Chapter 280: (Un)luck

Shin had given Carolina three very clear warnings: not to wander too far into the forest, not to use her powers to search for valuable things, and, most importantly, to stay away from anything her abilities identified as particularly dangerous, no matter how valuable it might be.

Carolina had listened carefully. She had even promised to behave.

And that was precisely why she was now wandering through the forest, following one of the richest and most dangerous auras she had ever sensed.

The forest east of Mirka was old and quiet, with trees so thick overhead that the ground remained dark even during the day. Carolina liked it here. Nobody bothered her, the air smelled of wet earth and pine, and there were plenty of interesting things hidden beneath the soil.

And the girl couldn't resist her curiosity, even if her power told her about the risk.

Still, she paused, wondering how mad Shin would get once he found out.

But he also said I should avoid anything too dangerous. He didn't say I couldn't look! she thought, with logic that made as much sense as a kid's argument.

Carolina crouched beside a long crack in the soil and brushed the leaves aside. Something hard and smooth lay beneath the earth.

She dug her fingers into the dirt and pulled until a piece of the ground came away, revealing a curved surface dark as old bronze.

A shell.

A very, very large shell.

Two thin stalks protruded from the soil beside it, their pale, bulbous tips swaying gently in the air.

After a short inspection, she assumed they were some kind of antennae, probably connected to a massive creature underground.

Still, Carolina leaned closer and decided she wanted to take these things home with her.

She reached out and poked one of the stalks.

She would later admit that this had been a terrible idea.

Then the entire clearing shuddered, and Carolina's feet came off the ground.

A giant, monstrous worm burst out of the earth like a cork out of a bottle.

Soil, roots, and stones sprayed into the air as the shell split open, revealing a creature the length of a ten-story building. Its pale, ridged body was slick and segmented, and its mouth opened in a round bloom of teeth.

Carolina landed on her back in the moss, her heart hammering as she sensed the danger.

The worm's head swung toward her, and every instinct she had told her the same thing: run.

So she did.

She ran badly. Not heroically or gracefully. She charged through brambles instead of around them, tripped over roots, and nearly fell several times. Yet, through a series of absurdly fortunate accidents, she somehow managed to dodge every strike the worm sent her way.

At one point, she stumbled just as its head smashed into the ground beside her, narrowly avoiding being crushed.

Carolina screamed, scrambled back to her feet, and kept running.

"That's not fair!"

The worm screeched again and pursued her. She vaulted a fallen log, and the creature went straight through it, reducing it to splinters. She cut left toward the tree line, and the worm followed, plowing a trench through the moss.

The village was close now. She could see the smoke between the trunks and hear people shouting.

At the same time, she could also feel the worm's shadow closing over her back.

Her heart sank as she realized she had no chance of escaping. She could even feel the disgusting saliva dripping onto her hair as the worm descended, its enormous mouth opening wide to bite her in half.

Then—

Something shot past her left side at a speed that made her hair snap sideways.

Shin hit the worm head-on. His sword cut off the creature's tongue, and the worm recoiled a few inches.

Then he launched himself at it, kicking the creature in the head with all his strength.

The impact knocked its head aside a good six feet, and it shrieked and thrashed. Shin landed in a crouch between it and Carolina, his hand gripping his sword tightly. He was not smiling.

Carolina gulped, thinking this was probably the first time she had ever seen the man so tense. Maybe that thing really was a problem.

The creature's severed tongue writhed on the ground, releasing a foul-smelling liquid that hissed wherever it touched the moss. For a moment, the worm remained motionless, its enormous head tilted toward him.

Then it roared.

The sound was so deafening that Carolina instinctively covered her ears. The creature's body twisted violently beneath the earth, and its massive head rose before slamming into the ground with enough force to shake the entire forest.

The ground erupted.

Trees swayed, rocks jumped, and the earth split apart in a series of jagged cracks. It was like being caught in the middle of an earthquake, except this one had a very clear source and was actively trying to kill them.

"Whoa—!"

Carolina's feet left the ground. Shin was thrown into the air alongside her, and for one brief, ridiculous moment, the two of them were floating above the shaking earth.

Naturally, Shin's first concern was the woman who probably wouldn't survive the fall.

He reached out and caught Carolina in midair.

His hand landed firmly on her huge ass at first, squeezing it very hard because he was annoyed. Then he pulled her toward him, securing his grip before she could tumble away.

Carolina let out a startled squeak, her face flushing as she realized what had happened. However, before she could complain, Shin adjusted his hold, slipping one arm beneath her knees and the other behind her back.

In the blink of an eye, she was nestled securely in his arms in a princess carry.

Shin landed on the ground as lightly as if he had merely stepped down from a low platform. His boots touched the moss without so much as a stumble, even though the earth was still trembling beneath him.

Carolina stared at him, then looked at the monster, and back at him.

Oh, he's really angry, she realized.

Just then, Lara and her group arrived. They had already killed all the other creatures the giant worm had either attracted or scared out of their hiding places.

She immediately joined the attack, swinging her sword in a great, flat arc that met the worm mid-body and passed clean through it.

The worm's front half separated from its back half and went tumbling off into the trees.

Blood sprayed across the moss in a wide black fan. The villagers who watched from afar, with fear etched on their faces, broke into cheers.

Then the two halves of the worm began to crawl back together.

The severed ends of the body split open into blooms of pale tissue that reached out and found each other, knitting together, crawling, and sealing shut. The wound closed along a line of dark tissue.

The worm pulled itself back together and rose, its mouth opening again. The cheer died in the villagers' throats.

But Shin was actually smiling as he watched it regenerate, noticing how smooth and soft its skin looked.

The creature didn't have steel-like skin or regenerative cloning abilities, which could only mean it hadn't finished evolving yet. Probably because someone had woken it up before it could hibernate long enough.

He smiled ironically as he looked at Carolina, who was pressing her face flush against his chest in complete silence.

"Apparently, you did a good job," he commented. "Stupid girl."

He gave her tits a playful squeeze.