## Chapter 166 – Nemea (1)
‘What on earth is this……’
My mind grew increasingly complex as I looked down at the being.
A troublesome form I had seen once before, one that shouldn’t be appearing yet.
Memories of the time I spent reading books side-by-side with Karla, rolling around on the bed, resurfaced, and I had to take a moment to sort out my complicated thoughts.
‘I don’t know much about Enics… but still…
This is… it, right……?’
The small illustration that adorned the first part of the [Enic] section in 『The Compendium of Mysterious Beasts』.
A tiny, strangely shaped larva wriggled inside an amniotic sac that had shriveled after the amniotic fluid had drained.
The form of the Enic, an organism that is both animal and plant, during the period when it exhibits its greatest mobility (?).
Before it settles down, when it wanders in search of places with abundant prey, its true form is that of an Enic larva.
‘I’m not even an adult yet…?
Why is there already one of these…?
No… should I say it’s timely…?’
I am merely a pretty sunflower peeking out from the academy’s flowerbed.
Shouldn’t a real adult (?) be a grand and towering World Tree or something?
For me to already be seeing offspring, something must be wrong.
‘I’m not mistaken, am I……?’
When I gently picked up the larva with my tentacle, the creature, which had been wriggling inside the amniotic sac just moments before, seemed to know it was being held by its father, and it quietly stretched out its body.
Despite being the cause of Lanié’s severely swollen belly, its size was only about that of a human woman’s slender forearm.
No matter how closely I looked at it, it was exactly like the one depicted in the illustration.
Unless the author mistook it for a Mute Scavenger or Luke Skywalker, this creature was definitely an Enic larva.
On the surface, it felt like a wooden sculpture, but the wriggling, soft movements and the small tentacles that occasionally flicked out from its mouth clearly conveyed the feeling of a familiar member of the same species.
‘Wait… same species……’
Suddenly curious, I slowly focused my mind on the creature.
Along with the sensation of being drawn in, I began to feel a sense that was still immature, as it had only recently been born.
Clearly, this sensation meant that my consciousness could reside within this larva as well.
‘So, is this creature essentially treated the same as the colony members…?’
I was momentarily filled with a great deal of worry, but then I was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
If this creature were a separate entity from me, there would be more than one or two problems.
Right now, I am lying low among the so-called lords of creation, beings who are also known as monster-species slayers, trying to avoid attention as much as possible.
In such a situation, what if a larva, unaware of its place, followed its instincts and gleefully filmed a mad movie of seducing females?
Not only would the larva be immediately exterminated, but I would also have a hard time escaping the meticulous quarantine network that could be newly established to commemorate (?) the Enic outbreak in Groden.
Because of that problem, I might have had to dispose of the larva that Lanié had painfully given birth to without even being able to use it.
‘Thank goodness, thank goodness.’
If she had gone through the pain of giving birth only to find out that the creature couldn’t understand her and had to be killed, she wouldn’t have been in a good mood.
I slowly brought the larva, which I had been holding with the tip of my tentacle, to the sleeping Lanié and placed it on her chest. The Enic larva wriggled over to her nipple and gently tickled it with its tentacles.
‘Is she a milk cow…? She is a milk cow…?’
I didn’t think milk would come out just because of that, but it actually did.
The other females didn’t produce milk just because they gave birth to colony members.
‘Is this also because she gave birth to an Enic……?’
Was it just my imagination that the creature licking Lanié’s breast milk with its tentacles felt like a baby?
Even in her sleep, Lanié seemed to sense something, letting out a soft moan.
Her hand slowly rose and gently stroked the larva, which she had never seen before, as it licked her chest, just like a mother holding her baby.
‘……’
With so many thoughts crowding my mind, I decided to give them some time to rest.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
– Experiment. Frequent errors.
– Predicted result. Below standard.
‘For all that, it was a good result.
Even better than expected……’
The number one contributor to Lanié’s ability to overcome the crisis.
That was the newly developed creation, ‘Nemea.’
In ancient Greek and Roman mythology, there was a legend like this.
The great warrior Heracles fought the monstrous lion for a whole month, finally winning, and he peeled off its tough hide, which could not be pierced by swords or spears, and wore it on his body as armor that symbolized him.
That lion was the ‘Lion of the Nemean Valley,’ or simply the ‘Nemean Lion.’
Of course, I don’t know if it will perform well enough to live up to such a grand name, but at least that was my purpose in creating it.
.
.
.
“Vivian-nim…!! You must escape quickly…!!”
“What’s going on?”
“It seems there’s a turf war between cartels!!
Judging by the scale, it doesn’t seem like a large cartel is involved…
It seems one of their targets is this brothel…!!”
At Aurora’s urgent explanation, Vivian turned her head slightly and glanced behind her.
Hearing the hurried footsteps of the sturdy guards running around, Vivian finally let out a soft sigh.
“Hide somewhere.
It’ll be troublesome if you’re seen.”
“Yes…!! I’ll hide with the others then…!!”
“Okay. Wait until I come.”
Vivian watched Aurora run off to take care of the precious beast-kin females, the assets of the den. She took out a suitably sharpened sword from the closet behind the counter and leisurely examined it.
“The condition is good…”
– Thwack!!
“Aigoo!! It’s nothin’ much!! Boys!!
From today on, this place is occupied by our Terra!!
Luna from next door is all dead today too!!
Huh? Who are you?”
As a group of armed men poured in from the entrance, Vivian, who had been sitting at the counter looking at the sword, slowly rolled her eyes and glared at them.
Perhaps they found it amusing that only a woman in a light dress was left to glare at them, as the men burst into laughter.
“As expected of a brothel!! She’s already in the spirit of service!!
She didn’t even run away and was ready to receive guests?
We have a lot of guests today, so the lady will have to work hard?”
“I like it from behind?
I’ll send you straight to heaven!!
You’ll probably leak later though!!”
The men took turns teasing Vivian as if they were playing a joke, and soon Vivian, who had been slowly rising, fluttered the hem of her blue dress and slowly walked towards the counter.
“Oh my!! She came out with a sword!!
I’m so scared, what should I do?”
“Shouldn’t we counter a sword with a sword?
If we stab her with this sword instead of that one,
She’ll probably die of pleasure!!”
At the words of one man who showed off a suggestive hip movement, everyone burst into laughter, but soon the laughter disappeared from their faces.
“What is that…?
Am I seeing things…?”
“Ew!! How disgusting!!
What the hell are you?”
The ordinary blue dress disappeared as if melting into black, and her whole body was turning inside out as if scales filling her skin were being flipped over.
The sight was truly astonishing, like watching a shapeshifting esper in a certain superhero movie, who perfectly copies even clothing with bare skin.
As the process, which was neither fast nor slow, came to an end, the men were amazed by Vivian’s appearance, which had transformed as if she were wearing a full-body latex suit of jet black, but they also swallowed hard at her alluring figure.
That’s because, as they say, subtle sexiness is more alluring than overt sexiness.
Vivian already had a beautiful body with well-balanced, large hexagonal proportions.
The sight of a glossy black membrane being applied from Vivian’s toes to the neck below her chin, as if it were body paint on a perfect nude silhouette, was something that ordinary clothes could never express.
Wasn’t it only natural that men couldn’t resist the sight of her body, which perfectly reflected the flowing curves of the female form?
However, one man, who had been off guard by Vivian’s fierce gaze, reached out to touch and tease her beautiful body, but at that moment.
“Kkeuaaaaaaack!!”
His wrist flew into the air as if he had hit a home run, and vivid crimson streaks of blood splattered on the walls of the brothel.
