I waited three days next to that creek so Gregory could recover enough to be moved. I was worried about the others who had defended the tree but I was also concerned about Gregory's health. I was definitely willing to go back immediately. I was in no way terrified of going back to our tree which might have a horde of ants waiting in ambush for us. I was also sleeping soundly with no fear at all of being eaten while I slept. Because I am a courageous and experienced hero who doesn't sweat the small stuff like that.

I woke up on the third day to Gregory pulling on my hair. I soon figured out that he wanted to go back home. I headed off in the general direction I thought our tree was in. After a few hours of walking we came across a wasteland. It stretched for a solid half kilometre. There was no vegetation left at all. In many cases the dead trunks of trees still stuck up towards the sky but the usual clutter of greenery was gone. The trees were without leaves and the smaller grasses, bushes, and such were completely gone. It was surreal.

Gregory ended up startling me out of the trance I fell into from this scene by pulling on my hair. When I looked down at him, he looked a bit down but was nonetheless pulling my hair wanting me to go to the right.

Perhaps ten minutes later, we came across our home. The tree we had lived under for so many years was like the rest of vegetation. There were no leaves and nothing but trunk remained. I put Gregory down on the trunk of our tree near one of the termite holes. He crawled inside and did not come back out for a long time.

"Did you find anyone?" (Me)

*Shake* (Gregory)

"No one at all? Not even their bodies?"

*Shake*

"That is ... horrendous."

*...*

"Is there a funeral you would normally give when one of you passes away?"

*Flip*

"Well we can at least do that for them can't we?"

*Shake*

"What? Why not?"

*Shake*

"Do you need a special priest?"

*Shake*

"Do you need special materials that we don't have?"

*Flip*

"Well can we get them somewhere?"

*Shake*

"What why not? Do you not know where to get them?"

*Shake*

"Well, do you not know how to make them?"

*Shake*

"Umm. We can't get the materials we need to do the ceremony but it is not because you don't know where they are or how to make them. Oh no. Do you need a body in order to have a funeral?"

*Flip*

"Well do you mind if I were to do a funeral the way my people did it instead? They should have some kind of send off even if it isn't quite what they are used to."

*Flip*

I did my best to remember what was said at a funeral. To be honest, I was going off really hazy memories from my grandmother's funeral when I was young on Earth and what I could remember from a few movies I saw almost two decades before. It may not have been anything close to what a real ceremony would be like but I like to think it was not so bad. Gregory seemed to like it anyway. He seemed a bit less depressed afterwards though he was still pretty out of it.

While I wished for them to rest in peace, I also carefully avoided any reference to the gods as I was pretty sure only bad things would come of it. So far I was hated and cursed by them. I really did not want to think what would happen if I drew attention to my friends.

We left after my brief ceremony. Neither of us could stand staying there with the memories of our past haunting us. Wandering through the unknown dangers of the jungle was way better than dealing with ghosts of the past.

Well, we were planning to explore the surroundings anyway. So I tried to look at this as a good thing. Yea this just pushed us into taking a trip. I could finally get to see more of this world. I was going to meet people after so long. I was going to be able to have a conversation with someone who can talk back and maybe eat some delicious food. Yes, this trip was definitely going to be a good thing. We should stop looking back and instead look forward to our bright future.

I tried to convince Gregory of this but two problems arose. First, Gregory seemed to be rather depressed and unwilling to hear my pep talk. He just kept shaking back and forth. I tried to talking louder to break through his state of denial. However, it was at this point that the other problem presented itself. As we approached the edge of the barren land eaten clean by the ants, a large dinosaur, one of the ones that looked like a T-Rex, came out of the lush jungle while looking in our direction.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Whoops. I had avoided the monsters infesting the jungle up until then by being stealthy. But I was so caught up in trying to cheer up Gregory that I forgot my surroundings. No matter how good I was at sneaking, talking loudly would give myself away.

Well that situation was without a doubt a concern. However, rather than trying to run, I valiantly stood my ground. Gregory would later claim that I was too petrified to move but that is just nonsense. I am a brave hero. I even have a title in my status window to prove it. Just ignore all of the other titles as they are generally lies. Where was I? Oh yes, I was being brave and standing my ground without fear of the incredibly large, dangerous, and overwhelming deadly creature with massive teeth that stood before me. My knees were completely solid and not shaking at all. Again, do not pay any mind to Gregory and his crazy stories. I will say as a completely unrelated aside that because I had not had a drink since I was born it was impossible for me to piss myself even when terrified. Not that I have ever been that scared of course.

It was just as I was about to charge the monster that Gregory just had to step in and steal my spotlight. As I was getting ready to start the fight of my life in order to protect him in his time of need, Gregory hopped off of me, ran over to the monster and made it fall over screaming. What an anticlimactic end to what should have been an amazing fight. I thought about reprimanding him but decided to say my thanks instead.

Seriously, that poison is overpowered. A single termite just took on a T-Rex and won. I did not even see him bite the T-Rex or anything. He just touched the thing and it fell over. How do you even protect yourself against an opponent you can't see because it is only the size of a grain of rice? It is not that I am jealous or anything, I just think that his race's abilities are completely unbalanced.

I briefly entertained the idea that since I was a hero (says so right on my status sheet!) maybe Gregory's abilities are just part of my plot armour which prevents bad things from happening to me. Then I thought about that for a second in light of how horrible my life had been up to this point and decided that my idea was clearly a bad one. If this was a story it was clearly not one I wanted to be in.

It is definitely not the case that Gregory is the overpowered protagonist of this story though. Who ever heard of a termite being a protagonist? That is just ridiculous.

Why was I thinking these silly thoughts? Because I was desperately trying to distract myself from the fact that I was hiding behind a boulder quietly watching the T-Rex be eaten by two enormous vultures. They seemed to have been attracted by the screams of the T-Rex.

I had killed monsters before but I had never seen a monster being eaten before. The gore was rather confronting so I was trying to think of something else while still maintaining a watch to make sure the vultures did not decide to make a meal of me. As time went on the vultures were chased away by an enormous mole which in turn moved off when a pack of what I think were hyenas showed up.

Again, I feel like I should stress that the whole not eating or drinking thing was handy. I mean no matter how sick I feel I only at most dry heave. Not that I would have dry heaved from watching that horribly gruesome scene. I was just mentioning this because I happened to think of it is all.

Anyway, once everything had left, I decided it was time for Gregory and I to move on. This time while we moved into the jungle, I decided it might be best to stay quiet and not try to convince Gregory to be more positive. At least I would stay quiet until we found somewhere a bit less crowded with deadly monsters.

I did not have any direction in particular in mind. So I decided to follow the setting sun. It was a way to keep myself from getting lost in that jungle where seeing much of anything is incredibly difficult. Not that I could see the sun all that often either but I had to pick something.

It was only now as we walked away from the tree I had called home that I really felt like I was going on a journey. Before I had been so filled with worry that I did not pay much attention to my surroundings except as I needed to in order to stay sneaky. However, this time I started to notice just how new, beautiful, and fantastical the jungle around me really was.

There was a plant that was just floating in midair with pink and white flowers the size of my head. There was a waterfall which fell from the top of one of the giant trees and landed in a pool made of a single leaf of some strange bush. Not only were these plants things I had never even heard of on Earth, the sights were incredible. I regularly stopped to do nothing more than drink it all in. After a little while Gregory seemed to perk up as well as he saw all of these beautiful sights.

When it started to get dark, we found a bush with a bit of space under it and a lot of grass obscuring the area. This was the closest to shelter we were going to get. Gregory seemed perfectly comfy using me as a shelter. After all these years I was used to sleeping rough like this but I still had a few thoughts of sleeping in a real bed for once before I fell into a trance to get my rest for the night. After such a long day, both Gregory and I were totally spent and unable to stay up any longer even if keeping a watch would have been safer.

Luckily, we passed the night safely.

While I was lying under the bush still coming to my senses after meditating, I became worried about biting insects like mosquitoes going for me in my sleep. At first, I thought maybe Gregory's presence had scared them off the night before. After all, if I was a bug I would go nowhere near a termite with OP poison. Likewise, I had never encountered such bugs under our tree.

Then I remembered that I had nearly been pulled out of my trance quite a few times the night before. I normally stay in one place while in a trance but last night I was tossing and turning all night. It felt like I was covered in itches and I thought I heard a voice a few times as well. I called up my status and had several new achievements like Mosquito Hunter. I looked at the dirt under me and saw the squashed corpses of quite a few bugs. I must have rolled over on them. I know I am fat but to think it really was that dangerous to be sat on by me. I decided then and there to go on a weight loss plan. I would cut down on what I was eating by 50%. Just as soon as I figured out what I was eating that is.

By the way, I found out through trial and error later that I was not actually squashing the bugs to kill them. They have way too many HP for that. Instead I was suffocating them. They were unable to lift up my fat folds and so once I was on top of them they could not escape. Gregory was safe since he had enormous strength when using his earth magic. Apparently, the bugs I killed were of other elemental affinities.

Seeing this, I asked Gregory if he knew why I never took any damage from being bitten by all these bugs. After a few minutes of guessing, I discovered that he kept his earth shield up on me even while we were asleep. The bugs were unable to do enough damage to break the shield so I only felt them crawling on me and was unaffected by their bites.

I was happy not to have died to insects in the night but wasn't Gregory a bit too ridiculous. I really wanted to have magic too. I was sure it would come in time. I didn't have a teacher so that must be why I can't do it. I could absolutely train up my MP without raising my level just as soon as I found someone to teach me how. And from there, I would be able to be a great arch mage casting spells left and right. I had no need to be jealous of my best friend, the termite. He just is an early bloomer while I am a late bloomer. Yup.

Goodbye my family. The schemes of Arachne are truly unpredictable. Who would have predicted that the last survivors of our great people would be a useless cripple and an orphan of another race that we took in as bait.