3.09

“You call me insane as if it were an insult.” - Madelyn, then moniker: The Conqueror to Chancellor Chekov after successfully subjugating the Western Empire.

Clean up was finished shortly after. All I had to do was pick off a few more bugs, kill them, then throw them in a path directed straight to the spores. Repeat a few times for all the nearest pillars, then the cascading effect of all the corpses did the job for me.

I did confirm that the pheromone stuck to vertical surfaces as well as horizontal. It ended exactly ten centimeters away from the surface. What a weird world.

Yellow and Green were still on the top of my cap, dutifully keeping a lookout no matter how cavalier I appeared to be. In truth I wasn’t completely relaxed either, normally by this time, the area boss would be spawning right… about now.

…

…

Now?

…

…

How about now?

I glanced around, “No? Nothing?” Granted the bugs were still trying to swarm onto my old body, which has grown into an impressive mound of corpses, so the sound might be drowned out-

Greenie tugged my cap and I glanced towards where it was pointing, a large insect corpse, at least thrice larger than the normal ones that have been charging headlong past me, still stuck on the ceiling and its body pulsating as it’s shell seemed to try, and fail, to restrain something inside.

I quickly assessed the range. Out of my casting range. So, with a running start, I threw Greenie at it before whatever was inside hatched.

I probably should’ve warned Greenie before I did that, judging by the wail of surprise and Yellow’s cheering whistle, but if there was one thing any gamer of anything could tell you was that anyone who didn’t at least try to cheese a boss, especially during a power-up phase when it was doing nothing, did not have a functional frontal lobe. The only viable excuse was when the Devs literally locked you from doing anything.

“Try to catch on to it!” I yelled toward Greenie, still flailing in the air, “Then explode everything!”

Greenie had five charges of Poison Spores if I remembered correctly, so they should work pretty well as a Smart Grenade. Did I explain to him properly to use all five at once?

“I GOT IT!” Greenie yelled as it grappled onto the rough ridges of the pulsating insect.

“Should we help?” Yellow asked from the top of my head.

“Probably,” I answered as I kept walking forward, “Greenie! Make sure to use all five charges!”

Greenie gave me the thumbs up, almost losing its handhold in the process. It hurriedly regained balance, before five poofs of green spores came out in succession.

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I quickly got underneath them, looking up at the spore cloud. Soon after, Greenie lost its grip and fell down, falling past my outstretched hands and landing straight on my face, it’s head halfway through my eyehole. Yellow jumped down from the edge of my cap, picking their fellow wisp up, “Wake up!” it said as it slapped Greenie.

“Ugghhh…” Greenie tiredly groaned, “Ten more hours…”

They are just getting more like me huh?

Yellow planted Greenie on the top of my cap and I felt small tendrils coming out of my body, meeting Greenie’s own tendrils and increasing the drain on my mana slightly. After making sure Greenie was fine, Yellow resumed keep track of the area

The insect thing had ceased moving, probably dead. My vision moved past it, scanning the rest of the ceiling. There were plenty of smaller bugs that were still swaying, but none as large as this one. Was this not a swarm type boss?

I raised my staff and nudged the insect out of its death grasp. Stepping back as it fell to the floor with a thud. It didn’t make any sort of squelch noise, I noted. I poked it with my foot. Solid, no feeling of empty space.

“Keep watch,” I instructed as I knelt down.

Taking out my knife, I pried off its shell, revealing a slimy, fly like thing. Using my knife, I slowly turned it around. Needle-like mouth, no, wasp-like is more accurate. Larger than a football. No legs of any kind. White shell which began to harden and turn black as soon as it was exposed to air. Two pairs of insectoid wings.

Having no legs is odd, it’s bottom side didn’t appear like it was made to land either. A short lifetime adult stage that exists purely for laying? Was maggot the right term for the base forms of this anymore? It looked a lot closer to a wasp than a fly. How did an insect this large even survive- No, large insectoids can exist, have existed in fact, there might be a higher concentration of oxygen in this world or this might be another magic deus ex machina screw physics sort of thing.

If it’s a singular boss, then it’s probably very powerful or has a wildly different set of skills compared to the horde. Enough to pose a challenge to anyone capable of clearing out this room or to counter a build that was able to cheese this area.

‘Or am I just thinking too much in game terms?’ I wondered.

Yellow was tugging the backside of my cap and I turned around. One of the bugs was on my leg, I quickly Poison Spored it and kicked it off, but a white maggot stuck on. I pulled it off to examined. Not sure what I was looking for, but it looked closer to a large naked caterpillar rather than a maggot. A grub?

It was then I realised that I was hungry.

The dead maggot fit well within my hand. About the size of a small cucumber. I couldn’t deny that I was curious. A bunch of people have taken up an insectivore lifestyle, especially when most traditional meats cost as much as they did, but am I curious enough to stoop this low?

Now that I think about it, it’s perfectly normal to eat stuff like lobsters and prawns right? Those were basically sea bugs, right? These things also tried to eat me, didn’t it? Isn’t it right to repay an eye for an eye?

Yellow was looking away, Greenie was still asleep. As far as I was aware, no else was here. So I decided that between trying and not trying, it was better to try. Especially since no one other than me would know.

Taking one last look to make sure neither of the wisps was looking, I ate the maggot.

Huh.

It wasn’t too bad.

A lot like a fatty steak actually, soft, meaty and fatty texture but it had a slightly crunchy exterior, it left a warm, sweet aftertaste. Not bad at all, if I ignored the small part of me screaming at me to retch it all out.

“Was that there before?” Greenie asked from the top of my head.

I looked at where it was pointing, the giant fly, wasp thing. In the scattered shell of its former host, there was a glint of light.

“Bit obvious ain’t it,” I muttered as I recognised two gold coins and a spell crystal.

I picked up the crystal, Enlarge Insect, fifth- no, fourth level spell. It was harder for me to grasp on as opposed to the Bark Skin crystal. I could learn it, I knew, but it wasn’t meant for my class. I pocketed it for now, then glanced at the gold coins.

“How did you two get to Daves again?”