Besides, a cave is naturally a place that's easy to defend and hard to attack. Once inside, dealing with those Cockroach Immortals would become much easier.
At worst, he could just take out a bow and shoot them slowly.
Of course... There was another very important reason: the prompt showed that the diamond treasure chest was also in this direction.
If Ethan wasn't mistaken, the diamond treasure chest should be on top of the cliff, or somewhere along the rock wall.
"We're here!"
The moment Ethan rushed into the cave entrance, he finally let out a long breath.
After all, if you're not from the south, you can't really understand the fear of being chased by a swarm of flying cockroaches. Even though their combat strength wasn't high, their level of disgust easily surpassed all creatures of the same type.
However, at the very instant Ethan rushed into the cave, he saw a few small rocks suddenly fall from the ceiling. Then two pitch-black eyes appeared above, rolling around, and immediately after, two cockroach antennae over ten meters long extended out from the gray fog and twitched.
The Cockroach Immortals that had been swarming toward Ethan suddenly scattered in all directions when they saw him rush into the cave.
"Huh?"
Ethan looked at the Cockroach Immortals dispersing outside the entrance and said, puzzled, "Why did they stop chasing?"
["Maybe… they think this cave is hard to enter,"] the scarecrow said, also letting out a breath of relief. It wasn't afraid of damage, but it really feared those cockroaches that wanted to eat its eyes.
At that moment, Ethan sniffed the air and said, "Do you smell something?"
["What? What smell?"]
"Right, I forgot you're not human."
That one sentence hit like a barrage.
Then he continued explaining, "There's a sour, rotten stench in this cave. It smells like vomit. That's really strange."
"Normally, that kind of smell only comes from a mouth or a stomach."
"If this cave had some decaying animal inside, it should smell more like rotten salted fish. So why does it smell like stomach acid?"
["Uh…"]
The scarecrow paused for a moment, then said, ["I just thought of a terrifying possibility!"]
"What?"
["Ethan, have you considered that those Cockroach Immortals stopped chasing us because…"]
"Damn it!"
Hearing that, Ethan immediately realized.
They had most likely entered the mouth of some monster.
BOOM!
However, before Ethan could grab the scarecrow and run, the cave suddenly collapsed downward.
Right after that, a powerful suction force surged from deep within the cave, directly pulling both Ethan and the scarecrow inward.
Caught off guard, and with everything inside the cave being slick and slimy, they were instantly dragged in.
["Ahhhh!!"]
The scarecrow let out a piercing scream.
But that scream was only directed into Ethan's mind, making his head hurt even more.
Splash!
By the time Ethan tried to anchor himself with the Dragon-Slaying Saber, it was already too late.
Because he had already fallen into a large pool filled with sticky slime.
And this pool gave off an intense, suffocating stench.
"What the hell is this place? It stinks to death."
Ethan took one breath of the foul air and nearly threw up on the spot.
But strangely… after falling into this sticky, foul-smelling pool, his poison resistance started increasing again.
[Poison Resistance +1]
[Poison Resistance +2]
[Poison Resistance +1]
[Poison Resistance…]
'Damn, it's increasing this much?'
'What kind of place is this?'
Ethan glanced at his status panel, and in just an instant...
[Poison Resistance: 10/10 (EXP: 8.6/10)]
His poison resistance had jumped by five whole points at once.
That growth rate was insane.
And, even after reaching 8.6, it didn't stop completely.
It was still slowly increasing bit by bit.
Even though the increments were small, there was only 1.4 left. It would probably max out soon.
["Ethan, save me!"]
Along with the scarecrow's desperate cries, the Sun Worm once again flew out from its body, and the tail began to glow.
As the Sun Worm emitted light, Ethan finally realized… this wasn't any kind of pool.
This was a massive stomach.
And where they were standing was the gastric fluid of that giant monster.
So, the place he had run into earlier wasn't a cave at all.
It was the wide-open mouth of a gigantic creature. That's why the Cockroach Immortals had scattered, they didn't want to be eaten, so they didn't dare come in.
"What's wrong with you now?"
Ethan asked, a bit speechless.
Only then did the scarecrow start wailing, ["My body is melting! Hurry and save me! Save me!"]
Splash!
Ethan grabbed the scarecrow and pulled it out of the gastric fluid.
Some of the liquid splashed onto his face. It stung slightly, but the sensation quickly faded, probably because his poison resistance was high enough that his skin had adapted to this level of toxicity.
However… the moment he lifted the scarecrow out, he realized that the lower half of its body had already been mostly corroded away.
Even its head had been half dissolved, leaving only half a head. If it weren't stuffed with straw and able to float on the gastric fluid, there probably wouldn't have been anything left.
"You go back into the tail ring and stay there. This place is too strange."
Ethan wasn't sure whether the scarecrow would die if it got completely dissolved, so he simply stored it back into the tail ring to make sure it stayed safe.
Fortunately, he did it quickly, because the very next second—
Gurgle!
The monster, having swallowed Ethan but failing to digest him, seemed to feel discomfort in its stomach and let out a burp.
Then the large lake of gastric fluid around Ethan began to churn violently, waves of it surging toward him from all directions.
Splash! Splash! Splash!
Fortunately, the Sun Worm flew fast enough to barely avoid the gastric fluid.
But Ethan couldn't fly, so he wasn't so lucky. His whole body was soaked in it, practically marinated from head to toe.
Flash!
At the moment the gastric fluid churned, Ethan suddenly caught a glimpse of something glass-like flashing under the Sun Worm's light.
'Could it be… the diamond treasure chest?'
[Southeast direction: A diamond treasure chest is located five meters away!]
With the system prompt, Ethan's eyes lit up, 'It really is a diamond treasure chest.'
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