Oh, did I mention my shifting opinions of the local megafauna? For the first few times I was looped back to the campsite, I felt the plants were the worst. I’d be walking along and suddenly it was all root spears and pollen clouds. All the while I had to get down and swipe at the ground, hoping to slice up something important.

In what felt like an ironic twist, I actually found the mobile plant monsters even easier to fight. While they might be able to move around, it introduced the weakness of having all of their body out of the ground and open to attack. Though I’m sure part of this was because my claws were too damn good at cutting plants.

So no, I no longer considered plants the most annoying enemy. That title goes to the enemy I am currently fighting. It started as most of my recent fights have, a rustle in the undergrowth, only for a beetle to charge out at me.

Yes, I’m vexed by beetles. They aren’t swarmers or even monsters that will actively group up against. And yet even one on one they’re so annoying for me at this time.

Their exoskeletons are a magnitude sturdier than the mantids on the surface and unlike with the plants, I can’t just hack through it with my claws. Their joints and such, of course still represented a weak spot and I’m sure if I had managed to tip one of them over, the underbelly would be even weaker. Except they didn’t let me do that.

And this current beetle was no exception. It stayed low to the ground so I couldn’t get underneath it, all the while it tried to nip my legs off. Oh, and they could turn on the spot, so my attempts to get to the side of it fails.

Though I still tried as I was starting to develop a strategy for these things. While fighting them alone, if I get them to turn it brings the front leg opposite the way they turned forward. Not by much, but enough, and my leg slams forward.

This doesn’t hit the beetle, but it isn’t meant to. Instead, the attack comes as I swing my leg down, claws stretched out. Now, it didn’t always work, but this time it did and my claws manage to hook onto the joint of said leg. The beetle, of course, tries to pull away, but I slam my foot to the ground, ripping out the joint and leaving the leg dangling there.

The beetle really didn’t like that, but who cares what a beetle thinks? Definitely not me when it is trying to kill me. So with one limb disabled, I can take advantage of it being off balance and hit up the other front leg. This takes a while longer as the bug is defensive now, but I get in there eventually.

Though instead of using my lower claws, I dodge in under the beast’s snapping jaws and get my fingers poked right into the joint where the leg attaches to the body. One of the mid legs manages to smack me, but with my claws hooked in, all that does is rip the hole open even more. With that, the remaining front leg stops moving as something important gets cut or opened up.

The body of the beetle falls onto my left leg as its front half can no longer support itself. Which is certainly uncomfortable, but I don’t feel the urgent pain you would expect from being crushed. I guess being made of a gel has some advantages against being squished.

Either way, with the beetle’s front legs disabled, I can get my claws into the neck seam and scramble some important connections. The body still twitches and the head snaps at me, but they aren’t working together anymore. So, once I extract my leg, I’m able to retreat.

It would have been nice to have a meal, but these tunnels have way too many monsters. A fact proven out with how not even a minute later, a pack of those rous show up. And sure, I can kill the rats easily enough, but even the more dangerous monsters avoid them when they’re swarming and I’m nowhere near that strong. But I need to be.

For now though, a bit of sneaky sneaky is called for. These tunnels are crawling with monsters and I can’t secure a path of safe retreat. In fact, with every time the tunnel splits I’m in even more danger and this underground maze loves to have the tunnels branch off. That damn beetle just got lucky as I had to cross an area cleared of plants by something or another.

Though with the rous riled up in that direction, I backtrack to the last branching point and take a new tunnel. And like that, I spend a good ten hours or so sneaking around, getting an idea for what is where, at least in a general sense. Even now, I swear those damn tunnels had some form of magic upon them that makes it hard to remember the layout. Normally, I’m good at remembering my way through mazes and such.

Whatever, I wasn’t going to ignore the same stuff that guided me to this section and so noticed right away that this monster dense area had another low density area opposite the camp. So even if I didn’t know which tunnel was which, I knew the general direction to head.

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Though as less and less monsters showed up, the more worried I got. Like, sure, if I was heading into more “civilized” territory, the locals would try and keep it clear of threats. Except for the fact that the word “try” is what it all hangs on. I didn’t pass through some monster repelling barrier nor smell something meant to fend them away. The tunnels just went from full to near empty.

Maybe if there has been a shift in the general strength of the monsters I would be less worried. Like, if the monsters were also getting weaker, then I’d just assume this was the edge of their territory and I might find some undead or some such around the next bend. Nope, just the same range of strength with less and less monsters.

Until there weren’t any. The monsters were gone and I was alone. Except it really felt like one of those horror games and I tense up, waiting for something to jump out at me.

Yeah, I wasn’t going to deal with this on an empty stomach. Besides, this situation was perfect for me to hunt for some food. Instead of eating on the run with whatever I could slice off a monster before even more monsters showed up, I could properly butcher a kill. Thank goodness my dietary requirements had radically changed, because I wasn’t getting a fire to roast stuff over any time soon.

Not that I thought a fire would get over my cultural based twinge at eating bugs and rats. Even before all this nonsense, I was conscious of the nonsense behind the social norms of what is and is not proper to eat. Yet at the same time, I wasn’t going to claim to be above it, that’s for sure.

I would love to switch to eating all the lovely greenery around me, except it would have been a waste of time. Every once in a while when I spotted a new plant, I would give it a chomp and universally, the stems were too damn hard. What even eats these things?

Well, I guess probably the rats and bugs do to some extent. Still, the best I could do was gnaw on a leaf, leaving behind the veins. The animals and plants down here must be getting a bunch of their energy needs met by the magic because there certainly isn’t enough food to keep it all afloat.

Hell, maybe I was as well. For now though, I was hunting for a lone rous. Even when not in a swarm, they did prefer to stay near others of their kind, but the lack of monsters in this area didn’t really give them that option and I soon found my prey.

The rous was nibbling at some exoskeleton shards. A bug of some sort had died and now the clean-up crew was removing the last bits of evidence that said bug had ever existed. Except I didn’t give it a chance to finish.

I lept on its back and got one arm around the rodent’s neck. Not that I was going to try and choke it or anything. There was a much more effective method and so I brought my other hand back and brought my claws together.

Then it was over. The rous didn’t have a chance to respond as I brought my hand down, piercing through its eye and into the brain. There is a reason they prefer to be in groups.

Though the quick kill does mean the following part was a bit bloody. I didn’t trust other monsters to wait until I could properly bleed the corpse. So I was forced to butcher it then and there. The saving grace being that my claws were an excellent stand in for a knife.

While thicker than I would prefer for this task, having feeling in them allowed me to follow the bones and muscles. And sure, I could have probably eaten the entire rous from the tip of its whiskers to the end of its tail. Except I had a chance to be at least a little more civilized and it felt good to not just eat like a starved beast.

Now I was just eating like an uncivilized beast pretending to be civilized. Because yeah, I wasn’t going through the effort to dress this up as meat tartar and it wasn’t fish so I wasn’t pretending it was sashimi. Still provided all the nutrients and minerals a growing gel needs or some such.

When I was done, all that was left were the hide, bones, and organs I didn’t want to eat or couldn’t identify. All without gaining a single inch around my waist or to my height. Which I must admit, is pretty convenient. Though I did feel that my gel tank wasn’t even half full after that meal.

And to be fair, I had been taking a lot of damage since my last meal. So since I was still worried about what I would find beyond the area without monsters, I decided to eat my fill for the first time in this new body. This took a while and three other rous. Well, two and maybe a third of the third.

Though I did use the chance to find out what happens if I try to overeat. Nothing! Or rather, nothing happens to the extra food. Sort of just sits there and gives me a bit of a belly. Not as big chunks of food, though.

It seems part of swallowing it for me involves rendering it down into fine particles and liquid. I bet if someone poked my belly while full, it would feel like one of those sand filled stress balls. Not that I would let just anyone poke my belly.

Anyway, I was full now, though it didn’t feel as satisfying as I remember, and I was ready to head out. Whatever was in the monster free zone would be facing me while my health tank was topped up. Though for a moment, I considered heading back to the camp on the opposite side for some sleep.

However, I felt energized, maybe a side effect of being full, and so stealthily crept my way through the underbrush of the empty tunnels. Well, I thought of them as empty tunnels. Life had to prove me wrong on that as well. Not even a mile past where I had stopped last time, even the plants began to thin out. It seemed I wasn’t going to have anywhere to hide soon enough.