Chapter 2: Caterpillars

If nothing unexpected had happened, he would've been sitting in the matric examination hall and would have had a smooth journey, passing the matric examination with good results and getting admission in the best intermediate college through scholarship but now every effort went down the drain and became futile.

However, more often than what was seen, reality sometimes differs. Having lying below the huge lush and covered in bruises, he was the victim of jealousy.....

The reason?

Since original body was also like nerdy students, he failed to understand and was lured here in the name of friendship and was lost or intentionally left here so being hungry and having no real experience, he starved.

"Sigh!"

What can one expect from 10th students? To survive unknown areas without any utility or guideline? His fate was already sealed the moment his foot landed in the unknown area.

Now the real test is for him; how to survive and get out of this area!

'Ugh!'

Sam vomited at his fate.

"Is this the starting point that every transmigrator has to face?"

He doesn't know but he knows that this wasn't going to be easy for him!

"Gruggle!"

His eyes widened.

"F*ck!"

He cursed and kept feeling that something wasn't going to be right.

Calming down himself, he sat down without any thought.

"I've to preserve my energy and think rationally!"

His mind started to think rationally; how to survive.

First; Water! the dry hot breeze so I can't leave this shade.

Second; Food! This situation doesn't allow me the luxury of being a picky eater.

These are the basic needs for him to survive since these needs are screaming him to get quickly.

Taking a deep breath and sighing at his fate, he left his every dignity and brought his ear near to the bark of the lush tree.

Patiently waiting, he heard the wriggling sound.

'Gulp!'

Currently these are luxury which he can afford since these bark-eating caterpillars can easily satisfy both needs: energy plus granting limited time or can wait to starve like the previous owner.

Clenching his fist, he searched for any sharp object in his baggage.

Multi Utility Knife!

Finally a faint smile lit up on his face.

'How did he die then?'

But soon he shook his head and carefully brought his ear to the previous position, he again heard the faint wriggling which reverberated inside the bark.

krik!

Using required strength, he made a circle on the bark and carefully made a deep enough cut.

With this basic work, he again carefully separated the bark from the trees with the help of a sharp razor knife.

'This is enough for the grip!'

Tightly holding the bark, he uncovered around that circle area and a white squishy and fleshy wriggling caterpillar came before his sight.

Just the thought of eating gave him a nauseous feeling.

Calming down his trembling heart, he sacrificed his purity and immediately hunched down, putting it in his mouth.

Squirt!

The juicy caterpillar filled his mouth but holding his heavy heart he continued to chew and mending the squishy caterpillar in his mouth.

Despite chewing the caterpillar, he knew his body better than anyone because this body demanded food and water since he could only guess that this body was starving for 4 to 5 days, and he needed to fulfill all the conditions before wasting even a bit of energy.

Gulp!

Finally getting the mouth hydrated and dry lips regaining some freshness, he swallowed.

'Bitter!'

Just having transmigration let him know the upcoming period wasn't going to be easy but he was also dead-locked on surviving, no matter what the cost is.

He repeated the same previous action and caught another caterpillar.

This time he was having sanity so he scanned the caterpillar.

Bark-eating Caterpillar

- Born to only eat bark.

This let him sigh of relief.

'This isn't poisonous!'

Without wasting any time, he poured it down in his mouth, munching the squishy caterpillar, and a red juice leaked from the corner of his mouth.

Without letting anything waste, he licked it and brought it back in his mouth.

...

In the lonesome region, Sam was lying below the shade of a lush tree and had no idea what to do since he managed to fulfill the basic condition.

"Sigh!'

This fate! Who would have thought that one day starving would only leave him with only one option; to eat the caterpillar.

The original issue was that he had the chance to roam and search for fruits but the hellish hot breeze would had quickly dehydrated the water out of his body so he doesn't want to let himself corner or end up in desperate situation so by far eating the caterpillar was essence to fill both need since he doesn't know which fruits he had encounter.

His mind was screaming at him to not struggle, not leave comfort zone but he won't.

Comfort zone was always the dead end road which he always assumed and he wanted to challenge himself in this world since in his previous life, he was having everything and also in the final year of graduation in Civil engineering concurrently already having the knowledge of gamedev in C# and programming and DSA in C++ language.

He always had the hobby of learning computer language since interacting with computers through compilers intrigued him but since he transmigrated here, he already lost the opportunity though fate also somewhat brought new opportunity and the mind wanted to live in comfort zone?

To hell with!

"This is my body! My mind! So I want ultimate control over it and currently my goal is battling against my fate and getting out of here alive."

The golden rays were slowly also losing its effect and the cloud slowly resurfacing in the sky.

Now's the hunting time!

Carefully and silently, he climbed the lush tree and hid between the dense branches which were covered in leaves.

He tried to access the memories of how the original body survived here? but unfortunately, the memories were blurred, and he couldn't access them.