Soon, I reached the source of the glow ― a hole in the wall. At first, it seemed like nothing unusual, but if you looked directly down, you could see something very interesting...

  The ocean floor.

  There had always been a solid surface beneath us, but at such a depth that reaching it seemed all but possible. But now... now it was so close. Did that mean that land was south? But how would we get there?

  The glow continued to beckon, and I continued to follow.

  Virus #54 has been successfully removed!

  With the last atom of my strength, I rushed toward the glow and the tunnel it was standing next to. I knew that I wouldn’t make it the moment the whispering died down.

  I was back in my body.

  ***

  “Loki! What the hell is going on?! Where’s the light?!”

  “What’s with him?”

  “He ain’t answering!”

  “E... E-Everything is... o-okay, guys...” I said with effort. “T-There was a virus but... B-But the immune s-system... took c-care of it...”

  An electrical charge was sent, and I saw weird little specks being ejected from my body. Spider cursed and, carefully avoiding the specks, began to wrap his healing web around me.

  “They’re so small! I didn’t even notice them!” Amoeba said in admiration.

  My HP started recovering and I was soon back on my feet.

  Attention! A mod for the [Mental Transmitter] has been installed.

  Player [] has covered the installation costs.

  The player’s name was hidden not because the System didn’t wish to display it, but because it was written in strange characters that it couldn’t process. Hell, not even my brain could process them, they weren’t from any language I knew.

  “Are you out of your mind?! Scouts, fall back!” Sour shouted, looking at his allies in surprise. “We need to get out of here ASAP!”

  “I think... I had a vision...” I said, looking at the little balls of light. “Something black is coming from the southeast... And even further... The wall curves... That player lives there... The one who gave me a mod... But... More importantly... I saw the ocean floor!”

  “Sorry?” Sour asked, suddenly stopping on his way out of the tunnel.

  “The floor! I think that land is south from here.”

  ***

  Swimming away from the tunnels, we waited for the scouts to come back so that we could regroup.

  “Amoeba, I received a notification from the System that someone had installed a mod for me. How’s that possible?”

  “I don’t know, but science knows that viruses can transmit genetic information to their host... So, in theory, what you say could’ve happened...” Amoeba replied rather vaguely, studying a sample of the virus that he took with him.

  “What are the side-effects?”

  “There could be none... Or maybe you’ve gotten a malignant tumor and you have but days left to live,” he replied thoughtfully, twirling the virus in his pseudopods.

  I stopped. “A tumor? For real?”

  “You see, as far as I understand it,” he said, continuing on his way, making me speed up and follow him. “This new world isn’t a perfect copy of our own... Some things are similar to those that we know, but not quite the same... For example, this virus. According to the system message that you’ve received, it’s linked to another player. However, we know that viruses can’t be controlled. So how is this possible? I don’t know. You’ve been given some kind of a modification, which could turn out to be a disease in disguise or something useful... We still have so much to learn about this world...”

  “I see,” I said, tuning out his scientific rambling so that I could think.

  But just as I had begun to do that, we reached the tunnel exit.

  ***

  Falcon cursed, causing Valkyrie to shoot him a glare, but I would have said the same. It turned out that the something black that I had seen, and that we were now staring at, was... a corpse of a fly.

  “Seriously?! A fly?!” Ivan exclaimed, examining its giant shadow, which was probably as big as our entire Base.

  “At moments like these you realize just how small you are,” Spider remarked.

  “Fly or not, this is a real feast... Which means...?” I smiled.

  “There will be guests!” Falcon shouted.

  There was no player who didn’t like being given free things, XP especially. And I was no exception. I’d thrown myself at opponents several levels higher than me just to get my hands on it.

  As there was a lot to be done and explored, we changed the group’s structure a bit. Sour and Falcon swam ahead. Behind them were Ivan, the tank, and Amoeba, who had the best regeneration ability and biggest amount of HP. On the flanks were our fastest scouts, and in the center were the weakest members, including me and my little Ant.

  A group of Cyclopes immediately swam up to us, thinking that we were easy prey. Sour and Falcon got their attention and led them straight toward the tanks, who had their spikes and fangs at the ready. Half of the group ended up impaled on Ivan’s spikes, while the rest were being digested in Amoeba’s cytoplasm. The few lucky ones that slipped through were taken care of by the rest of us.

  They didn’t taste the best, but the XP was nice, so no one complained.

  As we got closer to the fly, we were able to distinguish where its wings and legs were. Ivan swore. He had a fear of insects, especially large and hairy ones.

  “Entomophobia,” Amoeba commented to no one in particular.

  Caterpillar, level 6

  Caterpillar, level 9

  Caterpillar, level 10

  Caterpillar, level 7

  Caterpillar, level 4

  These guys ended up being tougher opponents than the Cyclopes. They possessed impressive growths in the area where their eyes should’ve been, and long bodies, perfect for strangling their unlucky victims.

  Four of them suddenly shifted their attention from the fly to us. We didn’t have time to regroup from the last attack, so the tanks suffered quite a lot of damage, but the Caterpillars ended up losing one of their members.

  Getting an idea, I swam up to Sour who nodded in agreement.

  Ivan and Amoeba went forth and attacked the enemy head-on. The rest of us attacked from the sides and I ordered my pet to go to the depths, planning to repeat the maneuver that Leshy had used in the Anthill raid.

  “Go!” Scour barked when the Ant appeared under the group of Caterpillars.

  Distracted by the tanks, the mobs didn’t have the time to react to the Ant that hit them from below, piercing two at once with its pseudopods. Using the moment of distraction, Valkyrie killed one with her string, and Amoeba finished off the other one with a ball of thick, acidic cytoplasm.

  I got XP for assisting and was now a step away from reaching level seven.

  Encouraged by our victory, I joined the attackers, but was immediately bitten by the level ten Caterpillar. Having lost half of my HP and finished off a half-dead mob, I backed away, leaving the big guy to Ivan and Amoeba.

  Soon, all of the Caterpillars were dead. The nearby mobs backed away, recognizing our strength.

  ***

  Scouts constantly monitored the situation, driving away the most brazen creatures while the main groups swam closer to the fly. As we approached, we noticed that it had a wound on its stomach that oozed a slimy orange liquid.

  “Is that... blood?” Valkyrie asked in disgust.

  “Looks like it... Shall we get closer?” Amoeba suggested.

  “And go through that shit?” Ivan squeaked, frightened. “Are you serious? Through the blood?!”

  “I am, my friend. Just imagine what kind of interesting microorganisms might be in that ‘stuff’ that could prove useful to us,” Amoeba said enthusiastically, “and I’m not even talking about rare mods and such.”

  “Sour, what do you think?” I asked.

  “I think it’d be stupid to pass up such a good farming opportunity. Flies aren’t aquatic, after all. You could say that, as things are now, they’re from a totally different world. So, Ivan, what do you say?”

  “I hate bugs, I really do,” he said after a long pause, “but to stay here alone... I mean, you guys would be goners without me!”

  After looking around and making sure that the mobs were staying a good distance away from us, greedily looking at their meal or fighting amongst themselves, we swam toward the fly and its open wound.

  ***

  While the squad discussed the fly and how disgusting its blood was, I kept thinking about the vision that I had and the strange mod that had been installed in me, which I couldn’t find anywhere in the options.

  Chapter 6

  THE INNER WORLD OF THE FLY

  The blood seeping through the open wound flowed more slowly. Finally, the orange current died down, allowing us to get inside. We swam carefully inside an artery, which was now almost completely filled with water. Our vision was obstructed by blood.

  “Amoeba, where to next?” Sour asked, looking at one of the branching tunnels with interest.

  “It depends on what we’re looking for,” he replied hesitantly, studying the artery wall that was covered with what looked like black cobweb. I also noticed these strange formations: the thinnest threads had attached themselves to the flesh and had found their way inside the body.

  “We need XP, so enemies,” Sour said, interrupting my train of thought.

  The moment we entered the fly, the surrounding mobs quickly ran to grab food, making it unsafe to stay too close to the “entrance” as they could hit us from the back.

  “Parasites are usually concentrated around the most important organs, but I don’t know if we’re able to detect them...” Amoeba commented, still staring at the web.

  “I think we should split up,” I said. “We can cover more ground like that.”

  “Makes sense,” Sour said after a moment’s thought.

  “Then you go and examine the abdomen and the internal organs, we’ll go and try to get to the fly’s brain. There might be parasites there, too, right?”

  “Absolutely,” Amoeba said, trying to pry a bit of the web off the wall with his pseudopod.

  ***

  Having assigned our new tasks, we split up at the next fork.

  I illuminated our path with the charges, revealing the curved, furrowed walls of the arteries, my alert allies, and the floating bits and pieces of the fly’s flesh, torn out of it by the impact with the water’s surface or other injury. From time to time, we’d eat bits of these pieces for energy and nourishment.

  Ivan, as it might’ve been expected, refused to eat or even look at us while we ate.

  “You shouldn’t be squeamish,” Amoeba said. “You’d be wise to eat now, who knows when we’ll find food again.”

  “I’d rather die than eat that. I’ll pass,” he said with disgust.

  “But you’ve eaten it already!” Spider laughed. “We’re swimming through its arteries and blood! You’ve drunk the water, haven’t you?”

  If unicellular organisms had a gag reflex, Ivan would’ve thrown up right then and there. But since they didn’t, all he could do was try to force the contents of his digestive vacuoles out. Rather unsuccessfully at that. Seeing him struggle made us laugh. The other group joined in, too, having heard the entire conversation.

  “Oh shut up!” Ivan shouted but it was impossible to stop the laughter.

  And then, something strange happened.

  The black threads started to move and got close to the offended Ivan.

  “Um,” I began, slowly backing away from the wall of the artery, “Ivan...”

  “What?” Valkyrie asked, confused.

  “Nothing,” I said. The whole thing seemed to be just my imagination. “Let’s... carry on.”

  ***

  The blood vessels grew narrower the further we went and the strange black threads seemed to become more and more numerous. There was even more blood around us now, making the poor visibility even poorer. As if that wasn’t bad enough, choosing which way to go became increasingly more difficult as the arteries kept diverging. Fortunately, we had Amoeba with us who, being a biologist, knew which way we should go.

  We grew moodier the longer we traveled and we soon fell silent. We swam quietly, casting cautious glances at our surroundings. I’d occasionally send my Ant to investigate but it never found anything unusual or dangerous. Still, the tension grew by the minute.

  Judging by the barely audible voices of Sour’s group, they were having it even worse than us.

  “...ame... ectio... aga... Where... now...?” Sour asked.

  “Which of the branches is thicker?” Amoeba said as clearly and loudly as possible.

  “...eft!”

  “That way, then!”

  All of a sudden, loud chatter filled the channel.

  “What happened?” I shouted.

  “Step... ack!”

  “Damn it! Fuck off!”

  Our group was suddenly alarmed. Valkyrie tried to swim back but Spider stopped her.

  “Where to? We’re a long way away from them, we won’t make it in time.”

  “And? Should we wait until they’re dead?”

  The group fell silent.

  “I... can’t reach them with Mental Transmission anymore,” I said.

  We continued forward, just waiting for the System to send us a message, the contents of which none of us would like.

  “We should go back!” Valkyrie said, breaking the silence.

  “There’s no point,” Spider replied. “They could be anywhere. We only know their approximate location ― the abdomen.”

  “I led them closer to the heart,” Amoeba said, “but there’s a lot of ground to cover from the abdomen to the chest... I specialize in microorganisms, not insects but I’m still sure that this black growth shouldn’t be here!”

  They continued bickering and I thought about the absurdity of this situation: we were in the body of a submerged fly...

  ...goddamn it, Amoeba was right. This had to be the work of some aliens that were probably sitting in front of some kind of a screen now and watching us struggle as if they were watching a movie... or a game.

  ***

  About some fifteen minutes later, when the rest of us finally managed to calm Valkyrie down, we continued swimming in silence.

  “Where’s Ivan?” Amoeba suddenly asked.

  I looked back but didn’t see him.

  Where could he have gone? I wondered as I looked around. There were only two blood-filled tunnels. No other branches.

  “Ivan!” Amoeba called.

  We didn’t get a response.

  And then Spider suddenly screamed.

  “Fuck! You motherf― Help!”

  I turned sharply in his direction and saw a chunk of dead flesh detach itself from the wall. Pinkish water gushed into the hole and Spider got caught by the current. Luckily, he managed to grab on to the wall of the artery with his pseudopods and plug the hole with his body.

  Amoeba immediately ran up to him, but the chunk of meat that had been dangling by a small piece of flesh suddenly curled up and slammed into him, pushing him aside and going after him.

  Clinger

  Level 5

  “What’s a ‘Clinger’?!” Valkyrie gasped in surprise, swimming to the hole in the artery; the pressure behind was almost equal to that inside the artery.

  “Probably some kind of a parasite masquerading as a piece of meat,” I said, temporarily stopping my rapid fire of electrical charges so that I could accumulate enough energy for one big charge that’d be able to illuminate the outside of the artery.

  A bright flash of lightning revealed Amoeba cutting his pursuer into pieces. Leaving behind a translucent trail of... something, the Clinger tried to escape. Spider reacted quickly and shot his web at it. Wrapping it around the parasite, he turned it into a motionless mummy. He then sank his fangs into it, absorbing its contents. Our cheers of joy were interrupted by Valkyrie.

  “Guys, it seems that the Clinger wasn’t alone...”

  Another electrical charge revealed even more mobs arranged in a semicircle around Spider. The distance between them was rapidly decreasing.

  “Help him!” I shouted and rushed after the rest of the group.

  But I didn’t manage to get far as something hit me, throwing me back. Then something wrapped itself around me and pulled me away from the others. The Ant reacted immediately and rushed over to me, sinking its pseudopods into a... tail?!

  Long Worm

  Level 14

  “Guys, help!” I shouted, feeling the thing pulling me in the direction of the hole that had just been formed by another chunk of flesh falling off.

  But they didn’t react in time: as soon as I was pulled out of the tunnel, my kidnapper clung to the wall, hiding the hole.

  I was hitting the tail with all my might, and the Ant had already chewed through the Long Worm’s elastic shell and was trying to get inside of it.

  “Loki, where are you?!” Valkyrie’s voice reached me.

  “Another parasite is in the artery! Something grabbed me and is dragging me away!” I shouted back, trying to chew through the Long Worm’s shell.

  But my struggle didn’t last long. A moment later, a needle-like appendage pierced my shell and cytoplasm and reached the core, instantly knocking me unconscious.

  ***

  I had another vision. I still didn’t know how that was possible. There were no viruses next to me this time... Or was it because of the Transmitter?

  My consciousness was once again separated from my body that remained in the tight grip of the Long Worm. Able to see clearly in the dark, I rushed south, passing directly through the flesh of the fly that was being devoured from all sides by the various mobs.

  However, this time, I couldn’t control my movements.

  On the plus side, now I could finally see the entire fly, illuminated by the sun passing through the surface of the water. The insect, its wings spread, swayed in the giant waves, coloring the water copper and attracting the attention of dozens of mobs that were just arriving at the feast. The first fight over food broke out: the larger unicellular organisms were driving away the smaller ones despite there being a lot of food around.

 

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