I was pretty busy [Appraising] everything, and I totally forgot about the Soldier Roach corpse that was beside me. Well, since the corpse is just lying there and practically begging to get made into a weapon, I might as well honour the roach’s dying wish.
It should be of much better quality than the corpses I rummaged before. I mean, sure, the corpse of this roach is also F, but the roach itself was on a league at least two levels higher.
Inspecting the roach, I yank off all the remaining legs.
Hmm… the two front legs end in these long, sharp bits.
I definitely see weapon potential. A bit of crafting and cutting here and there, and I’ll be able to make out the shape of our favourite weapon; daggers!
I guess these would be...long daggers?
Just normal daggers, but with around double the range.
Yeah. I want those.
Using my sword in hand, I carefully dislocate those two sharp bits from the rest of the leg, before fine-tuning them a bit. I use the impenetrable stone wall as some sort of cutting tool, and chip off bits of the exoskeleton here and there to get a sharper edge.
After doing that for a while, I cut off the roaches' two antennas and measure a good length, before wrapping them around the long-dagger-scythes, making a pretty comfortable grip.
Looking proudly at my makeshift long bladed daggers, I [Appraise] them.
Damage: 45 Durability: 250 Resistance: 100
Specials: None>
Whoaa…
...My craftsmanship was so good that I made a legit, bona-fine weapon?!?! I mean, the system itself recognises it as a pair of ‘daggers’, not ‘Soldier Cockroach longer pointy leg part’ or whatever else.
Hell yeah!
FORTY FIVE FREAKING DAMAGE!
These daggers are overpowered as heck!
I guess these are the rewards I should savour for beating an enemy that I shouldn't have been able to defeat.
I admit, it was a stroke of luck, but still managed to kill a rank D monster!
I return to the corpse to see what else I can salvage, but after taking a single glance at it… I don't want to go near that horrid thing. A pile of blood, pus and froth formed a large puddle over there, you know?
No way am I touching that shit.
With weapons like this, I'd say I have the right to get cocky and all egocentric! I guess I’ll head straight to the nest and cause a mass genocide!
Here comes the bug exterminator!
Watch out, little roaches!
So, remember how I got swarmed before?
Turns out that crater was a breeding ground or something, because as soon as I went past it, I got flanked by a bunch of roaches… again.
Sure, I mentioned farming there for a bit, but the thing is, I wanna actually get past the crater and see what's on the other side of the path!
I feel like I’ve been getting swarmed a lot lately. In fact, I’m getting a very strong sense of déjà vu right now. Right after seeing the swarm start screeching incoherent things, my muscle memory just kicks in, and I dash away as fast as my legs will carry me, but… the roaches. Why are they so… so slow?
Last time I got too close to the nest and got chased away, I swear these roaches were way faster than they are now! The anticlimactic ending to my adrenaline anticipation sort of kicks in, and I just halt instantly, before turning to face my backside…
Yeeah, those level 1 rank F roaches are really lagging behind. I guess Combat Points and levelling really do make the world. I guess I’ll be able to put up a pretty decent fight, huh?
Well, I guess I’ll face these roaches head-on.
A roach lunges at me.
Reflexively, I bring up a dagger to cut the approaching roach.
And my attack kills it instantly.
My dagger literally glides through the roach, having no concern whatsoever about the hard exoskeleton. That too, gets sliced like butter.
“...”
“...”
The roaches stare deeply at my eyes, frozen in both awe and fear. While I do nothing but simply return the undying gaze. These roaches certainly have some level of sentience, since they clearly recognise me as that weakling from before. Perhaps they were with the original few thousands that broke off from the group.
D’oh! This is the perfect chance to utilise my Greed based skill (if I have one). Unlike last time, the roles of hunter and hunted have obviously been reversed. No longer, am I the mouse. No, I’ve become the eagle circling from above! Wahahaha, is this what they mean by walking along the palm of the gods?!
Oops. The roaches have broken away from their initial state of stagnant, frozen shock, and are starting to run away, having been obviously outranked.
Not happening. Come back here, juicy meat-bags of experience!
Even if they hastily scuttle away, I can easily catch up. After all, Speed is the stat I specialise in.
I run up to one of the roaches, before jumping ahead of it. The roach panicky tries to halt, but it fails to totally negate its accumulated momentum, and comes slowly skidding towards me with nothing but the shadow of fear rearing through its shiny, glimmering eyes.
Aaaand, CRUNCH!
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Once again, my dagger glides through the roach’s opaque outer shell like paper.
Okay, two down. Eleven left to go.
SHINGGG!
CRUNCH!
Oooh, Nice!
Whenever I smack the roaches with the flat side of my dagger, I always get this satisfying crunching sound. Maybe because the roaches all have these crispy exoskeletons?
I mean, right now, it kind of feels like I’m just scouting out a leaf with the most crunch-potential rather than killing a bunch of mutant roaches. Well, since stabbing and slicing are my most effective methods of attack, another level-up is actually pretty nice.
Wahahaha! Come back! Weaklings!
CRUNCH!! Shunk. CRUNCH!! SHIING!!
I loll off the head of another roach while admiring how light my new blade is. Having killed four, there are only nine roaches left. With minimal effort, I off three more roaches with practised ease—a series of consecutive stabbing and slashing at concentrated areas.
To be honest, I feel… kind of… bad doing all of this. It takes quite a bit of imagination to envision it, but I see myself brutally cutting down a bunch of children screaming in terror. I may be morally degraded, but I’m not going to stoop that low, no matter what!
The only reason I’m continuing is because it only takes a little thought to realise that these roaches are nothing close to human children. Besides, it was the roaches who first came to seek me out!
They thought I was still weak like before, and believed I was an easy target. So, whose fault is it now, huh?!
These roaches deserve this ruthless killing!
Who likes roaches anyways? Never mind giant, tiger sized versions! And even before that, I got swarmed by a bunch of rabid chihuahuas!
Monsters like those clearly don’t even have a single shred of humanity floating aloft in their veins. It’ll only make sense to reciprocate, right?
Why should I hold back and refrain from killing these bugs if they attacked me first? Y-yeah!
This is just self defense!
Eventually, only a single, lone roach remains. It looks at me with dread in its eyes. Can this roach even perceive the emotion ‘dread’, or is it just its instincts talking?
Well either way, it’s clearly in a reclusive state of fear.
The corpses of its companions lay around it, limp.
The roach tries to retreat, but it hits a wall.
It frantically scrapes at the wall to no avail.
Aw man, now I feel really bad about doing this. If the roach just turned towards me and started attacking, I would just kill it without a moment's worth of hesitation. But now?
…I - I kind of want to spare the roach.
Ugh, this feels so wrong!—both options, that is—killing the roach would make me feel bad, but at the same time, letting free XP run away also feels like a total waste.
Bah! I can’t make the decision myself!
Okay, fine. I’ll resort to underhand techniques to make a choice. I didn’t want to do this, but I’ll have to do the forbidden…
…
…Eeny, meeny, miny, moe Catch a tiger by the to– What…?!
You got a problem with me? Huh…?
…
…If he hollers let him go…
“...Okay, you live.”
Well, would you look at that! Someone got lucky! I start walking backwards while still facing the roach, while trying to put emphasis on my footsteps. It looks at me with a stupified and baffled expression. Maybe exasperation? Nah, no way would it be feeling exasperated.
After marching a reasonable distance away so the roach feels safe (or whatever the zoo people do it for), I turn my back to the roach and begin to walk away.
As soon as I turn around, I hear the roach frantically scrambling away. And the steps seem to be…
…Getting closer…?
I quickly pivot my head, and see the roach in the middle of a leaping position, its jaws half unhinged. I stare at the roach in irritation. The roach stares back with the expression of a dead man.
Seriously? I let this guy live, and the second I turn the other way, it comes running towards me with killing intent?
…
Okay, now I’m actually really pissed. In a single swing, I slice the roach to death without even leaving a comment or remark.
I guess a monster will always be a monster, huh?
Alright. From now on, these roaches are getting no mercy.
…To be honest, that battle was kind of… too anticlimactic for my liking. I mean, I killed those roaches way too easily! Like, one cut is all it takes. Although I do suppose that should be expected since the stat gap was pretty large. Not to mention, I got a new pair of weapons and all.
That was quite the let down…
The only way I can check my stats is after I get Combat Points, so I’m not exactly in the prime position to check how much power I stole from those bugs.
I guess if I just saved one Combat Point at all times, then I would be able to continually check my stats whenever I want to by cancelling the Point usage after it shows my stats.
Although, I’m here to survive. This isn’t some nice and cozy five star vacation and all—even a single Compat Point could mean the whole entire world to me. If this were some single-player game, I could just simply save the game and retreat to the previous save file if things went wrong…
But, this ain’t no game. I take back what I said before when I was eccentric about my reincarnation. This isn’t something I can take lightly—my life is on the line. I’ll do what it takes to survive. I will grow strong. And then, only then, once I become unrivaled in power, will I take the leisure to relax. Okay, maybe not the last part…
Clap!
I clap my hands together, breaking the ominous mood that was starting to brew up, and take a deep breath.
All super shady and negative stuff aside, I think that I've found a way to get stronger faster. I can utilise that crater-like nest and farm levels off the weak, newborn roaches. Once I get strong enough, I’ll try clearing the nest and continue down the broken path to see what’s ahead.
Seriously though, getting such a free monster spawner right next to me feels almost like cheating! Really, I feel like I’m exploiting some loophole. I wonder how strong I can get by farming these roaches.
Giving the crater an [Appraisal], I get a sudden flood of information burst into my head. The current of knowledge hits my head hard like a wave smashing down a dam. To be honest, this information overflow is nauseating.
Yet at the same time, my head actually feels amazing. Once I get a grip and look at all the info at a different angle, it all starts to make more sense. Like, my initial [Appraisal] gave me a bunch of info just all jumbled up. But now that I put the puzzle together?
Wow.
I feel so overwhelmed! It’s like that feeling when you get butterflies in your stomach.
So…, within the swarm of roaches, there are roughly five hundred or so baby roaches. I thought that the number would be in the thousands, but I guess since I was super agitated last time, I didn’t do my math’s right.
Then, there’s this Queen Roach—level 39, rank D. And of course, the Queen is protected on all sides by a group of Soldier Roaches. Three of them in total do nothing but loyally follow the Queen like some lap dogs. In fact, why the hell does this roach society function more like ants?! I mean, queen ants?! Soldier ants?! Baby ants?!
I do some more back-to-back [Appraisals] to get a better understanding of things.
Well, apparently the main nest is close by. How do I know this, you ask?
You see, after [Appraising] the ‘Queen Cockroach’ species and doing more continuous [Appraisals] by selecting keywords from the results, I’ve basically got a good envisionment of how this Spontaneous Dungeon operates.
So, the main nest consists of a King Roach, accompanied by seven Queen Roaches. The main nest is connected to four ‘sub nests’, each one smaller than the main nest and consisting of only one Queen.
Well, this crater here has got to be one of those sub nests, right? It fits the description pretty well. No, it perfectly matches the description provided.
Past the crater, that is, the other side of the road, probably leads to the main nest.
Seems like I’ve got a rough idea of how I’ll be moving along now. Clear this sub nest, then head for the main nest.
Should I clear the sub nest now?
No. Charging in would be stupid and reckless. I mean, I struggled so much on an injured Soldier. There’s no saying what would happen if I went up against a lone, uninjured Soldier, let alone seven paired along with a Queen.
Maybe I should resort to guerrilla warfare and slowly dwindle the number of baby roaches while growing stronger in the process before attacking the Queen?
I… dunno.
Hmm…
I toss my dagger up into the sky (well, barren stone ceiling), and watch as it plunges down, tumbling a bit before finally resting still. And, the dagger points straight at the sub nest.
Haha! The gods have spoken, guerrilla warfare on the sub nest, it is!
Impulsiveness for the win!