Aka approached the strange structure and examined it without entering. It resembled an altar made of highly polished, perfectly smooth stone blocks, yet it wasn't quite one. The square structure had no stairs along its sides, and at roughly five meters tall, Aka couldn't understand how anyone was supposed to climb it. He himself couldn't reach the top—neither by jumping nor by using his gloves, as the spikes simply wouldn't pierce the stone.
At first, Aka wanted to leave it behind. However, curiosity got the better of him. Why would someone build such a structure atop layered leaves in a savage forest like this? He climbed down, gathered a few branches, carried them up, fashioned a crude ladder, and managed to climb onto the flat top of the square.
The top surface was completely smooth. At its exact center was a circular hole about one meter in diameter, its bottom seemingly invisible. Upon closer inspection, there wasn't much else—only a few cracks here and there. What caught Aka's attention the most were the traces of blood and bones scattered across parts of the structure. He couldn't understand who had brought blood and bones here. The bones were large and isolated: long ones resembling arms in some places, and round, skull-like pieces in others.
After finishing his inspection above, Aka once again failed to suppress his curiosity. He lowered the ladder he had made into the circular opening and slowly fed it down until it touched the ground. Judging by the excess length, he estimated the depth to be around four meters. Knowing it would be dark below, he broke off the extra ladder sections, unraveled the vines, and cut everything down into smaller pieces—enough to make roughly ten torches. Fire wouldn't be difficult to produce; thanks to his physical energy, he could move his hands far faster than a normal person and generate flames with ease.
Carefully, Aka descended the ladder. The moment his foot touched the ground, he lit one of his torches by rapidly spinning a small piece of wood to ignite it, then looked around. The walls were covered with carvings shaped like faces, giving the unsettling impression that their eyes were watching him—at least to someone with instincts as sharp as Aka's, though logically that was impossible. When he touched the walls and the floor, he realized they were made of the same material. This meant the structure wasn't assembled—it was a cube hollowed out from the inside.
Aka began exploring on foot. The chamber was enormous, yet it seemed empty. In some places, there were patches of white, sticky substances, though Aka couldn't determine what they were. He walked until he reached the right wall of the square chamber, but found nothing beyond the sticky residue.
He turned and walked straight in the opposite direction—again, nothing. Then he moved straight ahead from the right side and continued until the very end. There, he saw them.
Eggs.
Each was about one meter tall—roughly half Aka's height.
However, he only realized what they were when he got very close and raised his torch toward them—and by then, it was already too late. Disturbed by the firelight, one of the eggs cracked open, and from it emerged an eight-legged, dog-sized creature. It looked like a living nightmare. Its body was purple, with eight downward-extending purple legs, and its head was even more horrifying. Countless eyes covered it, yet it had no mouth, ears, or any other facial features. In the simplest terms, it was the literal embodiment of the word "nightmare."
The moment the creature burst from the egg, Aka instinctively fled backward at full speed—but the nightmare pursued him. As it moved, it produced a grotesque clicking sound. Fearing that the noise would awaken the other eggs, Aka climbed the ladder as fast as he could. When he saw the creature follow him up, he didn't hesitate for a second and shoved the ladder down, sending it crashing below.
Since the day he had opened his eyes to this world, Aka had endured countless horrors, but he had never felt anything like this. What he felt now was pure fear. Exhausted, he lay down atop the metal cube to rest. That decision was both unlucky and fortunate—because he soon heard the clicking sounds coming from below.
Yes, even though he hadn't considered it, the feared outcome had arrived. The eight-legged creature was climbing upward, scraping along the walls.
Aka jumped to his feet and formed a plan in an instant. He had only two options: run with all his strength into the forest to search for Cerberan, or flee the forest entirely. But when he thought of 29, he realized something—this terrifying situation could be an opportunity. This creature would be extremely valuable.
Once Aka fully regained his composure, he straightened his posture, checked all his equipment, and kept the unused pieces of wood and torches close at hand. Setting one torch aside, he lit the others and built a small campfire-like blaze, then waited for the creature to approach. He chose to overcome his fear and use this unknown creature as a tool for his own growth.
When the grotesque creature finally emerged into daylight, Aka trembled at the sight—but quickly forced himself to calm down and began observing it as it approached. The creature was a dark-purple, fur-covered abomination. Its legs bore sharp, blade-like protrusions that Aka hadn't noticed earlier. As it drew closer, Aka took a deep breath and charged.
The creature spread four of its legs and attacked from multiple angles, but Aka dodged through speed alone. He noticed something crucial: the legs couldn't move sideways at all—they could only thrust forward and backward. Eventually, Aka managed to punch one of the legs, but to his surprise, it felt like striking a wall. Still, his spikes pierced it, proving the creature could be damaged. At that moment, a long tail struck his back, nearly forcing him between the creature's legs.
Aka leapt away just in time, and carried by kinetic energy, he flew straight toward the creature's head. He seized the opportunity and unleashed as many punches as he could, shattering its eyes. The legs flailed, trying to reach him, but Aka kept moving atop the creature's head, striking relentlessly. Eventually, the creature's legs lost their strength and collapsed, lying limply on the ground.
Believing he had won, Aka stopped attacking and climbed down to inspect it. What he didn't know was that the creature wasn't dead—it was waiting for him to lower his guard. Just as Aka began examining its legs, one nearby leg snapped upward and slashed clean through him. However, Aka had reinforced his entire body with physical energy since the fight began, so he wasn't cut in half. Even so, his equipment was severely damaged, and the force sent him flying, throwing him into shock.
With difficulty, Aka quickly regained his senses and observed the creature as it struggled to stand again. It could barely remain upright, having lost its balance from the blows to its head. Only one thought crossed Aka's mind: get back onto its head and either sever it completely or beat it until it was destroyed.
When the creature charged toward him, Aka leapt to his feet and jumped at it with all his strength. This time, however, the creature raised two legs to shield its head, and Aka landed on them. As he damaged those legs as much as he could, the remaining legs attacked him in a coordinated rhythm. Timing their forward-and-back motions, Aka leapt onto one leg and tore it apart with his spikes.
When the creature spread all its legs and collapsed to the ground again, Aka knew this was his chance. He rushed to its head and pummeled it until it was completely destroyed. This time, the creature truly died. Yet the first thing Aka did afterward was collapse onto the stone and vomit—his entire body was soaked in blood, and the stench was unbearable.
He lay there for a while, resting beside the spot where he had vomited. Once he had recovered, excitement took over, and he began examining the corpse. The creature stood about one meter tall, with each leg nearly two meters wide—an arachnid-like dog with a fly-like head. Aka had read every book in the palace and the Nest, yet he had never encountered such a being.
Behind the head, on the part without eyes, was a tail roughly one meter wide and two meters long. Its end was composed entirely of something resembling a sharp blade. Curious, Aka severed the tail and examined it closely.
The flesh was purple like the fur, but the blade-like structure—what Aka realized were teeth—formed a slightly curved weapon longer than even a greatsword once removed from the flesh. Aka took a small ember from the nearly extinguished fire behind him and burned the tail after removing the blade. Bingo. The tail ignited rapidly; the fur burned away instantly, while the flesh barely suffered damage and instead hardened.
He separated all the legs from the body and set them aside. When he flipped the body over to examine what lay behind the legs, Aka trembled once more. There was an opening—leading into a throat lined with hundreds of tiny teeth. It seemed the creature crushed its prey with its legs and tail, then fed it into this hidden mouth to grind it down. What puzzled Aka was that despite thoroughly dissecting the body, he found no place where eggs could have been produced.
Perhaps these creatures required a queen to produce hundreds of eggs at once—but Aka wasn't certain. If a queen existed, he believed it would have noticed and captured him the moment he entered. Seeing how easily the creatures burned, a plan had already formed in his mind. He jumped back down from the cube, descended into the hollow space in a controlled manner, carried dozens of branches upward, built another ladder, and climbed back onto the cube—this time with at least twenty branches—then slowly began thinning them down.
If you've read or taken a look, thank you so much. If you have any thoughts — good or bad — please leave a comment. I'll probably see and reply right away. Thanks again, and I wish you a great day.