Chapter 717 – Caterpillar

Chapter 717 – Caterpillar

Just as Saul continued to penetrate deeper into the inner city of Kaukoust, which had been turned into a dusty ruin, Korie, who he had left behind in the uninhabited town, suddenly lifted her head from her magic book.

“I think I heard someone talking.” The two strands of red hair around Korie’s ears were sticking up like antennae picking up signals.

Agu, who was sitting next to Korrie and answering a few of her questions from time to time, gave a slight lurch, “Anne just took a look around the town, and it’s true that there hasn’t been anyone living here for a long time. Did anyone else come over to rest their feet?”

Ann, who had been on guard on the roof of the house, jumped down lengthwise.

She once again used her spiritual power to sense her surroundings and found nothing.

“Ms. Korie, can you hear where the sound is coming from?”

Korie listened with her side ear for a moment longer, her long red hair falling down, “There’s no sound now, but the sound just now sounded like it wasn’t far from us.”

That was even stranger, Anne had been watching the surrounding area.

If Korrie had heard the sound of someone talking directly with her ears alone, there was no reason why she and Agu couldn’t hear it, right?

But they really hadn’t detected a single fluctuation of spiritual energy right now.

Korrie was not even at the second rank, and her strength should not be as strong as An’s, and her major direction did not involve the spiritual body, so she actually heard a movement that neither An nor Agu had heard.

However, An did not think that Korie was hallucinating just because she did not find anything.

She directly turned her lower body into a spider, climbed up the wall, and flew over the top, thoroughly inspecting the small compound where they had temporarily landed.

Still, there was nothing to be found.

“Strange.” Ann returned to her original spot in confusion, looking at the surrounding walls and the houses on both sides, “Still no discovery. Could it be that someone sneaked closer and left again?”

It was Korrie who was a little embarrassed, pulling at her hair and saying hesitantly, “Maybe I misheard.”

She looked down at the grimoire spread out on her lap, “Or maybe it was affected by the book.”

Agu hurriedly said, “Ms. Korie, you’d better get some rest. If you are truly affected by this book, then you should recover your mental energy as soon as possible to avoid deeper effects. If not, you also need to recover your energy to deal with other abnormal situations.”

Korie closed the book with some fondness.

This book collated the knowledge related to the Black Tide contamination that Saul and Byron had researched, and the lab-grade inerting formula was also in it.

Kori was blown away and quickly became engrossed.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Saul strictly limited her reading time to prevent her mental body from becoming abnormal, Korie would have been able to read it for days and nights without closing her eyes.

“Actually, I’ve only read less than ten minutes today ……”

“…… When I have money ……”

Kori’s voice came to an abrupt halt.

Even Agu and Anne got up and looked around with a wary look on their faces.

Yes, the voice from just now had reappeared.

The voice was clearer.

And this time, both Agu and Ann heard it too.

“That sound is very close indeed.” Anne narrowed her eyes, her vision finally landing on the house behind them.

“…… I’ll go to Kaukoust too, but not now ……”

The voice grew clearer.

Ann gestured to the others, then slowly approached the house behind her.

There were still voices coming from inside.

“Who’s going to take care of you all now that I’m gone ……”

Ann could already hear along the window that it was the voice of a boy, estimated to be under the age of 16.

Her face was stony, ready to fight at a moment’s notice.

Just now when she was doing her inspection, she had obviously checked every house in this small compound as well.

There was clearly no one in there!

But how did a little boy appear now?

Especially after having listened to several words clearly, Ann still hadn’t found the mental energy that was supposed to belong to the boy.

It was as if there were only voices and no people in there. But when Ann’s head was about to press against the window, she vaguely saw the figures of two people.

Only there was something strange about both figures.

Korie released her protective development and walked over to Ann as well.

“Open it up and see if you don’t know.” Korrie also noticed the anomaly.

She had a serious expression, but still pushed the window open with one hand.

After the window was pushed open, both Ani and Agu tensed their non-existent muscles in an instant.

There were indeed two people behind the window.

But these two people …… were actually caterpillars with human heads!

Both caterpillars were as thick as a male’s small arm.

A circle of fat white body with black spots. Tiny and very sharp spiky hairs covered the whole body, stopping only near the neck.

It was also here that the white bugs turned a little into dark skin, finally evolving into a boy’s head.

The boy’s neck and face were not very big, almost as big as the bug’s body, as if his head had been drilled out of the bug’s body.

Kori’s push on the door did not disturb the boy, or the boy caterpillar, or the listener across from him.

An old man’s head with gray hair and wrinkled face, also growing out of the caterpillar’s body.

The boy caterpillar was still talking.

“…… There’s no need to talk me out of it, as soon as I’ve done a little more work and prepared food for you for the winter, I’m off to the city to earn some money. ……”

Korie pursed her lips and locked eyes with Ann, who was beside her.

She then gently closed the window.

“Is it an illusion?” Kagome whispered.

They had been speaking in normal voices until they found the unusual presence.

But Kagome, who had been startled by the scene she had just witnessed, subconsciously communicated in her lowest voice.

It was as if she was afraid that the human-headed caterpillar in the room would hear their conversation and then mayfly chrysalis crawled out of her body a little bit.

“Not like that.” Anne’s face was also ugly, “But their spiritual power fluctuations are weak, like two ordinary civilians.”

“If their heads weren’t growing on the caterpillar’s necks, an old and a young two would look like ordinary people.”

Two bizarre existences like that, yet they only radiated the fluctuations of ordinary people.

It was hard to believe.

“Anyway, let’s leave this courtyard first.” Agu lowered his voice as he followed Kagome.

The three of them tiptoed silently out of the courtyard where they had just landed.

Behind them, there was still the sound of conversation faintly coming.

It wasn’t until they closed the gate of the small courtyard, which completely isolated the sound.

Korrie touched her arm, “Wait a while, we’ll go over there again.”

Ann looked at Kagome incredulously, “We don’t have to go in again, do we?”

Now that he thought about it, this small courtyard was weird as hell, and Ann, as the warrior protecting Kagome, naturally didn’t want Kagome to go back to a small courtyard that she didn’t know the depths of.

“They didn’t show aggression. The elemental particles here aren’t very active either.” Kagome thought of the inerting formula she had just read about in the book and couldn’t wait to test it out for herself.

However, when they opened the gate again after a few moments, they found that the courtyard had become empty again, and there was no sound of conversation at all.

Ann, as the pioneer, was still the first to go in.

She went straight to the innermost room, and this time, pushing open the window, she did not see the caterpillar with a human face.

“Gone.” Ann stared blankly inside the room.

The room was dusty.

There was not the slightest trace of the drag-like marks that should have been there when the caterpillar moved.

(End of chapter)