Consciousness sank like a stone into the deep sea, plunging through endless darkness.
"..."
When Fern began to stir, the first thing she noticed was the suffocating pressure!
It felt as though an invisible boulder were pressing down on her chest, making each breath unusually difficult and shallow.
Next came the electrifying sensation of something slick, tough, and powerful wrapping around her body, stroking and squeezing her tight.
"!!"
Her heart lurched. Fern snapped her eyes open.
But the moment she did, the sight before her seized her heart in the icy grip of terror.
Fern realized that she, her teacher Lady Frieren, and their companion, Elaina, had been caught like flies in a spiderweb. They were bound in midair by countless thick, slimy, dark-green vine tentacles that writhed like living things, dangling in front of a bizarre carnivorous plant so enormous it defied imagination.
Its central body was a swollen, faintly throbbing flower bud that reeked like rotting flesh. Its revolting colors mingled dark purple and sickly green. Surrounding it were layers of huge, sturdy leaves like metal shields, and dozens of vine tentacles connected to them, thrashing wildly like giant serpents!
Two or three of them were wrapped tightly around the three of them now, and no matter how hard Fern tried, she couldn't break free.
Then Fern noticed the air was thick with a pungent, sickly-sweet stench and a strange pollen that seemed to erode her mana and make her drowsy.
Only then did Fern finally come to her senses. It seemed they had gone to the village and found the villagers lying unconscious. They'd passed out while preparing to help and investigate, and when she woke, she was already captured by the terrifying monster before her.
There was no doubt!
This was the culprit that had