All of a sudden, I was overwhelmed by many different feelings.
“When I lead the rippers,” I knew that would happen anyway. If they don’t want to talk, they will try to kill me, and if they do, I’ll tell them to proceed to the indicated point and thus I can secure the area. “You will be able to follow the route I had shown you. By the way, what’s your name?”
“I don’t know,” answered the bug.
“Then what do you think of it being Rald?”
Rald, Flower chafer, level 4
“I like it,” the beetle curved his little jaws. “It’s strange, but now the number of my remaining rebirths has increased to four.”
“Curious,” I said.
“Be careful!” the bug exclaimed, and I looked around at where I was at.
It was a spacious place, and we saw before us bright light and green grass, partially sprouted in a cave. There were moss and small mushrooms, which were unlikely to be useful to me, and I did not want to take food from the little lads.
By the way, I should share something with them. Too bad I gave Skal the haloptiriuses and moss, but well, anyway. I wondered why Rald got so scared.
Looking closer, I noticed a strange creature approaching from the surface. This two-legged was not like the rippers. He was not very tall, had a small head, long nose, and protruding ears.
He was wearing rags instead of a sparkling armor. This creature held a cudgel in his left hand. Scratching his ass, this lop-eared two-legged stared at me. I was disgusted. What a nasty bastard.
Little Goblin, Level 9
“So, creatures like this keep killing you?” I asked the beetle and he just nodded, hiding behind me. It was a very strange feeling, like what I felt when defending Skal, but now this feeling was much sharper.
I quickly covered the distance that separated us and stuck my spiker claw into this freak’s heart. The goblin squealed and tried to land a blow with the cudgel, but I formed a shield and blocked it without releasing the claw.
The cudgel hit my shield and flew out of his hands. The goblin’s face twisted, and his appearance became so disgusting that I used my jaws and simply bit off his head.
I don’t know what came over me, but I lifted his body and threw it against the wall. There was a powerful blow, and scarlet blood began to drip onto the ground.
40 points of experience gained!
“I noticed gravediggers among you, can you drag this body to them?”
“Yes,” the beetle nodded.
“Take this,” I gave the beetle a couple of rubitus, emeraltus, and turquoitus. Not much, but he can have a snack and share it with his friends.
“Wow! They smell delicious!”
“There are many like these down there,” I curved my jaws.
And now I need to see what this freak was carrying in his spatial pocket. What a nasty creature. There was a cudgel in his pocket, which I threw off to the side, and two dark circles.
They turned out to be copper coins. They will probably be useful. Adding one claw to the tools, I took the cudgel. Unlike the ripper claws, this I could firmly hold in my hand and I wanted to try it out.
“Take care, and I will go and see if there are any more outside.”
“But... but...” Rald tried to say something, but I went through the light-filled passage and, closing my eyes, emerged to the surface, and then I heard the end of his sentence. “It’s impossible.”
Chapter 37
The vast world. The killer of goblins. The Rippers.
Stepping outside, I was swept over by bright sunlight. Slowly opening my eyes, I saw grass that covered the ground like an emerald carpet. Not far away there were large trees, not with yellow leaves like those in the ancient city, but green ones.
Everything here breathed life and freedom. I looked around and saw the darkness inside a narrow passage and a high mountain stretching somewhere up to the endless blue sky.
How beautiful it was, how amazing. I had no words to express this beauty. But nothing good lasts forever: I saw three goblins.
Little Goblin, Level 7
Little Goblin, Level 9
Little Goblin, Level 7
How dare they interrupt me? This world, filled with light and life, I wanted to enjoy it in peace, but then these freaks appeared. I was furious.
Squeezing the cudgel, I jumped the nearest one, who was level 7 and dealt a powerful blow to his ugly head. Something strange happened.
His head smashed to pieces and out poured some scarlet liquid. A received a message that I struck a crucial blow. I did not wait for the others to understand what was going on and immediately struck the next goblin.
My attack threw him a couple of feet away, and while I was turning around, level 9 struck a rather unpleasant blow to my shell.
Immediately I hit him with my claw and cut him badly, making him scream. He waved his cudgel and claw a few more times, and then the green mongrel finally died. I simply jumped at the last one, knocking him down, and bit off his head.
I liked killing these creatures, they turned out to be weak. Let that be a lesson to them not to attack the little lads.
40 points of experience gained!
20 points of experience gained!
20 points of experience gained!
Although I got little experience for them, it was alright. I collected seven more copper coins; they had nothing else. However much I enjoyed being in this wonderful world, I still had some business down there.
“How did you do it?” Rald stared at me, not as if I was the Supreme, but at least a ripper of some extreme level. “That can’t be done!”
“There were just three of goblins there, and I don’t want such creatures to come around here anymore, so I killed them,” I said. “Go back, and I’ll wait here for a while. Maybe more goblins will come, or rippers.”
The beetle followed my instructions and, taking the goblin’s corpse, dragged him inside to the little bugs. I started thinking. Why didn’t these beetles dare go outside, for there is probably more food there, and why did Rald say it’s impossible to go out. It’s weird.
I definitely liked the cudgel, so I’ll hold the spiker claw in one hand and the cudgel in the other. That way I will be much more effective. Eh-h, I wish I learned how to create frosty spheres, like the spirits. I wonder how this is done. Maybe you need to spin the energy in some way?
Your brain cannot sustain the workload created by your mind!
Be careful, this can lead to your death!
This message pisses me off! OK. I noticed one interesting feature of these messages. Some time passes after death before they pop up, so, there is some accumulation.
But as soon as I threw the experience points into my brain, it takes quite a while before a new message appears, so I can assume that investing experience resets everything gained.
But how much experience do I need to invest? To begin with, I invested a hundred, to bring the number of brain points to five hundred.
Your brain is evolving. Now you have a developing brain!
Stats: Mind +13, Evolution +3, Structure +2, Complexity +2
40 points of experience gained!
Your level up! Current Level: 15.
Great, it seems that my brain has transformed, reaching five hundred points, so that’s interesting. What would happen if I push it to a thousand? Next time, when I see this annoying message, I will throw in fifty experience points, and then even less, to see whether I can avoid dying from overthinking.
And while I was lost in my thoughts, counting what I could do with an even more developed brain and a higher level, I missed one important thing.
I didn’t hear the rippers who entered the cave. They looked at me with great surprise. Three rippers, in glittering shells, walking before another four two-legged, one of whom looked at me in wonder.
These rippers were much weaker than those that Kroark had defeated, but their levels of over 50 were quite high for me. I don’t know why didn’t they do an
ything, maybe I was lucky, and I came across normal rippers?
“Guys, what is a level 15 beetle doing here?” asked one of the knights.
“There shouldn’t be creatures above level 7 or 8 here,” the two-legged man in red scratched his head.
“Look how cool he is,” said the girl in white.
Then I got it. I could understand them. Understand! Aha ha ha! I jumped with joy, and the two-legged bounced off me sharply. A ball of fire flashed in the hands of one of them. Wow! Looks cool.
“Greetings, rippers,” I said, but my speech was clumsy, it seems I needed to develop the speech ability some more.
“Holy shit!”
“A talking beetle!”
“There should not be such a thing here! Quickly, kill the bastard, maybe he’s got some interesting stuff,” said the man in the red robe.
Although I did not quite understand his words, I caught the drift of what he was saying. Well, I wasn’t going to die. I had cards up my sleeve that would help me escape even from such high-leveled opponents.
The trio in shining shells took out their claws and slowly came forward. A fireball flashed in the hands of one of them. Well, I will do as the goddess taught me.
I pictured a line stretching from me to the person who held the fiery clot. As the cord touched the ripper, a deafening roar thundered.
Bright light illuminated everything around, and the long electrical discharge hit the two-legged and he flew back. I quickly repeated this technique on the second one, but he had already managed to launch a clot, which I just barely dodged. A ball of fire, flying past me, blazed with flame and continued onward, exploding further down the tunnel.
“Beat the bastard! He has magic!” the first two-legged groaned as he rose, and I rushed through the tunnel, not wanting to push my luck.
Before that, I was very happy that all the rippers were close enough to each other. Just in case, I threw two explosive balls and scurried away.
A couple of moments later, two explosions stunned me. I no longer heard the rippers shouting and throwing curses and fireballs at me. But, to my great regret, I could not kill any of them.
It didn’t take long for them to recover, to help their wounded comrades and chase after me. Damn it! I did not expect such agility, it seems I needed to throw five of these balls at once to kill at least one.
Think, think, otherwise they will catch up and kill you. Looking carefully at the map, I decided to use one of the passageways. I will make a small trap.
But no, I would block all my paths for retreat and my chances of survival will rapidly decrease. I relied too much on my trump cards.
It’s easy to understand why lightning did not work effectively, I just need to develop the cave moss gene, but I didn’t understand why the explosive balls performed so poorly.
Could there be such a difference in strength between the ripper for whom one ball was enough and this squad? I thought hard about a lot of options.
It’s impossible to go through those tunnels which I walked with Rald, or they might find the little lads, I couldn’t go into passages either, so there was only one way outrun straight ahead and fast.
Chapter 38
The escape. The Death Herald. The battle.
The rippers turned out to be extremely vicious and refused to give up. The energy clots that whistled past my head annoyed me.
I quickly looked at the map and realized I did not have time to get to the landslide. And I began to get tired and gasp. I immediately thought about improving my lungs. Why haven’t I done this before when I had time?
And now I could not manage to focus on this problem, and my pursuers were getting closer and closer. And then an idea came to me, quite a good one I thought. Well, I had no other.
I ran along the wall, which had a good slope. Hiding behind a stone covered with cracks, I waited for the two-legged.
When they appeared over the ledge, I could not hold back my joy and began throwing balls at them. The first one missed but the second one hit them. The first explosion stirred part of the wall and stones fell on the rippers, and the second ball threw the two-legged in the shining armors away to where the fragments fell.
While they were shouting, I hurried to the side of the collapse, and soon, covering enough distance, I decided to correct one of my mistakes. I threw a hundred points into my lungs.
Your lungs are evolving. Now you have Average Lungs!
Stats: Structure +1, Life +2, Health +30
20 points of experience gained!
Level up! Current Level: 16.
Great, I leveled up as well. I took a deep breath and felt surprisingly well. It is as if I was breathing through a piece of cloth that did not allow me to take in enough air. After taking a few more deep breaths, I ran toward the collapse.
***
Wanderers squad
“That damn beetle!” the leader of the squad was angry. “Damn him for bringing down the wall on us.”
“This is not surprising, Karl,” said the magician in the red robe. “He threw lightning at us, and a couple of grenades or something. Bugs cannot do that, especially not such low-level ones.”
“He spoke to us,” said the girl in white clothes. “It’s amazing. It seemed to me that he did not have bad intentions.”
“Why did he attack then?” asked another knight.
“I was us who tried to kill him first,” the girl protested. “He said something like ‘Hi’.”
“It makes no difference,” the magician waved his hand. “Beetles should not talk, they should die silently.”
“You’re wrong,” the girl put her hands on her belt.
“Shut up, Almyona,” the magician looked angrily at the healer, but she was brave enough to quarrel with this man.
“Don’t shut me up,” the priestess didn’t even think about looking down, continuing to look into the wizard’s eyes angrily. “Or else...”
“What? Do you heal me to death? Better step aside and do not distract me from collecting the ingredients,” said the magician. The girl just sighed and, suppressing her anger, stepped aside and squatted down, putting her arms around her legs.
“Why you are quarreling with her again,” the squad leader approached the magician. “You know how she reacts to such conflicts.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” snapped the magician. “This is all her fault and stop patronizing her.”
“It’s none of your business who I look after,” the knight frowned. “She most likely has some mental trauma, so do not aggravate her. She’s a very good healer, you know that. So, watch your mouth and do not mess with the priestess.”
“Right,” the magician grunted and went to collect the ingredients.
The girl sat silently, lost in her thoughts and drawing some pictures with a pebble. It was so disappointing. This magician was constantly on her case, and the leader did not do anything. She was sick and tired of that.
Enough! It’s settled! Starting tomorrow she will be upgrading alone, without this squad. She didn’t have any friends here anyway, and she was tired of all these... people.
***
Mercenaries squad
“Heck!” the only surviving knight swore.
The demon had to cope with these bugs, but then these two bastards appeared. A strange chameleon beetle, merging with the surroundings and good at causing damage. And a strange necromancer beetle with a staff and at level 77. What was he doing here at all, and where did he come from? Is it some wandering mini-boss? Those rotten creatures and you can do nothing about them.
“Derergon, I see you haven’t met demons before, have you?” asked Mohr.
“No, we haven’t seen such opponents,” the leader of the mercenary squadron confirmed.
“Then stand aside, and when the demon is on its last legs, you send Mulf to finish him off,” said the necromancer, raising his black staff.
The staff lit with bright green flame, and dark energy began spreading along the ground fro
m it like a mist and slowly approached the servant of the underworld, enveloping the surrounding ground.
The mercenaries quickly got out of this field, so the necromancer wouldn’t hurt them by mistake. The Death Herald struck the ground with his staff, and a green flame engulfed the bodies of the defeated enemies.
First, the girl got up, her white clothes stained with blood. She raised her staff and green flame began shining in her eyes. Then the defeated knights and magicians rose up.
“Attack the creature of the underworld, my servants,” Mohr pointed out to the demon.
The zombies moved toward the hell spawning. These zombies were not ordinary corpses, they were controlled by the Death Herald. His skills allowed him to partially preserve the abilities of the undead, so they were much more dangerous than the usual undead.
The knights stood in front, the magicians lined up behind them, with the priestess in the back. The magicians formed fireballs and launched half a dozen at the demon. Powerful explosions stunned those around them and raised a cloud of dust into the air.
“Aha ha ha!” Kargor’s laughter thundered. “Pathetic little beetle! You don’t really think you can defeat a demon with fire?! Ah ha ha!”
“It would have been a nice sight,” the necromancer grinned. “A roasted demon. The whole Infernal Abyss would be amused.”
“You’re so pitiful that I won’t even torture you, I’ll just rip you open with my ax and hang your rotten intestines all over the cave,” growled Kargor the Ferocious.
“You’d better hang yours; you’re full of it,” Mohr sneered again. “Why are you hesitating, are you scared?”
“I will kill you!!!” roared the demon and rushed toward the necromancer.
“I will destroy it,” the zombie girl whispered, but the necromancer blocked her way with his staff.
“It’s too early.”
The Knights attacked the demon, ran towards him, but Kargor struck first. The zombie put up a shield, his death apparently did not diminish his strength, and the demon’s powerful blow could not fold it. The shield bent slightly, but Kargor hesitated and received several strong blows of a double-edged sword from the second zombie knight.
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