Chapter 97: Is that a Worm or a Snake?

97. Is that a Worm or a Snake?

「Gyooo!」

The Midgard Wyrm turned its eyes on me with a threatening gaze. Or, at least that’s how it felt. I couldn’t actually see its eyes anywhere. That said, it seemed to have realized that the attack I’d just hit it with had damaged me as well.

I intended on piercing it all the way through, but its skin was too thick, and flesh too brawny. Its tough body stopped my Telekinetic Catapult in its tracks.

『This thing’s huge.』

Even just the part that’d risen above the water was 30 whole meters long.

I continued observing the magic beast as my blade regenerated. It was starting to heal up as well. Its regeneration was really low level, but its HP pool was massive to begin with, so it was actually healing fairly rapidly.

「Gyagaruooohhh!」

『Woah!』

The Midgard Wyrm spat something at me. Its aim was rather precise, the glob of stomach acid would’ve hit me head on if I hadn’t dodged. It looked like that attack was what it’d used to mess up all the pirate ships we saw.

『This thing’s still just full of energy.』

I mean, it managed to stop my Telekinetic Catapult’s momentum, but it still did have a giant gaping hole in its neck or head area. Normally, you’d think its movements would dull as a result, but it didn’t seem to have actually felt the attack at all.

It looked like we wouldn’t be able to kill it if we just tried to whittle down its HP. But that was fine, there were other ways for us to kill it.

We could try going for its vitals. Ideally, I’d like kill it by destroying its magic stone, but its body was so big that I was having trouble finding it. Oh well, whatever. We didn’t actually need to bother finding its magic stone in order to kill it, seeing as how it had one of its vitals exposed.

I let loose a second overboosted Telekinetic Catapult.

My durability plummeted yet again in response to the resulting shockwave. The attack was a bit weaker than it was before because I didn’t have Fran’s assistance, but, it was still powerful enough to create a second, 8 meter wide crater right where the wyrm’s head was.

『Hell yeah, how’s that?』

「Gyuuuuuuuuu!!!」

『Tsk. This thing’s still moving around as if nothing’s happened.』

Alright, whatever, I’ll just do it again then. I still had eighty percent of my mana left, so all in all, I could attack roughly five more times before having to devote the rest of my remaining mana into regeneration.

『Take this!』

「Gyaaaaa!!」

Okay, what the hell? The stupid wyrm was ridiculously sturdy. It was still moving around despite the fact that it was missing half its head.

I appraised again in order to check its stats, and it turned out that it still had more than 30k HP remaining, which meant that its head probably wasn’t one of its vitals.

Hmmm… I think I’ll give it another two or three shots just to see what happens.

『Die!』

「Gyogyaaaaa!!」

And so, the process repeated itself a few times, and I ended completely obliterating its head in its entirety. The Midguard Wyrm no longer possessed either a mouth or a brain, but…

『Why is it still alive!?』

It’s movements had dulled by only the slightest bit, and it didn’t seem like it was just going to roll over and die anytime soon. In fact, it looked perfectly fine. The flesh around where its head had been had already started to regenerate.

God damn thing doesn’t even die when its head gets blown the hell off. It’s way too big, and it’s got an unrelenting life force to boot. God damn fantasy creatures!

『I-Is it just flat out immortal?』

I guess it really is a worm. Rockworms were kind of like this too, they wouldn’t die even if you cut them in half.

『I think I might’ve used a bit too much mana…』

Damn it. I guess I’ll head back on over to Fran. Everything’ll only go downhill if I try to keep this up.

I flew back over to the ship while making it look like I was being drawn to Fran’s hand.

（Master, status update?）

『I won’t be able to kill it with my Telekinetic Catapult.』

（Got it.）

『But I do have an idea.』

（What?）

『…』

（Master?）

『Let’s use Deathgaze.』

（Got it.）

The worm was just far too big, and it’s life force too unrelenting. Deathgaze’s ability to instantly kill its target had a pretty low success rate, but it should still activate once every 30 odd slashes.

Bringing up the suggestion made me feel vexed though. I was relying on other swords despite being a sword myself.

I guess this must be how it feels for a heart surgeon to entrust a parent to his colleague, or for a chef to ask another to cook for his daughter’s wedding. The bitterness of defeat welled up deep within every last fibre of my being.

But it couldn’t be helped. This wasn’t the time for me to be moping around…

（Understood, Master.）

Fran drew Deathgaze out from the dimensional storage. The very act of her brandishing the weapon caused the ship’s crew to gulp.

「W-What’s that?」

「It’s giving me a case of the chills…」

Deathgaze’s blade was a deep, pitch black, with red, vein-like lines running up its length. Its appearance was about as ominous as it could get.

「Magic Sword. Deathgaze. Can instantly kill.」

「Ah, so you’re planning to use it to kill that thing?」

Yeap, the sailor had pretty much hit the nail on the head, but for some odd reason, the captain’s face was still twisted in unease.

「I’m not all too sure that the instant kill ability that sword has will actually work on the Midgard Worm.」

「Why?」

「I’ve heard rumors saying that Midgard Worms have more than one heart. Instant death effects may not function to their fullest.」

Seriously? It’s got multiple hearts? Well, I guess we can’t really be sure as to how effective Deathgaze’s abilities would be in that case. But whatever, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care how many hearts that damn thing has, I’ll just slash at it till it dies.

（Ready?）

『Yeah, let’s go.』

And so, I headed towards the Wyrm yet again. The sailors had their eyes on us though, so I had to make it look like Fran was controlling me.

「Sword Puppet Theatre.」

「Wow!」

Fran raised both her arms and acted like she was concentrating. To make the act look more natural, she would occasionally even mumble from time to time. It looked like she was having a lot of fun.

In reality, I was obviously just doing the usual and flying around using telekinesis. Likewise, I was also manipulating Deathgaze through the exact same set of actions.

To the onlookers though, it seemed as if Fran was using some sort of mysterious skill to manipulate both swords as she pleased. She was left in a rather defenseless state, but Urushi was with her, so whatever.

（Good luck, Master.）

（Woof!）

『Just leave it to me!』

That said, all I was doing was flying around the Midgard Wyrm and dodging its attacks while slashing at it with Deathgaze in hopes of procing the latter’s effect.

『Take this!』

「Gyaoaaaaahhh!」

Tsk. Deathgaze’s blade wasn’t actually capable of cutting through the wyrm’s overly thick skin. I had to give it a decent amount of momentum before it’d actually pierce the surface. Obviously, I didn’t go as far as using Telekinetic Catapult, and a result, the damage inflicted per hit was rather miniscule.

Deathgaze finally activated its effect after 20 or so magic imbued slashes. Its blade shimmered with a deep scarlet light as it attempted to instantly kill the wyrm.

「Gyaaaaaaaa!!」

Hell yeah! It stopped moving!

A wave of euphoria washed over me, but it only lasted for an instant.

「Gugagaoooooh!」

『What!? Just die already!』

「Gyaaoooo!」

It looked like the captain’s suspicions had been on point. Deathgaze’s ability wasn’t able to instantly kill magic beasts with multiple hearts.

『Alright, fine! I’ll just destroy all your hearts then!』

「Gyooooo」

『Hey! Where are you going? I’m over here goddammit!』

「Gyaooooohhhhh!」

The Midgard Wyrm started to ignore me. Instead, it began making a beeline for the ship.

『Get back here fatass! This is supposed to be between you and me!』

I threw Deathgaze at the Wyrm, but I couldn’t get it to turn back around. It was much more interested in nice, edible, living things than a dangerous, inorganic organism like me.

I continued to attack it with Deathgaze and managed to get its effect to activate a second time. The wyrm once again stopped for a few seconds, after which it booted its body back. It soon continued its prior actions as if nothing had happened at all.

Moreover, it had accelerated. The ship Fran was on had already changed its course in an attempt to get away from the creature, but, it was going to catch up, and soon, at that. Damn it, it looks like I really might not be able to kill it with Deathgaze.

『Shit! What do I do? The poison isn’t working either…』

Attacking with Deathgaze wasn’t the only thing I’d done. I had also tried throwing in a few poison based attacks of my own, but they didn’t have any sort of effect on the wyrm at all. It didn’t have poison resistance or anything like that. Its body was simply just way too big, I would need to give it a much larger dose for it to actually have any effect. Damn it. It looked like size really did matter.

It didn’t look I had any way of actually killing the wyrm. It would just regenerate regardless of how much damage I did to it, so I decided to think up a method to slow it down instead. I guess I could try making it heavier, but… how?

『I got it!』

A light bulb had suddenly seemed to flash inside of my head. The idea I came up with would lead to a bit of a gamble, but I didn’t really have much time to think it through.

『Deploying max strength magical barriers! Activating Telekinesis!』

I circled around to the Midgard Wyrm’s front, and shot myself forward with another Telekinetic Catapult. This time, however, I didn’t aim for its body. Instead, I dove straight inside its half regenerated mouth.

『Commencing Operation Inch High Samurai!』 [1]

If I couldn’t hurt its exterior, I’d just hurt its interior instead.

『Holy crap, that’s disgusting.』

The Midgard Worm’s insides were nothing short of grotesque. Its organs were all clearly visible, and seeing them almost made me want to retch. To make matters worse, my durability was plummeting at an incredibly rapid pace. the wyrm didn’t actually have a stomach. Instead, it just had its whole body secrete stomach acid nonstop. I probably would’ve completely melted away in an instant if not for my magical barriers.

The original plan was for me to just kind of go crazy inside of him and destroy everything, but it didn’t look like that would work. I had to hurry up, finish my objectives, and then leave, else I’d probably melt.

The only issue lay with the fact that I needed to go a bit deeper inside the wyrm’s body. I activated Telekinesis, threw myself in full throttle, and dove deep into the wyrm’s interior. I reached my destination around when my durability had hit the halfway point.

『Activating Dimensional Storage!』

I immediately brought out every last monolith at once and dropped them all inside the wyrm’s body.

If I dropped them near its mouth, then it’d be able to just spit them back out, but dropping them this deep would probably prevent that from happening.

I had actually wanted to dump the poisoned swamp we picked up as well, but I ended up deciding against it. I mean, it wouldn’t cause any issue if the wyrm’s body ended up absorbing it all, but, it’d probably lead to some major pollution if it managed to vomit it all back out. Honestly, I didn’t think it’d be that bad given how big the ocean was, but, we were kind of close to the shore, so I figured the risk wasn’t really worth the reward.

『Oh crap! My durability is getting really low, I’ve got to get out of here. Short Jump!』

My durability had started to decrease even more quickly because of the friction resulting from me rubbing against all the monoliths now in my immediate vicinity. I immediately used space/time magic and teleported a rather short distance. Luckily, I was able to get myself outside the wyrm and into the ocean.

Whew. I only had a hundred durability left.

『I really wish that the stupid thing would’ve exploded or at least ruptured though.』

The wyrm’s stomach had grown in width by a factor of 10, but it didn’t seem to show any sign of splitting open. Well, I guess it was a snake, and snakes were capable of swallowing things much bigger than themselves without much issue.

That said, having that many massive rocks in its body would probably slow it down.

And sure enough, a bit of observation led me to the conclusion that I was right.

Sweet, the ship should be able to get away before it manages to digest everything and speed itself back up.

『Alright, let’s get the hell outta here.』

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issun-b%C5%8Dshi