Here were two tattered squid.
The Blade Madam and the Ironclad Scale.
This brother and sister, who had hatched out of one egg on the same day at the same hour, had been a combo with no rival in this zone until now.
But right now, their state was wretched beyond words.
The Blade Madam's beak, teeth and claws were all broken.
The Ironclad Scale had lost all ten of the shields that had been his pride.
[Bubble, bubble, bubble......]
[Bubble, bubble, bubble......]
The Blade-Ironclad brother and sister dragged their broken, burst bodies to the mouth of the cave.
STAB! MUNCH— MUNCH— WHAM! CRACK— CRACK—
They ate every bit of prey they came across as they moved, but their bodies did not recover much.
Because the only prey at the mouth of the cave was clownfish and the like.
To eat more nourishing prey, they had to go to the lower level.
But their condition was too poor right now, so they needed to refrain from moving about for a while and hide somewhere.
RUMBLE—
The Blade Madam, whose wounds had been especially severe, complained of hunger.
Seeing his younger sister starving, the Ironclad Scale agonized over something for a while.
In the end.
...SNAP!
The Ironclad Scale tore off one of his own tentacles and held it out to the Blade Madam.
The Blade Madam ate the Ironclad Scale's tentacle.
MUNCH— MUNCH— MUNCH— MUNCH—
Perhaps thanks to the overlapping effect of the 'Cannibalism' and 'Double Yolk' traits, the Blade Madam's body recovered a great deal.
The Ironclad Scale gazed blankly at the Blade Madam's tentacles for a while, then soon turned his head away.
Before long, the Blade Madam, her body recovered to some degree, set out to hunt.
She roamed the mouth of the cave and diligently brought back clownfish and sea urchins.
Was it thanks to his younger sister's nursing? The Ironclad Scale, too, was soon able to regenerate his lost tentacle.
......How much time had passed?
-<Kraken 'Juvenile Form': Blade-Tooth Madam>
-The juvenile form of some cephalopod.
It has taken on a fair shape, but it is still weak and immature.
Along the rims of its tentacle suckers are attached many fearsome saw blades that spin at high speed.
-Combat Power: 4,885
-Traits: <Absorption>, <Cannibalism>, <Basic Poison Resistance>, <High-Speed Grinding>, <Hell Bite>, <Double Yolk>
-<Kraken 'Juvenile Form': Ironclad-Scale Bouncy Jelly>
-The juvenile form of some cephalopod.
It has taken on a fair shape, but it is still weak and immature.
Thick round shields are attached to the tip of each of its ten tentacles, so it looks extremely hard.
-Combat Power: 3,991
-Traits: <Absorption>, <Cannibalism>, <Basic Poison Resistance>, <Ironclad Skin>, <Impregnable Fortress>, <Double Yolk>
The Blade Madam and the Ironclad Scale had regained a considerable part of their Combat Power.
Certainly, with an attack skill, hunting is fast and easy.
The Blade Madam, whom the Ironclad Scale had restored by sacrificing his own body, showed overwhelming hunting efficiency and brought back prey for herself and her older brother.
GURGLE—
The brother and sister found a cavern in the caves, which branched out like a Crant warren, and slipped inside to hide.
When they were resting there, leaning against each other.
...TWINKLE!
Along with the faint glow of a lantern, an intruder appeared.
The Blade-Ironclad brother and sister's eyes flew wide open.
Their kin. The one who had driven them into great trouble not long ago.
That one had appeared again, wearing a hateful grin.
[Grrrk!]
The Blade Madam flew into a rage.
The Ironclad Scale, too, sprang up.
Because of that one, they had nearly lost their one and only flesh and blood.
Their fury over it blazed up, with their high intelligence and lofty pride as firewood.
Isn't the Kraken a race designed from the very start to eat its kin on sight?
The Blade-Ironclad brother and sister charged at their kin at once.
Last time their hunt had failed because the monster hermit crab showed up, rotten luck, but now things were different.
The Blade-Ironclad brother and sister had no intention of ever going near last time's trap.
No, they were confident they could catch and kill that kin before it even fled that far.
SPLASHSPLASHSPLASH—
The kin went back the way it had come, scattering light here and there.
As if teasing them, 'Catch me if you can.'
Blinded by fury, the Blade-Ironclad brother and sister chased their kin.
How that one had come through the monster hermit crab's rampage unharmed they did not know, but...... that was not what mattered now.
The Blade-Ironclad brother and sister's combined Combat Power was still far higher than their kin's, and the blades and shields of their tentacles had regenerated enough to fight.
Once it came to a fight, they would win, no matter what.
The Blade-Ironclad brother and sister chased their prey, full of confidence.
Before long, the kin turned a corner and headed into its own burrow.
The very place where they had first encountered it.
The Blade-Ironclad brother and sister inwardly sneered at their kin's choice.
Slipping into a dead end and just burying its head would get it nowhere, yet did it think the danger was gone just because its own eyes could see nothing?
Laughing at the low intelligence and stupid judgment of their kin, no, their prey, the Blade-Ironclad brother and sister readied the finishing blow.
......But then?
SLIIIP!
The kin squeezed its body into a narrow crack and then went right on inside.
The Blade-Ironclad brother and sister quickly chased after it.
When they had burrowed for a while along a crack so narrow a single body could barely get through, a large room appeared.
Inside, it was so terribly dark that nothing could be seen.
When they swept their tentacles around, there was something heavy and sticky; it seemed the room was packed full of ink.
BUBBLE, BUBBLE, BUBBLE, BUBBLE......
Air bubbles formed in the sealed space.
The Blade-Ironclad brother and sister turned their heads this way and that, looking for their prey.
Just then.
BLINK—
A faint light shone from deep inside the closed room.
Their prey was looking their way, wearing its peculiar hateful smile.
It had stretched out its tentacles and was hugging some huge rock.
The Blade-Ironclad brother and sister raised their blades and shields toward that prey.
It had walked into such a cramped place of its own accord, so the outcome was obvious.
They would hack that kin to pieces with blade and shield, then tear it in half and eat it, half each.
Then their bodies would recover twice as fast, too.
The Blade-Ironclad brother and sister charged, half out of vengeance and half out of anticipation.
......At that very moment.
CRASH!
The prey pulled at the rock with all its strength.
The instant the rock it had coiled its tentacles around was pulled out of its place.
BLA-AST!
The Blade-Ironclad brother and sister felt both their eyes go white and blind.
PAPAPAPAPOW!
Hot spring water bursting out from under the rock had splashed over the brother and sister's eyes.
***
'It worked!'
Looking at the two kin whose eyeballs had cooked white, I smiled a smile of triumph.
......It was only a few days ago.
Using the Burrowing trait I had stolen from the Worker Crant, I dug down through the floor of my hideout.
Seeing that my back got nice and warm whenever I lay here, I knew there was definitely something below.
I dug down slowly and steadily, and soon at the end of it I found a hot spring.
BO-OM!
It was called hot spring water, but the temperature it felt like rivaled magma.
Scalding water, boiling so furiously I wondered whether a piece of hell had been dug up.
In the course of digging it up, I suffered severe burns, but.
-<Trait: Faint Flame Resistance>
-Grants resistance to faint flames.
I barely survived thanks to the 'Flame Resistance' I had gained from eating whiting the other day.
'Sorry I cursed you as a useless trait back then.'
I felt bad about grumbling over what use flame resistance could be underwater, so I apologized to all the whiting I had eaten so far.
Because by the game's settings, burns from hot water were classified exactly the same as burns from a faint fire, I was able to hold out stubbornly.
After that, I lifted a rock of the right size to plug the scalding-water vent, then dug out the area around it to make a spacious room.
Then I filled the room full of sticky ink and lured the Blade Madam and the Ironclad Scale here.
'Now, it's showtime!'
The moment I pulled out the stopper plugging the scalding water's outlet, I fled toward the exit.
The inside was half full of ink, so my kin could not follow my movements.
As soon as I crawled out of the narrow passage, I rolled a rock to block the entrance of the trap.
GRRRRK— THUD!
Now the inside was a perfect sealed room.
A sealed room full of boiling water, that is.
BUBBLE, BUBBLE, BUBBLE, BUBBLE, BUBBLE, BUBBLE, BUBBLE......
Froth poured out like mad through the gaps in the rock I had rolled into place as a lid.
Before long.
BA-ANG!
A heavy impact came through to my back as I held the rock in place.
It seemed the Blade Madam and the Ironclad Scale, struggling in the hot darkness, had found the exit.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BA-ANG!
They squeezed into the narrow burrow and tried to smash the rock.
But that was impossible.
I was even activating my Ironclad Scale trait to plug the entrance this tight, so how dare they.
Before long.
BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!
Their desperate struggle reached its peak.
And then.
CRA-ASH!
A corner of the rock broke off, and two tentacles slipped out.
One was the Blade Madam's tentacle, and the other was the Ironclad Scale's.
Both tentacles had cooked red from burns, and their tips were curled up tight.
The Blade-Ironclad brother and sister flailed wildly with the tentacles they had stretched through the crack in the rock.
'Stubborn bastards.'
The temperature of the scalding water spouting in there was beyond imagination.
It probably easily topped 90 degrees, I'd guess.
To hold out this long even after falling into a sealed room packed with water like that, I could not even imagine how tenacious their life force was.
'....... ....... .......'
I held the rock with every ounce of my strength.
The rock shook as if it would be shoved aside any moment, but gradually its movement died down.
Before long.
.......
The rock stopped completely.
The two tentacles that had slipped out through the crack went completely limp, too.
But even after that, I kept pushing the rock for a while.
When I had been holding the rock for about 10 minutes.
FLO-OP!
The Blade Madam's and the Ironclad Scale's tentacles began to thrash violently again.
BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG— FLAIL, FLAIL, FLAIL, FLAIL, FLAIL—
The two tentacles thrashed so fiercely that nothing until now could even compare.
I gritted my teeth and pushed the rock.
'If I'd let my guard down and moved, I'd have been in big trouble.'
A kraken is a predator with both cunning and patience.
I had supposed that the Blade-Ironclad brother and sister might, as a last resort, play dead to make their opponent drop their guard.
But seeing it with my own eyes, I found it a truly chilling sight.
'....... ....... .......'
I went on holding the rock with my back.
Was the flopping earlier their last desperate struggle?
The Blade-Ironclad brother and sister's tentacles drooped down limply.
But even after that, I kept on holding the rock.
......When about 1 hour had gone by.
I took my back off the rock.
SCRAPE— THUD!
When I moved the rock aside, hot water and froth came surging up from inside.
Scraps of ink, cooked and congealed by the heat, floated up.
And two corpses, smeared all over with blackish lumps of protein, came into view.
-<Kraken 'Juvenile Form': Blade-Tooth Madam>
-Combat Power: 0
-<Kraken 'Juvenile Form': Ironclad-Scale Bouncy Jelly>
-Combat Power: 0
The Blade-Ironclad brother and sister, confirmed dead.
I pulled apart the two corpses tangled up with each other.
SQUEEEEEEEZE......
The brother and sister's corpses were stuck fast together and would not come apart easily.
It looked as if the Blade Madam had tried to shield the Ironclad Scale until the very end.
Had she tried to protect her older brother, who died first, from the hot water?
'Your sibling love is moving to tears, but I've got no choice either.'
This place is the wild.
Meaning I've got to survive somehow too.
Squeezing both eyes shut, I tore into and ate the corpses of the brother and sister who had been put to death by boiling.
MUNCH— MUNCH— MUNCH— MUNCH—
The taste was steady in its own way.
Something like eating a boiled squid stuffed full of meat.
'It's like eating stuffed squid that someone thawed out without any care.'
And soon, the change I had expected took place.
FLA-SH!
At the same moment my Combat Power exploded, dazzling light burst out of my body.
-DING-DONG!
<You have met the requirements.>
<Evolving into a higher species>
The evolution had begun.