“Haa…….Haaa……………”

Running while breathing heavily, I managed to put a distance of two kilometers between me and Beetle-kun.

It couldn’t be helped, there is currently no chance of me winning, none of my tricks proved effective on him. Not to mention, I have already received significant damage. If I stayed there for even one minute longer I would surely die this time.

That’s why I’ve decided to retreat and ran away.

However I cannot withdraw back to the village. Ari-chan is still resting in there. Though we can’t communicate, I own it my life so there’s no way I can let this guy go on a rampage in the village. It’s a good thing my legs are superior so I could out-run him even while being injured, but Beetle-kun is persistently trailing me so I can’t shake him off. If I go back then he would surely follows me to the village.

Then… what am I supposed to do?

For the time being, let’s keep on running and maintain a good distance between us. My antennae can sense him from two kilometers away so I’ll just pay attention so that he doesn’t close the gap. I can slowly think of a solution… before I die to exhaustion.

…. Can I cry now?

Sob.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Night came but Beetle-kun isn’t stopping… he’s still diligently chasing after me without taking a rest.

Stop chasing after me already! Could it be my current insect face is unexpectedly charming to monsters!?

I could only get a short nap of about 15 minutes once in a while, then wake up and widen the distance between us again so that he would not catch up.

Beetle-kun is way too stubborn.

How long is he going to keep this up?

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Morning came, and our game of cat and mouse continues.

On the way I quickly kill small birds or moths I find and use them as emergency ration. As for water there’s no source around so there’s nothing I can do about it. Should I go to the direction of the river? I’ll make do with animal’s blood for now.

Late afternoon, I reached an area that is within the panther monsters range of activity, but even after searching around for a while I couldn’t detect any. Did they notice Beetle-kun’s presence and ran?

Saving yourself like that… if you were running away then take me with you too!

Well, it’s fine either way, those guys’ meat are hard and stinky so it’s not like I really wanted to eat them. I wonder if all monsters taste bad?

______________________________________________________________________________________________

The second night of this chase falls it’s curtain on the forest.

Beetle-kun is not stopping.

Go to sleep!

Or rather, just stumble on some rock and die already!

UUuuu….I’m at my limit.

I don’t have enough nutrients…and my wound isn’t healing at all.

If this situation keeps up I’ll run out of energy soon. It’ll be game over then.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Morning light greets me again as the sun slowly rises from beyond the horizon.

My body is feeling heavier and heavier.

I don’t think I can hang on anymore.

Even as I run, my brain is working at full speed to draw up some kind of strategy to overcome this predicament. But nothing good came up. After all this time’s opponent doesn’t have any fatal weak point that I can take advantage of. He’s just simply strong.

-grumbles-

I’m so hungry.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

The third night comes.

I’m being attacked with not just the permanent pain inside my body, but also severe fatigue.

I want to sleep so badly.

I haven’t gotten any sleep in three nights already.

An urge to just throw myself down the ground and fall prey to the sleepiness is nagging at me. If I can get a good sleep, maybe I’ll just let Beetle-kun catch up and smash my head in while I’m sleeping…

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Once again, morning came.

I could feel my body shivering from fatigue. My muscles are also screaming in protest.

I stop walking and wait for Beetle-kun to come here.

Yes, I stopped.

I’m going to face him again.

While he’s catching up, I’ll take that time to let my body take a breather. Any amount of rest is crucial for me right now.

Since I’m going to make a final gamble. 

__________________________________________________________________________________________

The moment Beetle-kun sees my figure, he kicks the ground with great force and rushes at me.

Truly, looking at his massive body, his strength and speed, it’s as if I’m facing a bullet train that’s accelerating toward me.

How is he still so full of vigor despite having to chase after me without taking a break, I really have no idea.

But it doesn’t matter anymore.

This ends now.

It’s either me or him.

By a hair breath, I dodged his greeting punch and take a distance with the biggest jump I can manage right now.

However, this time, I didn’t only keep on running.

Before he was able to make a move as follow up, I instantly leap toward him.

It seems like Beetle-kun was taken aback to the fact that I actually came straight at him instead of running like I’ve been doing. He did not instantly react to the unexpected change of event.

I put all of the remaining power into my grasshopper’s legs and kicked up a great amount of dust as I aim at his chest.

Beetle-kun realized my aim quickly however, it seems that he still remember the one time where I inflicted notable impact on his body. He swings one arm toward me attempting to strike me down on my path, while his other arm is covering the chest area.

Seriously, you only saw it once and was able to adapt to it already? The more I fight this guy the more of a monster he proves himself to be. Even though I thought he was just fighting using his instinct he’s actually making some sensible movement right now.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

My attack this time unfortunately, isn’t a straight kick. Just right before his arm reached me, I side stepped to evade his swing and get into range at his side.

Beetle-kun, are you surprised? You are surprised aren’t you?

How someone who’s in such a terrible condition can evade your speedy swing and even reached your side.

But it was all planned.

What is the best way for someone to “go out of sight”?

The answer is a sudden change in trajectory.

When one’s eyes is focused on something traveling on a path, if that thing abruptly changes the flow and moves out of the path then it will go out of the eye’s focal point. That is the reason why it’s really hard to catch insects like flies or mosquitos and easy to lose sight of them, it’s because they have the ability to change their flight path in an instant.

Such a trick won’t work against compound eyes. However, the beetles despite being insects actually have many species in their family that doesn’t possess compound eyes. Those species has Oceli or also known as eye spots. They’re singular, simple eyes just like those of a spider. Their eyesight is bad and instead they rely on smell, sound and air vibration to communicate.

Beetle-kun here seems to have that kind of eye.

Using this opportunity that I’ve finally penetrated through his guard, one of my fingers instantly grows out to 20 cm in length and I stabbed it in Beetle-kun’s eye.

“GRUUUAAAaaaAAAAAAAA” –Beetle

As expected, no matter how hard your body is, your eyes will always be a weak spot.

Beetle-kun screamed in pain and tried to kick me away. I jumped back to take a distance as soon as I successfully pierced his eye but because I have expended almost every ounce of strength in my body I was too slow to dodge it.

His kick connected with my leg, swept me off the ground and sent me flying back.

“Guh!”

A sharp pain burst out from my leg as I fall flat on the ground.

Did he smash my leg with his kick? His strength is as absurd as ever.

It didn’t take long for Beetle-kun to stop screaming and now he’s looking at me in absolute fury. One of his eye punctured, bubbles foaming on his mouth as yellow saliva dripping down from those vicious jaws.

It’s as if he would bite my head off at any moment.

Obviously, just by stabbing one of his eyes, it isn’t going to stop him from trampling me.

Especially now that one of my leg is broken.

However.

“Giiguiiiii (Come out)!” 

“RGUAR!?” –Beetle

At my word, Beetle-kun suddenly holds his head and then groans in agony.

“RUUUUUGUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRR~~~~~~!!!!!!!!”

And now he’s screaming more loudly than ever, he rolls on the ground and started punching it, making small craters and raising up storms of dust, then run head straight into a tree and head-smash it into pieces of lumber.

Beetle-kun seems to be in great confusion and pain.

As for me, I breathe a sigh of relief.

So it worked, my final gambit.

It’s not as if I have only been running away from him mindlessly. I have been looking around for something that could overturn the outcome.

Specifically, a certain creature.

I have seen them in this forest before however I didn’t manage to get them during the quick experiments I did with my power.

Parasitic Wasp

It’s a wasp that lays its eggs inside the body of its prey. When the eggs hatch, the larvae inside will eat the host from the inside. It’s a nasty creature when one thinks about it. However, this wasp is a helpful insect looking from the perspective of human.

The reason being, beetles are included in its menu.

Japanese beetles are pests that ravage a farmer’s crop. When a field is afflicted with them, there are various options of removal. One of them is buying Parasitic Wasps and set them free in the field. The wasp will then prey on and get rid of the harmful beetles.

Even if Beetle-kun is sturdy on the outside, it can’t be said the same for its organs. Sadly my poisons don’t work on him, so the best option I can think of was to damage him from the inside somehow. My finger that grew out actually was the stinger that sent my eggs inside through the wound on his eye.

I don’t really want to admit it, but this time I’m grateful that I’m trapped in this female body.

This strategy wouldn’t have been possible if I was a male.

It was great that I managed to catch a wasp this morning as well. I was almost at the end of my endurance.

Beetle-kun is now in so much pain he doesn’t even notice me anymore.

While paying mind to not be in the line of his blinded rampage, I wait patiently for the inevitable conclusion.

After going berserk and rampage for many hours, making the area around looks like it had been ran over by a violent storm, Beetle-kun finally stopped moving. The forest that has been filled with violent and agonizing roars since the morning now has become dead silent in the afternoon.

At last, I can rest assured.

My antenna isn’t picking up any sign of life from Beetle-kun anymore.

As I relax the tension in my mind, I became assaulted with all the accumulating pain, stress and fatigue.

Beetle-kun… you were really formidable.

If possible I don’t want to have to fight anything like that ever again.

…………..

…Let’s not keep my hopes up.

Now then, I want to just drop down on the ground and sleep but I might just die in my sleep when I’m in this condition, so first of all let’s have Beetle-kun become my meal today. I earned this after all.

Coming closer to the corpse, the larvae I sent inside started to crawl out of his body through his mouth.

They’re like an army of squirming little worms covered in slime and bodily fluids. Each one is only about half a little finger but there’re as much as millions of them climbing on top of each other as they wriggling their way out of Beetle-kun mouth.

Uge…. I’ve seen a lot of gory things ever since I came to this world.

But this is really disturbing in a different way.

Even though they can be said to be my babies.

They are seriously gross.

Gross. Gross. Gross.

I reflexively grimace inside my mind.

I can’t help it okay? What’s gross is gross!