Looking at the glowing map panel in front of me, I saw the continued movement of the red blips all around me. I had no clue what they were doing, nor did I care to look into what it was. My only hope was that they stayed far away from me. I figured What I needed now was some time to think. It wasn’t like I could fight off more of those giant ants with just a knife. Considering my options, it occurred to me that in order to survive in this place, I would need the “GP” from the system mission. I didn’t have much choice in the matter anyway. Some of the dots on the map had been getting closer to my location. If I was going to have to fight, then it was better to do it on my own terms. Looking back at the ant corpse behind me, the beginning of a plan formed in my mind. The ants' weakest parts were their legs and eyes. They lacked the protection of the rest of the body, making them an ideal target. The problem was, I still couldn’t be sure that I would even, if I could get to them, do so without, well being mauled to death.
I would need some way to keep them in one place long enough for me to deliver the finishing blow. This cavern was as good as any place to test my plan. I can’t say I was very excited about what was coming, I mean fighting a giant ant didn’t rank particularly high in terms of things I wanted to do, sighing I confirmed what I needed to do, and began to set my plan into motion.
After a while of grueling labor (although I suspected it was just because this body was so weak), a pile of a few dozen rocks of different sizes stood neatly stacked above the entrance to the room. A rock at the base of the pile was wedged upwards inside a crack in the wall, just barely preventing a much larger rock from rolling forwards into the tunnel below. Around the smaller stone was wrapped the remnants of my old clothing tied together, forming a ramshackle rope that had just enough length to drape down into the tunnel.
I reviewed my work with a smile on my face. There was something satisfying in completing an honest day's hard work, even if in this case, the “work” referred to making a dubious trap to kill a giant ant monster, still! I put a lot of effort into it okay!. Shaking my head as the realization of the absurd life I was living crossed my mind.
In any event, this was the best I could come up with given the limited material at my disposal. Would it have killed the ants to leave something other than rocks and moss lying around this place?
My preparation being complete, I checked my map, only to see I was going to be using it earlier than I thought. Heading towards my direction were three red dots. I remembered they had split off a much larger pack of red dots earlier and had been going in different directions before stopping for small stints. I felt my heart sinking. I wasn’t even sure if I could take on one of those monsters; sending three of them was practically like the world was telling me to just die.
Staring at the dots as they continued to approach, I tried to stop my hands from shaking while fiddling with the knife in my hand. As much as I was worried about the fact that I’d be fighting three at once, I guess I’d end up in this situation regardless since I was planning to wipe all these monsters out eventually.
As if to respond to this resolve I saw a system message flash quickly up before me, before disappearing.
System>
{Quest Issued ”Exterminator” [Reward 150 GP]
{Kill ten giant ants total}
{mission progress 0/10}
I didn’t have much time to concern myself with the quest as the sound of tapping steps filled my ears. Their steps didn’t seem to have any sense of urgency to them, nor were they making those strange cries I had heard when I was first attacked. I breathed out in relief, as it appeared I still had the element of surprise.
Looking at the red dots getting closer and closer, I tightened the grip on my dagger, steeling myself for what was to come. The thought crossed my mind that this really was my first time fighting. Sure, in my past life, I had gotten into fights, but this was different. My life was on the line. I wasn’t confident that this body could take much of a beating either.
I did hold out faint hope that the goddess might save me if I died here, although if I was being honest with myself, the thought just existed to comfort my fear a little. If the goddess really cared about me, I wouldn’t be here in the first place.
It sounded like the monsters were almost at the entrance now. My muscles tensed in response to the adrenaline running through me. The fear in my mind mixed with anticipation for what was to come. This mix of emotions took me off guard. I hadn’t expected to feel anything other than fear at the prospect of death, but deep down, I really did feel excited.
Blocking out all the unwanted thoughts, I saw the beginnings of a grotesque mandible push through the darkness. My breath caught in my throat as I inched closer to the cave wall. The mandibles fully revealed themselves followed by a hairy mouth. The ant's antenna scraped along the stone wall, pointing in strange directions before locking on to the corpse in the corner of the room and staying steady. The ant’s mandibles launched into a flurry of movement, producing frantic noises.
Click, shriek, click, click.
Being so close to the sound was a little unnerving, only more so when a series of cries resounded from further down the tunnel.
Click, click, click, clack.
Following this response, the ant in the tunnel entrance pushed the rest of its head into the cave. Even though it remained focused on the corner of the room, one large eye now faced directly in my direction. I was so close that I could see the hexagonal pattern of its pupil pulse open and close.
I didn’t have any time to think; my body acted on instinct. Driving all the force I could into my feet, I lunged with my blade pointed out straight at the eye in front of me. The ant had apparently also noticed my presence. Its body froze, only its two foremost legs entering the room. The ant attempted to move its pincers to stop my attack, unfortunately for the ant, its position left it unable to properly respond.
My body rushed forward, the tip of my blade hitting its mark and sinking into the creature. When the blade made contact, I was blasted with some kind of sticky liquid. The ant let out a blood-curdling cry into the room, but my blade didn’t stop moving spurred onwards by my body weight pushing down on it. I felt brief resistance from something hard behind the eye; however, that too was cut through by the knife.
After cutting through what I assumed to be the skull, my speed was significantly slowed, and the blade came to a stop on the other side. The creature wasn’t dead yet, as its cries continued to echo around the chamber. Its body thrashed around in an effort to throw off its attacker. The sounds seemed to draw the attention of the other two ants deeper in the tunnel, their steps growing closer with each passing moment. Knowing my time was limited, I drew my arm back from inside the creature's head, my blade tearing through yet more flesh as I did so. I brought it forward again in a series of attacks. Due to my close proximity, these attacks didn’t have the power of the first, but with the skull already being broken, they had a similar effect. On the fourth stab, the sounds which had been echoing around the room ceased. The body of the ant went limp before it fell in a heap against the tunnel wall. To further confirm its death, I heard the cheerful ding of a system message ring out in my mind.
System:>
{ Mission “exterminator” updated - calculating progress
{1/10 giant ants defeated.}
I didn’t have any time to celebrate this victory; the sounds of the other ants approaching once again drew my attention to the situation at hand. I began to think that if I killed the next two the same way I did this one, then maybe this fight wouldn’t be a big deal after all. Regrettably, this was not to be. The ants, having wised up to the danger I posed in a confined space, approached the entrance carefully at first before the leading ant ran at full speed towards the cave. Seeing the approaching threat, I swung my blade at its head as it passed into view.
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The result was less than satisfying; at the moment the prepared ant had leaped through the entrance to land behind me, leaving my blade to only make a minor wound on one of its armored carapace sections. This was the worst possible situation; my mind screamed for me to face the threat behind me, but doing so would leave me vulnerable to the ant still running up the tunnel. I only had one shot to turn the tide of this battle back in my favor.
“Come on, just a little closer,” I cried in my mind. Just as the last ant was about to burst through the tunnel, the sound of rushing feet came from behind me. Making my decision, I jumped in front of the entrance to the tunnel, grabbing the ramshackle rope and pulling it with all my might as I passed. I heard the small thud of the rock I had dislodged falling to the ground, followed by a much larger crash which sent reverberations through the entire cave as a figure careened over my legs into the wall, altering to the gravity of the sneak attack which I had nearly avoided. The combination of these two events would prove deadly for the ant still inside the tunnel. The ant’s crash had destabilized the tunnel itself, sending a large chunk of the overhanging ceiling into the tunnel below. The act alone likely wouldn’t have been fatal if not for the rocks which I had piled up earlier not also descending along with the collapse into the path of the creature.
The deafening crash and cloud of dust from the collapse managed to conceal my sorry state from the remaining ant. I had paid more attention to the execution of the dive than on its landing, resulting in me ending up in an ungainly pile splayed out along the stone floors of the cave.
Groaning in pain, my left side having apparently hit a loose rock during my tumble, I was comforted by a system message telling me the success of my efforts.
System:>
{ Mission “exterminator” updated - calculating progress
{2/10 giant ants defeated.}
Great, only one more to go, except this time there wouldn’t be any trickery: no number advantages, no traps, or sneak attacks. Just a battle of wills between me and, umm, an ant.
The dust in the air had settled down, revealing the form of the ant frantically poking at the pile of rubble where its compatriots lay. Eventually, perhaps realizing that its actions had no effect, the creature turned its head towards my direction as its eyes focused on me. A small pile of blood had formed under it from the wound I had done earlier. Almost as if enraged the creature let out a shriek as it approached.
The call echoed off the walls of the room, making my hair stand on end. I gripped my knife, which had landed a little distance away from me before standing up. Before yelling a retort.
[Iris Sinclaire]: “Even as a child, I’ve killed hundreds of your kind. Yeah, that’s right, I’m not scared of some oversized insect, well, uh, maybe I’m a little scared, but that doesn’t matter.”
Making a mental note to write down some better battle cries, I reversed the grip on my knife and ran towards my entomological opponent.
The ant skittered in my direction in response to my aggression. As the distance between us closed, the ant began thrusting at me with its pincers. Each attack was followed closely by another, giving me very little room to breathe. Luckily, I was able to dodge the attacks by backing up, but the margins for success were getting smaller. Knowing I had to gain an advantage, instead of dodging away from the incoming attack, I leaped towards the side of the ant’s body, swinging my blade at the ant’s middle leg. I could feel the rending flesh as it sliced out the other side. Successfully cutting the leg I shoved off the ground, trying to gain some distance from the ant, but just as my retreat had begun, I saw a shape heading towards me with undodgeable speed. I realized too late, that while my attack had put me out of range of the ant's mouth, I was still in range of its stinger.
My body was caught in the open with no room to dodge. I only had time enough to point my blade at the incoming threat. The stinger's tip hit me in the center of the chest, blasting my body backwards. With a crash, I rolled along the ground, only coming to a stop after I hit one of the cave walls. Leaning up against it, I looked down at my chest, fearing the worst. My gaze drifted along my dress, looking for the inevitable bloodstain, only to come up empty-handed. The only evidence I had been hit at all was a small tear in the center of the dress where the stinger had struck. The clothes also seemed to absorb some of the damage from my impact. While there was still a throbbing pain in my chest, it didn’t seem like any of my ribs were broken. Letting out a grunt of relief, I looked up to see that my adversary wasn’t faring much better. The ant's body was limping on one side while a stream of blood dripped from its back half where its stinger had hit my knife during its approach.
While the creature's rage had not dissipated, I could clearly see it was much more afraid than it had been before, likely not expecting me to have survived its attack. I stood up slowly, spitting out a mouthful of blood to one side. Honestly, I was just as surprised as the ant that I survived. It’s not like I was being pessimistic about it either, it was actually surprising that my current body had managed to do much more than run away and die pitifully. I felt like ever since I had absorbed the energy from the ant, my body had gotten much easier to move in, but I couldn’t be sure if that was really the case, shaking my head I cast my eyes towards the still moving ant.
[Iris Sinclaire]: “Looks like it's just you or me now, Mr. Ant.”
I ran towards the creature, with the added security that my dress provided, allowing me to act more aggressively than before. The ant, apparently being frazzled over its inability to hit me with its pincers and failure with it’s stinger. Stabbed at me with one of its front legs instead. This was the worst possible decision it could have made. If the ant had just used it’s pincers again I would have been forced to use my dress to block the blow before stabbing the main body. Now though my course of action was much less risky. I move just out of range of the ants leg. Before slashing deeply into it. The ant cried out as its body came crashing down to the ground in front of me. I quickly made sure I was out of the range of the pincers that were now frantically moving as the ant attempted to right itself on it’s unsteady legs. I wasn’t going to let this chance slip away, so I stabbed my blade into the top of the creatures head. For the third time I heard a system message, verifying my victory.
System:>
{ Mission “exterminator” updated - calculating progress
{3/10 giant ants defeated.}
Looking at the body of the ant, I sighed as a familiar system notification popped up in front of me.
System>
{Detected multiple compatible energy sources}
{Quest issued “Collect all compatible energy 0/3” [Reward GP 12-43]
[Possibility of raising soul integrity 1%]
I was a little confused at why the gp reward had increased, but the chance at increasing my “soul integrity” had gone down so much. Looking over the corpses of the ants scattered about the cave, I wondered if all I had to do was just place my hands on them like before. remembering the feeling, I got last time, I started to feel a bit of anticipation.
Heh, as much as I tried to keep my hopes down I really was starting to feel like maybe things were looking up for me. Walking first over to the corpse buried under the pile of rocks, I placed both my hands on the bit of mandible which was poking out from under the pile, and waited for the warm feeling to flow through me. Much to my disappointment not much happened other than the ant looking a bit shriveled, along with the notification from the system.
{Mission “Collect all compatible energy sources” updated - calculating progress
{1/3 energy sources collected}
{Attempting to raise soul integrity}
. . . .[Failed]
As the notification faded away I started to walk over to the other one, which had its eye gouged out, my hands reached down and gripped the remains of its face. I wasn’t confident in my luck, but still, it hurt not to gain anything from all the effort I had gone through, so I hoped at the very least the feeling of warmth would come back this time.
Sadly despite my hopes as I placed my hands on the second ants I still didn’t feel much of anything, I thought maybe I felt a bit lighter, but I wasn’t sure if that was a real feeling or just my imagination. Once again I saw the system notify me of my progress.
{Mission “Collect all compatible energy sources” updated - calculating progress
{2/3 energy sources collected}
{Attempting to raise soul integrity}
. . . .[Failed]
Pulling my hands once again from the shriveled up ant, I strode a bit hesitantly to the last ant killed, I had saved it for last, not out of any sense of respect for our “duel”, but more because I wasn’t sure if the thing was dead or not. Even if the system had told me that it was. Somehow I couldn’t fully put my trust into it, seeing as I wasn’t really sure how it knew the ant was dead in the first place. Carefully poking it with my foot, I confirmed that it really had passed as I placed both my hands on the corpse Waiting with bated-breath for the final notification. Strangely this time the ant didn’t just fade a little bit, but instead turned to ash under my grip, as the message confirming the completion of the quest flashed before me
System:
{Successfully gathered all compatible energy}
[Quest completed reward issued ~32gp]
{Attempting to raise soul integrity}
. . . . . . . . {Attempting to raise soul integrity}
. . . . . . . . . . . {Attempting to raise soul integrity}
*ding*
Accompanied by a cheerful sound, I felt a searing pain fill my body. Like every part of my being was being ripped apart before my vision, and every other sensation I had faded away.
*Triumphant noises* . . . . .[successfully raised soul integrity]
. . . .[Calculating rewards]