Free Web NovelChapter 11: Air Strike
A two meter, or roughly six and a half feet long worm crawled in front of him. Its movements slow, and it only moved a few inches at a time.
Jimmy could not see its mouth, and so he didn’t feel threatened by it. He was just utterly shocked! Bamboozled, even.
"What the hell did this fucker eat to grow this big? Rats?" He grumbled, "I wouldn’t be surprised if it ate rats, but still, I don’t see its mouth."
The worm was unbothered by him. It just kept inching away. Its pink body flexed and curled as if it hid apex predator muscles beneath its plump skin.
Jimmy didn’t know what he could do with this discovery. As a result, he circled back to his basic, bird-brained instincts. He pecked at it.
Every peck of his left a hole in the worm’s body, but the worm was unbothered. It did not flinch, it did not retract its two-foot wide body either. This was no thin worm in the outskirts of Australia. Its width actually matched its length. The worm was chubby, and so it wasn’t surprising that it didn’t consider Jimmy’s pecks a threat.
After a few tries, he realized that he wasn’t causing any damage, so he backed away.
As he took in a few breaths to regulate himself, he felt that his jaw got heavier.
At that moment, he tried to talk, but his beak was somehow restricted, so he sounded like a brain-damaged flamingo.
’System, what he fuck?’ He panicked internally. ’I can barely breathe!’
[It appears you pecked a Stone Worm. It may look harmless, but its blood hardens the moment it leaves its body. Hence the name.]
’System, I’m gonna suffocate,’ He had to repeat himself, ’Help me!’
[Quit panicking. You can simply wash the blood away from your beak, with water.]
[You may not be so bright, but if you die because of a Stone Worm then that would be more than embarrassing. It would be a prime case of natural selection.]
After he was given the solution, Jimmy ignored everything else the system said, and rushed towards a puddle close by. The stone bricks beneath the puddle had sunk into the ground over time, collecting rain water, and providing Jimmy with the life-saving solution he desperately needed right now.
After dipping his three-inch beak in the water a few times, the blood-red stone peeled away from his beak. He could finally take deep breaths again.
"My god..." He sighed, "That was horrifying. It reminded me of the time I was stuck in that egg."
Jimmy regained his senses a little bit, and slowly, he remembered his goals.
"I want that Swordsmanship Comprehension evolution today, system," He said, "That worm looks like it’s worth a lot of points, so help me out here. How do I kill it?"
[Luckily for you, you swallowed a few drops of the worm’s blood, so I have some information about its species. Its weakness appears to be a simple one; Salt.]
"Salt?" He repeated, "Oh... right, I remember something about that back when I was a human. Using salt is a better plan than pecking at it, I suppose?"
Jimmy then flew away, and searched the rooftops for salt. He tried his best not to forget the location of the giant worm itself, and hoped he wouldn’t need tens of pounds of salt to kill it.
Eventually, he did find a bag of it. Salt appeared to be common in this city, and he came to this conclusion, because no one had bothered to hide the salt, not even from the elements. It was free for grabs, assuming someone needed it enough to climb a high rooftop for it.
"Right," he tried to focus.
Jimmy then tried to lift the entire bag, but he could not. It weighed tens of times more than him, and his grip loosened before he could even lift the bag by an inch.
"Of course," he sighed, already exhausted.
Jimmy then pecked at the sack to rip it open. He did so easily, and planned to just carry a mouthful of it.
"Gah!" He flapped his wings, and flew away from the sack, his beak empty, "Too salty..."
Salt was indeed salty, so he couldn’t carry it in his beak either.
"God, I miss my hands," he sighed.
Near the bag, he spotted a few pots. Big and small.
An idea popped up in his head right away.
He pecked at the sack again, and a stream of salt started pouring into one of the smallest pots he could find.
Jimmy placed his claw on the pot, and jiggled it a little bit. He got a good estimate of how much it weighed.
"Decent," he smiled.
Once the pot got filled, and started overflowing, he dragged it away. The stream of salt continued piling on the rooftop, but he didn’t care. Crows couldn’t be sued for property damage.
The pot felt too heavy to lift now, so he swept the excess part from the top of the pot with a swipe of his wings.
"Mutterficker!" He screamed out, "That stings..."
Apparently, his wounds from all those rat bites haven’t completely healed yet. He stopped bleeding ever since he evolved, but the wounds were still sensitive to something as sharp and distinctive as salt.
Jimmy soldiered through the pain, and hopped on top of the pot, grabbing it with his claws.
A few swings later, he hit the air with a pound or so of salt below him. Some of the salt fell from the pot as he flew across the alleyways, but he didn’t care to preserve all of it. He could always come back for more.
Once Jimmy spotted the worm, still inching away across the stone ground, he flew towards it as fast as he could, and dropped the pot of salt before he flew upwards again.
The salt bomb hit the target successfully.
Jimmy landed near the worm less than a minute later, and saw it wither away.
The dusting of salt drained the moisture out of the worm’s body rapidly, and seconds after he landed, the worm stopped moving. Dehydrated beyond reparation.
[+421 system points]
[Total points: 654]
"Feels like I should’ve gotten more points for killing that thing, but... doesn’t matter." He said, "I have more than enough points to evolve."
"Give me the Sword Comprehension evolution, system. Now." he demanded.
