Chapter 352 Earthworm

"Mr. Flint, can you describe in detail what that strange insect looks like?" Joan asked the old dwarf.

"Good boy! I'll draw it for you."

Flint took a pencil out of his pocket, found a piece of wood at random, and began to draw.

The old dwarf is the most outstanding craftsman in Delin Town. He often designs all kinds of farm tools and even weapons and armor blueprints by himself.

"Look, this strange insect is about five feet long from head to tail. The temperature inside its body is extremely high. It can melt the iron ore it swallows into molten iron, and burn away impurities along the way. Part of the molten iron will pass through Their skin is secreted, stuck to the surface of the body, and after cooling, it is shaped into layers of bamboo shoot-like armor, so from the outside, this strange insect looks like a python made of countless iron rings."

Flint added a few strokes to the drawing board, and then told Joan and Conti about the strangeness of the worm.

"The inside of the body of this strange insect seems to have a furnace that burns all day long. The high temperature emitted will burn the iron armor attached to the body red, and occasionally there will be hot steam and smoke accompanied by hissing sound, connecting from the carapace. If you accidentally touch it, you will suffer severe burns and even be ignited directly!"

"The most peculiar part of this monster is the head, which is like a cone-shaped horn connected to the front of the body. Below the horn is the mouth, and the rest of the facial organs have all degenerated and disappeared - this may be due to their long-term living in the underground world. related."

"But don't think that they are deaf and blind. In fact, this kind of strange insect has a very keen perception. It can detect someone approaching through the slight vibration of the surrounding air and ground, and immediately launch an attack or escape through the ground!"

Flint took the glass from his nephew, moistened his throat with a swig of ale, and concluded.

"What I have observed is almost the same. Since the horns on the head of this strange insect look like a large red-hot soldering iron, I call them 'soldering iron spirits'!"

"Hey! You took the name 'Soldering Iron' for a long time, and it made Joan and I confused for a long time!" Kandy laughed.

"What's the matter, little girl, isn't it good to call them 'branding iron spirits'?" The old dwarf was a little embarrassed.

"They obviously have an official name, it's called 'Soil Bug'!" Candy couldn't laugh or cry.

"Earth, what kind of worm? This name is too difficult to pronounce, why not just call it the image of a soldering iron spirit." The old dwarf muttered resentfully.

"It doesn't matter what it's called, the key is that creatures like soil worms shouldn't appear here at all."

Joan recalled the relevant records about earthworms in the "Wares Monster Illustrated Handbook", and clearly remembered that this creature named "worm" was not an insect creature born in the main material world, but a purely An "elemental creature" composed of fire magic energy and lava.

The soil worms are native to the border between the elemental planes of fire and the elemental planes of earth, a vast area full of ashes and lava, where they feed on minerals, and use their furnace-like bodies to melt ore into a powerful natural defense. Powerful metal armor.

As an elemental creature from a different plane, the soil worm does not need to eat food from the main material world to survive. The reason why it devours ores is mainly to keep the "element furnace" in its body working, smelting the ores into molten iron and secreting them into the The body surface condenses into iron armor, thus ensuring that its own defense is maintained in a perfect state.

Why do soil worms keep recasting their iron armor?

Mainly because the creature burrows underground all day long, and has a particular penchant for burrowing through mineral-rich volcanic rock formations.

This can certainly keep the earthworms, which are naturally afraid of the cold, warm, but frequent drilling in hard rocks will inevitably severely wear down the carapace on their body surface, and the thick iron armor will soon be worn thin by the rocks.

In order to protect its relatively fragile inner skin, the earthworm had to devour a large amount of ore, and use the biological furnace in its belly to refine and cast a brand new steel armor.

"Mr. Flint, elemental creatures like soil worms rarely appear in the human world, and they occasionally appear to be active near the crater far from the town. How could they come to the forge?" Joan questioned.

"You mean, someone cast a spell to call these monsters from another world, and deliberately put them in the forge to cause trouble for me?" Flint looked angry.

Joan and Kandy glanced at each other, thinking of the teachings of the "primitive religion" that was extremely hostile to industrial civilization, and never missed any opportunity to destroy magic machines and modern factories.

As the high-ranking deacon of the order, the "shepherd" will definitely carry out this purpose.

Thinking about it this way, only a crazy cultist like the "Shepherd" can do such a thing as throwing soil bugs to destroy the forge!

"Uncle, now is not the time to investigate the origin of the earthworms. What is more important is to try to find out and eliminate these pests so that the forge can resume work."

Conti emphasized loudly.

"The little girl said it well, but those annoying big bugs are not so easy to deal with. Before we do it, we have to make a perfect plan."

The old dwarf picked up a pencil and scribbled a line on the wooden board, and then showed it to Joan and Candy.

"The first question, how can we lure the earthworms out from the depths of the iron ore piled up like a mountain, and prevent them from escaping?"

"This..." Conti rubbed her nose, showing embarrassment.

"Actually, we have already solved half of this problem." Tom continued the topic initiated by his uncle. The earthworms were lured out of the ore pile to warm themselves by the fire."

"In fact, we have already tried this method and successfully lured the soil worms and eliminated one of them. Unfortunately, the rest of the soil worms were very alert. When they realized that they had been caught in a trap, they turned around and ran away. Before we had time to stop them, the five worms They all went back to the ore pile."

Tom shrugged regretfully.

"Can you move the ore away, so that the soil bugs have nowhere to hide." Conti proposed a plan.

"Speaking lightly! There are at least a thousand tons of ore piled up in the warehouse, how can it be so easy to move away?" Flint stroked his beard with a wry smile, "Besides, during the process of moving the ore, it is very likely to be attacked by soil bugs, the risk is real too big."

"Even if the ore is emptied, it's useless. The earthworms are good at digging holes and burrowing into the ground. Before the ore is emptied, they burrow deep into the ground and hide." Tom added.

"This is indeed a big trouble." Joan said after thinking, "I can try to use magic to stop the soil bug, which can delay the time."

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