Chapter 60
A worm as thick as my pinkie finger stared at me blankly.
For a moment, I was at a loss for words. This was the god of the earth?
I let out a hollow laugh.
“Hah... It's only this big?”
Disappointment washed over my whole body.
And I’m supposed to break that wall with this?
What god of the earth? It was just a bug.
Then it happened.
Wriggle. Wriggle.
The little bug at my feet suddenly started growing.
Its body, once as thick as my pinkie finger, instantly grew to the thickness of my forearm.
Now it looked like a gigantic serpent.
“Uh...”
Its growth didn’t stop.
A body so thick it looked like it could swallow a bus whole kept rising out from under the sand.
Its head was close to touching the cavern ceiling.
A long, enormous shadow fell over my face.
“Uh... This is way too big...”
I staggered backward in alarm.
I slowly raised my head and looked up at the Sandworm, which towered like a giant spire.
Its cylindrical body was made of a carapace that looked as if rock and sand had been mixed together.
And the grotesque head at the end had neither eyes nor nose.
Instead, all it had was a massive mouth split into three.
When the mouth opened, I could see thousands of teeth spiraling inward inside it. The interior was a pitch-black darkness, impossible to see through.
That enormous mouth slowly lowered toward me.
“W-wha... You're kidding, right?”
My legs gave out and I collapsed right there.
Instinctive terror.
My mind went blank, and my whole body shivered uncontrollably.
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
The huge mouth came right up to my face.
A hot puff of breath blew onto my face.
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
I squeezed my eyes shut in terror.
“I take back the part about it being small! Please forgive me! No, please forgive me!”
Ignoring my desperate scream, the massive head charged straight at me.
This was it.
I was about to be torn to pieces by those thousands of teeth.
But the pain I expected never came.
Instead, only hot breaths kept blowing over me in regular intervals.
I cracked my eyes open and carefully checked ahead.
The Sandworm’s mouth was still right in front of my nose.
That was when it happened.
A clear intention flowed directly into my mind.
[The Sandworm wants you to ride on its body.]
For a moment, I wondered if my ears were playing tricks on me.
Ride? Ride where?
I looked at the enormous mouth in front of me.
No way.
“...You mean go inside its mouth?”
The Sandworm’s huge head moved minutely up and down.
It meant yes.
I shrieked in alarm.
“Are you crazy? Why would I go in there!”
Just imagining it made me nauseous.
You want me to crawl into that disgusting bug’s mouth?
But the Sandworm was persistent.
[The Sandworm says it is no mere bug.]
[The Sandworm says this is the safest place.]
Its will rang in my head once more.
I made a disgusted face.
But in a corner of my mind, another thought was beginning to form.
That thing was a Rainbow-grade summon. Its performance was bound to be excellent.
In the end, I'd have to use this skill to break through the wall.
“Fine, let's give it a try.”
I reluctantly got to my feet and walked toward the Sandworm's mouth, my mind made up.
With every step I took, my legs wobbled.
“Ugh, disgusting...”
At last, I put one foot through the entrance.
Contrary to my expectations, it wasn't damp or sticky.
Instead, a cool, refreshing breeze flowed out, as if I'd walked into a forest.
“Oh... this is better than I expected.”
The inside was much wider and cozier than I'd expected.
Everything around me felt soft, like a carpet.
Faintly glowing spores floated through the air, so it wasn't dark at all.
I looked around as my tension began to ease.
Then the Sandworm's will came through again.
[The Sandworm asks for your permission to depart.]
I nodded.
At the same time, I felt the floor move gently beneath me.
It felt like a gigantic being swimming through the earth.
There was almost no vibration.
It was as comfortable as riding in a luxury sedan.
“Ohhh, so this is how we're going to break through the main gate?”
I smiled with satisfaction.
But there was one thing that bothered me.
“Not being able to see outside is a little inconvenient.”
I wanted to see for myself how that massive gate would get smashed.
I spoke to the Sandworm.
“Hey, could you show me outside for just a sec...”
Before I could even finish speaking, a familiar message window appeared before my eyes.
[Congratulations on clearing Floor 26 EXTREME difficulty.]
[The Rank 1 Bonus has been applied!]
“?”
I stared blankly at the message window for a moment.
Cleared? Already?
What about the gate?
I couldn’t quite make sense of the situation.
“What is this?”
While I stood there dazed, a familiar sensation wrapped around my whole body.
The feeling of being forcibly ejected from the tower. My vision blurred as my body was sucked upward.
One thought flashed through my mind at that moment.
“There's no way that thing is going outside at this size, right?”
A giant monster appearing in the middle of Daejeon?
I could practically see the 9 o'clock news reporting an emergency S-rank hunter dispatch and Daejeon's destruction.
A terrible series of images flashed through my head.
Please, just not that.
Fortunately, Daejeon wasn't destroyed.
As soon as I came outside, I hurriedly looked around, but there was no trace of the giant bug anywhere.
I let out a sigh of relief.
“Phew, thank goodness.”
That was when it happened.
I felt something slowly crawling up my thigh.
I looked down in shock.
A small snake was climbing up my leg.
No, not a snake. It was that Sandworm from just now.
The thing, now reduced to the size of an ordinary snake, was winding its way up my leg.
“Kyaaaah!”
I screamed.
The feeling of the cold shell against my bare skin was revoltingly disgusting.
I shouted on instinct.
“Unsummon!”
The Sandworm wrapped around my leg instantly turned into particles of light and vanished.
My heart was pounding like crazy.
“W-where the hell are you trying to crawl up to...?”
I muttered, gasping for breath.
It was a horrible sensation I never wanted to go through again.
I was sitting on the floor, trying to calm myself down.
That voice rang again in my head.
[The Sandworm requests to see the outside.]
I frowned.
Even after I dismissed it, its will still came through.
Was this thing mentally linked to me or something?
I sighed, thinking I'd just added another annoying thing to deal with.
But I couldn't just ignore its request. After all, it was my only Rainbow-grade summon.
“Haa... Fine, fine.”
I reluctantly summoned it again.
This time, I summoned it with size in mind from the start.
Small enough to fit on my palm.
Poof.
With a light sound, a tiny Sandworm appeared on my palm.
It was the size of my pinkie finger, exactly the same as when I'd first seen it in the tower.
It wouldn't stay still. It wriggled on my palm and tried to crawl up my body again.
“Hey! Can't you stay still?”
I freaked out, threw it to the floor, and stomped on it without mercy.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
“You perverted little freak, where do you keep trying to crawl up to!”
But my attack had no effect at all.
All I felt beneath my sole was the sensation of stepping on hard rock.
The thing wriggled without any sign of pain.
“Ugh, disgusting...”
[The Sandworm says it needs to stay attached to you to replenish its energy.]
[It says moving uses a lot of energy.]
Its will rang in my head.
I stopped stomping.
So it had to stay attached to me to recharge?
No wonder it kept trying to cling to my body.
I let out a deep sigh and looked down at the thing curled up on the floor.
In the end, I lost.
“Okay. But you have to stay still. If you wriggle, I'm dismissing you right away.”
I reluctantly held out my finger.
The Sandworm approached my index finger. Its size shrank even further, and it coiled around my finger.
Now it looked like a ring.
“What a ridiculous sight...”
Fortunately, because it felt like cold, hard rock, it wasn't too unpleasant.
At this rate, I felt like I could somehow endure it.
***
I was lying in bed, leisurely munching on snacks.
The only sounds echoing through the empty room were the whir of the computer fan and the crunching from my mouth.
“Now that's the taste.”
I reveled in the happiness of feeling like I owned the whole world with just one box of snacks.
I reached into the box to grab the next piece.
There were already only two pieces left.
Whoosh.
The Sandworm, wrapped around my index finger like a ring, suddenly shot its head out.
It snatched the snack with lightning speed before my finger could even touch it.
Then, in an instant, it returned to its original ring form.
As if nothing had happened.
“……?”
I doubted my eyes for a moment.
What just passed by?
I tilted my head and tried to grab the last snack.
Whoosh.
Once again, the Sandworm snatched the snack away.
This time, I saw it clearly.
The bizarre sight of the stone ring on my finger coming to life.
“What the hell, you crazy bastard?”
A crude curse burst from my mouth.
I brought my finger up in front of my face and shouted.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing?”
The Sandworm paid no attention to my shout.
Instead, it shamelessly sent its will into my head.
[The Sandworm wants more offerings.]
I let out a laugh of disbelief.
“More? Who the hell are you to steal and eat my snacks!”
[The Sandworm says this is the most satisfying offering it's tasted in tens of thousands of years.]
It completely ignored my words.
I shook my finger wildly in a rage.
“You stole the last piece? Spit it out! Spit it out right now!”
But it didn't budge at all.
I briefly wondered how I was supposed to punish this summon.
Then the front doorbell rang.
Ding-dong.
I stood up with a scowl.
A familiar face appeared on the intercom screen.
It was the broker who had brought the sale proceeds from the Orichalcon.