78. Underground Threats

The sight outside his car has made Ben shocked. He sees many blood patches and pieces of flesh scattered around. There's no such a thing before he sleeps, so it must've happened while he sleeps.

Ben immediately enter his car to check on the video that he recorded using a lacrima camera while he sleep. It should capture the moment when this happened.

The recorded video is playing at normal speed. So Ben hasten it, or it will take hours to find the cause. He finally finds what he searches for after 5 minutes of adjustment.

When the video is played, Ben can see that the beasts are still trying to break the car's shield. But they don't succeed, so they start to fight each other because they are easier than the car's shield.

The fighting among the beasts isn't the problem, it's what happens afterward. Some big centipede-like creatures with human faces come out from the ground and attack the beasts.

They kill the beasts easily and start to devour them. The centipedes even tried to break the car's shields. But they failed, so they get underground again.

"Those beasts are rather strong, so these centipedes must be a lot stronger to kill them that fast. I never thought that the danger in this island is buried deep below it," says Ben.

Ben now gets warier of this island's threat. He can't sense those creatures that live too deep under the ground. He doesn't know their strength or number, and that's really dangerous.

"I can't continue this job with Bella. It will be too dangerous for her," says Ben while looking at the sleeping Bella.

Ben then calls Marc on the battleship and tells him the situation. Marc understands and reports it to the ship's captain. They agree to take Bella, so Ben can explore the island freely.

Bella protests when Ben tells her to leave the island after she wakes up. But when she watches the video recording, she turns silent. It is really too dangerous for her to stay on this island and she will just hold Ben back from doing his job.

Ben & Bella then go to the beach again. They wait for some minutes before the ship arrived. Bella flies to the ship with a sad expression, so Ben promises to take her on a vacation after the job. She cheered up a little and then the ship leaves the island.

He is alone now, so Ben can explore this island without any worry. He gets in his car and immediately explores the island again. Ben activates the car's basic defense system while he explores, in case of sudden attack from those underground creatures.

The exploration on the surface is faster now and Ben finished it in 5 hours. There are some places that he has marked. Those locations are caves that might lead him to those creatures' dens.

It's still day now, so Ben immediately starts to explore the caves after he eats. If those creatures are active at night, then the best time to find them is during the day. Although he doesn't know for sure if all of them aren't active at day.

Ben enters the first cave that has a rather big size. This is the biggest cave that he found and he choose it. If he needs to fight, then the best place to do it is in the biggest cave because he will have more room.

He illuminates the cave using his light magic orb. The cave is going down rather steeply, so Ben needs to walk slowly. He uses a stick to help him walk down the steep ground.

Ben doesn't sense anything even after he goes deep enough. But he also hasn't seen the end of this cave even after walking for an hour. This cave is a lot deeper than he thought.

"No wonder I couldn't feel those creatures from the surface. They live too deep under the ground," ponders Ben.

Half an hour later, Ben finally senses something. He hastens his pace and finds a hole that goes straight down. There are many magical sources that he sensed from the hole. This hole seems to lead to a very big underground room.

Ben uses his magic sense to count the number of these creatures and it makes him stunned. There are 1 High-Level S-Class creatures, 2 Low-Level S-Class, 17 B-Class, and hundreds of E-Class. Their strength gaps are big, but their number is very high.

"What a drag," says Ben while massaging his temples.

Ben can just leave now because he has found these threats. These creatures are enough to make this island a forbidden place. 3 S-Class creatures are enough to make this place dangerous, even for S-Class mages.

However, Ben can't leave this place even if he wants. His presence has been detected by these creatures and they're moving toward him now. He can't run too because the distance to the surface is too far.

"Damn, I need to fight here even if it's disadvantageous," says Ben.

Suddenly, the ground where Ben stand collapsed and make him fall to the big underground room below. The ground is thick, so it shouldn't collapse just because of Ben's weight.

"They use earth magic to make me fall. Do all of them use earth magic, or it's just one of them?" ponders Ben while balancing his body mid-air.

Ben land on the ground with a strong force and make the ground dent a little. He looks up and finds out that he fall from 50 meters in height. He looks around and tries to size the room, but it's too dark, so he can't find the walls.

All the underground creatures are looking at him from the darkness. Ben also looks at them and is ready for any sudden attack. But they all just stay in their place and not move.

Suddenly, Ben hears a creepy woman's voice, "A human, it's been a very long time since I saw one."

Ben looks to the left at where the voice is coming from. He makes his light orb bigger to illuminate more areas. But suddenly, his light orb is covered in dark color and makes the room dark completely.

"Sorry about that, human. But we don't like a bright place, dark place is the best," says the creature with a creepy woman voice.

"You can talk the human language. Who are you?" asks Ben.

"Hihihi, is it important for you to know who I am? Even if you know who I am, it won't change anything. Ah~, I remember the taste of human meat that I ate 100 years ago. It makes my mouth get watery just by imagining it," says the creature with an excited but creepy voice.

"Human? Did humans live on this island in the past?" asks Ben.

"No, it was a human woman who got stranded on this island. I found her lying dead on the beach with some open wounds. I was just a small centipede at that time, so finding defenseless prey made me very happy. I took a lick of her blood and it was the most delicious thing that I've ever tasted."

"I didn't wait and immediately devour her body. I couldn't finish her at once because she was too big for me, so I take her to my den. I ate her every day and left nothing, even the bones. Since I ate her, I grow bigger and bigger. I also felt power running through my body, I felt magic power enter my body."

"After that, I started to get stronger and stronger. Until eventually, I became the strongest on this island. All of that was because of human meat. That's why I'm very happy to see you here, human," says the creatures excitedly.

Ben listens to the creature's story and he can guess that a mutation happened to this thing after it ate the human corpse. That corpse was possibly a mage, so this thing got some magic power after eating the mage's corpse.

Ben doesn't know how that could happen, but it's not impossible. So now, this thing gets excited to find Ben here. She wants to eat him too and get more power like when she ate the mage's corpse.

Ben smirks and he says, "In your dream, bitch."

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1. Chapter 108 of Fairy Tail: Sun Eater

2. Chapter 119 of Transcended as Lord Buggy

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