Gestation by John Gold (tohfa e dulha read online .TXT) 📕

the smell of decay gets. That’s so nasty! Then, I see them: enormous, fat people and other creatures. A dwarf steps on his beard and topples over, leaving him in a position where he can’t move. All he can do is mumble something.

Everyone here is rotting alive and constantly moaning. I’m used to pain and suffering, but this is awful. I’ve always felt the anguish people around me are going through and even if I don’t feel it myself, I can clearly sense it.

It’s only when I get closer to the center of the circle that I start to take damage from the aura of rot. It’s physical, and not as bad as the auras of pain and suffering in the first circle. The fat slobs don’t represent much of a threat, either. And now I can say I’ve seen a fat elf. Of course, he’s rotting alive in the rain, and I have a hard time looking at him without commiserating.

I don’t kill anyone but Cerberus in this circle. I can’t even look at the sinners without feeling pain, on the other hand. For the third day in a row, I’m struggling through the wall of rain and hail, the cold water drenching me. As long as it doesn’t start snowing. The stench is so bad that I could vomit, only I haven’t eaten in almost a month. I threw out all of my food.

On the fourth day, I hear thunder and see lightning.

∞ ∞ ∞

Damage taken: 500 (ignored: 0)

1534/2000

Resistance to electricity: +0.01%

Lightning damage ignored: 6/second

I keep going. I need more damage. The farther I go, the colder it gets, and there’s too much lightning for me to count. It’s just a deafening roar.

∞ ∞ ∞

Damage taken: 1 (ignored: 0)

1531/2000

Resistance to cold: +0.01%

Cold damage ignored: 6/second

It’s getting colder. Large hailstones keep smacking me in the head, and there are snowflakes coming down with the rain.

What could be more fun than going for a swim? The last time I did that, it was with father in the creek by our house. In real life, I’ve never been swimming. We only have showers at the orphanage.

I could stay here for a while and enjoy the gift fate has given me. First, I need to boost my resistance to electricity and cold. Second, I can practice my swimming skill and holding my breath. Third, I’m just having fun.

That does it. I decide to stay for a while.

I take three weeks to learn the crawl and breaststroke. Learning butterfly didn’t work. On the other hand, I was able to learn how to do the dolphin kick. My speed, strength, and agility are all doing great. I leap out of the water, take in air, and dive right back where I came from. The magic torches even work under water, so I can see the bottom perfectly. I end up liking swimming on my back, too. I feel calm and peaceful… That’s impressive, since lightning is striking just a kilometer away, and the air is filled with a stench that disgusts me. Well, disgusted me. I don’t pay any attention to it anymore, too busy enjoying what I can do.

∞ ∞ ∞

Damage taken: 35000 (ignored: 33811)

1142/2000

Resistance to electricity: +0.01%

Lightning damage ignored: 33896/second

Damage taken: 650 (ignored: 430)

881/2000

Resistance to cold: +0.01%

Cold damage ignored: 455/second

Water is an excellent conductor. I used to jump every time lightning struck, and a few times I even almost drowned. Now, even the strongest charges do nothing to break the peace and quiet I feel. My body feels a bit chilled, even throwing out some heat of its own.

A week later, I’ve had enough of swimming. I can go at a good clip: three meters a second the usual way, holding my breath for four minutes and twenty seconds. Under water, with a completely empowered body and my demon appearance, I can top 15 meters a second with my dolphin kick. That’s what I was going for more than anything else.

There weren’t any victims for me to use to boost my health and work on my resistance, so I had to get my stamina up as high as it would go and swim next to the bottom under the storm front. The water there was boiling. Down there, I didn’t feel the charges as strongly as I felt them on the surface, though I had all eleven streams of consciousness working to heal me - more than ten times a second. It worked. It just didn’t work exactly the way I expected it to.

I flew out of the water at full speed, heading straight through a waterfall flowing into an abyss. The dark hole sucked me and my cries in together.

∞ ∞ ∞

Once again, it’s Hell and the lifeless Fields of Ash, the misty shroud with the lords and Death. They’re at the beginning of every circle.

I’ve always been met at the beginning of each new circle by guards, and here’s another one. What do you expect from an animal-like old man three meters tall who looks more like a behemoth? He’s even blind. Yup! You expect death. He appeared ten minutes after I did. “The guards follow the intruder until they catch him and make his soul suffer.” The gargoyles had been kind enough to tell me that. I’d better just kill him right away.

Beastman, Plutos, Level 400

It doesn’t look like I’m in for a fair fight. I hurl my destruction spikes at him, followed by the vampire spikes, and finally just big rocks. My last spike hits him in the head, and he isn’t expecting me to hit him after a running start. Just like I wasn’t expecting to survive after a hit that does 25000 damage. Plutos hits me so hard with his club that I go rolling off along the ground. What saves me is that his hit isn’t that strong. He still had the spike in his head.

∞ ∞ ∞

Damage taken: 25513 (ignored: 26700)

2000/2000

After passing through the Fields of Ash, I see a strange picture. Humans and non-humans alike are