Jumping out of the hole, Bug sets off back in the direction that she was traveling originally, which basically just means randomly wandering.

Listening to the Dungeon and the noises bouncing around the halls, she mainly moves to avoid walking into any fights. A bath comes first before anything else.

A few turns later, Bug finds a room that comes off from one of the halls. Looking inside, she finds a deep spring where a couple of figures are busily drinking water. This room is probably one of the main watering holes on this floor, judging from how big it is, and Bug finds the signs of plenty of birthing pods scattered about, but not the occupants. There are only the two figures left here, and they are covered in wounds.

‘Lvl 4 Goblin. A race of Demi-Humans found all over the world.’

‘Lvl 6 Goblin. A race of Demi-Humans found all over the world.’

Bug isn’t particular impressed by what identify has to tell her. But if they are Demi-Humans like her, then that brings the possibility of communication. Deciding to risk it first, Bug walks into the room and speaks.

“Hey there. Looks like you guys got into a fight, huh? Did the humans do that to you?”

Both of the Goblins turn and look at Bug as they realize that someone is talking to them.

“Greka? Gre! Ga gre gak!”

“Gakkka! Gixca! Haaaaaah!”

“I have no idea what any of that means…? Do you know… Actually, what language am I even speaking in? How do I not even know what it is called?”

“Haaaaaagh, Greka ga gekkky!” The first Goblin screams as it jumps at Bug.

“Inflict Pain.”

“Ahhhh!”

The Goblin trips over itself and falls flat on its face. Turning to the second, Bug tries to talk to it as well, but it throws a rock at her before she can open her mouth.

Dodging the rock, she yells at it, “Hey!”

Bug wants to curse out the thing, but is stopped as an arrow comes flying from behind and buries itself in the eye of the Goblin. He falls over dead without a word.

Looking back towards the entrance, Bug finds Bob the Archer standing there with his bow at the ready.

//Killed lvl 6 Goblin – 16 exp gained!

“Thanks Bob!”

Turning away from Bob, Bug directs her attention back to the remaining Goblin and lifts her casting of Inflict Pain.

“Ok, now, like I was asking before. Are you able to talk like me, or are you just another mindless thi-“

It lunges for her, kicking off of the ground and screaming as it brandishes a rock, swinging it at Bug’s face. Bug takes a step back, narrowly avoiding the blow and quickly slashes at the Goblin with both of her left hands.

The top hand finds its face and nearly claws half of it off with one swipe. The bottom hand tears through its chest and grinds against ribs, leaving bloody trails in its wake.

The Goblin falls back to the ground again, screaming its lungs out as it holds its face and kicks its legs in a panic. The zombies at the entrance come pouring in to attack the target, but Bug waves them off and orders them to wait around the room.

Grabbing the Goblin, Bug pulls it up to face her. Now that she is much closer, she has to note a couple things. First, these things are very ugly… and secondly, they really do not smell good.

This thing might have only been alive for a day or two at most by now, but it has a nasty smell to it that is making Bug’s nose want to crinkle and her eyes water. Bug decides to make this fast.

“Tell me, can you speak!? Tell me you smelly thing!”

“Graaaaaaaaa gre ka!!!” It screams out in pain.

“Are those words or just noises!?”

“Gaaaaa! Ka grika ke! Ahhhhhhhhh!”

Pushing through the pain, it tries to bite at her, still, it only babbles out a bunch of nonsense that probably doesn’t mean anything. Avoiding its bites, Bug looks into its eyes and finds them to be lacking. They don’t have the same spark of life as the humans do or even that she sees in her own when she looks at her reflection. These things are empty.

This is just a thing. Another creature birthed by the Dungeon to mindlessly kill and be killed.

With little reason left to keep it alive, Bug stabs it in the throat with her claws and then casts it aside. Twitching on the ground, it slowly bleeds out and dies as Bug washes her hands in the spring.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

//Killed lvl 4 Goblin – 12 exp gained!

“Well, that was disappointing. Not that there was much to be expected I guess…”

Hands washed, Bug raises both of the new corpses and then brings a couple of sacks out of her inventory. Filling them both with rocks, she hands them to the new Goblin zombies.

“Your job is to throw rocks at our enemies. You are to follow Bob the Archer over there and help him by attacking from range. If your bags of rocks get low, collect more rocks as you get the chance. If someone gets too close, hit them with the bag of rocks. Got it?”

“Bleh~”

“Graaa~”

Both of the new zombies let out a noise and then move to go hang out with Bob and Billy.

With that taken care of, Bug orders the rest of them to guard the room and sets up an ambush at the entrance to the room.

“I’m going to take a bath. Guard me from anything that enters this room. You, climb up there and drop down on anyone that enters when I tell you to. There, that should be good enough…”

With that finally finished, Bug unequips all of her clothes and climbs into the spring. The water is cold, but clean and fresh. Already, just from sitting in it, Bug can feel the dirt, dust, sweat, and dried blood falling off of her body. Dunking her head under the water, Bug runs her fingers through her hair and scrubs everything out.

“Ahhhh, this already feels so much better~”

----------------------------------------

Blessedly clean and smelling of soap and shampoo, Bug sits on a boulder next to the spring as she dries herself off with the nice fluffy towel that came with the self-care kit.

“Hah~ Feel so much better now. Why couldn’t I have been born with this knowledge? Baths are so nice~”

Putting the towel away once she is dry, Bug works on combing out her short head of hair, and then moves to brushing the fur that covers her arms and lower half.

As she is brushing herself, Bug’s ears perk up as she hears something. Someone is coming near.

Crap, I got too caught up in my bath! Ahh, now that I am listening for them, these ones are walking much quieter than the others. I need to remember that not everyone is as loud and inexperienced as those on the first floor…

Rushing to store all of her bathing and self-care stuff, Bug stops as the humans round the corner, their quiet conversation dying on their lips as they find a room full of corpses and nothing but a single three-armed Gremlin sitting on a boulder. The humans, four of them, all have their canteen out and were probably coming here to refill their water.

“What the hell is this?”

“What the fuck happened here!?”

“Did some parties have a falling out or something and kill each other?”

“Why is there a Gremlin here? They aren’t supposed to show up past the first floor, right?”

As they throw around questions and look over the room from the entrance, Bug finds herself covering her chest with one arm. This surprises her a bit and she looks down at herself as she tries to figure this out.

Why am I embarrassed to be seen naked by humans? Why should I care if they see my chest…? But, for some reason, it is… I don’t want them to see me naked…

“Seriously, why is there a Gremlin here? There are even some mixed in with the corpses… Does it have three arms?”

Having one of the humans staring at her leaves Bug blushing as she pulls her arm tighter to cover her chest.

Ok, I definitely don’t like getting looked at like this. Getting dressed now.

With some quick mental orders to the System, Bug equips her clothing and gets dressed in a short flash of light that leaves the guy that was watching her startled.

“What the heck was that!? It’s wearing clothes now? Hey Joel, stop worrying about the corpses, are you seeing this?”

Bug, still blushing, finally speaks up. “You humans really came here at a bad time. I was in the middle of cleaning myself. Do you mind leaving?

I doubt they actually will, but this should at least set them off balance.

“Holy shit, it talks!”

“What the hell!?”

“I’m not an, it. I’m a girl… And I am pretty sure that you humans have rules against walking in on women while they are taking a bath, right? At least I hope you do…”

They seem taking aback by her comment and all turn to look to the one called Joel.

“Hey, Joel, what do we do about this? Do you think that this is the bounty that everyone’s been talking about?”

“It seems to fit the description, but it was supposed to be on the first floor. I’ve never heard of monsters switching floors before…”

“And what about all of these corpses…?

Bug just watches them, flabbergasted from where she is sitting on her boulder.

They just completely ignored my question! And they keep calling me an, it!

“Hey! I’m right here you know. I can hear you talking!”

They shut up as they look back at her, the group looking back towards their leader, prompting him to take the lead.

“Hey Gremlin! Are you the one that killed Lady Raingarden’s bodyguard? Answer me.”

“Ha? Who the heck is Lady Raingarden? And will you stop being so rude. You still haven’t apologized for walking in on me naked yet!”

“You think we care about seeing some Gremlin naked? Don’t be stupid. Now answer the question, was it you that killed that guy with poison?”

“Poison?”

Behind Joel, one of the humans snickers and jokes to himself. “I don’t know, she does have some nice tits on her. Maybe I would be willing to give her a try.”

“Don’t be gross, Chuck.”

“Hey, tits are tits…”

Bug holds herself tighter as she hears this. OK, I’m killing this Chuck first…

Wanting to keep them distracted, Bug answers Joel. “I did kill one guy with poison. Big fellow wearing armor and had a big sword. He was with some girl that could use water magic. Is that the one?”

“Holy shit, we found the bounty. Ten gold is ours!”

“Shut up damn it! Focus!” Joel snaps. His eyes go to the bodies littering the room before warily returning to Bug. “Did you do this to? Did you kill all these people?”

Need them to come a bit closer…

Bug raises a hand to her chin and taps it a few times, pretending to think, “Hmmm…. maybe? Before I answer, how about you answer some of my questions? You have been quite rude so far, so it is the least you can do, no?”

“What could a monster possibly want to know?”

“I’m glad you asked, though I’m not a monster… How about you tell me what is on the lower floors? I want to know what to expect.”

Joel takes a step closer into the room and the others follow, “Well, it is mostly Goblins for the first few floors until you reach the first boss. All of the floors on the first layer are basically the same. Now, if you aren’t a monster, then what are you?”

Bug gives him a big smile and puffs out her chest with pride, pointing to herself with three hands, she declares, “I’m a person, obviously!”

The rude guy, Chuck, laughs at this, but is silenced by a look from Joel. Taking another careful step into the room and over the corpse of the mean girl, Joel gives Bug a smile back.

“Well, I can certainly say that this is the first time I have seen one of you claim to be a person. Though I have heard that you guys live to the east under the Demon Queen or something. Are you lost perhaps? You are far away from home, no?”

“Perhaps…”

So, he is aware that Gremlins really are a people, but yet he still hunts them in the Dungeon… Starting to like humans less and less…

“Another question for you, Joel, what is the first boss like? Have you fought it?”

They take another step closer, but Joel stumbles a bit at his name being used. Still, he doesn’t drop the smile as he looks to Bug.

“Ah, yes, I have fought the first boss a couple of times already. It is a giant boar, almost as tall as I am. Now, it doesn’t seem very fair that you know my name, but I don’t know yours. What is it? If you are a person, then you must have a name, right?” He asks as he draws closer still.

“My name is Bug.” Bug says with a smile.