Chapter 27: New Desires, New Preparations
The reason Number 198 thought he needed to build a house, a water press, and create a very simple vehicle could currently be understood like this.
Now that there was no longer any pressure about simply staying alive, he had to start thinking further ahead about his future life.
Having a house would make his resting environment safer, such as when sleeping or simply during other times when he needed to rest.
He would have shelter from two things.
First, the hand monsters.
You know, they had the ability to bite his head while he was sleeping.
Along with that, the house would also give him shelter from the weather.
Hmm, it was strange.
Throughout all the time since arriving in this world, he had never seen rain.
But what could he do about it?
What if it happened?
That was thinking logically about how to survive better, just like he had in his previous life.
But in reality, those reasons were only excuses for a new feeling inside him.
Desire.
After the battle, once he had escaped the pressure of survival, Number 198 had discovered a new emotion.
Peace.
From there, desire began to take root inside Number 198 and slowly develop.
He wanted to rest.
He wanted to be comfortable.
He wanted his environment to become better.
Not because he wanted to adapt.
It was the desire to rest and be lazy.
Of course, it would not negatively affect him.
It was only a seed, to the point that Number 198 himself could not even feel it yet.
That was desire.
As for the water press and the vehicle, they represented his original desire.
Existence, and increasing his ability to survive.
The water press would be made to increase the efficiency of his agriculture, allowing him to expand his farm of blood glass moss as well as normal glass moss.
This way, he would no longer have to depend on food from the hand monsters.
As he had already discovered through his struggle for food with the armored tentacle monster, the frequency of the hand monsters appearing was gradually decreasing.
They were not completely gone.
But they were becoming fewer and fewer.
According to Number 198's guess, the reason was that excessive hunting had prevented the hand monsters in the forest from producing new offspring.
The vehicle was to increase his ability to survive and to learn more about what existed outside this place, outside this forest.
To find out what was around him.
To prepare for the possibility that he might have to migrate.
Or simply to increase his chances of survival.
Finally, there was the matter of modifying his body by adding new limbs.
Number 198 had already tried this once before, while unconscious.
At that time, he had implanted new limbs.
This time, he planned to do it himself while conscious, or perhaps while he was still in a state of thought.
To become more perfect.
Stronger.
More developed.
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Inside Number 198's mind, the strongest thing was not existence or this new desire.
It was obsession.
A persistent obsession that ran deep inside his mind.
He had to become more perfect.
Number 198 hated this body.
Even though he did not know what perfection really looked like, he knew what was better.
The emotions and thoughts inside Number 198's mind were always filled with that voice.
That was also why Noci's voice kept speaking inside his head.
But those words did not affect Number 198.
It was simply another voice inside his head.
"It's okay."
Noci's words were like something wrapping around him, trying to soothe the voice inside Number 198's mind, even though it went against the nature created from pain and obsession.
Perhaps Noci's existence and development were also meant to protect Number 198's mind.
Perhaps the reason Noci developed narcissism was to prevent Number 198's mind from collapsing or losing its sanity.
Number 198 did not know that.
He only knew that Noci's words did not affect him.
Number 198 sat up and looked out at the blood-colored plain stretching endlessly into the distance.
There were only a few trees, their branches bent as if gravity itself were pulling them downward.
Above them, the blazing sun hung in the sky.
Taking a breath, he stood up and began organizing the things he needed to do.
His body was currently injured and could not recover during this period.
More importantly, his illogical energy was weakened.
Therefore, he had to wait until it recovered before he could perform another implantation.
Right now, he had no way to perform the implantation without dying.
First, Number 198 would build the house and the water press.
Along with that, he would build a vehicle to prepare for exploring the world outside the forest.
Only after the implantation would he be able to begin exploring with a lower chance of death.
After arranging the plan in his mind, he started walking to find materials for construction.
He approached the place where he kept his tools and looked at the axe.
The entire blade was gone.
He sighed softly and picked it up.
The handle and the hammerhead were still fine.
Only the blade had been too weak and had broken.
The damage annoyed him somewhat.
He needed to repair it.
Then Number 198 looked toward the monster.
Feeling Number 198's gaze on itself, it became even more hateful.
Number 198 approached it.
He needed to compare the materials he currently had.
The first blade had been made from the teeth of a hand monster.
It had been destroyed after fighting against the first layer of the armored tentacle monster's shell.
The second type had been made from the shell of this armored tentacle monster itself.
But it had also been damaged during the battle.
After cutting through the shell, which had been softened somewhat by acid, Number 198 continued cutting into the bone tube inside.
At that point, it had almost cracked apart and was about to break.
Then, during the continued battle, the axe finally broke.
This would be the third improved version.
This time, Number 198 was aiming for the teeth of the tentacle monster.
Number 198's own armor had been torn apart.
The reason was that those teeth had ripped through it.
Without those teeth, perhaps his limbs would not have been destroyed to that extent.
He approached a tentacle, ignoring the eyes staring directly at him.
Number 198 used his hand to pry its mouth open.
He had to strain with all his strength just to separate it.
The monster's jagged teeth were revealed.
They were sharp like shark teeth, but longer.
Their structure was quite solid.
It did not make sense according to logic, but they were extremely sharp and hard.
One of its teeth was nearly one-third the size of a wild boar's horn.
Number 198 grabbed one of the teeth with one hand.
His other two hands held the mouth open, trying to keep it from closing.
Ignoring the risk that, if he failed, the monster's jaws could bite his hand off like nothing, Number 198 began pulling the tooth backward.
There was no sound.
But Number 198 could feel the force of his pull.
Little by little, the stubborn tooth was slowly being pulled out of the jaw.
Snap.
The tooth finally came out.
Feeling it in his hand, Number 198 realized that the tooth seemed to be too durable.
Instead of breaking under the force of his pull, it had dragged a piece of flesh from the monster's jaw along with it.
Looking at the tooth, he could see that the root was still dragging along a mass of flesh desperately trying to hold on to it.
Number 198 was quite satisfied.
At least, he could be sure that his new axe would be more durable.
"Noci, why isn't this thing screaming? It feels like something's missing."
"Yeah... Why isn't it screaming?"
Number 198 looked back at the monster.
After having one of its teeth pulled out like that, the monster should have screamed.
He remembered the high-pitched, baby-like cry it made when it was in pain.
But this time, there was nothing.
It was completely silent.
Its eyes were still staring at Number 198.
Its pupils met his gaze.
Somehow, that gaze seemed to be becoming deeper.
Deeper and deeper.
"Whatever. This is more convenient."
After that, Number 198 broke out several more teeth.
Each time, there was no scream.
Noci watched for a while before speaking.
"That's strange, Dad. Why doesn't this thing shake or scream? And that thing in its eyes... it seems to be getting darker and darker."
Number 198 said:
"Forget it. Focus on the work for now. It isn't doing anything."
It was not that it did not want to.
It simply could not.
After getting enough teeth to make the axe blade, Number 198 began repairing it.
He only needed to replace the material of the blade.
This time, he vomited into a bowl made of wood, carved using glass-tree material so he would not have to vomit again and again.
The bowl was still corroded, of course, but it took nearly half an hour before it was destroyed.
After that, Number 198 soaked the root of the armored tentacle monster's tooth.
Naturally, the flesh stuck to the tooth root had already been processed beforehand.
It tasted quite sweet.
Only after a while did the tooth root finally begin to melt.
It looked like resin.
Number 198 attached that substance to the axe, then added concentrated blood-grass liquid and a little bone powder.
That was enough.
Then came the final step.
Grinding.
Number 198 had not done this before because he had been under time pressure.
But now he had time.
He approached a branch that had been broken by the tentacle monster.
Number 198 began using it to grind the tooth, making it sharper and more suitable for use.
At that moment, Noci continuously watched the tentacle monster through the eye at the back of his head.
The monster's outer eyes were still cloudy white like glass.
At the center of each was a black dot.
Dozens of eyes were looking at Number 198.
But inside those eyes, the hatred was beginning to change into something else.
It was no longer simply anger and agitation.
It had become something else.
Something calmer.