Josh caught the grenade out of the air and forced his mana into the rune. It took all of his mana—his mad Sensitivity score wasn't much help here—and the rune began glowing bright red. It started glowing red in his hands.

There was a way to make real grenades with enchanting, Josh knew. Some combination of runes that would hold power on its own and could be activated on a timer. All the power would then combine into a single explosion, not a drop of mana wasted, blasting anything in range. The Enchanter could even change the effects drastically. You could make grenades that only affected living things, that only damaged objects, or even ones that specifically healed only your allies.

Ruth didn't have the runes for that. None of them even knew what runes she might need. Darius, however, had a basic knowledge of engineering and physics that had proven quite helpful.

Josh and Ruth had both earned the blueprint for [Water Bottle (wooden) (variant)]; apparently sticking random bits of metal into it didn't count as more than a variant blueprint. They had filled the wooden vessels with water, screwed on the tops, and then Ruth had scratched the runes into them.

Now, when Josh tossed the grenade into the middle of the group of ants, the fire rune boiled the water inside the vessel. The water expanded.

The grenade exploded.

Shards of metal and splinters of wood pierced through the carapace and into the flesh beneath. The ants screamed in pain and rage, too confused to attack. Most of them were still alive, though. A random steam grenade made in a shack was not going to kill an entire horde of armored Formics.

Three more grenades sailed into the group before they had a chance to react.

They exploded, one after another. After every blast, the screams came back louder, the ants raging at the thought that someone could attack them like this inside their own hive. That someone would dare attack them like this.

After the last blast, there was silence. No more screams of pain and rage, no more chittering and clacking ants. Just the heavy sound of their breathing, the soft sound of wax and water dripping down from high places.

Josh pulled himself out of the wall with some difficulty. He had been embedded in the wax, and now he was covered in it. He was sure he smelled terrible; he pushed that aside. He ignored the shrapnel and splinters that had embedded in his armor or shattered against it. His face was bleeding from small scratches. He ignored that too.

There was a shape in the mist. Right in the middle of where they had thrown the grenades. It wasn't moving. It could be dead.

Then it roared, and the sheer force of the noise blasted away the mist, leaving the horror bare and unshrouded.

It was eight feet tall if it was an inch. It walked on its thick hind legs, making it look vaguely like a four-armed humanoid in armor. Its arms were at least as thick as its tree-trunk legs and ended in giant claws that seemed to gleam with sharpness. Its red carapace was cracked in a dozen places, pierced by shrapnel and leaking yellowish fluid.

Half of its eyes were missing. It glared at Josh with all that remained. He used Identify on it almost by habit.

Formic Destroyer. Level 24 Monster. Remember how I said the Brute is the big friendly jock who just kind of stumbles around, breaking shit because he's too big to do anything else? Yeah, these guys are like that... except they're doing it on purpose. Also, you pissed this one off something fierce.

It charged.

Josh had tried every combat role, and dozens of combat classes. He knew how to fight. He had the instincts of a dozen soldiers working together. Fighting a monster four levels above him was not something to do lightly, but it wouldn't be hard. Especially with it already injured. Given thirty seconds to think, he could finish this monster off in one hit.

He didn't have thirty seconds. He jumped away in a dive, desperately trying to dodge.

He could have killed it easily. Even as he jumped, he saw a weak point he could have taken advantage of. If he had braced his sword, the monster would have impaled itself.

He thought this as the monster grabbed him with its massive arms. He thought this as it slammed him into the wall, as his sword fell from his hand, his remaining fingers not strong enough to hold it.

He coughed up blood as he was slammed against the hard stone. The disgusting wax did not help soften the blow. He was dazed and confused, and couldn't think of what to do. The ant's hot breath, smelling of sweet nectar and rotting meat, assaulted his mind and senses.

The edges of his vision turned black. The air, forced from his lungs, was taking his consciousness with it. He felt himself fading, and knew that if he blacked out, he would never wake again.

Two shots rang out. Then two more. Then a high-pitched yell as a wooden club came down on the monster's head, squashing it flat as easily as if it were still the size of a crumb.

The grip on Josh's body loosened. He pulled in a great, shuddering breath. His vision began to clear.

“Josh! You okay!?” Ruth threw herself down in front of him. His eyes were still too blurry to get a good look at her, but he could feel the concern radiating off her.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Eurgh,” he said, verbosely. “I'll live.” He blinked a few more times and managed to get his eyes open. The Formic Destroyer was dead, a steaming pile of smashed carapace on the ground in front of him. “Wot about you?” He looked Ruth over. She was covered in stinking yellow gore, so he could put two and two together there.

“I had the shroud, remember? I'm fine!”

Josh nodded, slowly, so as to not make his headache worse. “And everyone else?”

“They're mostly okay,” Ruth said. “Mary was nowhere near the blast, and Darius got his shroud up in time.” She leaned in closer, eyes wide. “But what about you? Do you need a recovery potion?”

He grimaced at the thought. Recovery potions were like healing potions, except not magical. They were the best they could do without members of the Alchemist class. They were expensive, hardly even effective, and made using Jungle parts that created a particularly disgusting concoction. They also had only brought a few with them, and needed to ration them.

“I'm sure I'll be—” Before he could finish his excuses, he coughed up more blood.

“No more arguing!” She called over to Mary. “Need a pot over here!”

Josh leaned back against the wall and groaned. “How many did we even bring with us?”

“Four,” Mary said. She rudely pinched his nose, yanked his head back, and poured the sludge down his throat. It was like trying to drink expired yogurt with leaf bits floating in it. Josh had to fight not to puke. “Not sure we're going past this room, so don't worry about our supplies.”

Josh grimaced and wiped his face. “We need to do better than one room.”

Mary made a similar grimace, but nodded. “Maybe. Check your notes. See what you've gained. We can decide from there.” She got up and walked over to Darius.

Josh called up the system notifications. They minimized into a folder so that they weren't in his face in the middle of the fight.

He had leveled. Well, that wasn't a surprise, he had been pushing the bounds of level 20, almost reaching level 21, this morning. That was a bit behind the curve for the area, and far behind the actual safety margin, but still respectable for this time of year.

He was level 22 now, which was a good jump for one fight, even a big one. He could already feel that he was more than halfway through level 22. One more room might be able to push him all the way to 24, which was another milestone. That might be just what he needed to finally get a new class out of this. Assuming they could survive the next room. His armor had ranked up as well. Or, rather, his ability to craft stronger Pierce-Resistant Armor had ranked up. He wouldn't be able to take advantage until they were outside and he had more materials.

Josh dropped his points into Perception and Sensitivity, as usual, though he was tempted to put something into Constitution or even Strength. A little bit of extra toughness and damage wouldn't go amiss. But, he decided that at this stage, it wouldn't make much of a difference. Lack of stats hadn't really been the problem in this room. There were just too many ants.

He glanced around and checked everyone else. Ruth was also level 22—as was Darius. He had finally caught up. Being a [Combat] class, he got more out of fighting than they did. Everyone got experience for killing monsters, of course, but [Combat] classes got experience just for performing their role actions. Darius got experience for defending people, including himself, and Mary got credit for attacking.

Speaking of which, Mary was level 23. She had the annoyed look on her face that Josh recognized as meaning she thought she deserved more experience, because she was almost close enough to level again. She got that look every time she felt she didn't level fast enough. Which was almost always.

The calculations that the Tower used to award experience were complex, and they only got more so when more people and monsters were involved in a fight. Mary might have reached level 24 already if she had been the first person to throw a grenade. Or if she had been the last. Or if she hadn't thrown a grenade and had just kept shooting. It was hard to say.

“I didn't think we'd level so fast,” Ruth said, her fingers dancing through invisible menus. “I know there were a lot of the ants, but they were also close to our level.”

“We might've gotten a bonus for using stuff we crafted in combat,” Josh suggested. He had made the grenade housings, Ruth had added the runes. That should be enough for the system to credit both of them. Then he shrugged. “'sides, there were loads of them.”

“At least a dozen, perhaps as many as two,” Darius put in. He was pushing through the pile of cracked and oozing corpses, clearly hoping for something valuable. “It could be as simple as that. Don't underestimate quantity.”

Ruth shook her head. “I-I don't think it's that simple, guys. My dad is big on power-leveling. I know how much it takes to level up.” She looked around, frowning. “Was this too easy?”

“It is rare to have explosives, or even basic area-of-effect spells, at this level,” Darius pointed out. “A Mage would be unlikely to be able to cast a large fireball spell, even if they could learn it.”

Josh nodded. One of the benefits of a high Perception or Sensitivity score was that it was easier to learn techniques or spells. Plenty of powers were effectively, even if not literally, gated behind stat minimums. And then there was the fact that powers like that could have absurdly high mana costs. Techniques tended to be cheaper, but need to be boosted with Strength to be truly effective. There were always exceptions, of course. It all depended on your class and build.

“I guess...” Ruth murmured, not looking convinced. “What if we're missing something? What if these guys are a lot stronger than we think? Maybe they're just weak to explosions or something.”

“Then it's a good thing we brought the boom, eh?” Josh gave her a playful elbow in the side. “I see your worries, but we're fine, all right?”

She pouted. “We're out of grenades. And I don't think we're going to find more wood here!”

She had a point there. Glancing around, Josh saw plenty of carapace and chitin, as well as the gross waxy substance that he didn't think ants should even be using. No wood, though. Other than their armor, there was none in the room, and he wasn't going to start breaking that into parts.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Why don't you look at those runes while we sort through the loot? We don't have to rush this. Maybe you'll find something useful.”

She didn't look all that convinced, but she nodded and rose to her feet. She crossed over to one of the walls, made a face, and scraped away the wax to expose the glowing runes underneath.