Zed’s head snapped violently to the side from a hard blow dealt by something solid.
He reflexively raised his arms to defend himself, but after another blow that rattled his skull, he crashed to the ground.
“Who—who are you…?”
Thwack!
“What kind of—ugh!”
Thwack! Crash…!
Without magic at his disposal, Zed was just an ordinary teenage boy.
He had no defense against a silent ambush launched from behind, and above all, his attacker was a murderer—someone willing to stain their own hands with blood, brimming with malice.
In the end, Zed never even saw the face of the person who ambushed him from behind before his head was repeatedly struck and his body convulsed as he collapsed.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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