Getting out of the pool, I look out for any replacement clothes. There are none. I probably should have asked about that, before giving her my clothes. Didn’t she say she washes clothes here? Why did she leave then?

…

Sigh.

I’m just going to call out for her. I could scan for her, but I’m honestly scared of what I might see. I can only take so much at this point. This is both highly erotic and really weird for me. Once everything is in a better position… I’ll deconstruct my feelings on this more.

“Hey Gong? Can you hear me?” I can still hear the slight echo of continued sniffing in the distance. Okay, she’s obviously busy. I also feel like my hearing has gotten a ton better due to the healing constitution.

Seeing via the autoscan, that there are an insane number of transparent lines all along the floor of this area, probably to make sure I don’t surprise her.

I purposely step on a couple, in the assumed direction of the sniffing.

As expected, the noises stop almost immediately. I step back into the water, to cover my dangly bits.

“Hey Gong! Can you hear me?”

“YES! I mean yes, I can hear you.” She rushes into the area, with my clothes in hand. Her eyes flicker to the transparent lines in confusion. I try to redirect her attention back to me.

“Ah, so that’s where they were. Were you able to wash them? I could have sworn that you mentioned they could be washed here.” Her eyes go wide for a moment.

“um… yes. Though, I was just… preparing them. Yes. Preparing them for wash. Since I really li… want them to be clean. So clean.”

She stares at me, clearly nervous and hoping that I’ll buy this bullshit. I don’t buy it, but I roll with it.

“Thanks for the help, then! I’ll take those and wash them myself from this point. I insist.” She appears to want to decline, but a look into my eyes and what I believe to be the most subtle sniff from her yet, leads her to hand them helplessly to me.

She then sits there quietly as I wash them in the water. While I work on this, I take the opportunity to deep scan Gong:

Gong

Female, 32

5 Rose Man Spiritual Root

Proficient Languages: Common Speech (English)

Literate Languages: Common Speech, Street Signs (Demi-Human)

Exceptional Regeneration

Body heals quickly and can endure large amounts of wounds. Pressurization doesn’t decrease even when ruptured.

Demi-Human – Spider Traits

Okay, that’s pretty great! Looks like she’ll be a lot sturdier from now on. Considering her speed and power, I bet she’s heads and tails above anyone else who isn’t a cultivator in the area. No wonder the ancient groups placed a curse on her race. I can only imagine her with cultivator abilities. Makes me shiver a bit.

Which reminds me, I need to know how powerful cultivators are in this world, and the tiers.

Interrupting my thoughts, Gong speaks somewhat seriously, catching my attention. “I’ve been considering your taming ability. Have you gotten more insight into how far you can go with it?”

I think I can trust Gong. Especially after what we discussed earlier. I think Lin and Ai are safe, but I’ll run this by Gong first.

“I believe I can tame even spirit beasts with this… eventually. I’ll need much more time for that though.” She gives a sharp intake of breath and a swallow.

“You really know how to topple mountains and overturn seas, huh?”

“Uh… I’m not sure that’s what I said. At the most, I could tame an enormous creature and try… ah. I get what you mean now.” Midway into my response, I realized it was likely a common phrase to denote a lot of strength.

A little confused, but focused, she continues on. “If that’s the case, then there are some creatures in these parts of the cities that we might want to keep an eye out for. I think you are uniquely gifted to deal with them. These monsters are called iridescent worms.” Her face looks extremely grave.

------

“These creatures are, like their name suggests, pretty to look at, but horrifying in practice. They use human and demi-human women as their breeders. They capture and drag women while they sleep into their breeding pits.” Oh no, don’t tell me this is what I think it is.

What follows unfortunately confirms my suspicions.

She continues to speak about them and I find out the following information:

The biggest issue is that the parasites mess with the meridians, dantians of the person, besides other body functions. It is near impossible getting the parasites out of them, without it killing the host. They are sensitive to qi fluctuations and cause strange reactions to victims’ qi circulation. A skilled cultivator once ripped a woman open in the span of a second and instantly completely healed her, but the woman went into a coma, because her mind believed it had suffered irreparable damage. It wasn’t even because of the ripping open part…

When infested, the woman’s brain and qi circulation was altered as well, with the parasite taking over the victims’ brain chemistry. They only think of breeding more parasites and obeying the spawn. If forced out, the parasite wrecks the woman’s body, shutting down their life functions. Even if the women are removed from the pits and “saved,” they go crazy from not being able to continue. She wonders if taming the worms, while still in the body, could cause them to leave without killing the women. If possible, she hopes they could ‘reset’ the women. If not, potentially the healing could heal the women’s minds, since I mentioned it works by conditions, removing the compulsion.

It appears that the parasites vastly prefer human/demi-human women, but go for any mammal that can give birth. Animal victims seemingly have no change to their qi circulation, potentially. No spirit beast has been documented getting infested by the parasites.

Even for the most advanced healers, healing a person from the body trauma and mental issues takes an absurd amount of treatment.

She gives me the most successful story, a Nascent Soul cultivator who specialized in body manipulation performed the only successful operation. They succeeded by resetting the person’s mind and body back to before it captured them. This only worked, because the cultivator was their father and knew their daughter inside and out.

He poured all of his fortune into healing her. Even with that, the daughter still has issues. It is said the father has an enormous amount of resources, coin, and support out for any healer that can help his daughter. The cultivator was going to wipe the area that this happened in off the map, but was stopped by the sect and compensated.

These aren’t even spirit beasts and don’t provide any useful cultivation resources, so it isn’t even worth hunting for major sects. A demonic sect once used them as a way to strike out against other sects. They were quickly wiped out. However, the creatures already spread beyond the search capability of the sects and became a permanent fixture of this region. Particularly near the slums of cities. Many demi-humans believe they were kept as a way to keep the demi-human and poor human populations down.

Okay. This is messed up. Really… really… messed up. However, why is she telling me to use my abilities to take these things down and heal people? Not only that, but wasn’t Gong the one who told me to keep my abilities hidden? There must be a deeper reason for this.

------

“Gong, why are you suggesting I look out for these creatures in particular? I remember you saying I need to use my abilities more carefully, but this seems to go slightly against that. If I save those women, especially if no one else can, then it will be even more revealing of my abilities.”

As I say that, she becomes visibly uncomfortable.

“I… had a friend. She was the only one who defended me when I was young. Before I could defend myself. She was the one who made most of these tunnels.”

Gong looks off to the side, her eyes watering. Ah. This is a landmine.

“Those monsters took her, one day and… I never saw her again.” I can see her lip bunch up. It looks like she’s biting her lips pretty hard.

“I couldn’t do anything to help her. I just want to make sure that no one else goes through that. When I searched for her, I saw what people turn into. No one. No one deserves that.”

She continues after a pause and staring at the ground, “Especially not her.”

Still looking down, she continues, “Ju… just consider saving them. If you see anyone in that position. Please?”

There’s no way I could say no in this situation. To hell with the hiding, if I saw something like that.

“Yeah. I can do that.”

I pause.

Should I go further? Yeah.

“Let me know if you hear anything, I’ll check it out.

Her lips quiver, as she mumbles “I’ve already been helped by you so much and I…”

I cut her right off at that, “Stop. You don’t have to worry about things like that between us. Especially for things like this. Just let me know if you see something. I’ll see what I can do. That’s what friends are for.”

At that she takes a moment, but looks up at me with watery eyes. She nods with what seems to be mixed feelings. With a swallow, she seems to collect herself again.

“Okay. Okay.” She breathes in and out slowly before continuing.