Chapter 2

The green caterpillar woke with both its body and mind suffering. Its body was tired and sore while its mind was slow and hazy. In such a state, the blue glow of the notification didn't help the poor creature any.

Ting.

[Skill [Pain Resistance Lv.2] has levelled up to [Pain Resistance Lv.3]. Continuous damage caused by pain has been decreased by the 3 points.]

Ting.

[Skill [Venom Creation Lv.1] has Levelled up to [Venom Creation Lv.2]. The active time of the venom has been increased to 2 minutes.]

Ting.

[Skill [Moulting Lv.1] has levelled up to [Moulting Lv.2]. The time required for the skill has been reduced by 4 minutes. Total time required: 5 Hours and 56 Minutes.]

Ting.

[Title gained: [Survivor]]

Ting.

[Skill [Survive Lv.1] granted.]

'Huh…' Bleary as the creature was, from having just woken up, it stared dumbly at the notifications for a rather long moment. Meanwhile, as it read the notification, the creature frowned before it shook itself awake.

The caterpillar winced at the pain that should have assaulted but none came. Only the phantoms of the pain remained. It let out a sigh of relief. No bruises. No Pain. 'This is awesome! My hunch was right after all! I can use the Skill [Moulting] to heal my wounds!'

Giddy from the good news, it checked its HP, which was [HP: 3/20].

'So, it heals my physical wounds but doesn't increase my HP?' The [Reincarnated] frowned a little before smiling in relief. It was happy enough with what it had at the moment. 'Hmm… but if the skill doesn't restore my HP, then does that mean that I only heal from HPR?'

The creature checked the value, which was [HPR: 2HP/Day], and grimaced before it tried to move out of its shit covered hideout. However, its body barely twitched, as the creature was still exhausted. With what little energy it had, the [Survivor] crawled out and looked up to notice the position of the sun.

The Level up notification had said that the total time required had been reduced by 4 minutes. That meant the skill had taken 6 hours this time. And given the position of the sun, which was fairly overhead, the day seems to be about 24-25 hours long. 'Similar enough I guess.'

Lacking the energy to even think, however, it crawled back into the shit and poison covered hole to rest a bit more.

'It's odd.' The [Reincarnated] observed. It would never have done the things, that it had done yesterday, in its previous life. It would never have excreted all over itself as a sorceress. No matter the benefit. It had had its dignity in its last life.

Yet, here it had. It had done exactly those things that, in its last life it couldn't even have imagined. Not only had it shat all over itself to preserve its life, but it was also willing to crawl back into the same faeces filled hole. Just because it was tired. 'Why do I not feel disgusted with myself?'

It thought for a moment about the issue. But the more it thought over the matter, the more trivial it seemed. What was a bit of refuse if it provided the creature safety? What was dignity if it had no life to live?

This, of course, was not the thought process of a Mortal, but an Immortal. But how could that be? The [Reincarnated] had been a Mortal. So how could its thought process align with that of an Immortal?

This was an oddity not as trivial as the [Reincarnated] had thought, however. It was something much bigger than the creature thought it to be. After all, never before in the history of the Creations and Realities had such a peculiar situation occurred. Never had a Mortal's thoughts matched with an Immortal's.

Yet, such an oddity had begun to manifest, at this moment, as a result of an Existence's meddling. But the creature knew not of the meddling or the just how odd its situation was. In fact, even the oddity that it had noticed in its thinking, continued to become trivial under the influence of an Immortal's thought process.

The triviality of the situation compounded until the [Reincarnated] decided that it really did not matter if it was its own shit that had saved it. What was important to the creature was that it was alive. And to remain alive for longer, it needed to rest now.

With that last thought, it turned back to the notifications hanging over it and started to go through them, but not without a sigh. The creature, truly, was tired to the bone -which it wasn't sure if it had any.

The first few notifications were pretty standard so it just skimmed those by. 'A new [Title]? Now, this is interesting.'

Ting.

[Through your will, presence of mind and sheer stubbornness, you have defied your death. You have survived. Grants the skill, [Survive Lv.1]]

It frowned. 'What does this mean by "my death"? Was I supposed to die there!? At the hands of that bird!? So soon after my rebirth!?'

The creature scowled this time, despite its tiredness. 'That better not be true!'

Irritated, it focused on its first new skill, [Survive].

Ting.

[When activated, stops HP and MP from decreasing below a certain limit for a fixed amount of time. Cost: (Total HP)/2. Current Limit of Time: 1 Minute. Current Limit of HP: 1. Current Limit of MP: -]

It read the description once, and then reread the skill description because it did not know whether it should laugh or scowl at it.

On one hand, it fixed its HP so, in a way, it stopped it from dying. On the other hand, it consumed half of its HP and would limit its HP to a mere 1 point and that too for just 1 minute.

The creature sighed. Its exhaustion constantly grew as its emotions transformed with each notification. And it had no desire to figure out the usefulness or uselessness of the skill. Thus, it chose one category and cursed. 'What an absolutely fucking piece of shit skill!'

There was no rhyme or reason to its cursing. It had not bothered to spend even an ounce of energy to figure out the usefulness of the Skill. It cursed at the Skill solely because it felt like it. Cursing made it feel better. Amidst the Immortal thought process, the acting of cursing to let out steam, because of a beacon of Mortal thought process.

And the unknown war within the creature's mind continued.

0.0

The tiny being woke up once again and squinted as it opened its bleary eyes. The reason for its awakening had not been the end of its exhaustion, but rather, the fierce fire burning in its belly. The creature was famished. A state that was compounded by the Title it held, the unassuming little Title of [Hungry].

It sighed. Though, now that it wasn't dying of exhaustion, the second thing that made itself known was an indescribable itch that attacked it from every single inch of its body.

The word, uncomfortable, didn't even begin to describe persistent itch. It was still weary from its earlier escapade and now it was also ravenous and itchy. It made for a very unpleasant situation.

The creature shook itself and tried to move its hand. But the stubs, for limbs, that it had merely wiggled in their place. Irritation, of the likes, that it had never felt, rose up within the creature and it smashed its own face onto the sides of the hole in anger and impatience.

'!'

Unexpectedly, the action actually helped. The loose gravel on the wall of the hole had torn up a papery thin membrane that had been stuck to its body like a second skin. 'What is this?'

From its eyes, and from its face, some odd greenish-skin-type-thingy was peeling off. The creature frowned for a moment before it remembered that it had used [Moulting] yesterday and that the odd greenish-skin-type-thingy was most likely the exuviate that it had shed because of using the Skill.

It sighed and began to rub itself against the walls of its hideout with renewed vigour. As soon as it could, it removed the dead skin sticking to its body and crawled out of its hole to the nearest plant. Its ravenous hunger was so fierce that the creature almost ate the exuviate itself.

It didn't though.

Thus, to dim the inferno within, the creature practically ran towards the plant and began to chomp on the nearest leaf without a second thought. Though, perhaps, it should have paused and thought for a moment when it realized that the leaves it was restlessly chomping on were a bit bitter in taste. It ignored the taste and continued to devour one leaf after another.

It was in that moment when its hunger had subsided a bit, that it finally focused on the decidedly bitter taste of the leaves as the world began to tilt and its mind became hazy. 'Oh no.'

At that moment, it forgot its hunger. It forgot its fatigue. And it forgot its frustration. It spat out the mouthful of pulp that it had been chewing and immediately began to crawl away from the plant. 'Poison! I had been eating poison!'

Its mind overworked, trying to find a way to deal with the poison, but it had no idea what to do next. The first thing that came to its mind was to vomit out the pulp that it had eaten, but it didn't know if caterpillars were even capable of vomiting. And even if the creature could vomit, it did not want to do it in open where any passing bird could pick it up as an afternoon snack.

The creature was no longer within the safety of civilization. Instead, it was deep within the clutches of the world of Kill or be Killed. As its stubby limbs reached the shade of the plant, it looked up at the leaves and noticed that they were of the same shape as of the plant which it had been eating since its birth.

Unfortunately for the little caterpillar, hardly had it entered the deeper shade of the plant when the poison hit it.

It gritted its teeth as pain overcame it in waves. One after another, wave after wave, pain assaulted it. It did not end at that though. As the waves passed, its body began to convulse and shake. The creature writhed and it shrieked, yet it somehow managed to remain within the shade of the plant.

Its body twitched and struggled against its will as the poison ran its course. Its vision began to blur and its sense of smell went wonky. It saw the world move and smelled the odd odour of buttercups and mint. It knew there were neither buttercups nor mints in its vicinity but that little tidbit didn't help as its body continued to twitch and shake against its wishes.

However, as the convulsions slowly died down, so did the pain. Eventually, the world stopped moving and the scent of buttercups and mints vanished along with it. A sigh of relief escaped the tiny being and it gasped as it breathed. 'It's over. It's finally over.'

It quickly opened its status to check its HP, only to find not a single point missing. Its HP was [HP: 3/20], the same as before.

As thankful as it was that it had not lost its HP, the creature still frowned. Why had its HP not decreased when it had clearly been poisoned? Its Skill [Poison Resistance] hadn't been effective against the plant poison, as clearly demonstrated by waves of pain and olfactory hallucination that it had suffered.

Yet, it had not received even a single point of damage. With a slight frown, the creature checked its poison resistance Skill which also happened to be its Skill at the highest Level, [Poison Resistance Lv.5].

'Was the damage of the poison so low that it had been countered by 5 points of reduction from the skill?' It mused. 'Yet, the physical effect passed through.'

Its poison resistance skill was one to blame for the bizarre situation, it finally surmised. There was no other explanation for the odd occurrence otherwise. Not only had the effect of the poison been delayed and no physical damage dealt, the effect had not lasted all that long, all things considered.

Such a situation seemed only plausible under the mysterious effect of the skill, [Poison Resistance Lv.5].

The [Survivor]'s reasoning was right on point. Its [Poison Resistance] that was at Level 5, had been able to cancel out the HP loss effect of the poison, if not the hallucinations and the pain, as the poison had been only a weak one. If the poison had been a particularly strong one, the creature wouldn't have been so fortunate.

With the mystery somewhat solved, the caterpillar rested within the shade of plant for a few more moments before it checked the leaves of the plant again. Only after it had confirmed a few times that the plant was not poisonous did it begin to consume the leaves.

The next week passed in a blur as it did nothing but eat and sleep. And as it was no longer exhausted enough to justify the use of the original hole that it had dug, it had carved out a new place for itself to rest for the weary nights.

Its continued feasting had had net it some results and by the time moon rose in the sky, with azure light this time, the creature had managed to level up to [Level: 27], which had raised its HPR to 3/Day and HP to [HP: 32/32]. With the increase in its HPR, the creature had been able to reach its maximum HP.

With a grimace, the creature stopped eating as a thought popped up in its mind, yet again. It was something, that had occurred to it, soon after it had been poisoned. Though at the time, the memory of the poison had still been fresh and the creature had absolutely refused to entertain that thought.

Now though, that some time had passed, the thought had made its comeback and it had seemed to become more and more promising, to the little caterpillar, with every passing day.

The creature was in a world that had a single rule, Kill or be Killed. In the midst of such an environment, the creature needed every advantage that it could get. And the thought that kept on popping in its mind, promised to provide an extremely obvious advantage.

It scowled in resignation, accepting the path laid down within its mind. After all, the Skill [Venom Creation] increased the potency of poison-based on the resistances obtained by [Poison Resistance].

However, with this simple decision, something monumental occurred as the war within the creature's mind tilted in the favour of a faction rather than other. All the while, the creature remained unbothered. It remained ignorant.

With a defeated sigh, the little caterpillar headed towards the poisonous plant and crawled up the stalk. Slowly it began to chomp down on the tiny stalks connecting the leaves to the stem and spat out the pulp within its mouth.

It had no intention of getting poisoned while still within the vicinity of the poisonous plant. As the leaves fell and gathered on the ground, one after another, once again a defeated sigh escaped the creature. 'This is going to be laborious.'

Once the little being had crawled back down, it grabbed the leaves one by one and slowly, ever so slowly, dragged the leaves towards its little hideout. Once it had dragged the leaf to its hideout, it crawled back to the pile of fallen leaves to repeat the process again. It continued this process until it had gathered all the leaves at the mouth of its hideout.

Once the preparations were done, it crawled into the hole, but this time, with its ass down the hole and mouth sticking out. Then it began devouring on the leaves. It ate through the bitter leaves and continued to consume them until, soon, none were left.

And then it waited with bated breath; for it knew what was coming. As it waited, its heart raced and its eyes twitched every other moment. The wait of the inevitable seemed scarier than the actual event itself.

It took a few moments more than the last time but the poison exploded all at once and its body began to convulse as the pain began to rummage through the tiny being. It convulsed and it shrieked. It screamed its minuscule heart out but the tiny being that it was, its voice was even smaller.

Its vision began to blur and its sense of smell went wonky again. The world started to dance this time and it smelled the odour of swamp and rain. The caterpillar knew that it was nowhere near a swamp and that it hadn't rained since its birth but that little knowledge didn't help as its body continued to squirm.

Eventually, the poison ran its course and the convolutions stopped.

Half panting and half gasping, the little caterpillar finally relaxed its body and laid still, exhausted. That had been rough; way rougher than what it had expected. It grimaced. It now had to go through that ordeal again who knew how many times more. It was so not looking forward to doing this again.

Reaching out, it covered the opening with a dried-out leaf and crawled deeper into the hole and called its Status.

Noticing the HP at [HP: 32/32], the creature activated [Survive Lv.1] and immediately felt weariness take over its mind as its HP decreased to [HP: 16/32].

The creature has a reason for using the Skill despite not being in any kind of danger. The effect that the Skill, [Moulting] had on its battered and bruised body had been weighing on its mind for quite some time now. And this caused the creature to think back on its newest Skill.

Despite the tiny being's initial estimate, the creature could now see the potential within the skill. Thus, the caterpillar had decided to level up the Skill. It was not only [Survive] that the creature had decided to level up though. It had also decided to level up [Moulting] too.

However, the [Survivor]'s plan faced its first challenge in the form of its abysmal HP regeneration. It took the creature an entire day to regenerate just 2 points worth of HP. Under such conditions, the creature could only sigh and use both the Skills, alternatively, when its HP finally reached its maximum value.

0.0

The caterpillar woke up to the feeling of its insides ready to burst. It was a sensation that was not unknown to the creature. Instead, over the course of the 5 weeks that it had been alive again, this sensation had become the alarm that had woken it up each morning.

After finishing its morning ablutions, it began to crawl towards the poisonous tree and, just like every other day, chewed on the tiny stems connecting the leaves to the rest of the plant.

Since the creature wanted to get this torture over with as soon as possible, it had decided to go through the torture, first thing in the morning. Just how intelligent this decision was, the creature did not care. Its fractured mind was too focused on instant gratification that it would provide.

Thus, it chewed on 10 leaves and let them fall, before slowly dragging the fallen leaves back to its hideout. Once the creature had settled too, it began munching on the bitter leaves one by one. As the leaves slowly made their way down its mouth, the creature felt a familiar sensation as the world began to tilt.

The caterpillar immediately stopped eating and quickly covered its hideout with the half-eaten leaf before burrowing deep into the hole.

The quiver, the shakes and the motion sickness started a little later than usual and so did the hallucination. It suffered through them all, albeit not silently. Nausea hit the creature then and bile rose up in its mouth.

Fortunately for the creature, nausea did not last long and was soon gone. When the torment finally ended, the little insect made its way towards the non-poisonous plant which had become its new source of food and began munching on one of its numerous leaves.

The day passed by quickly. There were no sudden attacks by the bird and no poison induced hallucinations. The caterpillar merely devoured the tasteless leaves aimlessly and uneventfully.

Ting.

[You have levelled Up! Level up bonus of +1 HP granted.]

Startled by the sudden noise, the creature paused for a moment before it noticed that it had reached [Level: 36] which had caused its HP to increase to [HP: 41/41]. It did not cause the creature to smile though. For the creature was, once again making its way towards the poisonous plant.

The ordeal, as usual, was not over soon. It seemed to stretch on and on and when it was finally over, the creature sighed in relief and crawled in completely. Making itself comfortable in its home, it opened its Status and used the skill [Survive] once again as it creature had already finished one use of both, [Survive] and [Moulting], in the past few weeks.

The creature sighed as its HP immediately fell by 21 points.

-X-

Within a desolate desert, inside a dilapidated shop, on a simple chair, a youth seemingly slept.

-X-

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Spoiler: Spoiler

Name: Unnamed

Race: Immortal

Species: Insect

Vessel: Caterpillar

Level: 36

HP: 20/41 MP: -

HPR: 4/Day MPR: -

Lifespan: 55 days

Titles

[Hungry] [Reincarnated] [Survivor]

Skills

[Crawl Lv.1] [Moulting Lv.2] [Poison Resistance Lv.5] [Venom Creation Lv.2] [Pain Resistance Lv.3] [Survive Lv.1]