NOVEL NEXT Chapter 162: Weight-Loss Transformation
Zach turned to Nessa after Dukiel's suggestion.
"Not on me!" She cried out.
"That wasn't what I had in mind, no." Zach slowly pulled out a glass bottle with a milky grey liquid from inside his bag.
"I wanted to ask if we should try it on your Millipede at once or if we should try it on a monster."
"...Why wouldn't we try it on a monster first?" She asked.
"Because this is all I have," Zach lied. He had more. He even had stronger stuff. But they didn't need to know that. If they thought he wasted everything right now, the spy would think he used everything right now. It was to keep Rierdan safe.
"And because a monster and your familiar will react differently. Your Snakelong Millipede has just taken some underworld energy into its body. The monsters we will find have been contaminated and changed by underworld energy. One has consumed underworld energy and the other is part underworld energy."
"..." Nessa was silent as she considered it. Testing it on a monster might help them check how safe or unsafe it was. It might be unsafe for monsters but safe for her Millipede or it could be the other way around. In short, testing was useless.
"Let's see if she wants it." Nessa reached out a hand, and Zach handed her the bottle. She uncorked it and put it down on the ground in front of her familiar.
The Snakelong Millipede was still chewing on the rubbery cadaver of some kind of crocodile, but when a faint, clear fragrance hit its face, it spat out the flesh, bone, and skin in its mouth and turned around. It quickly located the tiny glass bottle on the ground.
It wasn't even as big as the tip of its mandible. Stay updated through M V L
The Millipede lowered its head and came close enough to the bottle that it reflected in the round, smooth forehead of the Millipede.
The Millipede looked like it was sniffing the bottle. It was hesitant.
The liquid in the bottle attracted it. It smelled nice and slightly sweet. But some poisons were sweet. The Millipede could feel something about the potion.
It raised its head and looked at Nessa.
Nessa, still with her arms crossed, shrugged.
"It might be dangerous. It might be good for you. It's your call."
Upon hearing and feeling that it wasn't intentionally malicious, the Millipede chomped down on the bottle. It even brought a piece of the ground with it as it ate the bottle whole. The glass was crushed by its insides, but the shards couldn't so much as scratch the Millipede from within.
The Millipede swallowed the glass shards and the lump of dirt. They moved through the Millipede's digestive system, quickly grouping up with the monster corpses it had eaten earlier. But the anti-underworld energy had already disappeared–dissipated into the Millipede's flesh.
Nothing happened at first. It was like the Millipede had only eaten a glass bottle.
Zach frowned. Maybe he hadn't needed to ask Alzara to weaken the potion even further. The first one she made was just not worth experimenting with since he was sure it was too strong. But maybe the second or third iterations would have been enough to clear the underworld energy out of the Millipede.
It certainly looked like the sixth and weakest version so far wasn't enough.
However, suddenly, Nessa's Snakelong Millipede convulsed. Its body contracted and contorted into a spiral before extending into a stick. Its carapace ruptured in places. The places that didn't rupture swelled with bubbles bigger than a person.
At first, only blood escaped from the cracks in the Millipede's body. Nessa could only watch on in shock and fear as it looked like her Millipede was about to explode.
What had she done?
But after another few painfully long moments of the Millipede's contorting, black gas shot out of the ruptures and the Millipede's mouth with a whistling noise like steam from a kettle.
Slowly, the Millipede deflated as more and more underworld energy slipped out of it. The bubbles shrank and shrank until they were gone, and the Millipede's carapace was flat again. But it didn't stop there.
Murky gas continued escaping the Millipede's body, and it looked like the Millipede was deflating as it continued shrinking. It was the most effective and quickest weight-loss transformation Zach had ever seen.
The Millipede stopped looking like a swollen sausage as it regained its sleek and slim for its size appearance.
In the same go, the cracks and ruptures healed as a very subtle light covered its body, giving the already-dark Millipede an even darker color to its body. It wasn't quite black, but it was close.
The Millipede hadn't just been freed from the underworld energy clogging its body and disrupting its digestion and evolutionary process. It had completed its evolution in one quick go.
Even without seeing Nessa's interface, Zach could tell that the Millipede had evolved. The shimmer, relief, and joy in Nessa's eyes were all the confirmation he needed. But he was still curious about what the Snakelong Millipede had evolved into.
But he waited until Nessa was finished patting and hugging her familiar. It took a while. Nessa was pretty excited, after all.
Finally, however, the Millipede nudged her away so it could continue eating. It seemed like it wasn't completely finished yet.
"Looks like you have a talent for this, Nessa," Zach complimented her. Although it was thanks to his (Alzara's) potion, Nessa had accurately determined the underlying problem behind her Millipede's delayed evolution.
"Thanks." Nessa proudly accepted the compliment. She also thanked Zach for the anti-underworld energy potion at the same time.
"So, uh…?" Zach looked at her questioningly.
"..."
"..."
"...Oh!" After looking at Zach for a while, Nessa understood what he meant. She looked at the air in front of her for a moment before smiling brightly.
"B-rank. Serpentine Millipede."
"Congrats!"
"Congratulations, Nessa!"
Nessa had mixed feelings after hearing the celebratory words from one S-rank and one A-rank who also had an S-rank familiar when she was just a B-rank familiar now.
"Thanks. And you two better be prepared, it won't be long until I catch up to you guys."