Pest Control

Chapter 127: Pest Control

Traversing the ash-filled wasteland was not as bad as the dream to Mercury. sure, there were more monsters, but they were the kind he could see and harm. All made from flesh and blood. And teeth and claws, but those were really just side notes.

The biggest difference, though, was that he could see them. He wasn't constantly enveloped in fog, or dragged down by the muddy ground. While there was danger everywhere, it was easy to be aware of it, and just avoid the creatures he stood no chance at.

Occasionally, when his stomach rumbled, Mercury would have to go on a hunt. He'd spend some time looking around, seeing if he could find a lone, injured creature, maybe one that had just finished a fight, but wasn't already swarmed by more monsters. It would take some time, but usually it made for a fairly safe procedure, especially if he could sneak up on them.

However, what turned out to be his biggest challenge were the nights. Not just because of the strange dream, though that was unsettling too, but rather because he had to sleep. Sure, he could stay awake for a day and a half, maybe even two full days, but at that point he would be sluggish and distracted, making him easy picking for the other things roaming through the ash.

No, staying awake until he reached his hopeful source of water was not an option. Finding somewhere he could sleep safely also proved quite difficult. He had his log with him, sure, but against the grey of the landscape it would stand out quite a bit. In the end, he'd usually look for some sort of crack or crevice he could fit in, then saw whether they were already occupied.

He had to run more than once when he entered the home of a very unwilling host, and once he even ended up with nowhere to sleep at all after hours of searching, instead deciding to simply settle on the nearest hill. He would check if they were a monster, or really just an actual hill, then summon his log, get inside, then bury it with <Telekinesis>.

Usually, he sealed the entrances with <Thread>, hoping it would stop any invaders or at least let him hear them coming and react. Luckily, it only happened once, and he very quickly dispatched the thorny weasel that had made its way towards him.

At least eating the monsters hadn't been too bad. The tasted mostly bland, sometimes outright terrible, and Mercury was pretty sure that <Appraisal> had lied about something being edible at the very least once. The creature had been about the size of a raccoon, except it wasn't a raccoon at all. Instead, it looked like a scaly octopus with additional tentacles stitched onto its head, all ending in chitinous stingers.

Mercury shook his head and focused on the task at hand again. He could see the source of water now, it was only half a day's march away, and Mercury's throat burned in anticipation. His water hadn't lasted him quite as long as he thought, so despite his best efforts, he was beyond parched.

Still, he showed self control. He could make out a few other, small silhouettes near the water, though he couldn't quite make out what they were from the distance. The monotonous landscape tended to mess with his perception a bit, so the could be anywhere between the size of a housecat, to that of a large dog.

Sighing, Mercury hoped it would the former and carefully continued on, avoiding the creatures in his path. more than once, he was sized up, but nothing that couldn't be solved with a quick rock to the face.

As he got closer, the mopaaw tried his best to suppress the gurgling of his stomach. Trying to take his mind off the glorious blueish liquid in front of him was a fool's errand, but he still didn't exactly want to give away his position to whatever was near the pond.

Looking at the silhouettes as he got closer was strange. They moved very little, and when they did, it usually was clumsily, almost stumbling over their own appendages. There were all types of creatures, too, he now noted. There were cats with dozens of blinking eyes on their backs, hounds that seemed eternally enveloped by a black mist, large tortoises whose shells seemed somewhat strained.

Seeing all of these creatures lurching around was unsettling. They would have been at each others' throats literally anywhere else, yet somehow here they seemed to care very little for fighting. Mercury could tell that something about this lake was off now, strangely so, but he also knew that if he didn't get any water now, he most likely wouldn't find another chance.

With a grim expression, he began slowly feeling his way towards the ponds, wary of being as quiet as possible. The closer he got, the more eerie things were. The monsters around the water all behaved more like puppets on strings rather than their own individuals.

Bit by bit, the Mopaaw approached further, until he was close enough to strike one of them with a rock if he wanted to. He was breathing as slowly as he could, watching for just a bit longer. Was it his imagination, or did the pond just move for a moment?

Mercury squinted his eyes, trying his hardest to spot any detail, when he noticed it. There were tiny shadows flitting through the water. Some were larger, tohers smaller, but there were things living inside the pond.

For a moment, he closed his eyes and tried to see if anything was strange about the mana in this place. He began expanding his own, sending a tendril out of his body and towards the pond, approaching it bit by bit, when it made contact with something else, and Mercury suddenly felt watched.

The head of every single creature near the water suddenly snapped to his position, and while he was out of sight for most of them, a few did end up spotting him, only to immediately start charging.

"Oh shit," Mercury cursed, heading off into the opposite direction as fast as he could. The creatures moved less clumsily now, with more purpose, but they still couldn't quite catch up with him. Occasionally, they would stumble or slow, and even the few who might have been faster than him were tripped up by the threads Mercury strung up as he fled.

After darting around a jagged rock outcropping, Mercury quickly activated <Drake's Wings> for the first time in forever, gaining a sudden boost of speed, that allowed him to take a few more turns and disappear from the creatures' eyes before they caught up.

Trying his best to make the most of the effect, Mercury looked for somewhere he could set up a temporary residence. The area he was in now was much more rocky than where he had started, with quite a few jagged walls and cliffs, as though some giant had simply carved chunks out of the hills with their bare hands.

But for Mercury that much was a clear advantage. If he had a place to hide and rest, he could set up webs over this entre area, which would slow the creatures down, and even muddle their thoughts. With that in mind, he scoured the area for some sort of crack in the stone.

Luckily, it wasn't his first time searching, so it didn't take him too long to find something. A burrow, whose entrance was wide enough for him to comfortably walk through, but also tucked away at the bottom of a bland wall, and easily hidden by a cover of ash. It fit the bill perfectly, now he just had to find out whether or not there was already a tenant occupying the area.

Feeling his stomach growl at him again, Mercury decided to not put it off any longer and just get it done. The cloak's blessing had sadly already worn off, it was quite potent, but since he hadn't used it a lot, the activation time was still just about a minute. Trying to get himself an advantage, he instead spun a few pieces of <Thread> together, keeping a small web floating near him with <Telekinesis>.

He'd devised the tactic while hunting for food before, and it'd proven quite effective at slowing anything down before it could react. After a few moments of making his way through the entrance tunnel, it opened up into a slightly larger, dome shaped room. it was about three meters wide, and one meter high, letting Mercury more than comfortably stand in it.

In the middle of the burrow there was a creature curled up. It had a long, snakelike body, but it was covered in fur instead of scales, its head tucked away. Given its position, and lack of movement against the intruder, Mercury guessed it was asleep. A slight smile found itself onto his lips, as he began to cover the room in webs.

Silently, he weaved them from wall to wall, completely trapping the furry snake inside without actually touching it. Then, finally, the web he'd kept afloat with <Telekinesis> descended onto the monster.

Its reaction was immediate, uncoiling as a snake's head covered in fur and with two curved horns on its head rose from the heap of its body. However, while the creature was still unwrapping itself, it made contact with the webs on its side, getting stuck in the process.

When it realized what was happening, its mind was already sluggish, and it began thrashing around on instinct, only getting itself more stuck in the process. Maybe if it had more time to think, it could have gotten itself out of the situation, but Mercury wasn't exactly planning to give it any more time to consider its options.

As the creature hissed from within its cage, hateful eyes focused on the mopaaw, Mercury quickly pulled out a few of his rocks from his inventory, tapping them before they flew off and into the snake body. It managed to dodge one aimed at its head, but the second one struck true, and a few others pierced its body, too.

Before it even had a chance to fight back, the creature was already onto its death throes, soon stopping its hissing and laying dead on the floor. Mercury then quickly removed the webs, before he began to try and eat the thing.

Its fur was stiff, more like bristles than anything, so he cut a part of it off and began to skin the snake from there. He'd gotten lucky with this, honestly. The creature actually tasted fine, at least by the standards of this place, and even bland food was a delicacy to a hungry man.

After wolfing down a good bit of his meal, Mercury moved the remainder of the body to the side of the cave. Things didn't rot as quickly as he was used to in this world, probably because of the lack of tiny insects, so he was sure it would still be edible in a day ro so at the least. For now though, he still needed a plan for the water source.

Drinking was his first priority now, after all.

Mercury spent some time in the cave just thinking. He knew that there was an assembly of creatures that protected the pond. He couldn't quite tell how many there were, but he was sure it was at least a dozen or so, each dangerous in its own right. Additionally, it seemed there was something in the water, so he might have to do something about that, too, before he would be able to finally get a proper drink.

There were a couple things at his disposal, though. He was certainly smarter and faster than the creatures, and as long as they didn't notice him, they seemed almost... dormant, moving around very little. He could attack them from range, and had simple weaponry to use against them.

Finally, they would also have to go out and eat eventually. Maybe he could kite a few of them into traps, and then take them down one after another? It was his best bet at the very least, given how his time was beginning to run rather short.

Having made up his mind, Mercury rose to his feet, exited the burrow, and scouted for good places to set up traps. There wasn't exactly a huge amount of cover that he could use to create webs, but occasionally, there were boulders close enough together for him to span a tripwire between them. He also made sure to simply set down a few webs on the ash. As long as there wasn't too much wind, they would be mostly covered by the newly fallen ash, but hopefully still tangle up whoever stepped on them.

Checking his Sp, Mercury made sure to still have more than half left after setting the traps. He still needed it for <Throw> and for running, and without enough water it regenerated slower than usually. With a bit of dissatisfaction at his traps, Mercury gave a sigh and headed towards the pond again. It wasn't perfect, but it would have to do.

Getting closer, he was once again greeted by the same sight as before. Creatures clumsily stumbling about next to the water, some hardly moving at all. He'd picked a different hiding place this time, thinking that they might be watching his previous one more closely, but the sorries seemed unfounded now.

After a moment, Mercury took out some ammunition from his inventory. Just two stones for now, since he could only control that many with <Telekinesis> and didn't want to risk multiple volleys. For a moment, he simply levitated them, picking out his targets. There was a large dog lying on the floor, faced to where Mercury had a decent shot on its right eye. Finding a second target proved a little more tricky, but after some waiting, a creature looking like a small monkey with matted fur turned towards him, and he took the chance.

Immediately, Mercury tapped both the rocks with his tail, activating <Throw> on them. With a quiet hiss, they shot forward, a thin and narrow one striking the dog's eye and sinking almost all the way into its skull, while the second, more blunt rock, struck the monkey's face right on the nose. There was a loud cracking sound, but Mercury was occupied by the system messages instead.

[Killed a shadow hound. Get: 250 Exp, 50 Gold.]

[Killed a parasitic brainworm. Get: 25 Exp, 7 Gold.]

Pulling in air through his teeth, Mercury looked forwards. The monkey was still moving, so it hadn't died, which meant that killing the dog had killed two things.

These creatures weren't paccid out of their own will, they were being controlled by something else entirely. Maybe the shadows he'd seen in the water were exactly those worms.

With a deep frown on his face, Mercury didn't wait until the monkey found him, and instead darted off immediately. Only a moment later, there was a loud screech and the sound of steps already behind him, forcing Mercury to keep his mind split after directing the two rocks to their target.

If there were parasites in the water, it definitely wasn't safe to drink, but if he didn't drink any water, he would just die of thirst. This was still his best bet, even if it meant he'd need to distill the water before drinking it.

For now though, he needed to focus on running. Fusing his mind back into one, Mercury looked behind himself, seeing that one of his traps had already worked. A large, centipede-like thing had stepped on it, pulling the web down and inwards around it. Now, it had wrapped around a few of its leg, making it move much slower.

Feeling a slight increase in his motivation, Mercury began to head towards another trap much faster, a small assembly of boulders he'd strung webs in between. The first one was more or less a tripwire, leading to another one of the buried webs. Mercury simply jumped over it, while immediately behind him, an ape with eight legs stumbled over it, falling into the web, getting entangled, and then rolling against one of the boulders with a thud.

Strangely enough, all his traps worked perfectly. He had expected the creatures to see at least one of them coming, but with every time one of them got itself caught, it seemed as though the other creatures also slowed down a little. Perhaps, since they were controlled by the worms, was there some sort of hivemind behind them, that his strings could slow down?

Thinking that, Mercury decided to quickly put it to the test, activating <Dash> and disappearing around a corner, running back to where he'd seen the many-legged ape fall into his first web. After crashing into the boulder, it didn't seem very lucid, which is why Mercury decided to try his luck with it.

Sure enough, it had hit its head against the rock, and was bleeding from its forehead, but still breathing. Since he didn't get a notification, mercury wagered the brainworm was still alive as well. As quickly as he could, he began weaving his stamina into <Thread>, wrapping it around the monkey again and again, until it was trapped to where it wouldn't be able to leave at all, with only a small hole to allow it to breathe.

Then, Mercury quickly made its way over to another one of his victims, a cat with eyes on its back that had gotten stuck against a rock when Mercury threw a web at it during the chase. Sure enough, while parts of the string were torn and damaged, by now the creature's eyes seemed confused, and it simply hung in the web, struggling weakly.

Quickly, Mercury wrapped it up, too, making sure it couldn't escape. These creatures were still completely vicious, and he wanted to avoid them regaining their clarity if he could.

Finally, after fully entrapping the centipede he'd caught close to the start of the chase, Mercury stealthily headed back to where he'd gained some distance from the remaining monsters. These, too, were now looking around aimlessly, their eyes hazy and confused. Some even ended up walking into a nearby rock, before turning around and heading somewhere else.

It seemed that his abilities were well suited to dealing with hiveminds, Mercury thought.

Still being careful, he slowly began approaching the confused critters, trying to not draw too much attention to himself. Sure enough, they all ended up completely ignoring him, sparing barely a glance his way. He quickly checked his stamina, and seeing how low it was, he decided to regenerate it again before trying to deal with the remaining worms in the pond.

After some looking, he picked out the creature that looked the least disgusting to him in the pile, a boar like thing with razor sharp tusks. Its fur was hard, and each bristle ended in a slight barb, which seemed as though they would be painful to remove.

With two quick rocks through the eyes, the creature was dead before it even had a chance to react. With some more thread and some <Telekinesis> as well, Mercury was able to remove a good chunk of the bristles, enough to at least begin peeling the skin off the monster. It still felt somewhat disgusting to do this, but his intense thirst and the knowledge that these things were hardly alive anymore because of the worms quickly helped him overcome any hesitation.

The other creatures didn't even react as Mercury filled his stomach. After the quick snack, he saw that his status was looking better, and decided he should take the time to be safe rather than sorry.

Using his regained stamina, he strung up two more of the puppet monsters. When he looked at the others, they seemed hardly able to think anymore at all, simply standing still and occasionally taking a step forward or back. It he hadn't known what was going on, it would have looked almost menacing, this legion of creatures simply standing still, hardly moving at all.

Shaking his head, Mercury quickly began to head back towards the pond. On the way, he made sure that the cat, centipede, and ape were still trapped and alive, not wanting to take any risk of getting himself accidentally infected.

Then, once he arrived at the pond, he could now see it clearly. There were dozens of them in the water, all about as large as an adult's fist. Strange, eel-like creatures with tiny, black eyes and large maws of teeth. Their back fin ended in a small, hollow stinger, which was what he guessed they used to control their hosts.

The amount of disgust Mercury felt looking at the things made his next step much easier. Activated <Telekinesis> in a relatively wide area, just enough to counteract gravity, letting him prepare a thin mesh in midair. He made sure it wasn't a full sheet of it, but he also kept the gaps in between the strings as small as he could, maybe only a square millimeter each in size.

After a long while of weaving, Mercury finally felt satisfied with his creation. With a little bit of luck, he would also be able to fish out the worms' eggs, or whatever they used to reproduce, though he would certainly make sure to distill any water from the pond before drinking it.

Lowering the mesh into the basin, Mercury began to sweep it around with telekinesis. With his zeyjn, he could make sure that it didn't get tangled up anywhere while still sweeping across the bottom nicely.

The worms didn't even attempt to escape the net, each one seemingly more lame than the last. A few of them weakly waved their tail, though it seemed more an aimless, instinctual reaction, rather than them fighting back. Sweep by sweep, Mercury dragged them out of the water, then made sure to take them off the net and kill them.

It wasn't a clean job, spilling blood over the ash, but he didn't particularly care how appetizing the corpses looked. He wasn't even considering touching those things.

After a few rounds, all the things Mercury could have seen moving were out of the water and dead, while his mesh was covered with small, black orbs. Appraisal very kindly informed him that those were the worms' eggs. Luckily, with how fragile they were, many of them perished by themselves in the open air, while others only needed a little bit of encouragement from Mercury. Telekinesis crushed them fairly quickly, after all.

Finally, by the time he'd gotten rid of the parasites, Mercury felt decidedly better. He had levelled up twice, once fairly quickly, and then again once he was getting close to finishing up. It was a huge help with his thirst, and helped him keep his focus, even when he was spending a whole lot of mana and willpower on <Telekenesis>.

Once Mercury was finally about to use <Appraisal> on the pond though, the water suddenly didn't seem as still anymore. Instead, it began to move and shift by itself.