"Why don't we just burn the thing and be done with it?" Juohen asked me, straining against the weight of a bucket filled with water.

"Two reasons, one, because the hive is built directly against a building made entirely out of plant matter, we would only lose that building at best, if we were a little unlucky and had an ember drift in the wind, the entire village could have been destroyed. If we were going to do that, we may as well have just moved somewhere else like Polyu suggested. The second is very simple... bees make things that are useful and I want to get something for my trouble." I replied.

Juohen gawked at me, causing his grip to slip for a moment. "Are you insane? Those things could have killed us!"

"They honestly weren't that bad, they weren't venomous at all as far as I could tell... for a good while I thought about trying to domesticate them... but then I realized that nobody would volunteer and I didn't want the resources enough to do it myself."

Juohen stopped suddenly, placing the bucket on the ground, breathing heavily. "And this is less work?" He asked incredulously.

"No, but I couldn't figure out what else to do... I thought of wrapping it in a giant cloth and dropping it into the river, but then I realized that there was almost no chance that we could remove it from the wall, or even the wall itself from the building for that matter, without waking the bees and being overrun again. Beside that, where would we get the cloth? I realized that most of the creatures here don't even have skin, instead having some sort of carapace, and while yes, there are things we can skin, they're not big enough to fit around the hive, meaning we'd have to sew them together, which we also can't do."

"But why drowning? Why not anything else, preferably something less backbreaking?" Juohen complained, sitting next to his bucket.

"That was the only other thing I could think of without proper stone-masonry, if we could make a forge or something, suffocating them would be pretty easy... even though it may as well be a glorified chimney due to the lack of coal."

"Oh come on, there has to be something else we can do!"

I put my bucket down and started to think. "We could make a tunnel underneath the cage and send smoke up into it, but I'm worried that the bees will escape."

"I don't know, why don't you use that weird liquid blade of yours?" Juohen asked, simply sitballing at this point.

"It's too inefficient and I can't use it effectively without seeing my target, or it already having the blade stuck to them."

"Well, could we at least make a tunnel under to add a floor? It would it least make it leak less."

"Well it wouldn't be much- wait! You're a genius!" I stood up and praise my best friend Juohen.

"I am?"

"Everyone! Stop with the buckets! I had a better idea!"

Everyone's sighs of relief was the only reply.

We carefully built a tunnel, and then a floor under the impromptu cage, then, after a bit of careful negotiating of the building's structure, we knocked the wall out to make the cage free.

The next step was my favorite...

We put wheels on it!

That way we could just push the whole thing into the river, even without any sort of cloth!

We were about halfway there when all of the bees suddenly started making weird noises.

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I ordered everyone to get away from it, interposing myself between the cage and them as much as possible.

It sounded like the bees started to breath and buzz at the same time, and then there was the icing on the cake:

[Nemesis Created Nearby]

The cage started to rumble and creak under the strain of something slamming against the inside.

I readied my crossbow.

The wall shattered outward, and before me stood a man-sized anthropomorphic bee, purple like the bees that probably spawned it.

It had four insectoid wings, two legs that completed with nimble-looking clawed feet, and two arms that ended in three stingers the size of a metalcorn's horn each.

Its eyes glowed red with pure hatred, directed only at me.

I was a bit surprised then that after a moment I saw another message appear.

[The Purple Outcry, Nemesis First Stage]

Danger Level: Certain Death

As soon as I saw that, I fired by crossbow, hoping to use its current limited dodging options to my advantage.

The Outcry went directly into a crossed-arm block, stopping the bolt before it managed to gain purchase on his torso.

The Outcry charged, screaming out a battlecry that sounded just like a chorus of buzzing.

I sidestepped, but it seemed to anticipate it to some extent, swinging a backhand at me and causing some minor cuts across my chest.

I slung my crossbow over my shoulder and pulled out Shreddy. "Come at me you horror movie reject!"

Its eyes widened in fury and then its jaw unhinged as if to make room for all of the noise their warcry increased by.

It charged at me again, and I splashed Shreddy at it.

It again blocked with its arm.

I thought that I had it, but as I cut, I realized that I was barely affecting it.

Its carapace must be harder than Shreddy!

I jumped back, trying to make more distance between us, but it was too agile, causing me to lose ground instead.

I considered my options and realized that only a crazy plan would work now.

So I covered my arm with Shreddy's blade and charged at The Outcry.

It swung both of its stinger-claws at me, missing by inches each.

I jammed my fist down its throat, pulling back out again as fast as I could.

As my fist passed back out of its mouth, its teeth bit a gash in my middle knuckle.

I then jumped back. "You're tough on the outside, but how about the inside?"

I showed my now bare right arm to it and its eyes widened.

The Outcry lunged at me as I blended its insides, causing its blood to splatter all over me.

Even then, it kept fighting me.

I pulled out The Great Stabbinsky to try to block the stingers at least to some extent.

It slashed across my arm, causing deep gashes.

I stabbed The Outcry in some thinner parts of its chitin, but it didn't even seem to notice, so I switched back to the defensive.

I used The Great Stabbinsky and Shreddy's handle to push The Outcry's stinger-claws upward, attempting to limit its leverage as much as possible.

It kicked me in the chest and I felt my ribs creak under the sheer force.

So this is what "Certain Death" is supposed to mean.

I flew backward, doubling over as I tumbled end over end and finally skidded to a stop.

The Outcry approached me slowly, still hemorrhaging blood like a blender with no lid.

Then it suddenly collapsed, its injuries finally having caught up to it.

Sydui started toward me when I held up my hand. "Don't! It's not over!"

She looked on in horror as The Outcry attempted to crawl over to me.

I raised my crossbow. "Dodge this, asshole."

The Outcry's face filled with surprise as its eyes lost the red color and became dormant.

It then disintegrated.

But this time it left something behind.

[New Acquired Title: Nemesis Slayer]

Reward: Gem Of Resilience

I stumbled over to it and picked it up, suddenly feeling significantly farther from death's door.

I was definitely still bleeding heavily, but it seemed like it didn't matter as much, like my body could take even more.

I was definitely going to have to put this in something so I don't have to hold it all the time.

Sydui and the other villagers offered to help me take some weight off my legs, but I refused them.

I simply walked casually all the way there.

----------------------------------------

Yuluulth

"HE'S INSANE!" Threr screamed from across the way.

I looked to my left at Lviyr and instantly understood.

"I'm surprised it took you this long to figure that out!" I called back sarcastically.

"He just killed a Nemesis Yuluulth! A Nemesis! It had a base stat sum better than my own champion!"

That didn't seem right. "How'd you get the points for that?"

Threr scratched his tuft of hair. "I asked Seliel to help me out and she agreed... the design was hers."

Holy quizblech, The Unorthodox fought one of Seliel's creations and lived?

"The worst part is that the drop was a gem that increases his Fortitude and Endurance by one! He has a ten plus [Ability] now!"

The usual scale of [Attributes] and [Abilities] is from one to ten, but sometimes some things go beyond our scale, this is shown as 'X+', so we call it a 'ten plus' [Ability] or [Attribute].

This was getting ridiculous.

I need to figure something out to stop The Unorthodox, some sort of plan...

It became clear to me that The Unorthodox was not to be underestimated.