"Man, getting us to travel so far and waste a teleportation crystal? I hope you've got something good planned for us!" grumbled the skeleton.

"The crystals don't cost that much anyway, Tom. Only 20,000 gold each." Mark pointed out.

"Still sucks."

"Haha, don't worry! I have planned stuff fit for pros like you guys!" laughed Alzeth.

While party leaders were able to summon their members from a long distance, it was only allowed in the same zones. Mark and Umuton had no choice but to use portal crystal. Hearing their conversation, Mei suddenly remembered that she wanted to return the crystal.

As she took it out of her inventory, Mark spotted it in her hands.

"Hmm? Why didn't you use it, Me- I mean Zera?" asked Mark.

Alzeth seemed to have realised something.

"Well... I didn't want to leech too much..." mumbled Mei as she handed the crystal to him.

"But- Okay, I understand."

Mark was about to insist on letting Mei keep it, but he realised it would make her uncomfortable if he did that.

"Anyway, what have you planned?" Umuton asked Alzeth.

"Well, I discovered a huge crawler nest a while ago. Normally I stay clear of it, but with you two, I think we can attack it safely enough," said Alzeth confidently.

He pointed in the distance, where a huge mound around 10 metres tall stood (33 ft). Mei was reminded of termite mounds, except that this one was covered in menacing looking metre tall bugs that resembled pillbugs with mantis limbs. She began to regret agreeing to trash the nest with Mark and Umuton's help.

"Wait, don't these guys have a super powerful king or something? Level 20 monsters aren't that hard to deal with for us, but I don't think we can handle that," asked Mark.

"The last time, Mei managed to piss it off. Then a huge gang of high levelled players came and destroyed it! Ahahaha! I have no idea how she got away without being instantly killed." Alzeth laughed.

Mark looked impressed.

"There just happened to be high levelled players nearby. I'm not skilled enough to dodge its attacks for too long..." said Mei sheepishly.

"Yeah yeah, whatever. Let's go smash up the nest already," said Alzeth.

"Are you sure there is only one king anyway? Termites and other insects with kings have more than one, don't they?" asked Mark.

"Termites are not insects. Also, grey crawlers aren't termites, umu," said Umuton. 

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Thanks for the trivia. Anyway, if there are more kings, we just run away! That easy. If Mei can do it, we can too." said Alzeth.

Mei felt like she was being thrown shade at.

"We will lose a lot of experience if we-" Mark hesitated. "You know what? Let's just do it. Tom, use your spear throw to take it down!"

"Aye aye captain! Oh, wait you aren't the captain anymore. It's this guy now."

"Just throw it already!"

Finally, Umuton took out a throwing spear. As the skeleton readied his throw, Mei felt a bit uncertain. Were those spears that had problems with even fishing really going to even make a dent in the mound?

Umuton finally flung the spear. It shot through the air with astounding speed, crashing into the mount and smashing straight through the whole thing with a huge bang, leaving a huge hole. It then exploded midair, a safe distance from the mound.

"Oops. Threw it too hard," grumbled Umuton.

Mei was stunned. He had been using explosive spears to spear the fish?

"Skreeeeee! Skreee! Skreee!" 

Dozens of angry grey crawlers hopped down from the mound, hissing in anger.

"Get ready!" shouted Mark.

[Iron Skin activated!]

Mark's visible skin turned the colour of shiny metal as he charged towards the crawlers.

-5234! -5245! -7821!

As they charged over, Mark easily sliced them into pieces with his blade. Mei braced herself for a whole screen of battle exp boxes, but all she got was +2 EXP prompts with each of them destroyed. Seems like the system only used those for difficult battles.

Umuton threw a few others explosive spears at the mound, this time angling the throws better. With huge booms, the mound collapsed. Hundreds of the horrifying creatures streamed out.

Even though Mark and Umuton were able to destroy the bugs in a single hit, they were unable to stop the flow of so many at once.

"Run!" shouted Alzeth as he ran. 

Emerr quickly popped a pill into her mouth before running ahead of Alzeth. Mei wanted to run with them, but the stream of bugs separated them. She had no choice but to run in the opposite direction.

Mei decided to use send a party message while running.

"Summon me later when it's safe, okay?" she sent.

"k" sent Alzeth.

Seeing how fast the bugs were, Mei had no doubts they were going to catch up at any second. Suddenly, she had an idea. What if she ran in a zig-zag? The crawlers didn't seem to have much directional control while they rolled.

As they weren't very smart, the bugs tried to reorientate themselves every time Mei changed her direction. She felt a sense of satisfaction from her idea working.

Soon, most of her pursuers were shaken off except for one especially determined one. Mei was also beginning to get tired, panting as she slowed. It was a good thing she had a lot more stamina in the game.

Seeing that there was only a single crawler left, Mei made up her mind. She had been relying on other people to level up for too long. This time, she would try to defeat it by herself! Seeing that the invader suddenly stopped, the crawler decided to stop as well. It hissed at her threateningly.

'Scan!'

Grey Crawler

Grade: Uncommon

LVL: 20

HP: 3,000

Skill is too low levelled to excess more info.

Well, that wasn't unexpected. Mei still felt disappointed, however. She really needed to get to training her Scan skill.

"Come at me!" she shouted at it.

The crawler suddenly shot forward at incredible speed, catching her off guard and knocking her down. She was then rolled over like a rolling pin over dough.

-971 HP!

Mei was dismayed. Her HP was down to less than half in just a single attack! Suddenly, she thought of something. She quickly got up and took out a can of chips from her inventory. She then opened her mouth wide and somehow got every single chip into her mouth. An impressive feat, even though the can only contained 20 chips. After a few crunches, she swallowed.

+1000 HP

Much better!