What's it like to be parasitized by a heart-devouring demon larva?

'A strange ceiling...'

Waking from a chaotic dream, the first thing Karl Ares saw was a chitinous ceiling that resembled an insect's shell.

His gaze then drifted downwards, taking in the various stasis pods and the flower-bud-shaped pool in the center of the circular room.

Others were asleep in the stasis pods, distributed at equal intervals along the walls of the room.

'Where am I? Wasn't I on my way back to the academy?'

Karl's last memory before losing consciousness was concluding a deal for magical artifacts in the Kingdom of Brynnland and preparing to depart for the Mage Academy.

But his memory abruptly cut off there. The next time he opened his eyes, he was lying here.

He tried to struggle, but the stasis pod, also made of chitinous material, was surprisingly sturdy.

Even with all his strength, Karl couldn't flip it open.

Just as Karl was attempting to break free, a burly female Half-Orc in the stasis pod directly opposite the door opened her eyes.

"Don't waste your energy. These are transformation pods created by Mind Flayers. Even I, a level three warrior, can't break free. As a spellcaster, you have even less chance."

"Mind Flayers?"

He subconsciously repeated the word, and Karl's mind began to recall the descriptions of Mind Flayers from his academy textbooks.

Mind Flayers, also known as Illithids, had heads resembling octopuses and were adept at using psionics.

This race mostly acted in groups, but occasionally, some Mind Flayers would break free from the hive mind and establish their own domains.

They were hermaphroditic and could only expand their population by converting other intelligent life forms into Mind Flayers using a specific type of parasite.

For some reason, Karl felt a strange sense of familiarity about the scene before him.

But as he searched his memories, the room's door suddenly opened, and a Mind Flayer, hovering in mid-air with psionic energy, floated in from outside.

"Excellent! You are the best of this batch in terms of aptitude!"

Its voice carried a strange, sloshing sound of mucus. The Mind Flayer first praised Karl's and the Half-Orc's physiques before floating towards the pool in the center of the room.

As it approached, the lid above the pool slowly opened like petals.

Dozens of tadpole-like creatures swam in the pool, which glowed with a golden light. The Mind Flayer extended its hand and directly scooped out one of the creatures.

It was a strange, worm-like creature with tentacles resembling a Mind Flayer's.

When it opened its mouth, the horrifying maw, surrounded by three rings of sharp teeth, sent a chill down his spine.

"I'm really looking forward to seeing how you look after your metamorphosis..."

Dragging the worm, the Mind Flayer floated towards the female Half-Orc warrior who had spoken earlier.

Seemingly knowing what was about to happen, the Half-Orc began to struggle violently.

At that moment, a psionic wave emanated from around the Mind Flayer's head, and the struggling female Half-Orc froze instantly.

Letting out another unintelligible chuckle, the Mind Flayer lifted the worm and placed it on the Half-Orc's face.

The hideous little creature seemed to know exactly what to do. As soon as it was in place, it crawled towards the Half-Orc's wide-open eyes.

Triumphantly emitting a high-pitched chirp with its mouthparts towards the Half-Orc, it pried open her eyelids and burrowed directly in along the edge of her eye.

"Aaaaaah—!"

With the Half-Orc's brutal roar, Karl felt the hairs on his back stand on end.

It was clear that everyone in this room was about to go through something similar.

Karl swallowed with difficulty, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible, hoping the Mind Flayer wouldn't notice him.

But just then, the Mind Flayer turned around, its eyes looking at Karl with a half-smile.

Scooping another worm from the pool, the Mind Flayer once again used psionics to immobilize Karl.

Thus, Karl watched helplessly as the worm crawled into his own eye.

'Pain! So much pain!'

At that moment, only this thought surfaced in Karl's mind.

Legend had it that Mind Flayer tadpoles would parasitize the brainstem, gradually consuming the host's brain and replacing it.

Once this process was complete, the host organism would become a new Mind Flayer.

Although the original host's memories would have some influence on the newly formed Mind Flayer, the existence of psionics greatly weakened the original host's influence, which was why very few individuals retained their former personalities after becoming Mind Flayers.

Looking at the Half-Orc and Karl with satisfaction, the Mind Flayer let out a gurgling sound before turning and leaving the transformation chamber.

From the eye to the brainstem, the distance wasn't long.

But for Karl and the other Half-Orc, the few centimeters the Mind Flayer tadpole crawled felt like a century of torment.

The intense pain maximally stimulated Karl's memories. He suddenly recalled where his earlier sense of familiarity came from.

Before his transmigration, he had followed the trend and played a D&D-themed game called Baldur's Gate 3.

The game's trailer and his current experience had at least an eighty percent similarity.

'That's not right! The world I transmigrated to isn't the Forgotten Realms, nor does it have the Sword Coast or Baldur's Gate. Although the classes and races are almost the same, the Artificer class, which I belong to, doesn't exist in the game...'

The thought had barely formed when Karl's brain, in an act of self-preservation due to the pain, was forcibly plunged into unconsciousness.

Though Karl was unconscious, the Mind Flayer tadpole in his brain was still working.

In fact, because Karl had fallen unconscious, it automatically began crawling towards the most active area of his brain.

However, as it started to attach itself to that region and began to feed on and read Karl's memories, the Mind Flayer tadpole's body suddenly stiffened.

Mind Flayers are extraplanar beings from the Far Realm, where cities made of flesh-like tumors, oceans of protoplasm, purple shadows, and chitinous shores are considered "normal."

And the past life memories in Karl's mind came from an alien world without magic, with fundamental rules vastly different from current reality.

These memories were like incompatible garbled data to them, requiring a massive amount of energy to decipher.

Just like that, the memories from the information age of an alien world unleashed an information bombardment on the unfortunate Mind Flayer tadpole, which entered a dormant state due to its inability to process the overwhelming extranet information.

Meanwhile, outside the canyon where the Mind Flayer base was located, an Ogre Warlord bent down and asked a human:

"Is this the place where the traitor is hiding?"

This was a canyon in the Black Hat Mountains within the Kingdom of Brynnland, but due to its geography, it was also the preferred hiding spot for fugitives and criminals across the continent.

Legend had it that a rift leading to the Abyss had once existed underground here, but it had been sealed by various nations over ten years ago.

"Yes, Lord Warlord, the Mind Flayer who attempted to overthrow Graywall City is hiding deeper underground. A few days ago, he captured a group of people from outside; it looks like he plans to convert them to increase his manpower!"

With a fawning smile and yellowed teeth, the local fugitive looked at the Ogre Warlord with anticipation.

The Ogre glanced at a Mind Flayer beside him, who nodded, confirming the fugitive's words.

"Give him the money!"

Waving to the Gnoll and Troll mercenaries behind him, the Ogre straightened up and pointed his spiked club forward.

"The traitor from Graywall City is at his weakest right now, lads! Follow me! Kill him! The City Lord has a generous reward!"

Following the Ogre Warlord's promise, the soldiers behind him immediately roared in unison.