There may be bigger and more comfortable houses in the village, but beneath the bell tower was where the Worm Mages wanted to have their dinner feast.

  At this hour of twilight, most of Immanu was lit only by the moon and braziers. The night lighting was sparse—by design, Sparrow supposed. Unlike the Divine Capital of the Attini Empire, the village was built with the specific goal of being hard to navigate on foot; wide streets were nonexistent, the houses were built clumped and cluttered, and really, if they wanted to gather anywhere for a communal activity, the garden right underneath the bell tower was their only option. This way, they only had to light the braziers in this one part of the village.

  They’d put in a of effort into decorating the garden for the feast, though.

  Crystal wood tables and chairs had been warped out of their homes, settled all across the thin fields of alabaster grass. Colourful tarps and canopies were strewn over their heads, the ends tied from the closest roofs to the protruding bricks of the bell tower, shielding them from the ever gently falling snow. The air was still chilly and cold—that much was unavoidable at the top of a wintry mountain range several thousands of metres above sea level—but between the braziers burning and the candles flickering and the steamed dishes being warped out of the kitchen platter by platter, the energy in the garden was downright infectious.

  Sparrow, the guest of honour, was seated at the end of a particularly long table right before the bell tower. The moment he’d been warped back to the surface after slaying the giant ‘darkworm’, he’d been taken back to his cabin and doted over by a dozen yammering children, all shouting and squabbling over who would get to bandage his wounds. He’d ended up bandaging himself since his wounds weren’t much to worry about at all, and his half-inorganic body meant most of his pain was dulled. He still bled like a living being, but pain felt… distant. Cold.

  A minute after he’d finished, he passed out on his bed.

  What make sense was waking up eight hours later in a chair, out in the open air, facing a hundred and eleven children laughing and warping all across the garden with their toy slinkies in no particular order; the youngest of them was made to dance, caper, and spin to cheery beats hummed by musicians lining the edges of the garden. Robes billowed in the wind, warping voices floated from tables and tarps where children were playing catch around. The older kids serving platters of food called out to the playful ones, shouting at them to sit still, but clearly ‘chaos’ was the natural order for the Worm Mages of Immanu—after all, even the older kids couldn’t suppress their grins and looked like they wanted to join in on the random fun.

  Sparrow’s body was still aching slightly. He was too tired to really look at anyone or anything in particular, but just as he was about to lull himself back to sleep, Ninmah warped onto the table in front of him, fists planted on her hips.

  Her cheeks were puffy, red, and her lips were curled in the widest smile he’d seen by far.

  she said, pure self-satisfaction bleeding into her warping voice, and she clapped her hands over her head. A giant wormhole opened behind her a second after, letting the giant darkworm carcass fall and crash into the table with a tremendous rattle.

  She tossed four knives down at him, but he only had enough hands to catch two by the handles. The remaining ones stabbed into the table before him.

  While Ninmah joined the group of older children chanting at him to take the first bite, he rose to his feet and circled around the table, squinting at the giant darkworm carcass. Its crown of teeth hadn’t been removed, but its chitin plates were pried off and its translucent skin was still hissing with steam. Half of its body was missing—severed in half from ten metres down to five—but there was plenty of flesh remaining that everyone in the village could fill a whole plate with it and then some more; it may not be as tall and large as a Boreus, but it certainly seemed like there were more easily digestible parts than a normal Giant-Class bug.

  Tentatively, he poked its translucent skin with the tip of his knife. The skin bounced like some sort of slime or gel. It didn’t look particularly appetising as one long chunk of steaming gel on the surface, but hea Bullet Ant Soldier.

  Taking a breath, he cut out a small chunk no larger than his fist, struggling at first to pierce the skin with his kitchen knife. The skin may be wobbly and translucent and gel-like, but the flesh underneath was red and meaty like any normal meat; it was a fine-looking meat all things considered, and he’d eaten worse in the military.

  Ninmah and Utu and the Worm Mages squeezed next to each other as they watched him stuff the entire steaming chunk into his mouth,

  His mouth watered as he struggled to chew into the skin. He’d never actually tasted anything like it before. There was a cold saltiness to the meat that was like sea brine and froth washing onto his tongue, a bit overbearing at first, a bit dizzying at first—but then his tongue went numb and he stopped being able to taste the salt at all. It was more bearable afterwards, but still he ended up awkwardly swallowing it bit by bit, unable to get the whole chunk down in one go.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Apparently, though, that was good enough of a ‘first bite’. Utu warped on top of the carcass and hollered for everyone to take their own pieces, and charged in to fill their own plates, mouths salivating. It wasn’t a dish by any means, but Sparrow couldn’t help but feel a pang of ‘disappointment’ that he wasn’t enjoying it as much as the children apparently did.

  He didn’t let it show for long, though, because while everyone was distracted carving into the carcass with their little kitchen knives for extra bites they didn’t need to take, he pulled up his status interface briefly and took a quick peek at it.

  [Points: 8 → 24]

  While the Worm Mages busied themselves with the chaos of a feast once more, he settled down on a stool a little off to the side, cracking his neck to release eight hours’ worth of pent-up tension. He didn’t understand why or how, but now that he knew giant worms were a decent source of points— the fact that they seem to be a common delicacy in Immanu, meaning there must be more of them out there in the snow—he didn’t necessarily have to return to his battalion as soon as possible.

  Now that he had a decent source of points to draw on himself, he could stay in Immanu and explore the full extent of his new class having to rely on the Empire or Ninmah for points.

  He could stay a bit longer.

  He whirled as Ninmah warped onto the stool on the other end of his table, holding two platters of steaming food in her hands. She smiled and slid one of them across; a main dish of sliced radish, spiced cuts of fruit, and skewers of countless roasted vegetables he didn’t recognise. There were a few more chunks of worm meat on the side, though, so he didn’t hesitate drawing the plate closer.

  He started chowing down the dish in front of him with his bare hands—and if he were to be honest with himself, the vegetables were far, tastier than the worm meat. It wasn’t like he was hungry. He stopped needing to eat or drink a while ago, but… ‘normal’ tasted good, and it was something he’d never had.

  Ninmah said, smiling as she watched him clean his plate, both hands propping her cheeks.

  He kept on chewing, pulling up his status interface briefly to see his points had grown to sixty-six, and while he was still listening to her intently, it seemed as though she had nothing more to say.

  She was more than content merely watching him enjoy his food.

  , he thought, tapping his nape as he looked at her dead in the eye.

  Ninmah read his face, silent for a moment, but then her eyes lit up as he showed her his status interface; she realised what he wanted her to do.

  She didn’t have to tap her own nape to make her own status interface pop up next to her head.

  [Name: Nimah Immanu]

  [Grade: S-Rank Giant-Class]

  [Class: Whiteworm]

  [Swarmblood Art: Worm Maw]

  [Aura: 7,891]

  [Points: 159]

  [Strength: 10, Speed: 8, Toughness: 6, Dexterity: 7, Perception: 5]

  [// MUTATION TREE]

  [T1 Mutation | Inorganic God Lvl. 10

  [T2 Mutations | Vibrational Senses Lvl. 6Wormic Bones Lvl. 5

  [T3 Mutations | Segmented Setae Lvl. 3Rigid Annuli Lvl. 3Sclerite Jaw Lvl. 2

  [T4 Mutations | Proliferating Septa Lvl. 1Salt Epidermis Lvl. 1Permeating Mantle Lvl. 1Omnidirectional Ocelli Lvl. 1

  [T5 Mutations | Peristaltic Vibration Lvl. 1

  she breathed, nodding in understanding as a few other children caught sight of the glowing black box next to her head. Utu and several of the other older children warped in, crowding around the two of them.

  He blinked.

  Then he was too busy looking around, stunned, as Ninmah told the children around her how to open their status interfaces. One by one, they each revealed their preposterous numbers—points in the hundreds, attribute levels in the double digits, mutations unlocked all the way to tier five, maximum tier.

  Of the dozen or so children surrounding their table, Ninmah had the highest dexterity level, Utu had the highest strength, and while not all the younger children had a tier five mutation unlocked, of them had at least their four tier fours unlocked.

  It was… impossible.

  Or perhaps too difficult to believe.

  As the Worm Mages marvelled and poked and played around with their hovering interfaces, he couldn’t help but clench his stomach, feeling as though he was going to be sick hanging around them.

  … But, however unbelievable, he’d already seen them do one unbelievable thing after another the past month.

  What right did he have, as a mere Bullet Ant Soldier, to not accept what he’d seen with his own two eyes?

  He was certain now: these Worm Mages presented themselves as humans, but they were normal humans.

  So when Ninmah turned to him, curiosity glimmering in her eyes, clearly intent on asking him more about the status interfaces—

  The wintry winds howled, extinguishing the braziers around the garden, and the chimes at the top of the bell tower started ringing.

  The Worm Mages went quiet.

  Sparrow reached for his rifle that wasn’t there.

  And in the distance, beyond the sea of ice, a horde of Giant-Class bugs howled back.