Chapter 2 - I Eat Therefore I Am

It would seem that my body is amorphous and my real form isn't actually

humanoid at all. I could tell when I turned into the human king because it felt

like my body practically melted down in the process and changed in its basic

structure. Then I became a proper human not just on the outside, but on the

inside, too. For the duration of my transformation, I felt my heart beating, my

lungs drawing air and my muscles flexing as I shifted my body weight from

one leg to the other.

In other words, I'm like a mimicking slime that can recreate anything down

to the cellular level, using genetic information gained through consumption.

This means I should be able to gather the pieces of my body that I lost and

add them back to my mass by reabsorbing them.

But I have no idea where to find my pieces. It's not like I was on a train and

they fell out of the window; I can't just find them by walking back along the

tracks. It'd be more akin to traveling at high speeds in a jet plane and

dropping them at different points. In other words, it's practically impossible

to find them again.

Basically, I'm stuck in this loli form for now.

Fortunately, this is a forest, so there are no wild beasts around that could be

enticed by my appearance and attempt to eat me up. In the sexual sense.

Unfortunately, this is a forest, so there are bound to be wild beasts that could

be enticed by my appearance and attempt to eat me up. Not in the sexual

sense.

Of course, all these thoughts are moot, because I'm actually staring into the

eyes of one such beast. And not the kind I could scare away by pulling the

latch on a crime prevention buzzer.

It's a wolf-like creature with a row of sharp and pointy spines running

down its back. With shoulders about as tall as I am in my current form, it's

easily the size of a tiger. And at my diminished height, it looks more like a

giant bear.

Why is the first more dangerous monster in these kinds of stories almost

always a wolf? I got past the slime level solely based on the fact that I basically am one myself, so it instantly jumped to wolves next?

For now, neither of us is moving, but as if realizing that I'm alone and

helpless, the beast begins to sneer. At least that's how I perceive its facial

expression, as it bares its sharp fangs and takes a step forward.

Maou-mama, you didn't teach me how a Crawling Chaos fights. Floating

into my mind is the image of her in the elven queen's form, avoiding looking

at me, winking and sticking out her tongue. I can picture her say 'tee hee'

while knocking herself on the head.

I flip a table in my mind.

I run away in reality.

There's nothing I can do with my small stature and little mass, and against a

monster that seems more likely than not to be a member of a pack no less. If I

hurt it, it will most likely call for its companions, and I'll have a dozen of

them on my tail. At least I'm confident in my ability to run away; after all, I'm

a track and field ace.

Obviously, I forgot that I'm not really myself right now.

As if my short legs could outrun a canine's four legs! In fact, even if I were

at full size, a wolf can still run faster than a human! It catches up with me in

no time and pushes me down.

Ahn, I'm going to get eaten~

Sorry, now is not the time to make such jokes, I'm seriously in a pinch

here.

With just its front paw on my back I'm completely pinned and unable to

move. Its saliva drips on the ground next to me, and the dried leaves begin to

sizzle and dissolve from it. Acid saliva on a hunter-predator? Why is that a

thing? Only the god of fantasy knows.

Then I hear a sniffing sound from very close to my ears, and a shiver runs

down my back. That feels like the last stage before a test bite. I'm seriously

going to get eaten! The story of Chaos-chan is going to end here, Maoumama. I'm sorry to disappoint you...

With a whimper, the creature takes its paw off of me and runs away with

its tail between its legs, as if it just smelled something foul.

I cry.

Hey, come back! Take responsibility and eat me!

I don't stink!

So that's how a Crawling Chaos fights in the wild? By being unpalatable?

I'm sorry for being born, world. Nobody would want to eat something that

would take precedence to a cockroach when getting a mosaic applied to it,

right? Even though right now I look like I did when I was ten years old.

With that in mind, I feel like crying some more...

Since the immediate danger has been averted, I have time for such idle

thoughts. Maou-mama said that we would begin with my training right away

before I was teleported here. Does that mean I have to survive in the wild on

my own for a set length of time and she'll come and get me at the end of it?

Or will I have to find back to the palace on my own?

In either case, it would appear that at least I'm not a member of the natural

food chain around these parts. But there may always be a monster that eats

even things that look unappetizing or inedible.

Like me.

In fact, I'm feeling so hungry that I could eat myself. It should have been

less than an hour since I had basically a whole human body as breakfast, but

I'm already starving. There's no cute rumbling noise coming from my

stomach, as would usually be the case in these situations. Instead, it feels like

I'm actually eating myself from the inside out, dissolving my body to create

energy to keep me going.

And it's a really uncomfortable feeling.

There the wolf is again, or maybe it's another one of its species, I can't tell

animals apart too well. It's eating a small furry animal it just hunted, and I can

feel my insides churn at the sight of blood and guts. But for some reason, it's

not nausea as one would expect, but rather pure and unadulterated hunger.

My mind seems to go blank at the sensation, and my conscious thoughts feel

jumbled.

I want to... no, I need to eat!

Noticing my approach, the wolf moves around to keep me within its line of

sight. I won't fight you over that small thing since it won't satisfy me in my

current state.

I'll have you instead!

Dissolving my appearance, I transform into the shape I had earlier this

morning. My arms and legs are made of tentacles, so if I spread them out,

they should become longer. It's really strange, I somehow know what I'm

capable of, how to move all these individual appendages and use them to

their full potential. These must be inborn instincts.

The wolf yelps at my sight, and I can see that it's terrified by my

appearance. But that only seems to fuel my hunger further.

Unraveling my leg tentacles at blinding speed, they expand like a spring,

and I lunge forward like a horizontal Jack in the Box. Taken by surprise, the

wolf flinches and is unable to respond in time. I latch onto it with my whole

body, like a squid grabbing onto a whale, making sure to seal its mouth so

that it can't call out for its pack if it has one.

It thrashes around and slams me into the ground, but I don't even feel the

impact because of my elastic body. As I cover its entire head, I begin to

strangle it with my unexpectedly powerful tentacles. All the while, my mind

is filled with delight at the thought that I'm taking a life to feed myself.

But for some reason, it doesn't feel wrong.

Finally, the beast stops moving and only twitches a few times, before it

slackens completely. Just to be sure, I stay attached for a little longer, until

I'm sure that it's dead. Then I let go and peer down on the lifeless body on the

ground before me, a single thought overwhelming my mind.

Eat.

It's already been around two hours since I've come to this world, so if this

is a dream, it's quite the long one. Still, within this time, I had a man inside

me, and now I'm taking in a beast.

My body seems to be significantly bigger on the inside, so I have no

problem taking my prey in, even though it's more than five times my mass. A

Crawling Chaos' body seems to defy the laws of physics since, at the end of it

all, nothing shows on the outside.

Also, it would appear that I'm actually quite strong. If I had been a normal

human, this wolf would have mauled me to death, and I wouldn't even have

been able to put up a fight. But now, anything that I can take inside me can

serve as food.

Now that the immediate danger of starving to death has been averted, it

slowly dawns on me what just happened. I just killed a living creature in a

very gruesome way, and I did it ruthlessly without questioning my actions at

all. Even the excuse of starvation doesn't explain how I could do what I just

did. Is that my true nature? Am I a natural-born killer?

But this is a dream, so I shouldn't think about it too much.

Let's gather some information about this place and myself. Even if I could wake up at any moment, I should try to enjoy the ride for as long as it goes

on. This is an adventure after all.

First things first, I need to find out where I've been transported to. It's not

like I know any landmarks other than what I saw from inside the palace, but I

guess you could say that the barren landscape with the jutting jagged rock

formations would indicate proximity to the castle. In other words, I need to

get my bearings first and see how extensive this forest is.

Therefore, I climb the tallest tree I can find. Halfway up I realize that using

my tentacles would be faster than doing it in my human form. But it's strange

how quickly it naturally comes to me that I can utilize a method I wouldn't

even have dreamt of using before.

Well, I guess now I am dreaming of it.

Same for eating by directly taking things into my body rather than through

my mouth. Now that I've experienced it, I can't help but think that it's much

more efficient. If only I could do this in reality.

When I reach the top of the tree, all I can see is a sea of dark green leaves,

surrounded by mountains on all sides. This place is most likely a valley

inside a mountain range. Maou-mama, why did you send me somewhere this

far away without even a return transportation circle for when you come to

pick me up? Don't tell me she just abandoned me here? Did I do something to

anger her?

I snap my head around and stare into the distance, where a huge

cumulonimbus cloud moves into view between two mountains. It catches my

eyes because it's faster than feels natural for a giant cloud like that.

Then it stops.

Now it begins moving back to where it came from, against the direction of

the wind, as if it has a mind of its own. That's no cloud...

And if those mountains are as tall as I think they are, that thing must be as

tall as Mount Fuji. So that's a living being? That's scary! Now I know which

direction I will not be going in.

Or actually, this is a dream, so why don't I go and check it out? I'm sure

that's the most fun way to spend an adventurous dream. Yep, I'll laugh danger

in the face and rush headlong towards it.

When I descend the tree, I find myself surrounded by a whole pack of the

wolf-like creature I ate earlier. There are at least a dozen of them, staring at

me with their piercing yellow eyes. A low rumbling growl comes at me from all sides, and they begin to tighten the circle slowly.

I'm sorry for laughing you in the face, danger!

Forgive me for killing and eating your friend in such a gruesome way, too!

But he attacked me, so I had no choice!

The one closest to me lunges forward, and I use a tentacle to pull myself

back up the tree. The wolf-like beast isn't so stupid as to hit the trunk, and

stops just short of it, bearing its teeth at me from below.

I think for now I'm safe since I'm sure that wolves can't climb on trees with

their claws. But normal wolves also don't have spines growing out of their

backs or possess acid saliva.

Now is the time to explore how my body works. My teeth are as hard as the

real deal, even though my actual form is so soft and malleable. In other

words, I should be able to create claws or even blades out of teeth or bones.

Kind of like a certain alien race that takes over a human body through their

heads and can grow all kinds of appendages with blades and spikes.

When I try to visualize changing my hand into a curved blade, I feel my

actual hand dissolving and morphing into a new shape. It comes out pretty

well, and it took only a few seconds. While it doesn't look too sharp, I should

be able to refine it more through training my visualization skills.

Now I understand my mother's plan in throwing me out into the wilderness.

It's for me to learn through experiencing dangerous situations that force me to

think of ways to utilize this body's abilities. Then again, would somebody

without the knowledge of all kinds of games and movies have been able to do

the same as I just did?

I refine the blade as best as I can by visualizing an actual knife, before

testing it by slashing a nearby branch. My blade hand makes a clean cut, and

the branch drops down to the wolf-beasts below, which hop back in surprise,

before growling up to me again. With this, I can fight them.

Still, I don't want to jump down and face these numbers straight on, since

my body isn't back to its full size, even after having eaten an entire wolf

earlier. It seems that a Crawling Chaos has a pretty dense body, which

requires more mass than one would think when looking at it from the outside.

I can extend my arm like a whip, by turning it into one long tentacle. This

way, it's both flexible and prehensile, and I can exert much better control over

my swing. And my attacks should be pretty powerful since I noticed that my

tentacles do seem to have quite the strength in them despite not looking likeit.

All I have to make sure of now is that I don't fall off my branch like a

moron. That wouldn't even be funny as a gag if I were to swing and miss, and

then also fall. Turning my lower body into a mass of tentacles like I did when

I attacked the first wolf-like beast, I grab onto the trunk of the tree and anchor

myself in place. With this precaution out of the way, I finally turn my

attention to the enemies below, which have started to circle the tree.

I snap my whip arm down towards one of them. It tries to dodge, but isn't

able to avoid it completely and receives a deep gash in its flank. Whining

from the pain, it jumps back and tries to lick its wound. The others from its

pack witnessed it and immediately take some distance, before looking up at

me with their teeth bared in impotent anger.

A brave one runs forward, jumps up and tries to increase its reach by

bouncing off the tree. I'm too high up, so it drops back down without having

even come close. Swinging my arm just before it lands, I make sure it can't

dodge at all. The bone blade cut off one of its front legs, causing it to howl in

pain and scramble to get away from me.

This is going really well!

Without any warning, all the wolves seem to enter a frenzy, as they leap

forward and bite at the tree trunk.

Have they gone crazy at their impotence?

No wait, they have acid saliva!

Large sizzling holes open up in the tree where they bite into the bark, and

the support is beginning to shrink. With the weight above the trunk, it'll break

and topple soon.

I'm sorry I got ahead of myself again!

Now that it's come to this, I can only try and quickly finish them off before

the tree falls over. Swinging my arm all over the place, I cut deep wounds

into several of the wolves' bodies. Those that are hit especially hard quickly

take their distance, but the others endure it to finish their work.

Snapping sounds emerge from the trunk, and the world tilts before my eyes

as the tree slowly bends and falls. Before I get entangled in the branches, I

jump off. I land right on the back of the wolf-beast whose leg I cut off. It

yelps in surprise and fear, but can't shake me off.

Wrapping my tentacle legs around it, I begin to pull it inside my body.

With this, I gain some extra mass for the battle.

At the same time as the tree hits the ground, the unfortunate creature is

completely absorbed. Several of the remaining ones are wounded, but it

doesn't change the fact that I'm outnumbered. And without hesitation, they all

lunge at me with their fangs bared, ready to bite down on me and dissolve me

with their acid saliva.

They run into a wall of spikes.

I changed the surface of my skin into sharp spikes made of bone and

extended them outwards at an explosive rate. All the beasts impale

themselves on me due to their speed. Let alone affecting me with their acid

saliva, their mouths can't even reach my main body as they twitch in their

death throes.

When I retract the spikes and change back into my human appearance, a

circle of carcasses has formed around me. I've seen something similar with a

slime-like creature in a game I played a while ago, although it only used that

to attack the player during its turn rather than as a defensive tool.

I'm sure this is where I would have leveled up if this was a game-based

setting. But in reality, resourcefulness beats raw parameters. Or I guess in a

realistic-feeling dream in this case. As seen with these beasts, I could defeat

them with very simple yet effective methods. If the attacks with my

transformed blade had been based on stats, surely I wouldn't even have

penetrated their skin. And the spikes would most likely have broken from the

impact of their bodies, rather than impale them.

In either case, I don't want to be known as someone who wastes lives and

food, even in my dreams. So I'll eat them all if I can.

I said bigger on the inside before, but now I know that my body is like a

bottomless pit. No matter how many of the wolf-beasts I consume, it doesn't

show on the outside at all. Is it possible that I have a black hole for a

stomach? Are glutton characters still considered cute these days? I think my

species might actually need to eat a considerable amount all the time, so I

can't help it.

Even with all of them inside me, I don't feel them weighing me down. I

must have eaten about a ton of those wolf creatures just now, but there's no

weight gain either. I'm still as light as I was before, which kind of defies all

laws of physics.

Then again, this is a dream, so those laws have no meaning here. It'sanother indicator that this is just a dream. Just a dream!

That aside, these animals are pretty bland in their taste. Well, I say taste,

but I'm not really using any taste buds. The sensation they give me while

dissolving inside my body is nowhere as good as the ones I got from the

various dishes made from the human king.

I can feel that I have more mass to work with now. After losing the lower

half of my body and my arms during the teleportation, my matter had been

severely limited. But now that I consumed so much and dissolved a lot of

matter into my body, I can grow it all back.

No matter how I think about it, I'm really just like a slime. But I'm nowhere

as weak as one; I mean, if I were a slime, the story would have ended with

me getting hit once by a human I just caused a mild inconvenience to

somewhere on a field, who will later grow into the fated hero who defeats the

demon lord. Instead, I easily killed a bunch of monsters that seem more like

midgame content. Alright, enough of these gaming analogies.

Now, let's aim for that huge cloud-like mountain-sized monster over there.

Come what will, I'm invincible as long as I can change my body into the

shape of a giant hedgehog with hard spikes.

Sea urchin? I have no idea what you mean; it's a cute hedgehog!

Hearing the rumbling of heavy footsteps, I hide in a brush and wait. While

I doubt it's something I couldn't defeat, it's better to be wary in any case; I

don't actually feel like waking up just yet.

What approaches is a giant Tyrannosaurus-like robot that could flatten me

with a single step of its massive feet.

Most of its body is plated with gray steel panels, and the spaces between

them show that cables are running through it, which are all covered in metal.

In other words, everything about it is tougher than what I can produce;

Hedgehog Mode will be useless against it.

I got carried away again, I'm sorry!

As if to mock my hubris from earlier, the robot dinosaur bites into the trunk

of a tree, and the sound of a machine buzzing emerges from inside its

metallic jaws. Splinters of wood fly everywhere and the tree is sawed down.

That's one of those tree-felling machines I saw on TV once!

But it seems to be more than just a machine, and it's walking on two feet.

Well, it looks like a herbivore, so it shouldn't pose a threat to me. With it

being so loud, there's no way to be surprised by it, so it can't be a hunter-predator.

A metal foot slams down right next to my hiding place, and my body jumps

into the air a few inches. Turning my head, I look into the maw of another

such cyber-dino.

Those are quite the impressive teeth, but are you brushing properly? You

got some meat and fur stuck in there, you know?

Rolling on the floor in an unsightly fashion, I dodge the jaws of death. The

brush I just occupied is crunched and disappears into the robot's mechanical

stomach effortlessly.

That was too close for comfort!

Then I see its eye from up close. It's more like a camera lens, with what

seems to be a floodlight lamp right next to it. The head somewhat resembles a

box-like car - if a car could split at the grill and instead of an engine, it had a

collection of saws and blades in there.

Wait, why are you looking at me like that? I'm inedible, so don't even think

about it!

The other one also notices me and begins to approach. I can't fight these;

they're practically living construction equipment!

I'm on the run once again, chased by these two huge cyber-dinos. Saying it

like that sounds like a gag in a trashy movie, but when their jaws are

humming with buzz saws, and their metal soles create small earthquakes with

every step, I can't laugh about it at all.

What's with the sharp increase in the level of this area? The wolves are in a

completely different league from these!

Speaking of wolves, why am I running in my human form? It's far less

efficient when compared to that of a quadruped, especially in a forest.

With this though, I reach into my mind for the information I acquired

through their genetic material and morph into one of those beasts still

dissolving inside me. When I feel my new body, elation fills my mind at the

thought that I can be anything I want and I forget the looming danger for a

second.

The sound of saws buzzing behind me pulls me back into reality, and I take

off running as fast as I can. With four legs made for sprinting, a whole new

sensation washes over me. The wind in the fur feels really nice, as I speed

through the forest effortlessly, and much faster than I have ever traveled in

human form before.

The cyber-dinos soon give up when they realize that they can't catch up to

me at all. While I have a feeling that they'll never tire, since they're literally

machines, they must have some reason for not continuing the chase. In either

case, as long as I remain in this form, I'll be able to outrun them easily.

Still, how am I supposed to fight them? I don't think bone or teeth are

enough to even scratch them, and while they look slow, getting stepped on by

them, or ending up between their jaws spells certain doom. In other words, I'd

better steer clear of them until I know more about how they work, such as

weak spots in the form of exterior gas tanks or something silly like that.

I've certainly learned a lesson from my encounter with the cyber-dinos;

there's always a bigger fish.

And here I am, making my way towards the cloud-mountain thing again,

which is most likely the biggest fish in this world. I'm sure there won't be any

dangerous monsters around it, and since I'm so tiny, it won't notice me.

But if I could eat it, what would happen to me? My interior seems to be

limitless, so if I can only create an opening big enough to pull that being

inside, I'd be able to swallow it whole. I'm sure I'd have to really stretch

myself open to take that giant thing inside me, though.

Somehow this has become a journey of eating various kinds of monsters.

But I'm not a master combat cook who travels the world to gather rare

ingredients for the ultimate meal. I just swallow things whole with no room

for enjoyment of taste.

That doesn't make for a great adventure, though.

I spot a lone wolf-beast again. Without hesitation, I lunge at it and wrap my

body around its mouth, before taking it into my depths. This is getting easier,

and my reluctance has completely disappeared. In only a few hours, I've

become a participant in the struggle for survival in this untamed wilderness.

There's no room for thinking about the sanctity of life if nobody else around

you does it.

For example, over there a gorilla-like creature with an incredibly muscular

frame and orange stripes on its fierce face is leaning over the carcass of a

wolf-beast and ripping flesh from it with its bare hands. So, these wolves are

only small fry in this place then? To think it felt like such an achievement to

defeat one at the very beginning.

Ah, it saw me.

Well, it doesn't look like this ape has metal skin, and it's only barely larger

than the wolf-beasts, so my offensive and defensive abilities should be

enough to handle it.

It stands up and looks at me curiously. I'm back in my sports uniformslash-body paint, so it should be something it has never seen before. It sniffs

the air and grimaces, then pumps out its chest and beats it a few times, just

like a gorilla.

Then, without warning, it sprints towards me on all fours and throws up

both arms to let them crash down on me. Ending it with the hedgehog move

would be the fastest, but it's boring, isn't it? Instead, I extend my right hand

into a blade once again, dodge underneath the muscular arms and stab at the

ape's exposed abdomen. Feeling it connect, I step sideways and cut open the

beast's belly, from which a bunch of organs falls out.

While grabbing at the intestines to push them back into the gaping wound,

the gorilla's eyes roll up in their sockets, and it collapses forward. Well, that

was really easy; I half-expected the pattern where it calls out its friends and a

whole army of its kind will arrive to take revenge. This one was most likely

quite a bit stronger than the wolves, but I'm on a whole different level

compared to these. And now that I'm getting a better grasp of my capabilities,

I'm going to leave them in the dirt.

There has to be a monster between these and the cyber-dinos that I could

get a little more thrill out of without having too much of a level difference.

Actually, I'm interested in seeing how I would fare against a human warrior

now. But from on top of the tree, I didn't see anything resembling manmade

structures, so I guess that's something for the future. I mean, the demon queen

did say that the humans and elves attacked her gates yesterday. So if I don't

wake up anytime soon, I will get to experience a war between a human-elves

coalition and the demons eventually.

Well, I won't take this half-eaten carcass of a wolf, but the ape goes inside

my pocket dimension of a stomach, where it quickly begins to dissolve. I'm

getting faster at digesting stuff, so I wonder if I can also slow the speed and

keep something alive inside me? I'll experiment a little next time I come

across something living.

Which just happens to be another wolf-beast.

This is getting repetitive...

I quickly ensnare and absorb it, while willing myself not to outright digest it within seconds. I can feel its heart beating in the depths of my body, but I'm

sure its breath will run out sooner or later. I haven't been inside myself, so I

can't tell whether there is even any space in which something can remain

without getting crushed by my matter. Regardless, this is an experiment I can

conduct while on the move.

How many hours have I been here now? I think at least half a day of

walking and eating has passed, but I don't feel tired at all. Must be part of my

constitution.

But mentally, I start to feel exhaustion creeping up. I've been on my toes

since coming here, and I've done things I would have been either grossed out

by or never even considered doing before. Just earlier, disemboweling the ape

came naturally to me and I didn't bat an eye at it, but when I think about it

from the point of view of a simple high school girl from peaceful Japan, I

suppress a shudder.

Really, what's wrong with my subconscious? Is this dream trying to

process some repressed urges I never knew I had? Do I have the hidden

desire to kill all kinds of living beings and eat them? Am I a closet murderer

and cannibal?

Ugh, when I think about it so much, I'm beginning to feel sick. What would

happen if I threw up now? Of course, a sparkling, rainbow-colored fountain

of half-digested animal parts would come flying out.

I stop for a moment and heave a sigh. I never knew being surrounded by

nature could be so nerve-wracking. I enjoyed running in the fields and on the

forest paths when visiting my grandparents' home near Aomori, but real

nature is completely different. Here, I don't have a way to retreat to humanity

when I feel overwhelmed by all the greenery; aside from being in the depths

of an untouched forest, I'm also a monster.

Suddenly, I feel like waking up from this long dream... I can give myself a

little pain and do just that, right?

I pinch my cheek since I'm in a human body and have fingernails. But

instead of pain, I only feel my skin extending more than it should. At the

same time, it's clear that I do have sensations in my body. Otherwise, I

wouldn't have been able to feel the stuff I swallowed, or my skin extending

just now.

Don't tell me this isn't a dream? I really died and reincarnated as the daughter of the demon queen, ate a human's steamed head by inserting it into

my chest, and just absorbed more than a ton of wild animal carcasses that I

killed, using my monstrous body?

Then the heartbeat of the wolf-beast I tried to keep alive inside me stops.

Urp...

A sparkling, rainbow-colored fountain of half-digested animal parts shoots

up into the sky.