This is where I should have leveled up if this was a game-based setting. The fact that I didn't means it doesn't rely on statistics. In other words, resourcefulness beats raw parameters. As seen with these beasts, I could defeat them with very simple yet effective methods. If the attacks with my transformed blade had been based on stats, surely I wouldn't even have penetrated their skin. I'm a newborn after all.

I said bigger on the inside, but my body is like a bottomless pit. No matter how many I consume, it doesn't show on the outside. Is it possible that I have a black hole stomach? Are glutton characters still considered cute these days? It's not like I want to, but I think my constitution requires me to eat constantly, so I can't help it.

That aside, these wolf beasts don't have much taste. I say taste, but I'm not really using any taste buds. The sensation they give me while dissolving inside me is nowhere as good as the one I got from the human king. Maybe because he was my first after all? In either case, I learned something new about the inner workings of my species. I should be able to sustain myself on this dozen of bodies for a while.

Hm, I feel heavier. Well, admittedly, I ate about half a ton of wolves just now, so I'm bound to be dragged down by it, but I thought the space inside my body was a different dimension. Must be my imagination. But I do feel like I have more mass to work with now. After losing the lower half of my body and my arms in the transportation circle, my bodily matter has been limited. But now that I consumed so much, I should have grown some of it back. I guess a Crawling Chaos regenerates quickly after eating, or something like that.

In the first place, getting my limbs torn off didn't really hurt, and I didn't bleed. So rather than malleable, I'm actually like a slime? But I'm nowhere near that weak. I mean, if I was like that, the story would have ended with me getting hit once by a human I just cause a mild inconvenience to somewhere on a field, who will later grow into the hero. Instead, I fought a bunch of monsters that seem more like midgame content. Ok, enough about games, I'm not really good at them either way, aside from fighting ones that is.

Now, let's aim for that huge cloud-like mountain-sized monster over there. Come what will, I'm invincible as long as I can change my body into the shape of a hedgehog with spines as hard as human teeth. Sea urchin? I have no idea what you're talking about, it's a hedgehog!

I got carried away again, I'm sorry.

Hearing the rumbling of heavy footsteps, I hid in a brush and waited. What approached was a giant Tyrannosaurus-like monster that could flatten me with a single step of its huge feet. Those feet look like they're covered in metal, so surely, they're harder than whatever I can produce. Furthermore, its jaws are made of metal, so even if I'm in hedgehog mode, those can crush me easily.

As if to mock my thoughts, the dinosaur bites into the trunk of a tree and the sound of a machine whirring starts up inside its jaw. Splinters of wood fly everywhere and the tree is sawed down. That's one of those tree-felling machines I saw on TV once! But it's alive and walking on two feet. Well, it seems like a herbivore, so it shouldn't pose a threat to me. With it being so loud, there's also no way to be surprised by it, so it can't be a predator.

A metal foot slams down right next to my hiding place and my body jumps into the air a few inches. Turning my head, I look into the maw of another such mecha-dinosaur. The inside looks impressive, but are you brushing properly? I feel like I'm seeing some pieces of fur and meat stuck in there, you know?

Rolling on the floor in an unsightly fashion, I dodge the jaws of death. The brush I just occupied is crunched and disappears into the dinosaur's stomach. That was too close for comfort! Wait, why are you looking at me like that? I'm inedible, so don't even think about it! Don't drool, oi!

The other one also notices me and is approaching. I can't fight these, they're practically cyborgs! They're only missing a pair of torn purple wings and a metal arm, and they could be the ultimate evolution of a certain digital companion and flagship monster. If they shoot rockets from chest cavities, I'll call plagiarism! Oh wait, it's my dream, so I'm the one who...

I'm on the run once again, chased by these two huge cyborg dinosaurs. Saying it like that sounds like a gag in a trashy movie, but when their jaws are humming with buzzsaws and their metal soles create small earthquakes with every step, I can't laugh about it at all. What's with the sharp increase in difficulty of this area? The wolves are in a completely different league!

Speaking of wolves, why am I running in my human form? It's far less efficient compared to a quadruped, especially since the footing in a forest is not so good for a human. With this, I morph into one of those beasts still dissolving inside me. Since I acquired their genetic material, it's even less of an effort than recreating my real form. Hah, I'm fast like the wind! They can't catch up to me at all. Ah, they gave up pretty easily.

Still, how am I supposed to fight them? I don't think my small hand blade is enough to seriously hurt them, and even though they look slow, getting hit by their tails or ending up between their jaws spells certain doom. If I had more material to work with, I could create a bigger blade, but there's no point to it if I can't swing it. Well, as a part of my body, it should be alright, I guess?

For now, I'll just try to find more material so I can grow bigger. A cup of milk a day keeps the need of pads away! My chest has always been quite big, so I couldn't really understand the pains of small-breasted girls. Don't lynch me for these words, please. Now that I acquired enough material to gain in size, I finally understand what they must go through. I've gotten close to my previous appearance, but for that I had to give up on recreating my breasts in their full glory. Just wait, I'll get more of those wolf beasts and become more splendid than I have ever been. Ah, but I don't need these bones, get out of me. Ptoo, ptoo.

Leaving behind a trail of scattered bones, I make my way towards the cloud-mountain thing again. Oh, if I can absorb that, what would happen to me? I mean, was able to take in half a ton of wolves, but I can move around normally and my body shows no outwards signs of having consumed so much. I need to find my limits before I attempt that. I mean, even if I reach it, I have no idea where to start when I try to eat it.

Somehow this has become a journey about eating various kinds of monsters. But I'm not a master fighter cook who travels the world to get rare ingredients. I just swallow them whole with no room for the enjoyment of taste. That doesn't seem to make for a great adventure, though. Let's work on that for now.

I spot a lone wolf beast again. Without hesitation, I lunge at it and wrap my body around its mouth, before taking it into my depths. This is getting easier and my hesitation has basically completely disappeared. In only a few hours, I've become a participant in the struggle for survival in the wild. There's no room for thinking about the sanctity of life if nobody else around you does it. See, there's an ape-like creature with a muscular frame, sitting over the carcass of a wolf beast and ripping flesh from it with its hands. Wait, are these wolves just small fry? Ah, it saw me.

Well, it doesn't look like this ape has metal skin, and it's only barely larger than a human, so my offensive and defensive abilities employed against the wolves should be enough to handle it. It stands up and looks at me curiously. I'm still in my sports outfit slash body paint bloomers, so it should be something nobody has ever seen in this world. It sniffs the air and grimaces, then pumps out its chest and beats it a few times, like a gorilla. Even if you do that, I won't be impressed, you know?

It runs towards me on all fours and throws up both arms to let them crash down on me. Ending it with the hedgehog move would be the fastest, but it's boring, isn't it? I instead extend my right hand into a blade once again, dodge the muscular arms and slash at the ape's exposed abdomen. Feeling it connect, I spin around myself and cut open its belly, from which a bunch of organs falls out. Okay, that was more effective than I thought it would be. It's too gruesome to show!

Grabbing at its own intestines to push them back into the gaping wound, the ape collapses forward. Well, that was too easy. The pattern would be that it will call its friends, but when it dies silently moments later, I'm disappointed. They're indeed stronger than the wolves, but I'm still at a different level. There has to be something between these and the cyborg dinosaurs that I could get a little more thrill from without it looking impossible in the first place.

Actually, I'm really interested in seeing how I would fare against a human warrior. But from above the tree, I didn't see anything resembling manmade structures, so I guess that's something for the future. I mean, Maou-mama did say that the humans, and evidently the elves, attacked her gates yesterday. So if I don't suddenly wake up, I will get to experience a war between a human-elves coalition and the demons eventually. Yes, this is all a dream, I refuse to believe otherwise!

Well, I won't take this half-eaten carcass of a wolf, but the ape goes inside my pocket dimension of a stomach. And there, out with the bones again. I'm getting faster at dissolving them, so I wonder if I can also slow the speed and keep something alive inside me? I'll experiment a little next time I come across something living.

That just happens to be another wolf beast. This is getting boring. I quickly ensnare it and absorb it, while willing myself not to outright digest it within seconds. I can feel its heart beating inside me, but I'm sure its breath will run out sooner or later. I haven't been inside myself, so I can't tell whether it's filled with air or just nothingness, or even the matter my body is composed of. Regardless, this is an experiment I can conduct while on the move.

Still, to reach that cloud-mountain monster it should take a pretty long time. How many hours have I been here now? I think at least half a day of walking and eating has passed, but I don't feel tired at all. Must be part of my constitution. But mentally, I start to feel exhaustion creeping up. I've been on my toes since coming here and I've done things I would have been either grossed out by or never even considered in reality. Just earlier, disemboweling the ape came naturally to me and I didn't bat an eye at it, but when I think about it from the point of view of a high school girl from peaceful Japan, I have to shudder.

Actually, that's not the worst thing I've done since coming here. I've even eaten a human head, dammit! And there are still wolf beasts dissolving inside my body. But when I think about it, it's all been for the sake of survival. Aside from the last one, which is an ongoing experiment to understand this body better, I've only killed in self-defense. Uhh, I'm feeling sick. What would happen if I threw up now? Of course, a sparkling, rainbow-colored fountain of half-digested animal parts would come flying out. I won't waste food like this though.

I stop and heave a sigh. I never knew being surrounded by nature could be so taxing on the nerves. I enjoyed running in the fields and on the forest paths when at my grandparents' home near Aomori, but real nature is completely different. Here, I don't have a way to retreat to humanity. Actually, I don't have a place within humanity here either way; I'm a monster... I wanna go home...

Now that I can pinch myself, I can wake up, right? Right?

I do so and nothing happens. It didn't really hurt though, rather, my skin just extended a little more than it usually does. Don't tell me, this isn't a dream? I really died and reincarnated as the daughter of the maou? I ate a human's head and other body parts by inserting them into my chest? I absorbed half a ton of wolf carcasses? The heartbeat of the wolf beast I tried to keep alive inside me stops.

Sparkling, rainbow-colored fountain of half-digested animal parts it is.