Chapter 93

The slugs or caterpillars, compared to a typical Alpha monster, were downright tiny. At the peak of their humping forward, they only came up to his thigh. They had immense healing, but if they were squished into a paste, then that would be reduced to an academic fact.

The question was whether he could engineer something with the crushing force on the scale required. His mind imagined a clam-style trap which squished everything that got caught. Would it work? The bugs were stupid, if he could design stuff capable of exerting sufficient power. Could he? Absolutely. The memory of shattered zombies. Yes, he could. He could make something more powerful. Would they be easy to lure? He would have to check with Ivey. If camouflage was needed, then he could do that too. Daniel imagined a curtain of vines. Create something powerful enough and then get the rest of logistics right afterwards. How hard would it be to bait a slug?

Poison did not sound pleasant, but dead wood would be fine. Or . . . the rules of physics had changed.

“Ivey? Can poison—” He struggled for the word. “Rust, decay.”

“Corrode?”

“Yeah, that.”

Her eyes went unfocused. “Some.”

“Against everything?”

She kept reading the internal screens. “Poison will only be corrosive against organic materials. If it works against other materials, then it is a poison mixed with an acid.” It sounded like she was reading off a script. “Eggercough slugs just use poison.”

“Dead wood.”

She looked straight at him, suddenly interested. Then shrugged. “We would need to test, but given how powerful the attack is, I would expect it to eat through even dead wood without difficulty. Yes, even dead wood,” she said with exasperation at his expression. “We could test it?”

“Nope, no tests. I don’t want to rile them up before we have to. We plan worst case.”

“If their poison works on wood, it should be pretty obvious.” Her eyes focused on the shoulder.

“Go,” he told Priscilla.

The mouse stamped her foot on his shoulder. No. The voice was insistent.

“The mouse can check.”

“It is important,” Daniel told the girl on his shoulder.

Priscilla stamped her foot once more. Sorry.

“What?”

Ivey, her little voice in his mind insisted. Sorry.

“You want Ivy to say sorry.”

Yes. Mean. No help, mean.

“Priscilla wants you to say sorry. Ivey, can you?”

“No? I have done nothing wrong.”

See. Mean.

“You haven’t been nice to her.” Through the bond, he could feel the level of conviction coming from Priscilla. She would not change her mind easily, and bribes would not work. “Just say sorry and say you will treat her better and then she will . . .”

“It is a mouse.”

“Who we need.”

“Well, make it do it.”

“Her,” he corrected. “I . . .” Daniel raised his hands helplessly. “Be the bigger person?”

“I am not apologising. Just make her do it.”

Do for you. Priscilla big.

Daniel hesitated. “Okay, she is going to check.”

Ivey smiled triumphantly.

Me big. Ivy little.

Daniel carefully did not smile. You big, he thought back. Happiness came from the bond, and then she dashed away. A moment later, an image of a door appeared. The poison had hit it at multiple spots and had left gaping holes.

“You are right,” he told Ivey. “Their poison can put holes in doors.”

“Told you.”

That just made Daniel’s headache bigger. Whatever he crafted needed to be strong enough to squish and protected from poison, so they could be re-used. Or he could do four traps . . . but to stop the poison, all that required was something that was inorganic. He was in a modern hotel, so there was lots of metal lying around if you wanted to do some repurposing, especially with their enhanced strength. If he could shape that to protect the wood that formed the basis of the trap, then it could be reused. He imagined that the thin sheet metal on the minifridges coating his trap, eventually. It would look hideous, but function over appearance.

That left the question of how to get the force needed to squish the slugs because, based on their regeneration, if they were not converted into slime, then they would reform. The bear traps were a good start. He had already seen how they could pulverise a zombie’s leg. If he extended that to become a simple trap, like a machine that stamped coins. . . . It would need to be bigger, of course, but if it was protected with metal, then he should be able to reset it between uses and just squish them one by one.

Give it a bottom with an edged design. A top designed to drive down and do the squishing and then above that, lots of springs attached to the roof to provide downward force. Not the roof panels, but the support beams that criss-crossed the space. Hold the main section up with some flimsy bonds, then when he triggered the trap, the springs and gravity would do the rest, snapping it shut. Everything protected with metal, including the stairwell door. That way, they would be safe from the slug’s counterattacking them down the stairs.

“Everyone, bring wood and metal panels,” he ordered. “As much as you can. I have a plan.”

Then he went to work as the rest of them gathered what he needed. Priscilla went downstairs with Tamara to blow out hinges to let them scavenge the doors more easily. Door after door was delivered to him on the top landing where he layered them into the trap. The top layer was going to end up weighing hundreds of kilograms.

Then he focused on creating the massive springs. Two doors per spring, using the same techniques as with pressure plates. Transferring tension, piling it up till the wood thrummed with unreleased energy.

Daniel looked at what he had created. The spring compressed and was about sixty centimetres wide and almost two meters long. Even with his enhanced strength, he struggled to move it. Once it was released, it would expand out to three times its length, though that would only happen if the trap failed. Daniel was confident that sufficient potential energy was already stored to throw a grown man twenty metres straight up like one of those slingshot rides he used to see at carnivals.

Ten doors became the base and a further thirty on the top. Seven more springs and the landing was absolutely packed with all the objects. Luckily, the floor was solid. If it had started groaning in protest, Daniel was not sure what he would have done.

Then they brought him the thin strips of metal. They had clearly been peeled off the minifridges in each room, and there were hundreds of the sheets. More than he needed, but it was better to have too many than too few.

They were pliable, and it was a simple matter to use his command of wood to mould the metal to fit perfectly, almost like it had been melted in place. Just like tree roots could crack concrete, he melded the metals strips effortlessly. He squeezed the sheets together between two growing chunks of wood. A bit of shifting of the wood and he could fold the metal over to create a tight joint. It looked horrendous, and the thin metal would add almost zero defence against claws or weapons. That was not its job. It was there to protect the wood from poison, and while some small gaps were inevitable, it would ward off the majority, which is what he was going for. He only needed to reuse the trap four times.

Daniel sat on top of the trap while waiting for his mana to recharge. The two pieces, stacked like they were, made a nice seat that was the size of a small bed. In many ways, the easy bit of the process was done. They still had to assemble the components on the other side of the door.

“Ivey, we need to move this.” He tapped the trap under him. “And you are good with people.”

She arched her eyebrows. “What are you after?”

“How would you feel about getting the twelve strongest men to help?”

“Just men?”

“Twelve strongest people,” he corrected hastily and was relieved to see that she was still smiling. He had his head bitten off by some of his more politically correct friends for similar statements, and they had been bloody right then. Men were just stronger. It was basic biology. Ivey, unlike the issue with Priscilla, thankfully did not seem to care.

“Good. I know that both Gabriella and Sella are crazy strong.”

Attributes, Daniel remembered suddenly. A small woman could now be stronger than the massive giant of a man.

“If you could get them, that would be great.”

She nodded and went to go downstairs where everyone else was gathering.

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