I Am A Carnivorous Plant

Welp, it’s been almost two weeks, and boy have I been busy! If this were a game, I would have gotten some kind of insane title, like ‘Ice Guardian Destroyer’, or ‘The Giant’s Boogie Man’; That’s just how much giant slaying I’ve gotten done! Well, okay, I say that, but I’ve only offed like twelve giants. But hey, twelve out of forty is freaking incredible, especially when you take into account my size! Which, for the record, is still only about the size of a big rat compared to them now, but hey! That’s still quite small, comparatively! It’s a wonder that I got so much done!!!

 

But yeah, I’ve reached a little bit of a bottle-neck now, since I’ve killed so many people that everyone's figured out that there’s a serial killer on the loose.

 

All the giants are up in arms, afraid of what’s been making their friends and neighbors disappear. I’ve basically used up all my sneaky sneak opportunities here; There’s no more single people or two person families for me to trick into dying anymore. You can only poison the booze so many times before people realize what happened and stop drinking it, and tripping people into spontaneously appearing spikes can only work if these silly warrior giants aren’t already on the lookout. I can only get so creative here! Besides, I’ve gotten too big, so pretending to be a spider is completely out the window. I even had to abandon my coat a long time ago because I outgrew it, so I’m much too flashily colored now to blend in with anything.

 

Yeah, things are really getting a bit too hard. It’s to the point that I’ve already been chased and almost caught a few times. Luckily I’ve been able to escape so far because of my speed and smaller size, but what happens when that stops being so effective? I need a plan, a plan!

 

And it was during one of these ‘planning’ sessions of mine that something very weird happened.

 

See, I’ve eaten about eleven more of those Aqua Cores since that one from the grandma, and as I got bigger, I was able to eat successively bigger and bigger cores! My body and 'hair' grew a ton, as did my abilities. The wood on my abdomen grew some more, fully encircling it like some weird woodland corset, even reaching up a little to the undersides of my ‘breasts’ and where my ‘armpits’ should be. Thankfully it didn’t seal off the bottom of my mouth that reaches down my 'stomach', and left a nice enough buffer area clear for me to still open it up wide if I need to, but damn does it look weird! The same thing happened around my neck, up to my chin, too, actually. It looks like I’m wearing some weird tree-themed bondage gear to me, but hey, I’ll take whatever extra protection my seed is willing to throw my way, you know? It does make me wonder if I’m gonna be completely covered in bark like Trig is one day, though.

 

Okay but I’m getting sidetracked. The point is, I grew toooons stronger, and now I’m able to summon all three of the adult forms of my corpse minions at once without killing myself! Sure, maybe I can only do it for about an hour before I get really freaking hungry, but at least that’s something, right?! I really thought this day would take longer, but then again I’m basically chugging down growth enhancing steroids in the form of Aqua Cores, so I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised. I really like looking at them, all standing before me, waiting for my orders. It’s crazy for me to see how much bigger than Trig that I’ve become. He was so tall when I met him, so much bigger than me, and now I think he only comes up to the bottom of my neck.

 

Yeah, oddly enough, even though I can keep growing, they all stay the same as when I beat them. Even Lily, who’s basically a copy of me, can’t grow past the moment when I grew my lily of the valley flowers for some reason. She can still grow my flowers for me and trees and vines and stuff, so I guess she’s not too super behind, but I don’t think she’ll ever be able to get the bleeding heart flowers that let me make my lil’ corpse minions. Sucks, because it would have been really cool if she could have made me even more guys to control.

 

Oh yeah, and apparently she’s able to talk, just like me. It scared the crap out of me, hearing it for the first time, let me tell you!

 

<Don’t you think this is enough? Perhaps it’s time that we leave.>

 

Okay, so maybe her voice sounds a bit less odd than mine, and maybe she speaks more, uh… properly than I do. It almost feels like I’m just a young kid, and she’s the adult that I’ve been mimicking all this time. And just like it’s always been since I made her big enough to have a head, I can feel her looking at me in way too intense of a way compared to the other two.

 

Honestly, I don’t freaking like it.

Guess I have to learn to live with it though, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me.

 

=Oh yeah, so you could talk, huh? I guess it’s nice having someone else to talk to, even if it’s technically me.=

 

<...Yes, I suppose that could be seen as the case.>

 

…Why’s she gotta be so vague with her reply? Hey, I’m trying to get along here, so stop creeping me out even more already!

 

=...Alright then. So you’re saying what, that you think it’s time to leave?=

 

The freak tilted her head cutely for a moment as if she were thinking, and then nodded more naturally than I’ve ever been able to do.

 

<Yes, I would say that it’s about time to go. It’s getting quite dangerous down here for us, and I think you’ve spent long enough preparing, don’t you?>

 

=Okay… But if I go I don’t think I’ll find such a good opportunity to grow as I have here. I don’t think I’m anywhere near as strong as I’m gonna need to be to beat the Wind and Fire Spirits back to their territories just yet.=

 

<You do have a point there… We certainly aren’t ready for that. But I think you’re forgetting something.>

 

=Huh?=

 

I moved a little closer, putting my creepy crawly disconcerted feelings aside due to my burning interest.

 

=What, what is it that I’m forgetting?=

 

Lily giggled, as if she was seeing something cute, and the tone of her voice dropped down as she also leaned closer and whispered like she was telling me a big secret.

 

<These Ice Guardians aren’t the only things that have cores in them.>

 

…What? They aren’t? Well okay, I guess if I think about it some more, I guess I could take what the giant snake said to mean that there are other creatures out there with Aqua Cores in them, but-

 

=We can’t do that! The Water Spirit only said that we could eat the cores of the Ice Guardians! It’ll get mad at us!=

 

I’m definitely bigger and stronger now, but that doesn’t mean I want to take on the giant snake just yet! That thing’s big enough to wrap up at least three of these stupid blue giants at once! Meanwhile, I’m just barely the size of a foot to them! I’d rather wait until I’m a little bigger before I put my life at risk like that!!!

 

<Oh my. I suppose it makes sense that you don’t know, doesn’t it?>

 

Lily backed away, crossing her arms made out of tentacles and looking thoughtful for a moment, before elegantly turning her head back towards me.

 

<Did you know that these creatures of yours had cores in them before you ended their lives?>

 

=…Huh? No they didn’t.=

 

They all poofed into ash as soon as I beat them! If they had cores for me to eat and get stronger, then I definitely would have noticed them already! Heck, they didn’t even leave behind their seeds when they died!

 

<Yes, I suspected you’d think as much… Alright, it seems I’ll have to explain things to you like this, then. You grew from a seed, didn’t you?>

 

She removed one of her arms from where she had it crossed and jabbed a 'finger' exactly at the spot where my seed was hidden inside of my body, making me step back a bit in surprise.

 

<Tell me, what do you think that seed is, exactly?>

 

I turned my vision inward, towards the seed that had grown to the size of a large apple. I couldn’t see it all that well, but at least I was able to immediately tell what it was. Or maybe that’s not really true, if what Lily is implying is to be believed.

 

=...Is it a core of some kind?=

 

Lily nodded happily and clapped her hands together, as if she were cheering for some young child.

 

<That’s it exactly! Yes, it is indeed a core, one created by the Spirit of the Forest itself, whenever it finds a suitable host inside of its territory. Every corpse plant carries one, and draws its power from them.>

 

=Okay… But then why didn’t I find any when I killed those guys? And why didn’t I get any stronger?=

 

I pointed towards Trig and Shui with a few of my tentacles, and after turning her head to look at them for a short moment, Lily looked back at me and shrugged in a way that I’m sure would be absolutely impossible for me to do correctly right now.

 

<Obviously you absorbed the essence of their cores when you beat them; It’s what allowed you to make and control them like this. You can think of them as a… supplement to your powers, instead of a direct boost.>

 

Oh, so that’s how it is? Wow, I would have never guessed any of this stuff on my own. Lily… is concerningly smart. To the point that it feels threatening. I’m a bit worried about why she’s suddenly like this. Is she special because she’s a copy of me, and this is all just knowledge from the Forest Spirit that’s been stashed away inside my seed? Or are all of my minions going to become such, uh… individuals one day like this? Is she just the first?

 

I think I’m gonna have to be a little bit careful about summoning Lily from now on.

For now though, I think it’s best if I hear her out on this and keep learning.

 

=So if that’s the case, then there’s no way to use the other corpse plants' cores to get stronger… Or are you telling me that it’s time to increase the size of my army?=

<Oh, no, that’s not it at all! I’m not trying to tell you either of those things.>

 

Lily giggled coyly into her 'hand', and I could almost feel her gaze on me turning a bit sharper.

<No, what we need to start doing is collecting Wind and Fire cores.>