Dei decided to start by hitting all the hiding bugs with his [Identify]. His heart ached from how they were going to be killed, but they might otherwise escape if he didn’t.
When he chose to fight the Lorpee’s, he did so because he knew they would fight back. Over time, his sense of morals at not killing creatures weaker than him had begun to erode, and now he realized it was either fighting those weaker than him, or those stronger than him, and he didn’t think it was much of a choice at all.
After waiting for his MP to regenerate, spending the time locating and mentally numbering as many of the hidden bugs as he could, Dei used his [Fine-Tooth Comb] Skill to locate them all in quick succession without having to find them again. He wanted to kill them all before they realized they were dying.
Dei casted eighteen Identifies before he had to resort to using the mana from his [Pandora’s Box], using it another seven times before all the hidden bugs had been hit at least once.
[EXP gained for killing the Sneaking Gnat (Level 185). EXP gain raised due to level disparity]
[EXP gained for killing the Stalking Picrola (Level 127). EXP gain raised due to level disparity]
…
[EXP gained for killing the Sneaking Fly (Level 155). EXP gain raised due to level disparity]
He started recognizing patterns in their names too, and it was confirmed that any bugs with the word [Stalking] used magical cloaking, while camouflaged bugs didn’t have any special prefix, and [Sneaking] bugs used a more natural Skill to hide themselves, doing things like sticking to shadows and avoiding vision. [Stalking] was magical invisibility, Camouflage was an inborn trait, and [Sneaking] were like rogues using the terrain to obscure themselves.
Overall, the [Stalking] creatures fared the worst, dying quickly. Creatures with certain types of Camouflage on the other hand started hopping around like they were in pain, but were still in control enough to run from whatever spot they started in. If it was active camouflage, like an iguana, it began to change colors unnaturally. If it was blended camouflage, like a snow rabbit on snow, the bug was unaffected. [Sneaking] creatures fared somewhere between [Stalking] and active camo, as they died much slower than [Stalking], but they did die.
Camo bugs didn’t die at all, the mana abating before it dealt serious damage. Through the process, he noted that when he switched over to using Wrath mana in his Identify, the effects became much stronger. He already knew that spells cast with their affinity mana did more damage, but this confirmed it further.
Twenty five bugs were identified, and nineteen died. Most of them were over his level, yet he had not gained enough experience to level up himself. So far, this aligned with how he theorized the EXP system functioning. Now for the harder part, killing the bugs personally.
While he was preparing for the fight, Dei tried planning on how he was going to kill them. With his Mental and Physical enhancements, it was possible to slap them out of the air, but he thought that would be inefficient, and most of the bugs would escape. Instead, he wanted to try something he hadn’t before: harnessing his mana directly, unrefined by a Skill.
He’d confirmed through [Astral Projection] that Skills imbued mana with some sort of intent, giving them purpose. What he struggled with now was a flexibility issue. He had no medium of crowd control or boosting of his physical body.
He had, however, discovered that Wrath mana could boost his physical strength ever so slightly on its own. It was guaranteed to not be as effective as a Skill, but it was a proof of concept. If Dei tried hard enough, he would be able to freestyle mana, giving it purpose.
When the idea came to him during planning, he stopped letting his [Pandora’s Box (Contained)] take in the Wrath mana he was now continually drawing in. While doing so, he began experimenting with drawing in Wrath mana in a healthy and consistent way. So far, the only two consistent routes he’d found to draw in Wrath mana were to either hold a grudge against something or give himself a mental breakdown.
Instead, he tried making himself angry at the injustice of the world in general, a sort of righteous Wrath to draw upon, swearing to never let another child experience what he was right now. He hadn’t succeeded, but he thought the idea had merit.
To circle back to the task at hand, Dei needed a way to mass-kill the bugs, and imbuing Wrath mana with his own intent was the path he chose. He only had seven usable Wrath mana on hand, with the rest locked away, and began the process of imbuing them with his intent as he walked towards the swarm of bugs.
How he went about doing so was to just… try and force the idea he wanted to instill upon them into each fragment. He didn’t have a way to measure if it was effective or not, but as he approached the swarm of insects, they began to shy away from his glowing form.
He outstretched his arm, open palm facing the swarm of insects, and willed the Wrath mana to attack the bugs, shooting them from his hand.
The Wrath mana flew forward, and the moment it exited his body, his sense of it became highly muddled. While he could perceive that there was some Wrath mana around him, he didn’t have nearly enough sense to tell where it had gone, and he didn’t have the connection to it he would normally have with mana run through a Skill.
The bugs also didn’t have the reaction he was expecting, many of them shooting forward and into the bits of mana he’d fired. Rather than shy away from them, he noticed that many were fighting to get closer to the mana.
While he couldn’t see the Wrath mana he’d fired, he could tell where each speck had gone, as there were seven bundles of various bugs trying to force their ways into the center.
He was absolutely baffled by the behavior… but also, this worked for crowd control! While it didn’t kill the bugs, it made things a lot easier for him as he swung out his hand, blowing apart the first ball of bugs and getting around twenty kill notifications.
The other bundles started dwindling after that, some bugs not quite as excited when they saw what happened to the first, but most of the bugs were still far too dumb to understand what was happening, and stayed packed together.
He was disappointed realizing that he gained no physical boost from [Cruelty of the Slaughter] for using his projection, but not surprised. Quickly, he shot through the six remaining swarms, blowing them apart in gory explosions
‘Yuck, I am incredibly happy that I can't taste or smell anything with this body.’
It would have been utterly disgusting to carry this job out with his bare hands. Dei was always relieved when he could turn intangible and allow the gore to fall to the ground.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
With seven large swarms of bugs defeated for experience, he went about squashing the rest of them. He noted that the bugs he’d killed, the ones that swarmed to his mana, were all below level one hundred. Those that were already evolved flew around the initial swarms, not pushing to enter the ball but still looking for opportunities to get at the mana themselves.
Then there were five or six bugs that hadn’t entered the fray at all. These bugs succeeded at resisting his Wrath [Identify], and he figured they were the strongest of the group. He’d only used the minimum mana required to [Identify], so he could most likely push through their defenses, but he chose to wait on that. He didn’t want to provoke the most powerful players on the field immediately, even if they were just bugs.
From this he figured out why the different critters were interested in his mana. Somehow, his unrefined mana would help them in their evolutions. The younger bugs would gain more benefits immediately, as their evolutions happened very soon, so they fought hard. The adult bugs benefitted too, but not as much. They were not willing to throw their lives away at the chance of an upgraded evolution when it would most likely be a long way for them to reach it.
The most experienced bugs, the few that reached their third evolution, weren’t interested at all, probably because it was unlikely for them to reach higher than that. Or because they’d already outgrown any benefits the unrestricted mana might give them.
He began moving through the scattered swarm, those bugs between levels one and two hundred, backhanding them whenever he could.
They caught on quickly, the higher leveled bugs being smarter, and started to act. A few of the stinging ones attacked, while others began to flee for the crack in the wall. The stinging insects were almost all ineffective. Key word, almost.
As the swarms attempted to inject him with their venoms, he almost laughed as they did absolutely nothing. After a few seconds though, a searing hot pain erupted from his thigh, and he looked down to see what dealt damage to him.
Much to his terror, a hornet was the source of his pain, and he identified it with ten Wrath mana, aiming specifically to glean how it attacked him.
[Piercing Decay Hornet - Level 164
Breed of Hornet that specializes its venom into decaying its victims alive, causing rapid necrosis as Decay mana floods into its enemies]
Immediately, he pinged that Decay mana interacted with him in some way that others didn’t, and realized that it was because he was a spirit. Spirits were tied closely with death, so it was likely that anything to do with Death would damage him.
He squashed the hornet quickly, scanning the bugs to see if there were any more that had affinities tied closely with the concept of Death while he continued swatting them out of the air.
The swarm mostly used ineffective venoms to deal damage, so he was unharmed thus far aside from that Decay Hornet. There were more in the air too, but he spotted them and continued batting them away whenever he could.
Another two insects that managed to deal damage were, weirdly enough, flies.
[Latching Rotfly - Level 122
The Fly is an insect that consumes decomposing material, waste, or otherwise useless materials. This variant has specialized into standing its ground upon living creatures and devouring them alive with swarms of its kin. When latching on to prey, it gains a significant boost to durability and becomes much more difficult to remove]
One of the insects that could damage him was one he’d already scanned, a Rotfly. The other looked like an orb with six legs, and he felt a wave of mild damage emanate from it. The other bugs also didn’t like it, but were unwilling to get closer as the strength of the wave was more powerful when near it.
[Passing Jinglebug - 138
The Jinglebug emits a high pitched sound when threatened, employing the rare Passing affinity, which specializes in accelerating the ending to all within its vicinity]
The Jinglebug wasn’t attacking him, just running, but he was still damaged by its employed self defense. Not for long though, as a few of the braver bugs started making swipes at it.
They quickly shriveled, but after ten or so attacked it, the sound slowly abated, before fading entirely as the bug succumbed to the various venoms.
Dei had to deal with the first Rotfly that attached itself to him, ripping it out along with a portion of the Soul mana around it.
‘Holy shit, killing these bugs is not as easy as I thought it was going to be.’
He continued lashing out, doing everything he could to stop any more stings from landing on him as he didn’t want to waste all of his Soul Strength so early into his journey.
He was still damaged multiple times, but Dei decided backing away from the swarm was the better idea against pushing further and risking the wrath of the level three hundred bugs.
He didn’t drop back down into the Spirit World yet, as he didn’t consider himself truly in danger, and continued to pull in experience. When all the bugs were finally either dead, had fled from the cave, or returned back to the corpse to continue eating, he finally lowered himself back down into the Spirit World.
He looked over his notifications, counting one hundred and fifteen total. While it was an immense list, the level ups were not nearly as long.
[Class Leveled Up: Prodigal Detector (Level 68) -> (Level 69)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (19) -> (20)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (24) -> (25)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Vigilance (53) -> (54)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Vigilance (54) -> (55)]
[Skill Leveled Up: High Mind (44) -> (45)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Identify of the Stout Protector (50) -> (51)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Identify of the Stout Protector (51) -> (52)]
Nonetheless, he was glad to see the progression. He decided a tactical retreat was in order, and exited the cave while avoiding the corpse of the dead monster. While doing so, he noted that two of the bugs were still able to perceive him despite being situated in the Spirit World, keeping their bodies facing him.
He was almost positive that he saw compound eyes on their head, so facing him was unnecessary, but it was likely an intimidation tactic. The Mental stats of these particular bugs were definitely high enough for abstract thought, so he would have to keep such things in mind when fighting others.
He also didn’t discredit the option of potentially conversing with an intelligent monster. While he wanted to find the spirit past the bog cavern, it wouldn’t hurt to try and talk to a few of the smarter creatures he ran into…
Looking back though, the Frog was likely sentient, so maybe it would hurt. He would have to handle it case by case.
Minitask complete, Dei headed back out of the cave and on to the first checkpoint.
* * *
The first place he noted was because of the way it distorted vibrations that got near it, causing them to become more squiggly for lack of a better term. It wasn’t a cavern, but it was what he would consider a microbiome, as it was a series of long tunnels sectioned off by rocks at every entrance. The rocks looked like cave-ins, but he thought it was too coincidental that every opening was cut off, and decided to investigate.
As he approached the first blockage, he saw something interesting. Visually, he could see that the air in front of the pile of rocks that separated him from the cave began to distort. He recognized such an effect as heat on the air, realizing that he simply hadn’t known such heat affected vibrations in a similar way to how he saw using [Tremor Sense].
Closer to the rubble, Dei noted a slight red tint to the rocks, and got a closer look at the hot air escaping from them. He remained unaffected, so he didn’t fear going further in, but decided to prepare further before doing so. He wanted to produce a bit more Wrath mana, just in case he needed some sort of distraction like he’d done with the bugs (albeit unintentionally).
Before he could sit though, a familiar signal rang out in his mind.
A [Call for Help], stemming from somewhere past the wall and into the hot caves.
He didn’t even hesitate, immediately turning intangible and launching himself into the barrier. If he was doing all of this for the chance at reaching a [Call for Help], it made no sense at all to ignore one right in front of him.