Heaven-Sent Food

The downpour on the fourth day was slightly weaker than on the third, but the rain still lashed down fiercely.

Raindrops the size of soybeans would sting even human skin; under such rain, System felt as though his body were being hammered relentlessly by fists.

The moment he poked half his body out through a gap in the dead leaves, he was nearly swept away by the violent rain. Fortunately, the hooked spines on his legs held firm enough.

The left side of System's body was blown away by the rain, but the hooked spines on his right legs clung tightly to the wet bark. Then, at an unbelievable angle, he flipped himself beneath the branch.

A close call, but no disaster!

If his legs had failed to grip the bark just now, he would have fallen into the lake formed by the gathered rainwater.

Hanging upside down beneath the branch, System suffered far less of the rain's impact. Though runoff from the top of the branch still streamed over his body, it was enough for him to slowly move along the underside of the branch.

System's derived ability, [Information Input], passively recorded a great deal of information, allowing him to recall everything he had experienced in this world as if watching a recording.

In System's recording, if he kept moving along this branch, he would find several newly grown, tender pine needles near its end. Even hiding beneath the branch, he could reach them to eat.

System did not know whether his mandibles could bite through those hard young pine needles, but he had no other choice.

If he could not eat the tender pine needles, he could only jump into the lake where the water currents gathered, seeking that single thread of life amid nine deaths and one chance of survival.

Braving the fierce rain, System finally reached the tender pine needles. His mandibles were just barely able to crush the young leaves.

The needles tasted faintly sweet and bitter. They could help his body grow to some extent, but they were also somewhat toxic.

Perhaps it was this toxicity that gave the tree the aura that made System uncomfortable.

The poison in the pine needles slowed System's bodily functions, as though he were drunk, and a faint pain rose in his abdomen.

However, the poison was weak, nowhere near as troubling as hunger. After feeling its effects for a while, System began devouring the tender pine needles in great mouthfuls.

Faced with a crisis of life and death, let alone nutrient-rich meat—even food laced with poison tasted sweeter than honey to him.

The rain made eating exceedingly inconvenient. By the time System had eaten a dozen or so tender pine needles, several hours had passed.

The remaining, more mature pine needles were utterly beyond his mandibles, so System began making his way back to his nest of dead leaves.

As if Heaven were watching over him, the rain weakened somewhat as System returned to his nest. He was able to endure the rain's impact and crawl back onto the upper side of the branch, then hide inside the dead-leaf nest.

Not long after System hid himself back among the dead leaves, the rain intensified once more.

From then on, the rain alternated between strong and weak, while the rumble of thunder occasionally sounded through the sky. It was somewhat like a thunderstorm, but no matter how light the rain became, it never stopped completely.

Not until the night of the fifth day did the rain, which had been pouring fiercely until the moment before, abruptly cease. The dark clouds in the pitch-black sky quickly scattered, and through the gaps in the dead leaves, System saw moonlight shining through the forest canopy.

The rain had finally stopped. Not the faintest breeze stirred in the whole forest. Other than the steady drip-drip of water falling from the leaves onto the surface below, the forest held no other sound.

At last, System was able to crawl out of his nest of dead leaves again...

With water still dripping from the leaves and the starlight of the twin moons above, the water beneath the trees shimmered with rippling light.

The past two days of rain had raised the water level even further. The gathered rainwater in the forest was now only about half a meter below the branch where System was.

The rainwater in the forest had already accumulated to a depth of nearly a meter. As far as the eye could see, aside from trees, only the tops of a few tall herbaceous plants still stood above the water.

Perhaps if the rain continued for a few more days, even the branch he was on would be submerged. But before that happened, he would die first from hunger and cold.

Five straight days of rain had steadily lowered the forest's temperature. After the downpour stopped, it became even colder.

His body stiff and his strength depleted, System slowly crawled across the damp branch using the hooked spines on his legs.

Fortunately, as a grasshopper, he had a wide variety of food available. Even poisonous pine needles could replenish his energy. If he had been reborn as a carnivorous mantis, he might have starved to death in this torrential rain.

The rainwater in the forest receded slowly. By dawn, it had fallen only around ten centimeters. It would likely take several days for the water in this area to drain away completely.

After eating through the night, System had recovered much of his strength.

Only the poison from the pine needles left him slightly dizzy, with a faint prickling pain in his abdomen.

Over the course of the night, the pooled water on the forest leaves had stopped dripping. The wet bark had become merely damp, and with his strength restored, System began moving by hopping.

The morning after the heavy rain was exceedingly quiet. Aside from the occasional croak of frogs in the distance, System saw no living thing in motion.

Yet as the sky grew brighter, System noticed many signs of surviving life. Ripples occasionally spread across the calm water's surface.

System saw many black shadows beneath the water, somewhat resembling tadpoles. He also saw many grayish-white creatures slightly smaller than the black shadows, perhaps the larvae of some insect or other aquatic life.

System hopped and darted back and forth along the branches in the forest. He discovered that because of the forest's uneven terrain, although everything had been flooded, the water was shallow in some places. Perhaps somewhere in this vast forest, higher ground remained completely unsubmerged.

Before long, the restored System spotted a vine winding around a tree and hopped over to it.

Compared to tree leaves, System's body clearly preferred grasses. Vines were somewhat worse than grass, but still better than tree leaves.

This vine was quite delicious. Its leaves were soft and carried a faint peach fragrance, and System began stuffing them down in large mouthfuls.

As System ate, he noticed faint ripples on the water below him. A five-centimeter-long, greenish-brown insect with six legs climbed up from beneath the water along the vine.

The insect had a long, slender abdomen, while its six powerful legs were clustered around the front half of its body. Its entire body was covered by a translucent shell.

After crawling ten centimeters up the vine, it wrapped itself around the vine's stem and became completely still, seemingly entering an insect's unique dormant state.

Although System saw no mandibles in the insect's mouth, it had a sturdy body and was covered in a shell. System had no desire to fight it, and simply continued quietly eating the vine's leaves.

Then, more than ten minutes later, System suddenly heard a strange sound. The greenish-brown insect made a noise like a shell cracking, as if something were drilling out from inside its body.

"A molting insect!"

Greed surfaced in System's insect eyes. This insect in the midst of shedding its skin was food bestowed upon him by Heaven!