Chapter 4: Villager Retaliation [4]

Seven men and a single woman are gathered together on the road outside their village. Each one carries an improvised weapon. The group follows the woman in the group with solemn silence. The sunlight is reflecting off dull tools. The men and woman are not trained in combat, however their firm muscles provide substantial strength.

The grass parts and crunches beneath their feet as they near the edge of the grassland. The rise of a hill coming up just before the tree line is marred by a large cave. The compact soil forms a tunnel leading down into relative darkness.

"This must be where those worms slithered off to. Let's clear 'em out!" The woman raises the worn out axe she carries. The men let out an angry "Ha!" In response to the prospect of vengeance.

With that they move into the tunnel in rows of two, each one looking ahead with an anxious desire to shed the blood of monsters.

~

Several vibrations form a cluster of pulses not too far in the distance. Core feels the approaching group of humans and irritably stops his experiments. The large snake would not come out alive, no matter what little minute changes he made. He tried producing the snake multiple times in a row, producing it a little faster or slower, and even eating large portions of the small snakes.

The large snake is valuable, so Core doesn't want to eat him in case replacing the big snake is impossible. Core gobbles up the failed large snake corpse in front of him before deciding on a course of action to deal with these angry farmers.

'There are... eight of them? I'll probably need at least two small snakes per farmer.' Core's fleshy body pulses as he spits out snake after snake in preparation for the coming fight.

'All snakes in the first chamber hide in the grass, only attack if they attack or on my command. Lookout snake move in behind the farmers once they're in the first chamber.' Core gives telepathic commands to his minions while flexing his huge tendrils beneath the soil of the burrow.

'Every other small snake is to wait in the second grassy chamber. Hide in the vegetation and rock den. Don't attack unless attacked or on my command.' He sends six additional snake monsters into the second chamber of the burrow. Core looks through the lookout snake's eyes in anticipation of the vengeful villagers.

~

"Keep an eye out for the snakes. They'll probably be hiding somewhere down here." The woman is somewhat hushed as the group moves into the first chamber of the burrow. The men nod silently while looking around the sunlit area.

The silent forms of the three snakes hidden within the grass go unnoticed by the group. The villagers walk right past the snakes.

"Argh!" The man furthest in the back of the group of villagers screams out in pain as a dog sized snake monster shoves its sharp fangs deep into his calf. The dark green scaled beast had snuck up on the group from outside the burrow.

"Kill it!" The man walking beside the victim swings his dull hoe against the snake's scaled body. The impact causes the snake to let go, and the next hard swing turns the snake into a limp bloodied mess.

Before the group can tend to the wounded man a trio of snake monsters leaps up and bites into the calves of the nearest unsuspecting humans. Their yelps and groans of pain are followed by a much less panicked counterattack.

Shovels and axes chop into the green scaley flesh without more than a second of hesitation. The result of the first scuffle is four humans wounded lightly, and four snakes eviscerated. These results give the human group confidence as they quickly bandage up the wounded men.

"We need to hurry, they might try to run away." The leader says irritably as the group waits for their comrades to finish resting.

~

'Those ruthless jerks!' Core's blood boils at the sensation of each snake's death. The pain is duller than direct pain, however it still hurts both physically and emotionally.

Core wants to murder them all as soon as he realizes how much damage they deal to his precious serpentine minions. He ponders for a moment before deciding to finish this quicker rather than later.

'Brute force will work just as much as being sneaky, at least in this case.' Core's fleshy roots tense up as new muscled tendrils spread through the dirt. The snakes begin to move according to Core's intentions. The group of 12 snake minions moves down the winding snake shaped tunnel while the compact dirt begins to shift near the entrance to the burrow.

'It's time to feast!' Core gurgles in amusement as his roots shift the ceiling of the entrance tunnel.

~

"What is that?" The man who was first to be injured looks around as the walls seem to tremble. Flecks of dirt and little pebbles fall from the walls and ceiling of the burrow.

The leader looks around with suspicion before deciding they should retreat before something collapses, however she is much too late. The dirt ceiling to the entrance tunnel is suddenly bulging as if a massive serpent is moving through it, and the soil falls down in a rather loud shower of dirt and rock.

"Get back from the tunnel!" The leader shouts just before the massive chunk of dirt smashes over the two villagers in the back of the group. Their bodies get completely buried in the collapse. The other villager's faces are contorted with despair and fear.

Silence takes the group of humans for a few moments as they realize how dire their situation is. Before they can contemplate their situation further a tangle of serpent monsters slithers in through the other tunnel.

"Shit! Kill them!" One man with a large gleaming axe swings his weapon at the first snake only for it to dodge the overhand swing easily.

The snakes move in on the villagers with ruthless aggression. Their fangs bite and retract quickly to try and cause as much bleeding as possible. The villagers are in a frenzy as they swing their makeshift weapons at the serpents. Two villagers have already fallen to the creatures and another one is on one knee while a serpent is biting into his side.

"Work together! Don't lose your head!" The fiery young woman slices two snakes in half with her axe. Another snakes slithers up her ankle and bites deeply into her buttock. She screams from the shock and grabs the snake by the neck before smashing it against the floor with her axe handle. "Stupid snake!" She spits as her group tries their best to regain control of the situation.

~

Core's thick meaty tendrils have surrounded the chamber the fight is taking place in. He notices the humans are nearly even with the snakes at this point. The leader's performance is far above the other humans.

'I'd rather they didn't kill all my little snakes. Let's end this.' Core's aggression is visible to the humans as the walls come alive. Several massive meaty appendages burst through the compact dirt and slam into the standing humans.

Two such tendrils are piercing into the leader of the villager's fighting force. Her eyes widen and no sound comes from her agape mouth as the strange fleshy limbs eat her from the inside out. The screams of the villagers wilt into gurgles as Core guts them and consumes the entirety of their bodies.

'Ew. I ate the bad stuff in the excitement.' Core pulses in irritation at the lackluster flavor. The metal and inorganic pieces of the human corpses move into Core's central body. The strange deposits of inedible materials grow with this addition, and give Core a strange feeling of fullness.

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The instinct to tense and push away the unpleasant things within results in a familiar feeling of spawning something. Core's body trembles a bit in surprise as the inedible cluster forms into something new. The object moves along a tendril which deposits it on the ground near Core's main body.

'Wait, is that one of those things the humans cut me with?' Core's body pulses in irritation as he sees the steel sword laying on the ground of his chamber.

The fight is over after the last dying humans are finished off by the surviving snake monsters. The villager counterattack has failed, and resulted in ten deaths. This doesn't bother Core. He sees this as a lovely meal being brought directly to him.

'I guess I should eat the rest of them.' Core feels a tinge of displeasure after having produced a weapon he despises. His tendrils move through the dirt and consume the dead humans all at once. Core doesn't forget to eat the two buried villagers nor his dead snake monsters. The resulting gain in body mass fills nearly a quarter of the final chamber with his body.

The resulting gains fill Core with a sense of power. His roots feel stronger than tree trunks. He spawns an army of thirty snake minions. 'Ten go to the front chamber, the others to the second chamber.' The snakes move out obediently.

Core finally uses his huge tendrils to patch up the front of the burrow. He moves the entrance tunnel back open and compacts the soil to be stable as it was before.

'Well, now that I've taken care of that mess I can continue the huge snake experiment.' Core sighs metaphorically before trying to spawn another massive serpent. The familiar feelings flow through his body before something out of the ordinary happens.

'Wait! What's that?' The sensation of something warm and gaseous passing into the snake's body catches Core's attention.

The large tendrils spit out the body of a snake roughly the same size as the living one. The creature moves, and Core is overjoyed as the thing opens its eyes wide. It looks around before hissing loudly.

'What was it missing? I must not have had the right materials for the big ones.' Core contemplates the implications while trying to recall if any of the materials recently consumed stand out to him.

~

"Have they still not returned?" The chief's voice is full of hesitation as he asks the dim witted man standing in the doorway to his house.

The man frowns before looking over his shoulder at the somber village behind him. The villagers who went to eradicate the unnatural snakes haven't come back, despite over a day passing.

"No, Chief. They're still out there." The villager looks at his feet; his despair is palpable.

The old village chief holds a firm grip on the edge of his wooden desk while coming to terms with the immense loss of life. He knows this could have been avoided. Perhaps if he made a different choice.

"We'll have to call for outside help. Take this to the nearest town." The Chief holds out a somewhat heavy coin pouch alongside an envelope he previously prepared in case the attack on the burrow fell through.

The dull man frowns as he understands the implications of the chief's decision. He takes the envelope and gives his village chief a polite nod. "Understood. I'll report back when I've finished, chief." He lets out a frustrated sigh as he leaves the old chief alone.

The request for a monster nest extermination is being posted for a sum of 10 gold within the town nearest to the village.

~

Six adventurers ride a wagon moving towards a small farming village with no name. The leader of the group skims through the quest contract they picked up in Farstead. The document mentions a burrow full of man-eating snake monsters terrorizing a village. Ten people have already gone missing in the snake tunnels.

"This sounds pretty easy. Think there'll be anything above D rank?" The long blonde haired youth leading the party asks the question with a smug smirk on his face.

The party contains a swordsman, an axe wielder, and an archer. There party is composed on men exclusively.

"Shouldn't be anything that big. The villager's probably just got themselves killed fighting a swarm of dumb snakes." The axe wielder snickers at the dark image of the village bumpkins being slain by the lowest tier of monsters.

The sword carrying leader of the party laughs a little too openly. The man driving their wagon finds them appalling, however he they are paying him for this trip.

The transport arrives on the outskirts of the village before the sun is too low in the sky. The wagon driver is paid an extra gold coin to wait in the village for the party of adventurers. He shrugs and parks his cart and horse in the village's sole stable.

"Let's go boys! Those worms will get impatient if we keep them waiting." The blonde swordsman gestures toward the fields with one muscled arm while leading his crew toward the burrow's unimpressive entrance.

~

Two new huge snake monsters stand idly in front of their creator. They act differently from the first big snake, however they too have a proper mind of their own. The amount of mass lost in producing the snakes discourages Core from creating more to add to his army.

'Woah, those vibrations feel a bit heavier.' Core's senses pick up a trio of humans moving toward the burrow with evident haste. Core pulses in anticipation of their arrival with a new plan of action in mind.

The process of spitting out a large gang of small snake monsters takes only a minute, and immediately after the last serpent is ready Core gives them orders.

'Everyone move into the first chamber. Wait for a hole to open in the floor and then move into the hole and wait for further orders.' Core's instructions get every snake moving. This includes the three large serpent monsters.

Soil shifts beneath the floor of the first grassy chamber. The dirt beneath the floor of this room is pulled apart and hollowed out by Core's strong roots. Within seconds a hidden area is made beneath the first chamber, and a hole is created to bring the snake swarm inside.

The serpents slither over each other in a fervent mass entry into the hidden dirt room. The adventurer's are close to the burrow by now.

'Good. Once the roof of the room opens you'll all need to be ready to bite whatever falls inside.' Core would be laughing if he could do so. His tendrils smooth out and fix up the ground in the first chamber while making sure his serpents have ample room in their little secret snake pit.

Core's excitement mounts as the adventurers walk slowly down the burrow's entry tunnel.

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