Rena

  Okay. I gotta focus.

  I need to approach the nest carefully. Stealthily. If I misstep, I might accidentally—Eeek!

  For some F rank weaklings, these baby roaches certainly have a stupidly high level of perceptive abilities! Is it an intrinsic trait or something?! Not that it really matters in the end.

  I manage to lure out four roaches with ease, making sure to do that fake limping while painstakingly keeping my pace slow enough so that the roaches are always close to catching me, but are never quite able to actually catch up.

  Man, these roaches are way too weak! There’s a reason I’m calling them ‘baby roaches’ now! If you couldn’t tell, I wasn’t doing it for shits and giggles. The roaches that I once struggled with are… literal babies. Newborn, rank F roaches.

  In fact, none of them even exceed level 5!

  Maybe that level 23 was actually an adult roach or something?

  Wait—why didn’t it rank up though?

  I’m starting to seriously suspect that you can’t rank up. Bah, I’ll just have to be patient and see!

  I hop away from the nest, trying my hardest to pretend to be some poor, injured soul. And these stupid roaches just follow in pursuit, scuttling towards me at their laughably slow maximum speed. Ah, such idiocy!

  You’d think animals would be able to sense the looming shadow of death with instinct or whatever, but these guys are so damn oblivious.

  Once I get a safe distance away from the nest, I suddenly stop limping. And I slowly snick my head. I feel an insatiable, creepy grin crawl up my lips.

  The roaches recoil in fear.

  Their instincts finally caught up and are probably screaming for them to run, but logically, all they see is a weak, easy picking of a target.

  Uncertain whether to trust its instincts or not, one brave roach decides to leap at me. I purposely get hit just to gauge their strength. Ouch!

  …But.. That’s it?

  Only an ‘ouch?’

  Although I got bit directly, and the roach’s fangs sunk into my flesh, the wound only draws a bit of blood. Sure, the roach wasn’t fighting at full power and was just testing the waters with a premature bite, but this is still underwhelming.

  The roach still clamped onto my arm freezes in place. Maybe from fear, since it did so little damage?

  Unfortunately for the roach, its siblings have come to a different conclusion. Because from their point of view, I reacted too slowly to the attack, as if I were lagging behind. The taunting clicks and screeches give away the roaches' inner thoughts: we can win this!

  The three other roaches form a pincer attack, flanking me from all directions. Having seen its sibling go on the offensive, the roach that originally bit me quickly gains confidence, and joins in on the attack. And they all leap concurrently, leaving me no room to retreat…

  …Nowhere but up.

  I hurtle upwards, before rapidly slicing at one of the roaches with swift incisions. Its exoskeleton tears apart without resistance, and blue, navy blood slushes out.

  The remaining roaches synchronously charge at me. Unable to react to the sudden outburst, all three of them assault me at point-blank range, ravaging and chomping at my body. Or so they think.

  In reality, I’m just trying to farm a bit of proficiency for [Pain Resistance]. And, I can also farm some proficiency for [Reparation] during the aftermath of the battle. Honestly, [Reparation] is pretty useless now, but who knows?

  It might turn out to be insanely useful in the future.

  However, there are also downsides to this kind of strategy. First off, purposefully getting hit is a risky move and can lead to unprecedented situations, no matter how weak the attack is.

  Which is exactly why I moved a safe distance from the sub nest before going on the offensive. Another downside, obviously, is that it hurts like hell to get hit a bunch of times. No normal person would willingly subject themselves to this type of borderline torture just to get a little bit stronger. I mean, even inconsequential stinging can accumulate to mass pain if there are enough bite marks, tears, and wounds!

  Think of this kind of ‘skill training’ as cutting yourself with a pocket knife. Sure, it’s not life-threatening after only a few slashes, but it still hurts and stings a lot. After more cuts, the afflicted area really starts to throb, and your arm might start to convulse or something.

  There’s a reason why cutting the wrist with a pocket knife is so effective!

  Well, what do you know?

  Speak of the devil.

  Is it just me, or do skills level up incredulously fast? Oh well.

  I got the skill I wanted to level up, and I think I’ve sustained enough damage to call it a day. I’ve actually lost quite a bit of blood since I got an artery burst.

  Yikes, who knew bite-mark related injuries would look so… creepy? Wasn’t there a phobia for this? Trypophobia, was it? In fact, aren’t all humans inherently somewhat affected by it?

  Who cares? I should finish this soon. I can't be too cocky and reckless.

  I kill off one of the scourges instantaneously. With the pincer formation ruined, I bolt out and backstab another roach, leaving sublime crevices in its outer shell.

  I turn and face the final remaining roach, and our eyes lock together.

  With a prompt final slash, I finish the roach off.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Uh… that was unexpected. Okay, thanks for the skill, I guess?

  Frankly, I was sort of inwardly hoping for another skill since my current arsenal is rather limited. But… geez. I wasn’t expecting it to happen so soon.

  Not that I’m gonna complain anyway.

  Apart from farming proficiency for [Pain Resistance], I also got hit a bunch of farm proficiency for [Reparation]. I think I skimmed through this explanation before, but elaboration won’t hurt, would it?

  I can't use magic, but passive healing is nice.

  Unfortunately, I haven’t exactly been able to test out the healing capabilities of [Reparation], but I think I can hypothesise it to be roughly 1 HP every 5-10 minutes.

  It is a low levelled skill, after all.

  Er, so…

  …

  Rinse and repeat, I guess?

  Honestly, this guerrilla warfare strategy is working a lot better than I expected. I mean, from just a dozen baby roaches, I already got a new skill. It might not sound the most impressive, but I need you to consider it took less than five minutes to kill the entire miniature hoard…

  …Hopefully my skills weren’t just close to the required proficiency and just so happened to reach the required amount during that battle.

  Realistically, I highly doubt that I progressed super fast and got a new skill in the span of five minutes. I have been slashing in previous fights. And I also have been gritting past the pain a lot. Unreal… my skills were really about to reach required proficiency, weren’t they?

  Next time, I don’t think I’ll be able to progress that fast.

  Eh, just a lucky break. Really, ‘tis fine, ‘tis fine!

  I’m still growing stronger at a fast pace. Just not as fast as I hoped. But fast nonetheless. Fast is still fast. Fast… what am I even waffling on about?!

  Forget it.

  Back to that sub nest, then!

  I amble trot back to the sub nest while whistling a catchy tune.

  After four minutes, the daunting abyss of a crater stares at me. No—not really. Just a figure of speech.

  Things are looking pretty good right now. I haven’t gotten noticed, and I’m not on some hit-list. Thank god I won’t become roach food…!

  Wait… what do these roaches eat? I mean, as far as I can tell, this entire dungeon is full of roaches. Nothing else, just those stupid jet-black roaches.

  Are they cannibalising?!

  No. I don’t think that’s the case. These roaches have strong familial bonds (or whatever, I can’t relate) since they all get super mad and predictable after I kill one of their fellow roaches in front of them. Although, that isn’t always the case. Just the usual outcome.

  I mean, with those baby roaches before, they all ran away without regard to protecting each other. Huh. Self-preservation does overdrive every other instinct, it seems.

  So… do these roaches not have to eat or drink? As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen even a single puddle lying around. Or do the roaches have some cool evolutive function that lets them drain water from the soil or atmosphere? Is that why the air always feels un-humid?!

  If so, that’s cool. But it still doesn’t answer the question.

  What are the roaches eating?

  In fact now that I think about it, I’ve been in this dungeon for a minimum of three days. And my stomach hasn’t rumbled even once. Nor have I gotten thirsty!

  What is up with that? All of this has no use to me, so why am I even bothering? I can uncover the mysteries and lore later when I escape the dungeon. Now’s simply not the time.

  I turn past the sharp intersection while fake limping. Predictably, one of the baby roaches notices me. It clicks its teeth and calls for its closest roach buddies.

  Less than a minute later, this huge swarm of roaches around 20 in quantity all start making that discombobulating bug sound. I guess the roach that caught me is an extrovert or something? Or maybe some other baby roaches decided to join the squad?

  Either way, this will be a nice way to grind—for sure.

  Apart from the group aggressively screeching at me, there are also quite a few roaches watching in the sidelines, unsure what to do.

  I’m actually really satisfied with this swarm, so I should go ‘hop’ and ‘limp’ away before I end up biting more than I can chew.

  The stupid babies mindlessly follow behind me. Once I fake-limp a safe distance away, I turn around and begin killing the babies. However, here’s an interesting turn of events—as usual, the roaches broke formation and started scattering as soon as I killed the first roach without breaking a sweat.

  Everything got out of hand for the roaches until this one brave roach started clicking really loudly. I exactly don’t know what it said, but since it got all the roaches to go offensive and charge at me, I feel like it said a motivational speech or whatever. Maybe it was referring to how I was stupidly outnumbered?

  I don’t know what happened, but here we are.

  I duck down and dodge another bite, before quickly breaking into a sprint to escape a hurdle of approaching roaches. I stop to take a breather, but another roach launches itself straight at my face. I quickly grab it with my free arm before materialising my daggers from my inventory. And, of course, I cut it down.

  Yet behind me, I feel multiple teeth sink into my flesh. I shake the roaches off, before returning to offense. Despite the profuse effort the roaches are putting into this assault, it still isn’t really life-threatening. I mean, the difference in stats is probably the main reason why, but I can’t stop myself from feeling really good about this.

  I mean, to me, it’s like playing a game.

  It’s amazing what a tiny bit of leadership can do. These roaches are actually… strategising! Not really well, but strategising nonetheless! For example, the prior roach jumped at me and served as bait so another roach could sneak up behind me.

  I honestly wouldn’t recommend such a strategy since it didn’t do much, but the sacrifice deserves respect, I guess…?

  Not that I respect these roaches. Not in the slightest. It’s just amusing to see their difference under leadership.

  Another bundle of roaches hurl themselves at me. I can’t simply just cut through the whole swarm. In groups like this, I can only attack them individually. And the roaches seem to have noticed as well since this is their favourite attack method.

  They’re just stalling for time, though. I mean, sure. They waste another five seconds. Then what? What good will that do?

  Eventually, only the leader—the one that rallied up the roaches—remains. The rest of the roaches lie lifelessly on the floor, each with a long, smooth gash across their shells.

  The leader doesn’t even look scared. It looks like it’s already accepted its demise.

  Yeesh, what type of leader are you? You know you sent all of your comrades to their graves, right? Truthfully, I respect this leader guy the least. It just hid behind other roaches and yelled commands…!

  …Actually, that is a good idea. If leadership dies first, then the entire formation falls apart… Bah, who cares! I still hate this guy!

  The roach doesn’t even resist as I slice its head off.

  …Oops.

  I think I got too carried away. Another week has passed. I haven’t levelled up yet, and neither have any of my skills. But I’ve got a good reason!

  After killing that swarm with the administering roach, I decided to call it a day. I made this make-shift base and took a quick nap. Never in a million years would I imagine what happened. When I woke up and decided to go back and check up on the nest, the baby ants were all clustered together, protected by the Soldier Roaches!

  Well, two of the three Soldiers. The other one is out there trying to hunt me down. In fact, maybe I should say two Soldiers and one Guard?

  Because although the three of them are the same species, one of the Soldier roaches has ‘Guard’ as its class.

  Dammit!

  So the leader roach actually had a plan and decided to sacrifice itself, along with its mates just to stall for time so they could send a message to the nest!

  I tighten the hold on my daggers in a fit of frustration.

  Ugh, I totally underestimated those roaches!

  Dammit!

  I mean, I can still lure out some roaches if they stray too far out from the protective circle formed by the Soldiers, but my progress has taken a massive setback! I mean, I can only manage to off two or three roaches per day now. Plus, the Queen pumps out at least ten more baby roaches a day! Besides, the whole ‘giving birth’ process is… weird and uncanny.

  Basically, the Queen shits out a pile of eggs. After a few hours, the eggs begin to hatch. The newborn roaches that come out are initially white, believe it or not. But after a second or so of exposure, they suddenly darken at a rapid pace, before getting that trademark jet-black inky exoskeleton three or four minutes later.

  Yeah, pretty weird, right?

  I don’t even think roaches lay eggs, but who knows?

  Despite looking like roaches, these are more like ants wearing the skin of roaches. Like, their social hierarchy and even behaviour do NOT resemble that of a cockroach!

  These are fire ants or something!

  I continue entertaining some thoughts as I toss my daggers in boredom, waiting for some idiotic baby roach to get close enough to lure away without notice.