Recovery

Deep underground, a badly battered black grub lay motionless, half its body crippled, as if it were dead.

Suddenly, viscous fluid slowly seeped from its body, its eyes, its mouthparts, and the roots of the fine hairs covering it from head to toe.

Under the fluid's influence, its black head, delicate eyes, tender mouthparts, rotting abdomen, and hard shoulder and back plates all underwent a strange chemical reaction, as if they were melting.

White foam appeared and swelled, then slowly hardened. In the end, it formed a cocoon resembling a black grub, several times larger than before, and wrapped around it.

Rowan's consciousness drifted in the darkness. He felt as though he were drowning, then being churned into a pulp underwater. It was so unbearable he could hardly breathe. He began to struggle with all his might, trying to escape his current predicament.

Outside, the black grub-shaped cocoon began to tremble, as though something trapped inside were trying to break free. The trembling grew stronger and faster until a crack suddenly split the top of the cocoon down the middle.

A small grub with smooth, tender, translucent skin emerged through the crack. Its skin looked so fragile it might shatter at a touch, and its yellow-white body was transparent enough to reveal its organs. Then, as he struggled with all his might, a pair of Digging Feet slowly broke free as well.

With the Digging Feet supporting him from the outside, the tender little grub soon pulled his entire body out of the cocoon.

Perhaps breaking free had drained all his strength. The grub lay on the cocoon and rested for a moment.

Just then, his tender yellow-white body rapidly darkened and hardened. The outermost layer of skin turned into an exoskeleton that covered his entire body.

In the blink of an eye, he had become a black grub.

Rowan examined his body and discovered that he had shrunk several times over. His body, which had nearly grown to the size of a fingernail, was back to the size it had been when he was first "born."

He hadn't grown any new organs or limbs, but all the damage his body had suffered was completely repaired. Even the Black Spot in his vision had cleared, restoring the image.

His antennae swayed. Two antennae of equal length extended into view, which pleased the slightly obsessive Rowan.

The result was thanks to the White Grub he had eaten. Most of the gene fragments behind his newly activated pupation talent had come from it. Combined with certain gene fragments already in Rowan, they had fused and improved after his potential was awakened at death's door, producing his current form.

Simply cobbling together the limbs and organs of other insects would only create a hodgepodge. Fusing, improving, and evolving them was the ultimate expression of Efiash's abilities.

Unfortunately, Rowan was still a larva. He couldn't even choose which gene fragments to activate, let alone fuse and improve them. This time, he had only managed it by chance, thanks to the instinctive stimulus of his life slipping away.

No matter how great the benefits, Rowan didn't want to try it a second time. He had no urgent goal to accomplish, so his proper path was to bide his time, stay alive until he matured, and naturally gain these abilities. Going berserk and courting death just to get them faster wasn't the right choice for him.

However, although his body was now fully repaired, his energy reserves were running critically low. There hadn't been enough energy for the repairs, and he had even burned some of his own tissue, causing his body to shrink overall.

He had to find food as soon as possible. Otherwise, all his strategies for staying alive would be pointless.

His Digging Feet got to work, boring off in a random direction. He was in unfamiliar territory, and as far as he was concerned, any direction was as good as another.

Rowan dug quickly, but he felt he could go even faster.

His newly evolved, full-circle vision let his big bulbous eyes see farther. But he was almost always underground, so the eyes were of little use. Worse, he had to spend extra effort protecting them while digging, which seriously slowed him down.

But after thinking it over, he decided that going slowly was probably better. This wasn't his old stomping ground. He didn't even know where he was, let alone whether there were hidden dangers underground. It was best to be careful.

So he slowed down a little more and put his antennae and fine hairs to work at full capacity.

Resources were scarce in the desert. Finding suitable food nearby right after he was "born" had been a stroke of extraordinary luck.

But that luck didn't seem to have carried over. Rowan had been moving for who knew how long, and his already meager energy was nearly gone, yet he still hadn't found any sign of food.

With no other choice, he began digging straight down. Before long, large rocks appeared around him. He followed the gaps between them farther down, and the rocks gradually came together into a layer of stone.

A powerful vibration traveled through the rock. His antennae also sensed the thick moisture in the air and picked up the sound of flowing water.

Rowan guessed there might be an underground river beneath the rock.

He crawled along the stone layer toward the area with more moisture. Before long, he found a narrow crack in what had been a tightly sealed rock face. The sound of running water came through more clearly.

Taking advantage of his small size, Rowan crawled into the crack. As he went deeper, the rock walls on either side gradually turned black and grew damp. Water vapor had condensed on the rock, forming droplets.

Black Spots also began to appear on the surface. They looked like some kind of plant, perhaps moss, but this wasn't his old home, and the color was wrong. Rowan couldn't be sure what they were.

His Digging Feet were nearly useless here, so he hooked the claws on his other six limbs into pits in the rock to hold himself in place.

Then he extended his mouthparts, pressing the mushroom-shaped tip against the rock to form a dish-like structure. The fine hairs and small tongue hidden inside slid rapidly, scraping up the moisture.

The cold underground water flowed down his esophagus and into his body. The minerals and microorganisms it contained were quickly digested, replenishing his depleted energy reserves a little.

Rowan kept lapping until he couldn't drink any more, then found a spot nearby to rest. Once he had digested a little, he got up and drank again.

But replenishing his energy with water was too slow. Rowan drank until he was nearly sick of it. And after never relieving himself once since he was "born," he unexpectedly took a leak.

He had never needed to pee, even when he drank root sap every day.

Of course, the experience of urinating for the first time was novel, too.

But that wasn't what concerned him.

From his experience as a human—and as a man—he knew that urination required certain organs.

So, naturally, he had to inspect himself after his first time peeing as an insect.