Ank

Once again with an improvised bag full of food, water, and a few useful things, my sister and I parted from the retired adventurer’s house. This time, however, I did put our intentions forward:

“Thank you for taking care of us until now. But, we will be going. We want to reach an Adventurer’s Guild building, enlist, and get stronger, like… like you.”

“Oh, my!”, the older woman blushed, holding both her cheeks. “I’m not that strong!”

“So, yeah: thank you. And, goodbye”, my sister added.

Seemly not caring, the retired adventurer waved at us, smiling, and said while we dived back into the jungle once again:

“Take care~ Don’t forget to drink water! Oh, and don’t go after monsters too strong okay? Even I can’t bring people from the dead!”

Seriously, did she even listened to us?

This time, we were much stronger than before, at level 4; most common people reach their height at level 40 before old age-related debuffs start to send them levels back, so we had already walked 1/10 of this path in such a short amount of time. Plus, then we were equipped with better items; Hunah managed o fish from the trash we looted leather, for both of us, gloves and boots, a cape for each, and even a pair of magical items (her labret that gave +1 of magical resistance, and a bone ring for me, that gave +1 to physical damage resistance); so even our defense having skyrocketed, these items giving [+10 Resistance] to me, and [+10.75] resistance to Hunah (the bonus from items didn’t increase the HP of the user, but did diminish the amount of damage suffered).

We were not coming back this time.

To advance inside the jungle with every aspect of our beings hundreds of percent improved was a completely different experience. For example: we had just detected [Challachaki] trails around us way before they had any chance to surprise us, like those carnivorous birds did before.

My sister and I nodded to one another and proceeded to walk with even more care, trying to be as silent as possible, following the footprints and broken branches; I doubt that killing this group would give as a significant power boost as last time, and we wouldn’t be able to reach the highest levels before entering the adventurer’s guild anyway, but EXP was EXP.

Still… that was a little bothersome; I still wasn’t able to send my summons too far away from me, but I asked myself if, in the future, I could send them into the jungle, and receive [Experience Points] passively?

“Baba-baba, laba-daba”, my sister and I heard the little monsters before seeing them.

There was a slope just ahead, and from behind some bushes, we saw the little monsters just beneath us, walking down a path in a line, the sole magic-user leading other 6 of them, all averaging in [level: 5] like before. They were carrying the corpse of a monkey, and the noise came from a pair of the creatures fighting over a handful of the animal’s teeth.

“I go after the mage, you after the blowgun one”, I whispered to my sister, and she nodded.

We were about to jump on the monster group, when the magic-user [Challachaki] stopped, and lift his small staff tipped with a bone dagger.

Fuck, had we been noticed?

I didn’t seem like so: the little creature’s leader turned in the direction precisely opposed from the one my sister and I were standing. And it looked nervous.

A second later, I started to listen to the same thing as the bunch down there: a buzz. And it was getting louder.

“Wada-wada! Bada-laba!”, the magic-user [Challachaki] shouted orders, agitated, and his subordinates let the monkey corpse fall on the ground, and reached for their small simple weapons, looking the way their leader was pointing.

Then, the responsible for the buzz showed up. Many dozens of them:

[Species: Agnathus Creature, Level: 1]

The round blackish-green insects couldn’t be bigger than about 20 cm in height and length, and they were weaker than even the [Chullachakis], but there were simply too many of them; they easily numbered somewhere around 100, if I had to guess.

What my sister and I observed from our hiding spot was a massacre.

The [Chullachaki] warriors swung their small wooden clubs and bone spears only once, and though each killed one of the insect monsters, they were quickly overwhelmed by their enemies numbers, the wave of smaller monsters climbing their bodies and biting them all over with sharp pincers; cutting tendons and falling the humanoid monsters, invading their screaming mouths and widened eyes.

The blowgun [Chullachaki] abandoned its weapon and ran away. Or tried, at least, when some of the insects opened transparent wings and quickly flew towards him, and covered every centimeter of the little monster’s body eating away their prey’s flesh in seconds, quickly turning its hands into bones similar to the ones we found before.

Being the furthest from the insect monsters wave, the little magic user humanoid tried to scare them by putting on the same illusion of (something that barely looked like) a person holding a snake, but the insects seemed to have no fear, and he was immediately felled, its small fingers being completely torn off his hands by ten sharp pincers-mouths, and his throat cut open similarly.

“…What the fuck”, I whispered, mouth opened.

“A- Are those things the ‘kings’ of this layer?”, my sister asked, as confused as me; but the answer was clear, there wasn’t a single thing around that could defeat that horde of insects.

“I thought it would be something like, I don’t know, a mixture of those killing birds and the hoofed little men.”

“I know, right?”

Needless to say, we were retreating from our position at every word spoken.

Apparently those [Level: 3] little fuckers must have invested all their points in [Perception], however, for it didn’t take long before about 20 of them fell in complete silence, and started to ignore the succulent corpses that should be distracting them at the moment.

Obviously, they flew straight uphill and for my sister and I.

“Shit; [Summon: Hesperonychus]”, I called forth 2 of the carnivorous birds at once, and they burned into existence in a green flame, magic.

“I don’t know, [Hit] or something”, my sister said by my side, and bashed her strengthened improvised mace at the first flying insect that came for us, exploding the creature like a balloon filled with disgusting green stuff.

My summons didn’t stay behind, and easily chewed and gobbled down another two of the insect monsters.

57 more to go…

The remaining of the 20 that came for us reached their targets, and started to bit all over our bodies; I swung my own mace against one of the monsters, but I didn't manage to kill it instantly, and three more landed on the arm holding the weapon, and opened a few red gushes in it.

I plucked one with my free hand and threw it against a tree, damaging but not killing it, bit and chewed another one in half, and swung my mace again, hitting an enemy critically, exploding it just like Hunah was doing repeatedly. My summons were also killing the little insect monsters easily, but still too slowly, each of the carnivorous birds chewing at one insect every 10 seconds or so.

[HP: 35/40

SP: 20/25]

Just like the monsters downhill, we were being quickly overwhelmed; and this with only a fraction of the heard of insects that was coming for us. As soon as the [Chullachaki] snack of the rest ended, we also would be ended, and I would fall first, as soon as my [Stamina Points] came to 0, and I became unable to defend myself.

[HP: 30/40

SP: 15/20]

At some point, the insects had eaten through my gloves, and pulled my nails from my fingers, and everywhere where my flesh was left exposed, the skin had been bitten off and revealed the muscles beneath.

[HP: 25/40

SP: 10/20]

Even if the blowgun [Chullachaki] made it clear that running away wasn’t the answer, my sister and I tried to do it anyway, but it seemed more and more insects were coming from the corpses slowly turned skeletons downhill, buzzing and eating at us, disorientating.

“Ank, you have to run!”, Hunah screamed, crushing the little monsters with her free hand, smashing more with her mace, and even biting into some extra. “Because of my new [passive skill] and higher [SP] I can stand a little longer; I’ll serve as a distraction!”

“No!”, blood dripping from a dozen wounds, I crushed the wings of another monster, and stood by my sister’s side. What would even be the point if I left her to die after everything?

Both my summons smashed a couple of insects under their clawed feet, and crushed two more between their teeth, but finally collapsed, both covered in tens of [Agnathus Creatures]

[Level up!]

One level more? Big shit. If I had gained two more [levels], I’d be able to summon one more [Hesperonychus], and this may have been meaningfu-

“Wait!”, hand extended, I was about to summon another pair of the carnivorous birds, when it came to me; Hunha’s new [skill], my [levels] the hint; and I quickly changed the spell: “[Make Undead]!”

With about twenty [Agnathus Creatures] corpses surrounding us, I didn’t even need to look for a target:

[“Make Undead Failed”!]

[“Make Undead” succeeded! Agnathus Creatures, Level: 1, made undead!]

[“Make Undead” succeeded! Agnathus Creatures, Level: 1, made undead!]

[“Make Undead Failed”!]

[“Make Undead” succeeded! Agnathus Creatures, Level: 1, made undead!]

[“Make Undead Failed”!]

[“Make Undead Failed”!]

[“Make Undead” succeeded! Agnathus Creatures, Level: 1, made undead!]

[“Make Undead Failed”!]

[“Make Undead” succeeded! Agnathus Creatures, Level: 1, made undead!]

And, just like this, our forces had more than tripled.

With five knew [HP] bars under my sister’s in the [Party], each new insect was able to stop only another one of the enemies, however, so the table hadn’t toppled just yet. Yet.

With Hunah killing the little incoming monsters nonstop, I could see my EXP bar quickly filling up; even if those creatures were just [level: 1] and barely gave any [Experience], there were just so many of them that it didn’t matter at all:

[Level up!]

“[Make Undead]!”, I added one new summon to the army, and filled up the position of the fallen ones, each taking one enemy down, or at least stunning it before dying themselves every time.

The [Agnathus Creatures]’ snack was ending quicker, and more and more came flying towards us, waves of tens of head-sized fearless insect monsters chipping away at our health and stamina points, but also bringing in more exp, and consequently allowing me to make even more undead.

It was attrition warfare, and it wouldn’t end until one side was completely decimated.