Countless Exapoda soldiers mobilized all around us, some in our line of sight, some outside of it. Their synchronized movements created an ear-shattering cacophony that echoed through the entire maze. The clearing we were currently occupying was quickly flooded by a swarm of bugs.
Their overwhelming numbers made it impossible to keep track of my surroundings and forced me to concentrate solely on self-preservation and avoiding getting trampled by a bug. The first soldier that got close to me, died by my hand, but two followed up immediately afterward. But while I managed to injure one of them, the other rushed past me, not trying to attack me at all. The wounded one was the same, but it could barely move forward and died after I stabbed it once more.
From then on more and more soldiers kept coming, but none of them provoked a fight or even acknowledged my presence until I attacked them first.
If I wanted to play safe, then there was no need to antagonize the soldiers, but this was not an opportunity that I would slip through my fingers. It was but a personal desire. I craved after the experience and levels that the slaughter would bring me. And it seemed that Veraxia was of a similar mind as she did keep the soldiers in check so that I could kill one or two at a time without worrying that I might get overwhelmed by them.
After a dozen or so kills, I started to find it difficult to keep fighting with a spear, since it was hard to aim at a good spot when a bug thrice your size was rushing straight at you, ready to crush you with its body.
With that in mind, I changed the shape of my mana into that of a sword, but not an ordinary one. It was a sword with a much larger blade. The shape lacked the same stability I had with the spear, but its strikes were lethal and cut through soldiers with ease. However, I had to reshape it a few times to keep it from shattering entirely.
Like this, the slaughter continued. I had no idea how much time passed or how many soldiers I had killed, but the mana drain, the building exhaustion, and the intense adrenaline of battle clouded my mind. The only thing I could think about was to swing my sword, the only purpose of my body was to bring them death.
At some point, there was nothing more for me to slice apart, and my surroundings which had been blurry until now cleared up. My limbs smoldered with aching fatigue as the mana sword in my hand lost form and vanished back into the palm of my hand. Before me lay an Exapoda Corpse, cut into three pieces, its warm blood drenching my boots.
Exhausted, I exhaled heavily, attempting to wipe my mouth and pacify my racing heartbeat. However, my body's weakness overwhelmed me, and I slouched to the ground, indifferent to the fact that my clothes were being drenched in a mixture of blood and mud.
Surveying my surroundings, scattered body parts and remnants of what once had been Exapoda soldiers strewn across the ground. The scent of death hung in the air, and blood tainted the once vibrant, luminous moss in a cold blue hue, casting an ominous glow over our surroundings.
As my mind was engrossed in battle with my eyes only focused on slaughter, I did not even remember how many I had slain, but the sight before me and my status spoke for themselves.
Species: Unregistered (Level: 39)
Class: Novice Witch (Level: 49)
I had lost sight of my levels during the battle, so I was slightly surprised that I was now level 49 in my class, which meant that I was only one level away from fifty. This was the most extreme and long-lasting fight I ever had and I might have even taken more lives in this one than in my past fights combined.
That it ended right at the border of my goal was almost laughable, although it wasn’t really funny. It would have sped up things quite a lot, but we had to fight our way through the rest of the maze anyway, so it was not like it mattered.
But at the moment, I had to recover both, stamina and mana. Unlike me, Veraxia was already diligently ripping corpses open and extracting their crystals. She, of course, faced little difficulty in keeping up with the rush of bugs, but for me, it was a life-threatening situation.
The only thing that saved me from certain death was the fact that the soldiers were not trying to fight us. Instead, their goal was the human, so we were not their priority, and therefore, even if we stabbed and sliced them, they would only attack back once they received a lethal wound.
The challenge did not stem from their fighting prowess or strength, but rather due to the pace they set by ignoring all kinds of offenses. There were hundreds of them pouring out of that maze to attack the human and with so many, it was hard to keep up. And even though we slew enough bugs to drench the entire clearing in blood and cover every inch in dead bodies, the majority of bugs managed to bypass us.
Seeing just how many soldiers there still had been hidden inside this maze was astonishing. If the human had not appeared, we would have spent ages hunting all of them down. As far as I could tell, even Veraxia had been surprised by their numbers.
If not for the small safe area she had managed to create in the middle of the clearing, we would have been trampled by sheer numbers. It was because the soldiers had a different goal than us and therefore tried to keep as much distance from Veraxia—for them, certain death—as possible.
And while this did take some of the pace and power out of their onrush, at the end of it, I was still utterly wasted and my mana pool was in shambles. The physical exertion, together with my lack of mana, felt akin to dying—worse, even.
After taking a moment or two to regain my composure and recover some of my mana and stamina, I joined Veraxia in harvesting the crystals from the fallen Exapoda. Since we were now a little short on time, I absorbed the first few right there and then. After that massacre just now, I did not want to walk around with an empty mana pool, and I did not feel like meditating was the best choice at the moment.
With my mana pool as big as it was now, it required quite a lot of crystals to fill it up, but there were still many corpses and crystals around. And while this shrunk the increase for my mana pool, it was not like it mattered much. My pool had grown to a size where it required hundreds of soldiers to empty it.
Most of my skills were not consuming that much mana and for soldiers, I mostly only required my mana manipulation. The occasional Bind or Regeneration was helpful, yet with Veraxia at my side, I rarely required actual healing by my skill.
It was not like having more mana did not have its benefits, but my current mana pool was more than enough to support my comparably meager expenses.
It did take a considerable amount of time, but eventually, the two of us managed to collect a total of one hundred and twenty-three crystals, not counting the ones I had already absorbed. We piled them up near the clearing’s exit, one of the few spots spared from the blood-soaked and gore-strewn surroundings.
Facing the mound of crystals, I observed the purple mana inside of them pulsating slowly. None of them stood out to me like the Awoken crystal did.
Before starting to absorb them, there was something we had to take care of first. Namely, the distribution.
“How many do you need?” I asked, my gaze fixated on the crystals worth thousands of mana.
Instead of replying, Veraxia stepped forward and opened her mouth. She took five and absorbed them. “That many.”
“That’s all?” I arched an eyebrow. If she only needed that much, it meant I had one hundred and eighteen crystals left for myself. That was almost all of them and a shit ton of mana. Consuming them all by myself would take up some time, but I would rather absorb them now than somehow carry all of them with us.
Scratch that, it was impossible to take all of them with us, but there was no way I would be leaving behind such a treasure.
Veraxia’s eyes flared up briefly, the green energy barely contained in her eyes sockets, before the light calmed down and she exhaled deeply. With renewed vitality, she met my eyes. “You better start absorbing those.” Her tail pointed at the crystals.
With a long sigh, I took a seat beside the pile of crystals and picked up the first one, putting it into my mouth. As the mana flowed into me, something felt weird. Or rather, something didn’t feel weird, which was weird in itself. Normally, my body would start hurting as the mana assimilated to my pool, but right now, all I felt was a slight push from the inside of my body that died as quickly as it appeared.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
I checked my status, but my mana pool did increase in size. The amount was nothing grand—a mere 80 mana—, but it was not like it didn’t work.
Intrigued by this development, I followed up with a second crystal, but the assimilation was very mild in its symptoms yet again. I tried a third crystal and it was the same. A grin appeared on my lips as I put the next crystal in my mouth. Maybe I would finish faster than I expected.
***
When I threw away the empty shell of the one hundred and eighteenth crystal, my mana bubbled up slightly but quickly calmed down. Glancing at my status, I nodded with satisfaction.
Mana: 15,127/15,127
My body now held a great deal more mana than when I first started sensing its presence within my body. From just that alone, I could barely recognize myself. It was strange to describe, but rather than feeling as if the amount of mana inside my body had grown, it felt as if my body itself had grown, too. It did not on the outside though, the change was purely internal. It was a strange sensation, to be honest, but one that I did not mind.
In simpler terms, it did not feel like my body—the vessel for my mana—had been filled. Rather, it felt as if the vessel had expanded just like my mana pool had. This was strange because going solely by my sense of mana, my body felt at least twice as big as my physical body.
It kinda made me wonder if there was some kind of growth limit for me, although I figured that I’d discover that in time, as I had no intentions of halting my development anytime soon.
In the past, Veraxia had cautioned against sharing or discussing specifics of my status with other people, and while I did not think Veraxia was planning against me, I felt more comfortable keeping them to myself even if I was excited about my growth.
I told her that I was done and found that she had spent the time eating some of the remains lying around. I still couldn’t see the appeal in the meat of those bugs, aside from the energy it provided her.
She finished up her… meal and then we prepared to leave the area. There was not anything else for us to do here and we still had a Queen to slay.
***
We departed from the clearing and continued to make our way through the maze. Like before, I left the navigation to Veraxia and we traveled until we reached an intersection where our path split into three. One path led ahead, one to the right, and the last to the left.
Veraxia halted, looking at each of them before turning her gaze toward me. It took me a second, but I understood her unspoken request, I closed my eyes and focused on sharpening my hearing.
A faint screech reached my ears, originating from somewhere to my left. Sharing my findings, Veraxia continued toward the left passage.
We journeyed down that path until we arrived at yet another clearing, one that I was excited about reaching ever since a while after actually stepping foot into the left passage. It was because another noise had caught my attention. It was not one I was particularly familiar with, but it was the first time I heard it in this place. And I could imagine what it was.
When it eventually came into sight, I was greeted by a waterfall that cascaded down the chamber’s wall at the back of the clearing. Its waters flowed into a small pond on the ground that was surrounded by a variety of small bushes and plants and from the pond also extended a few small brooks that weaved their way through the clearing and infused a sense of vitality incomparable to the other places in this lair.
When we approached the pond, Veraxia’s steps quickened slightly, and even before letting me off her back, she went ahead and lowered her snout into the water.
“Does your body need water?” I wondered aloud as she started to drink from the pond.
“Not particularly, but for nature-based bodies and creatures, fresh water is invigorating in its way,” she replied, droplets falling from her mouth.
I jumped down from Veraxia’s back and crouched down beside the pond. I didn’t think I was a nature-based creature, but I was still curious about water. My last experience with it was less than favorable, but I was ready to give it a second chance.
Curious, I cupped my hands and gently reached for the water, slowly submerging them and allowing the liquid to flow into my palms. However, the blood covering my hands, when touched by the water, turned it discolored and murky. Disgusted, I uncapped my hands, letting the tainted water back into the pond and slowly fade away.
Glancing to my side, I discovered that Veraxia had watched the whole thing. “Since we are already here, you might as well take a quick bath. It was the original reason for bringing the water back anyway.”
“Do we have the time for that?” I asked, uncertain if we could afford to squander our limited time in such a manner. After all, taking a bath now would be meaningless if I died before retrieving Veraxia’s original body.
“There is more than enough time to take a simple bath. And, I would prefer my companion to look somewhat decent.” She paused, scanning my body. “And I have yet to see the face beneath all of that blood and hair. Honestly, one might mistake you for a kobold at this rate.”
“What’s a kobold?”
“Just wash yourself.” She said, showing no intentions of actually answering my question.
When I touched my face, my wet fingers wiped some of the blood on my cheeks. My appearance wasn’t of any importance, but it was true that I was continuously feeling filthy as I was now. Even the version of myself back in the clan’s cave would be put to shame in terms of filthiness.
Even though Veraxia had said that we had the time, I still thought that it was better to do this as quickly as possible, so without a second thought, I started undressing. The process took up more time than expected and turned out to be more complex than I remembered.
Once I stood fully naked, strange emotions overcame me. On one hand, I was feeling vulnerable now that my body was without clothing, as if I was letting my guard down. Yet, on the other hand, it was the state I was most familiar with and it was almost as if I had been freed of something clinging on to me. I did not remember feeling like this back before. While I couldn’t say I was comfortable, I was certain that would change once I got rid of all this blood and dirt on my skin.
Without further ado, I approached the pond, ready to step into the water when Veraxia’s tail wrapped around my waist and not only stopped me from going further but pulled me away from the pond.
Surprised by the sudden touch, I flinched, rigidly turning around while my heart rate accelerated. I thought I had gotten used to her tail touching me, the difference between skin-to-skin and clothes-to-skin contact was much bigger than I had expected. Still, all of the memories we had together at least allowed me to suppress the raging desire to break free of her grasp.
“Why are you stopping me?”
“Do not taint the water I am drinking with your filth. Wash over there.” Following her gaze, I turned to look behind me and sighed. The place she was looking at was on the other side of the pond. It was not like I didn’t understand where she was coming from.
“Alright,” I said as I wriggled my way free of her tail’s grasp. Thankfully, she was not really using any force to hold me.
Turning away from her, I picked up my clothes and walked around the pond until I stood opposite Veraxia. It was not like the pond was that big anyway, so the two of us were still relatively close. I doubted how much sense there was behind me taking my distance, but since Veraxia did not seem to mind me entering the pond here, I just did as asked.
Leaving my clothes on the ground, I dipped the toes of my right foot into the water, feeling the cold wetness against my bare skin. A quick, yet not unpleasant shiver traveled up my spine as I planted my foot on the bottom, fully submerging my foot. Once one foot was in, I followed with the second and walked further into the pond until the water reached up to my stomach. It was far deeper than I expected.
As the water enveloped everything below my abdomen, I wet my hands and began wiping my arms and upper body. The dried blood softened and inevitably dissolved, drifting away on the pond’s surface. Eventually, my continuous scrubbing revealed my light brown skin that had been masked by layers of blood until now. This obviously also meant that I could see my scars once again.
I delicately ran my fingers across them, attempting to recall the moments when I had acquired each scar. For most, they were buried so far in the past that even the faintest memory was but a blur. Naturally, that was not true for the bigger ones. Each of those was the result of deep wounds that were almost carved as deep into my memories as they had been into my skin.
Resuming the cleaning process, I continued to wipe down my arms, and chest and then went lower to my waist and legs. Finally, after my body was in a satisfactory state, I moved closer to the edge of the pond where the water was not as deep, and knelt. Then, I submerged my face and hair into the water and started cleaning both.
My face was an easy job, but my hair was where it became difficult. Almost reaching down to my ankles, there was a lot of it and it was a mess. After setting foot into the water, about half of it at least already got some rough washing, but now I let the water work its way through my hair, and, with the help of my fingers, I combed through the tangled mess trying to unravel it again.
Raising my head out of the water, I worked through knots, scrubbed away grime and filth, and organized my hair.
When I was satisfied and felt clean again, I left the pond. The blood that had once dyed my skin a mixture of blue and red with some purple spots where the two had mixed was now gone, its remains swept away by the pond’s mild streams.
When my wet skin was exposed to the cold air of the lair, my skin tingled. I went to pick up my clothes and started dressing myself. When I picked up the pants, I noticed that it was dirty on the outside, as well as the inside. The same was true for my shirt and boots. Wearing them now would put all of my cleaning to waste, but then again, it was only a matter of time until I ended up covered in blood again, so there was no reason not to wear them.
Hopefully, Veraxia still has the clothes offer to go for me.
When putting on the shirt, I was careful not to mess up my hair again. It would become a mess again soon enough, but for now, I could at least preserve its current state as long as possible.
Obviously, the water clinging to my skin quickly soaked my clothes immediately, but they had been drenched by blood before, so it was not like it mattered a whole lot.
After finishing dressing myself, I looked over to the other side of the pond and caught sight of Veraxia, who had her eyes on me.
Walking along the pond’s edge, I asked, half-teasingly, “Were you watching me?”
To my surprise, Veraxia nodded her head. “Why? Was watching me wash that interesting?”
She huffed a low chuckle. “I was just surprised that there was a decent-looking girl beneath all of that filth.”
I chuckled at her blunt assessment. “Fair enough, I guess.”