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# CHAPTER 32: THE FLAME
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Feeling a warm stream brush against the top of its head, Number 198 opened its eyes. The sky had already reached midday. A faint stinging sensation spread through its eyes.
It was about to raise a hand to rub them, but it suddenly paused — it didn't know which eye to rub. It had three hands, but eight eyes in total. Three were squeezed shut, pressed firmly against the pillow; the remaining five were open — so there weren't enough hands to rub them all.
Thanks to that jumble of random thoughts, Number 198 became fully awake and sat up. Its whole body still ached, but it was much better than before. It raised a hand and clenched it into a fist — the pain was gradually fading, bit by bit.
*Based on the current situation, the body will probably recover completely in the near future.*
It stood up and looked around — it was already noon. It gazed at the sky for a while, feeling rather at ease.
*Maybe I should eat something, like breakfast. But first...*
It walked over to where the shovel was, picked it up, dug a small hole, and began to throw up the digested food in its stomach.
*Blegh... blegh... blegh...*
The sound was like actual vomiting, but in reality, it was just the waste matter squeezing through its throat and being expelled.
For some reason, this time when it threw up, the stinging sensation was significantly less than before. Maybe that was why. Or perhaps its mental pain threshold had changed — that part wasn't certain, since there was no data or report summary to go by.
Ignoring the morning's rambling thoughts, Number 198 decided to go eat.
Looking at its pile of severed limbs, it found it rather strange — there were no signs of mold at all, just a slight dryness, and even that was negligible.
*It seems like the grass around here has a tendency to creep toward my pile of limbs? Probably looking for food — who knows.*
Whatever. It picked up a leg and began gnawing on it.
The taste was the same as always, just a bit drier — probably because the blood had all drained into the ground and been absorbed, so it wasn't as juicy as before. But whatever, as long as it was edible, it was fine.
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Directing its gaze toward the monster, Number 198 noticed that its body seemed to have shrunk a little.
Still gnawing on the leg, it moved closer to observe.
*What's this? Is it recovering?*
Looking at the patches of flesh slowly reconnecting — that part wasn't surprising — but it seemed like its tendons were also growing back. The tentacles couldn't move much yet, but they could still twitch a few centimeters.
*It already has tendons to generate pulling force? How is that possible? It has nothing to eat, where is the energy coming from to recover?*
Certain that it was safe, Number 198 thought it should check, even though it already had a vague guess about how the monster was recovering.
It repeatedly kicked the monster with its leg.
Do you know the biggest advantage of having four legs? It's that you can kick freely without worrying about losing balance and falling flat on your face.
*Thwack, thwack, thwack.*
The reason for kicking was to see the monster's reaction.
With its remaining eyes, it looked at Number 198 with a gaze full of bewilderment, as if it didn't understand what Number 198 was doing — but that look was quickly replaced by calm mixed with hatred.
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*Hmm, no counterattack. Its muscles have recovered too little, not enough to react.*
Next, to verify its hypothesis, Number 198 approached one of the mouths and used its hands to pry the jaws apart.
*Whoa. Just as I thought.*
Looking at the chunks of flesh torn out from deep inside its throat, everything became clear.
This thing was eating itself.
Sounds pretty stupid, right? Eating yourself doesn't replenish anything — there's nothing to replenish. But actually, this method was quite clever. Unlike normal creatures, both Number 198 and this monster could recover thanks to an illogical energy source — probably, Number 198 was just guessing based on its own case.
This self-eating would reduce body volume, convert it into energy, and then use that energy to heal wounds.
Of course, this process would definitely have losses, so its body would gradually shrink — but in exchange, its injuries would be healed.
*Wait. So that means the energy source for regenerating the body is itself — it eats itself to recover, then transfers that energy to wherever it's needed more.*
*Then that pile of my severed limbs over there... is also the illogical energy source existing within my body. If I eat all those limbs, maybe the illogical energy in my body will be partially replenished.*
*But it probably won't be completely full, because this type of energy is constantly being consumed, just to sustain the life of something illogical like me.*
It sounded very reasonable — but it couldn't be certain either.
Looking at the monster, Number 198 tossed it the half-gnawed leg.
*Its body shrinking like this might actually benefit me, but I shouldn't let it shrink too much — because I still need it strong enough to use its limbs after transplantation.*
Number 198 already had a precaution in place: pull out the tendons first. Pulling out tendons meant destroying the muscles, making it unable to move.
It tossed it another leg.
It picked up one of its remaining hands and gave it to Silas in its belly to eat.
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Since waking up this morning, it hadn't heard Noci say anything — a bit curious.
It imagined a door in its mind, knocked *knock knock*, and transmitted a thought asking Noci what it was doing.
*Dad, I'm trying to fix the messy pile of memories, so for now I won't be able to say "I love you, Dad" anymore. But it's fine, I'm still watching you, just watching passively.*
*If you don't mind, can I continue? I'm almost at the part about soul knowledge, I'm quite curious what the next part of the memory will be.*
Number 198 replied, feeling a bit strange inside.
*You're reading memories for entertainment?*
Noci answered immediately:
*No, this is for my development. Goodbye, Dad. Love you, love you, love you, love you...*
Ignoring Noci. Even though Noci and Number 198 were no longer "one" as before, but had split into two separate parts, it was still a part of Number 198 — like an organ, like the heart. So there was nothing to worry about.
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Looking at its crude machine, Number 198 smiled faintly with its eyes.
This was the water press. Based on yesterday's test results, it had already worked properly. Now, Number 198 could expand the scale of its farming camp — before there were only six planting spots, now there would definitely be more.
To test it, this time Number 198 brought the axe instead of the knife, to cut blood grass — because this machine could press an enormous amount.
Folding its four legs, lowering itself close to the ground, it swung the axe.
*Swoosh.*
Nothing happened — still too high.
It lay flat on the ground and swung again.
A row of blood grass was sliced off in an arc.
Realizing it was effective, Number 198 crawled forward a bit, then crawled another stretch, and just kept going like that.
Time passed quickly like wind blowing — three hours had gone by. Looking back at the results:
The blood grass was piled into separate clusters, one after another. Each cluster was about one to two kilograms, five clusters in total — each cluster was just enough for one pressing, after which the residue had to be scooped out before pressing the next.
Put one cluster in, then follow the exact process: pull the weight up high, then let it drop. Simple as that. It might have been an illusion, but Number 198 felt like it could even hear the sound of water flowing down inside.
The lid of the water container had been sealed tight.
It had thought one cluster would fill it, but because it was pressed so tightly, it turned out more could be stuffed in. It added another cluster of crushed blood grass, then a third, packing it in tight — just barely leaving enough space for the weight to move up and down.
It took the water scoop made last night — to put it simply, it was just a small basin with a handle attached, simple as that. Opening the lid of the water container, a stream of bright red liquid poured out, and it held the scoop to catch it.
Less than two scoops and it was overflowing.
It used that water to irrigate the camp, taken from the very blood grass it had just pressed. Repeating the process at each planting spot — when the scoop was full, it went back to water the old beds, and so on until the water ran out.
It raised a hand to its chin and thought.
*Hmmm, if I spend three hours every day doing this grass-cutting routine, I could probably support about twenty-four blood glass moss planting spots.*
*But probably not. I'll plant more regular glass moss too — even though it has no sweetness at all, it's still starch, not as hard to eat as blood grass.*
Having determined how much it could handle, Number 198 began going to retrieve the tightly pressed blood grass residue.
Using the axe to split it into pieces, then taking another suitable scoop to shovel out the blood grass residue and carry it up.
Perhaps because it had been pressed too tightly, the residue was quite hard.
*Good. Then it'll be convenient to turn it into charcoal.*
That's right — Number 198 was finally about to create fire.
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