Quill finally brought down his manifested mace into the last of the cockroaches head, breaking through its exoskeleton and splattering bug brains everywhere.

“You know with how often you kept saying ‘take me to your leader’ I half expected you to grow a large forehead and turn green. Maybe even manifest a laser gun. I wonder if that's racist?”

He ignored the comment as he wearily turned his attention towards the rest of the station. It was a massacre to put it simply. Dead roaches littered the ground everywhere. He half expected to have drawn the attention of a cursed sin as well given how long they were fighting and how long it actually took to kill everything that attacked him. It's not like they were being quiet with their fighting. Thank goodness they were “pacified”.

“They’re are way too many of these things” he muttered in frustration, nudging one of their dead bodies with his foot. It also made him think that should peace not be an option he was going to have to do a whole lot more fighting. Which meant he was about to get very very busy.

“So what are your thoughts?” she inquired. “I'm sure you could go to every single smaller station asking to speak to their leader and get the same results or you can take a chance and go to their king directly and ask to speak with them. Though if I am being totally honest I still expect a similar result.”

He rubbed his forehead in thought which just smeared more of the bug goo that he was drenched with over his face. “I'm thinking of just going directly to the king. But that would only work if he agrees to talk diplomatically. Otherwise I'll basically be neck deep in enemy territory and as we can see from this battle with the station I doubt I could fight off all of the swarms of roaches that would attack.”

“So you are going to whittle down their numbers then?”

“Basically. I'll see if I can get one of them talking to me as I attack their various stations and patrol groups. Who knows maybe I'll get lucky and one of them actually possesses enough common sense to speak with me.”

“Because we all know how lucky you are right?” she teased him which earned a grumble as he plopped down on the floor, stifling a shutter as a gross squelch from sitting on bug goo. There didn't seem to be a dry enough area on the entire floor for him to sit down comfortably.

“I'm going to rest to recover a bit. Even though I am much stronger, that was still exhausting. I was kind of surprised I didn't level up given how many of these bugs I did end up killing.”

“Probably because they were so weak. I think this does confirm the theory though that the lower level monsters will have a significant drop off in experience points for you. Probably also because you are a rank above them too.”

“Well this is hardly a video game and I don't see why the system would suddenly care about fairness now.” He complained as he placed his head against the wall. letting himself recover quietly from the usage of his energy manifestation. Once he felt good enough to not feel pain when he moved and headed into the break area.

He proceeded into the bathroom and did his best to wash off as much of the gunk and goo as he could from the sink. It wasn't perfect but it was passable and he quickly brought out some food and began happily munching as he planned his route on the map.

If it was still accurate, there were five stations occupied by the roaches, not counting The Grand Station where their ruler/king lived or the one he just cleared out. He wasn't sure how effective the method was going to be but he figured he might be able to slip past the outer stations which consisted of three more, take down the two inner stations and that should theoretically give him enough time to either talk to or deal with the King and Destroy his spawners. At least before they could get word and reinforcements from the stations he left behind.

A vague plan sure, but it was something and the longer he waited around the less of an advantage he would get. “ That's another thing I want to do when I get out of this tutorial dungeon. I want to take my time and just relax. Bath first, then when I am heading north to go see the aurora borealis I am going to just take my time. Not rushing, not scurrying, or hurrying about. Just a relaxing, peaceful, calm walk.”

“A peaceful walk to a beautiful sight, how romantic~.”

He rolled his eyes as he headed back into the break room and took everything he could into his storage ring including the vending machine. Then went into the station proper and took everything in that as well that he could quickly find before jumping back down into the tunnels.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Since I am on a time limit, if I am about to make a wrong turn or get turned around could you please just tell me where I'm supposed to be going.”

“Sure thing honey buns!”

He began to quickly make his way down the tunnels, trying his best to avoid any patrols as possible. He quickly found out though that the roaches were very good at sensing him. Much better than the Rat Kin. Even when he tried to hide on the ceiling like he had before, the patrol spotted him before they were even underneath and quickly attacked. His only guess for their stronger senses was their antenna which was likely going to be a hassle to deal with in terms of trying to get by stealthily.

Of course he tried to make peace talks with them even as they were trying to stab him while he pummeled them to bits. It made a very odd juxtaposition but he never could get them to listen to him for even a second. They were all hell-bent on his death.

He eventually gave up trying to dodge the patrols and just opted to plow through them like some kind of unstoppable juggernaut. The roaches were weaker, and slower than the Rat Kin comparatively speaking. They're only real strength lies in their ability to sense him and the exoskeleton that gave them decent protection.

But the protection didn't really do them much good. Quill's overwhelming strength allowed him to crush and kill almost all of them with just one swing or blow. Due to this constant fighting though he opted not to use his energy manifestation skill unless absolutely necessary. Instead opting to use the various weapons he picked up along the way. Mostly opting for bludgeoning weapons such as clubs, maces, staffs and even poorly fitted gauntlets.

This was partly to test out various weapons to see how he liked them, but he also found that he was hitting a little too hard. Sometimes the sword would break, the mace would bend, the gauntlets would shatter, Etc. Thankfully he usually walked away with a weapon surplus with every battle. Still though, if he hadn't had his skill of energy manifestation he'd be pretty worried about finding a good quality weapon.

“To be fair, if you didn't have your energy manifestation you would have died long before having a good quality weapon ever became an issue.” She commented and he suddenly stopped in the middle of his tracks and let out a groan as a thought occurred to him.

“What is it?”

“ I just realized I do have a good quality weapon that I haven't been using and need serious practice with.” he took out the giant crossbow from his storage ring. “If I can just get better at this weapon I might not even have to get into close combat. I can just take everyone out from afar! Plus that rat had skills that allowed him to do weird things with his crossbow right? So I'm sure if I keep practicing with it I can get pretty cool skills too!”

“How about your first goal is to hit consistently with it and worry about skills later.”

“Well maybe there is a skill that allows me to aim better like an aim skill or something.” he pointed the crossbow and fired it towards the wall before looking up at the sky “Huh? what do you say system, throw me a bone?”

Silence met him. “Fine! Be stingy. I'll get you to give me that skill soon enough!” He pulled out another bolt from his storage ring, accidentally dropping it to the floor in the process

“Off to a great start here. Seriously, you have a skill that gives you enhanced reflexes. How are you so bad at grabbing things out of the ring.” she sarcastically quipped as Quill reloaded the crossbow.

“Oh hush, I'm just not used to it yet.” He said but she did have a point. So he started practicing taking things in and out of his storage ring. Trying to grab them correctly and not let them hit the floor. It took longer than he would have liked but he did eventually get it down. So with the crossbow in hand he decided to look for another patrol.

It didn't take that much longer to find another patrol and Quill fired his first bolt as the roaches charged him, managing to hit one in the chest and he yelled and Triumph. Making sure to backpedal as he reloaded to keep out of their reach. “See? I already hit one!”

“Yeah but I know you were aiming for a different roach. Seeing as how their forces take up the entire tunnel even YOU couldn't have missed one. Hit a roach that you are actually aiming for and then I'll say you're capable of doing the bare minimum.”

He quickly fired again, hitting a second roach, though not the one he was aiming for. This went on for several minutes as he whittled down the patrol and finally decided to finish them off with a charge in close combat. Not because he was starting to have trouble hitting them with their numbers dwindling but because it just was going to be quicker and he was on a time limit.

“Only lying to yourself sweetie pie.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to start heading for the next inner station now. If I have time and a chance to train with the crossbow I certainly will. But I do think it would be best to nip this problem in the bud now.” It was a shame too cuz he actually did kind of enjoy using the crossbow but for now he was going to have to rely on his strengths. At least the roaches that he had been fighting so far weren't tough enough to actually hurt him.

“You totally jinxed yourself right there.”

“Yeah.” he said with a sigh. “I realized my mistake after I thought about it.”