// Time 13:02

Bug slowly wakes from her dreamless sleep, her eyes heavy with exhaustion as she coughs on some drool that is dripping from her mouth.

She finds herself in a tangle of her own limbs with her head at an awkward angle on a bed of moss. She had kicked and turned quite a lot in her sleep apparently.

Trying to pull herself up from her impromptu nest, she winces as her neck protests any motion, and she has to take a few minutes to massage her neck back into shape. Pulling it to the side some, Bug lets out a sigh as she pops her neck and works the last of the stiffness out of her.

Unfortunately, even on a bed of moss, the rocky floor of a Dungeon hardly makes for a peaceful place to sleep.

Maybe I should save up my points and buy a bed from the shop. They have some really fluffy looking ones… They’re just really expensive…

Crawling out to the entrance of her hole, Bug peeks outside and takes a look around. The hallway that she is in looks to be clear, but further out in the Dungeon, things have grown to be rather noisy. Besides the loud calls of the mobs, there is also the sound of people talking and fighting, the sounds reverberating off the walls and carrying themselves to Bug’s sensitive ears.

She grimaces as she hears everything going on and finds herself unable to count how many there are now. There is just too much noise…

Great, more humans in the Dungeon. They’re probably going to kill everything on this floor before the day is over…

Hmmm, I could head out and try to earn some skills, but I would probably get myself killed… I’m just going to stay here and wait for now. Maybe there are some skills I can earn while I wait here.

Pulling herself back into the safety of the hole, Bug opens up her Skill Store and starts browsing for anything that she might be able to learn on her own. She eventually settles on Knot Tying lvl1 and pulls the rope she found out of her inventory to play with.

Occupying herself with tying the rope into a bunch of messy knots, Bug eventually gives up on trying to ignore the feeling in her stomach.

Putting a hand over where her core is, she shivers as she feels the cold touch of Death just under her hand.

I did this for survival… I can regret it later when I am alive and free.

Pushing her thoughts away from her chilly tummy, Bug tries to focus on knot tying as best she can. Trying different ways of wrapping the rope on itself or tying it around a rock, or her arm, she experiments and plays.

About an hour into messing around, she finally gets the notification.

//Congratulations! You have earned a Skill!

//Knot Tying lvl1 unlocked!

Yes! Hmm, feels like it is easier to tell when a knot will work or not, and remember the ones that I have made before. Will probably just make me able to tie them faster and better as the Skill levels up.

Putting away the rope, Bug looks to the clock and sighs. It’s only two in the afternoon, and Bug knows that the Dungeon will remain open for business until ten, or 22:00 on the clock. It will then be closed for two hours so the Dungeon can do a restock on all the floors.

Thankfully the Dungeon saw fit to include this with the Knowledge it birthed me with. Although it was probably just a part of the Knowledge of the time for when the Dungeon opens.

As for what happens to the humans that are still in the Dungeon when the doors close for the night? Bug has no idea. But she imagines that the Dungeon has to do something to keep them from interfering with the daily restock.

Resigning herself to spending another eight hours in this hole, Bug sets to work on finding another Skill to learn. She eventually settles on practicing Flexibility lvl1. The description says something along the lines that it has to do with being able to move your body in ways that it normally shouldn’t, like doing the splits or whatever.

I have no idea what the splits are or any of these other moves, but I wouldn’t mind being able to move better. Gymnastics lvl1 also looks useful and I might be able to get it too.

Happy to be moving around as much as she is able within the hole, Bug works on stretching her limbs and trying to get her body to move in ways that makes her muscles complain. Pushing against them until they start to hurt and then stopping to focus on some other areas.

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As she passes her time doing stretches on a bed of moss, Bug gets a bit irritated as a bunch of noises keeps getting closer to her hallway.

“Tich… Humans are getting close… Mmmmmmm~~…….”

Stretches actually feels really good. My muscles feel all loose and floaty now. I like this…

Pulling herself back into a sitting position, Bug moves over to the entrance of her hole and peeks outside as the noises draw closer. Giving into her Stealth Skill, Bug gets low and watches as three figures round the corner and head towards the dead end where her hidey-hole is.

Different ones than the other three. Do they always travel in threes?

Watching them come closer, Bug notes their appearances and finds them much less frightening that the first three humans.

These ones are noticeably younger looking than the first three and are smaller. A word comes to her mind that describes them…

Teenagers? Not children, but not quite adults either… They’re a lot noisier than the first ones too. Don’t move as quietly as those two scary humans either.

Actually, I wonder what happened to those three? They said that they were going deeper, but yet, I doubt that that sword wielding guy will be coming back with them… Huh, already forgot his name… Ehh, doesn’t matter.

The teenagers eventually reach the end of the hall, stopping just below the wall where Bug’s hole is. Hiding up above them, they don’t seem to notice her watching as they loudly joke around with each other.

From the look of them, it is three guys. They have different features and different hair colors and eye colors… but Bug finds herself not really caring about that… One is tall, one is short, and one is sort of fat. That is all that really matters to her when it comes to their bodies.

Besides that, the tall one has a spear. The short one has an axe and a cheap looking shield that looks like the lid to a barrel… No, no, it is definitely the lid to a barrel, he just fitted a handle to it and wrapped some cheap leather on the inside. And finally, the fat guy has a club that is probably just a thick tree branch that he cleaned up.

Bug has never seen a tree or a branch before, but the Magic knowledge she learned had a lot to teach her about plants and nature due to some of the basic elements of magic that were covered. So even if she has never seen one before, she at least knows what it is.

Bug comes to a quick conclusion as she looks them over. Weak and poor…

A quick scan from her Identify confirms her thoughts.

‘Lvl4 Human.’

‘Lvl5 Human.’

‘Lvl4 Human.’

Hmm, the one with the axe and shield is stronger than the other two.

None of them seem to react to her scan, further fueling Bug’s suspicions that they are weak. Their clothes even look a bit ragged and are patched-up in several places in an attempt to maintain them after years of wear and tear.

But I’m still not certain that I could take them…

So, Bug chooses to wait and watch.

The humans, as they continue to talk, set about setting up some wooden bowls and folded up blanket as they dig into their ratty packs. Sitting on the floor, they dig some food out and start to eat and drink water from their canteens.

The food doesn’t look all that appetizing, being hard bread and some dried nuts with berries, but Bug finds herself growing hungry as she watches them eat. She has only ever had moss and a single cookie after all, so any other food she can find is honestly pretty alluring right now.

Bug has to hold back the urge to jump them right that moment, but she still doesn’t like her chances. So, she waits…

And she waits…

Until finally an opening shows itself to her.

“Gonna take a piss. Be right back.” Says the fat one.

Bug watches as he moves deeper into the dead end and starts working at untying his pants.

Best chance I’ll get. It’s now or never…

Slowly climbing out of the hole in the wall, Bug clings to the wall and quietly shuffles herself along until she is over the oblivious adventurer. She is very careful as to not knock any loose stones free as she moves, and stores any that she finds, just to be safe.

Checking over her shoulder, she finds that the other two are still eating and talking, their backs turned as to not watch their friend relieve himself.

Waiting until he is finished draining his bladder – simply as a courtesy – Bug lets go of the wall and draws her knife as he moves to retie his pants.

Landing on his shoulders, Bug moves as fast as she can to cover his mouth with her hand as she buries her blade into his throat. Muffling a pained and surprised scream, Bug keeps her grip on him as he collapses to his knees.

Pulling hard on the knife, she wrenches it out and tears his throat open in a spray of blood. His eyes roll back as his mind goes into shock and he falls forward against the wall, sliding down it until he collapses into a puddle of his own blood and piss.

Bug doesn’t bother trying to keep his fall from making noise. He is too heavy for her to bother trying to catch.

Ignoring the notifications popping up, Bug throws herself into a sprint as she charges the two other boys. The tall one turns to see what the noise is as the short one makes a joke.

“Hey Bo, you taking a massive shit or something? We heard that from here, hahaha!”

The tall one goes to yell something and reaches for his spear as he spots Bug. She is almost on top of them.

Pointing at him, Bug silently activates her first spell. Inflict Pain!

The invisible spell smacks into him before he can utter a word and he falls, screaming in pain. Falling backwards, he writhes as the spell ravages his mind, body, and soul, tricking his senses into believing that he is suffering from horrendous pain.

The spell itself deals no actual damage. It simply forces a person to feel pain. At a cost of one point of mana per second, Bug can maintain it for a hundred seconds. With how debilitating the pain is, this gives her more than enough time.

The short guy only has enough time to turn and gawk at his screaming friend for a second before Bug rams her knife into his back.

He is apparently too poor to afford any armor, so her knife tears through his shirt and flesh, sliding between two ribs as it buries itself into his heart.

Coughing up some blood, he turns and stares at the little creature that had just killed him, having appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

The notifications come as the strength leaves his body. Pushing his shoulder, Bug knocks him over and lets her blade slide out of him as his body falls. Wiping it on his clothes to clean off the blood, Bug keeps her eye on the screaming human.

Taking out her rope, she moves over to him and gags his mouth before tying his hands and feet together. Her knot tying Skill is already coming in handy it seems…

With the human boy bound, Bug finally lifts her spell and makes the pain stop.