*(WARNING: Read tags before reading)*
In a different world, where what is usually seen as fantasy is reality, lives a lone adventurer. A middle-aged man with average facial features and a slightly muscular build, which is needed for the business he is in. An adventurer's job is to explore the wilderness outside the safe walls of the kingdoms and sell their discoveries to whoever is interested.
In this world, where going out into the wilderness is a death sentence for the average citizen, an adventurer's business is very lucrative.
Today is the start of a new expedition out into the wilderness. Every kingdom has an institution in place, called the Adventures Garrison, which basically serves as a trade union/labor union for adventurers.
Every three months, these institutions would gather 20 adventurers to go out into the wilderness together, and explore the unexplored parts, where no one has ever been. The middle-aged adventurer, named Adam, is going to be one of the 20 people to go out this time.
Adam was a veteran in the business, with 20 years of experience, so this was nothing new to him. He would always start the expeditions following the rest of the 19 other colleagues, and later split off from the group and go his own way. By doing this, he would often earn more than the other people in the party, making a lot of his colleagues jealous and he was therefore not very popular in the community.
This method, however, came with the price of danger. "Higher risk, higher reward," is what he would usually say to himself.
This time was no different. After the group of twenty had made it a good way into the wilderness, Adam fell to the back of the group, and when no one was looking, he slipped away.
Since Adam had explored so much outside the usual routes, which the other adventurers took, he had a broader map of the wilderness.
The last time he had been on an expedition, he had traveled into a forested region where he had seen a cave. At that time, he had already spent a lot of time mapping the area, so he didn't have time to explore the cave, but he had marked it on the map so he could come back another time.
As he was traveling, he imagined all the riches which would be lying inside the cave. In this world, riches weren't only materials, but most of the time knowledge. In some cases, knowledge would fedge a way higher price than materials.
Up until this point, the journey had mostly taken place in a forest with a lot of space between each tree, and where all the leaves were freshly light green. However, Adam was now facing the part of the woods where there nearly wasn't any space between each tree and the crowns of the trees covering the whole sky. The contrast between the two parts of the woods was like the difference between daytime and nighttime.
Adam knew, however, that he had to pass through this part to get to the cave.
As explained earlier, the wilderness was a death sentence to the normal citizen. The only reason it didn't feel like it until this point was because Adam was an experienced adventurer, so he knew how to avoid dangerous areas, such as sinkholes and monster nests.
In this dark like night forest, however, even Adam would have a hard time coming out alive if it wasn't for the map he had drawn the last time he was here.
He made his way through the forest, and after maneuvering around all the dangerous parts, which he had found the last time he was here, he finally arrived at the cave. The entrance of the cave looked very artificial, having a clean-cut arched top.
This fact made Adam realize that there might be something living in the cave, and he was therefore extra cautious as he entered.
The cave was dark, but for some reason, it never felt too dark to see, so Adam waited with bringing out his torch, in an attempt to not highlight his presence.
After walking for a bit, he started to get the feeling that he was being watched, but he couldn't pinpoint where exactly from, which caused him to feel a chill.
He decided that he should cut the cave exploration short, and return to the outside to plan for another entry. After he made the decision, he quickly turned around, planning to get out as fast as he could. That was when he realized that his bottom left leg was wrapped around by what seemed to be a snake's tail.
Then, he felt a pull and he was swept off his feet and dragged on the ground further into the cave by the tail.
He tried to grab onto something to stop himself from being pulled further inside, but there was nothing to grab onto. A second later he came to a halt, and he felt the tail lift him from the ground, so he was hanging upside down.
What appeared before him was an extremely beautiful female face. Long smooth black hair falling down on her shoulders, sharp eyes with yellow irises, and a mouth with two pink lips.
Under the face was an amazing female body. Not too fat or too thin, with a voluptuous bosom, covered by a thin layer of silk draped over the shoulders.
Being scrutinized by these eyes would cause any man in a normal situation to feel a heat in his crotch. This, however, was no normal situation, and Adam quickly realized that the female before him was the owner of the tail that he was hanging in right now.
It didn't take long after this realization, for Adam to figure out what it was that had taken hold of him. Lamia, a snake-like creature with a human torso and head. The species only consisted of females, which was why they would capture males from different humanoid races and use them for mating. They would wring them dry of their seed, and after their use was over, they would be consumed.
As Adam was thinking this, the Lamai began moving its mouth in for a kiss. Adam knew that this usually gentle action was a death sentence. A lamia's saliva was an incredibly powerful aphrodisiac. As soon as you consumed a slight amount, you would lose your head to lust.
Adam had to act quickly, and so he grabbed the bag hanging around his shoulder and pulled a round ball out of it. Then, he threw the bag at the Lamia, and while it was momentarily disoriented, he threw the round ball on the ground --
Bang!!
When the ball hit the ground, a sharp light exploded, like a flashbang, and stunned the lamia, causing it to loosen its grip around Adam for a short moment. Adam didn't waste the opportunity and quickly slipped out of the lamia's tail lock, and athletically landed on his feet.
He quickly started sprinting towards the exit of the cave. From behind, he heard an angry hiss, which caused him to run even faster.
Adam continued sprinting for his life, finally finding the exit of the cave. The lamia's hisses were only getting closer from behind. When he got out of the cave, he didn't stop to admire the scenery, but hurried on into the forest.
Then it dawned on him. The map of the forest region he was in had been lying in the bag he threw at the lamia.
At this point he couldn't really go back to get the map, so he had no other choice, but to try to remember the path in his head.
Soon after he exited the cave, the lamia burst out, hissing. The darkness of the cave kept a lot of its body hidden, especially considering it had black scales on its tail part. But out in the limited light of the forest, the length of its body was on full display.
The tail part was probably 5 meters long and the torso part the average torso length of a female, 50 cm.
Having a 5.5-meter long creature following you while hissing angrily would scare anyone. Adam was no exemption to this, and this would inevitably cause him to make a mistake.
As he was fleeing for his life, Adam thought that if he could just make it back to the other adventurers, they might be able to fend off the lamia. His fate, however, was looking bleaker by the minute. The lamia was more flexible than him, making it able to maneuver around the forest without much hindrance. As such, it was slowly catching up.
Adam realized that running on land wasn't going to work, so he decided to try something different. He found a tree nearby that looked to be easily climbable and started scaling the tree. His thought process was that, with the size of the lamia, it must weigh a ton. Even if it could get into the trees, it wouldn't be nearly as comfortable as it was on the ground.
As a veteran adventurer, tree climbing wasn't even enough to cause a sweat. He was quickly several feet over the ground, swiftly making his way towards the top.
A second later, Adam heard hissing right below him. Looking down, he could see the stunning lamia looking up at him with its bewitching eyes. The way it was looking at him, reminded him of the look of a hunter seeing a prey hop right into its embrace.
Then, the lamia slowly started twisting around the trunk of the tree, moving upwards with each spin. As it was getting further up, it began to pick up speed, quickly matching the pace at which Adam was climbing, and still accelerating.
At this point, Adam realized he had made a mistake. It is common knowledge that snakes can climb trees, however, he had for some reason just assumed that the lamia would weigh too much. This clearly was far from the truth, and now he was in a worse situation than before.
When he reached the top of the tree, the lamia was basically riding his coattails. It was even possible to catch a whiff of its scent, which resembled an expensive perfume. Adam quickly woke up from his daydreaming and hurriedly chose a course of action.
As mentioned earlier, the trees in this forest were tightly packed. Therefore, Adam chose to jump from the tree he was in, to the tree next to him, hoping to land on a foothold.
As he picked a spot and jumped, the lamia burst right after him.
He luckily landed on a solid wooden branch. Having succeeded once, he gained some confidence, and hastily jumped to the next tree. The lamia followed his actions, but there were clear signs of caution in its movements, probably from fear of falling down.
After some time of jumping from tree to tree, Adam realized that the distance between him and the lamia was no longer closing, but instead slowly increasing.
This discovery jubilated him, and for a short instance, he didn't pay attention to where he was jumping.