I couldn’t help myself anymore, and I vomited to the side of the corridor. It was all too much for me, but I had no time for luxuries such as running away while screaming. Amelia was in danger.

I began feverishly pulling off Amelia’s gear. It was absolutely teeming with the worms on the inside. How did these disgusting things get there?!

After she was fully relieved of her armor, Amelia began coughing more, she was still in bad shape… Why?! What else was there?!

I began going over her body carefully and found out she had small but metallic earrings! They were coated in the worms too, so I had to pull them off.

It was the black stains on the walls! They were remnants of the insects! They… hid inside people’s armor and maybe even fed on the metal pieces!

What crafty… disgusting things. They were like living rust.

I had to step away and take a deep breath.

“Think… think…” I muttered to myself while pacing around Amelia. “Why do they hide inside the armor of people…?” I turned to look at my rapidly waning companion. “What are insects afraid of…?”

I hastily lifted Amelia’s chest-plate and ripped off a part of her cape after pulling on it for what felt like an eternity. The cloth was completely untouched by the insects, just like the pieces of wood all around the dungeon. I used the blood from the finger I bit earlier to draw the sigil of fire on it.

The cloth would surely burn, even if the amount of mana in the material itself was low.

The fire spread fast and a quiet hissing noise in the air was most noticeable. I brought the burning cloth close to Amelia’s nose. I’ve heard insects are extremely sensitive to smoke, so maybe I could smoke them out by having something on fire close to Amelia.

My plan worked significantly better than I expected.

“HACK!! CHAKKK!!” Amelia began coughing violently, as the dark mass of insects began expelling itself out of her nostrils, mouth and ears at an incredible pace.

The cloud of bugs wasn’t outright large, but it was clear enough to see with the naked eye as it fled somewhere deep within the dungeon rapidly.

After the swarm left, Amelia was left pale. Without her armor on, I was able to begin dragging her further back into the dungeon to get her further away from the insects. With the fact, that I was missing an arm came the fact it was extremely hard to pull a grown adult along myself, but I grit my teeth and managed somehow yet again.  

After dragging her for a couple of hundred meters, I was totally exhausted. I was sweating bullets, and for whatever reason, Amelia was not getting any better. She was still pale and twitched around as if she were in pain occasionally.

Why was she not getting better?! Even though she had no more of those vile things in her! Were the bugs poisonous or something?! We were doomed if that was to be the case. We had barely any supplies, not to mention something as fancy as an antidote.

“Amelia…! Please wake up!” I pleaded shakily. The only response I got was my slightly distorted echo within the seemingly endless corridor.

I began looking around her body in a feverish panic, trying to find anything wrong with her that might be the cause of her state.

In that moment, I saw a little shape moving underneath her cheek. Without thinking, I stuffed my fingers into her mouth. A shiver ran down my spine as I caught something writhing… and it was bigger…

Much bigger than the tiny dust swarm.

A giant, disgusting crossbreed of a wasp and a fly covered in dark hairs was writhing and screeching in my hands as I pulled it out. Its six wings were flickering and twitching as it tried to break free.

I slammed it into the flooring and crushed it into a black mush. Although killing the single insect didn’t do any real damage to the colony, it still felt a bit empowering to do so.

It felt as if I was taking revenge for Amelia, so I reveled in rubbing the creature into a mess against the ground, even though I knew my hatred towards it was completely misguided.

Amelia’s breathing calmed down noticeably, and she was gaining some color to her skin surprisingly rapidly. I began going over her body once more carefully, making sure there were no insects left. That final bug must have been poisoning her still, so now that it was gone, Amelia was getting better. Or… so I hoped at least.

My eyelids felt like they were made of lead. I was exhausted in all senses of the word, but I forced myself to stay awake until I knew Amelia was safe.

I think an hour… maybe two went by…

“Y…verna…?”

At this point, I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming her voice or if it was real. I was too tired to really confirm either, and everything slowly went black. The voice of Amelia echoed somewhere far in the distance… slowly growing further and further away.

…

After what felt like a blink of an eye, I woke up to Amelia’s voice. She was panicked… but there was a hint of relief to her shouting. My head ached… or more specifically, my neck ached.

Amelia was providing me with a most gracious lap pillow… but her muscular thighs were bulky enough to keep my head elevated pretty high, so it strained my poor neck as I was out…

“Mmmmghhh…” As I got up, Amelia grabbed my hand while crying uncontrollably. I felt a bit guilty for feeling a sense of relief wash over me even though she was in such distress.

“Blugubh thoob yhoo weer deed…!” She was a mess of snot and tears. It was impossible to discern what she was trying to tell me. One thing was for sure, though! She was happy to see me awake.

“Sorry… sorry… I passed out…” I couldn’t help but feel a bit bad for the knight. After everything that happened to her family, I’m sure she was a bit paranoid about losing everyone even remotely close to her.

After calming her down a bit, I explained the situation to her. The expressions she made as I described everything in detail were quite something.

“W-why did you risk yourself to such an extent for me…?” Amelia spoke after a silence of making grossed out faces at the bug story.

Now, as much as I wanted to be wholesome and tell her about how I considered her something akin to a friend despite the short period of time we knew each other, I knew life wasn’t that rosy for her. Everyone she trusted had recently betrayed her and ruined her life. Out of desperation and desire for revenge, she made an unholy deal with a witch, and even that deal was fake. I felt a bit bad for having to add my own name on the list of people who have lied to her, but in this case, it was for her own good.

I think she asked me about this because she was simply confused. Why would a witch like me put so much effort into saving her, when I could have simply dashed off and survived on my own. What benefit was there to me saving her?

I needed to think like a witch again! A cool… witch-like reason for saving Amelia was needed to calm her nerves a bit.

“Well… I…”

I had to really think this over. What would the awesome witch of my dreams say in a situation like this? Something dark and foreboding, maybe?

“You’re… too valuable an asset to simply waste on something like this.” I stuttered. “Your…hatred is precious to me. Witches hold such negative emotions in high value.” Spewing this cringy eight-grader-level trash hurt my soul.

I gulped afterward, letting my real emotions spill a bit, hoping surely this much was okay.

“I need you. You’re… important to me… a-and my plans! Don’t forget that.”

A moment of total silence followed. Amelia seemed stunned by my words somehow. She seemed far more surprised by my answer than I expected, so I couldn’t help but squirm awkwardly as her wide eyes seemed to be scanning me over.

Her gaze slowly lowered down to her feet, and a subtle, gentle smile slowly spread across her face. I can’t say for sure, but her expression seemed almost… apologetic?

“A-AHEM! Anyway! Shouldn’t we plan our next move a bit? Laying around will only get us starved to death… or worse! Eaten by those creepy crawlies…” I stammered to break the silence.

“Agreed. Did you say they’re afraid of smoke? Maybe we should make a fire out of the excess wood in order to fill the corridor with smoke. That might force the insects to make way for us.”

The plan made sense. I decided to follow Amelia’s lead and began collecting a bunch of wood into a pile a bit deeper into the tunnel.

For whatever reason, the insects seemed to ignore me for the most part. Maybe, because I was also a monster like them? I was able to gather the pile of wood in an area where the air was already a bit dark from the swarm.

I could feel a slight tingling against my skin as the swarm of insects felt as if it was testing my…permeability out. Hopefully, the insects would remain as tiny as they were now, even deeper…

But I already knew they wouldn’t, judging by what I found in Amelia’s mouth earlier.

The fire caught on the dry wood with ease. I used my wounded finger as a makeshift marker to draw the sigil yet again.

With a noticeable hiss, the dark cloud around me dispersed. The smoke began filling the corridor as the fire grew larger by the second. Amelia finally ran over to me, sitting next to the fire while covering her mouth and ears with a cloth.

It was a haunting sight. Looking around, there was a nearly perfect sphere of darkness around us. The insects stayed a good five or so meters away from the fire at all times, but their bloodlust was more than apparent with how they stayed close to us despite the danger.

To my surprise, the smoke did nothing to them. The swarm seemed to pass through it with ease.

“It seems it’s fire that they’re afraid of.” Amelia stated as she threw a burning twig into the swarm ahead of us.

The cloud moved out of the way of the flame in almost perfect unison. Even when the twig was only a meek ember, the rust insects still stayed far away from it.

Only, when the fire was completely gone, did the cloud close in around the stick again. It was a sight filled with both hope and absolute despair. We would be able to traverse through the swarm for as long as we had wood to spare… but if at any point our fire would go out…

I honestly didn’t really even want to imagine it. I didn’t want to imagine Amelia in that state again. I had already seen death… I had…

For some reason, the moment I thought about death, all I could remember was that ghost-like woman descending upon me… I couldn’t let Amelia die. 

I really didn’t want her to ever end up seeing that pale apparition.  

“D-do you think there is any sense in us even trying to go deeper?” I don’t know if I really wanted this thought to be vocalized. Somehow, it simply slipped out.

“What’s this now?” Amelia grinned a bit playfully. “The witch is getting cold feet?”

“I-I just… I'm not sure if I’ll be able to handle seeing you choking in black insect sludge again, mentally…”

Amelia looked at me a bit quizzically. Her puzzled expression softened into a gentle, yet subtle smile once more. “Then let’s get out of this nightmare. Properly this time.”

The paladin’s bravado was somehow reassuring to see, even though I don’t think there was any real logic behind it. She was the one who was in mortal danger only a moment ago.

Seeing her still want to try made me want to try too, so I slowly stood up and grabbed a big piece of burning wood. Amelia did the same.  

“I’ve never heard of anyone surviving a dungeon.” Amelia started. “Wouldn’t this be a good opportunity to do something unprecedented?”

“You know. Sometimes I wonder if you’re just really positive… or a total idiot.” I jabbed back at her.

“Wha! How uncouth!” Amelia laughed.

We steeled our resolve and began walking deeper and deeper into the dungeon. Neither of us even knew if there was an exit to begin with. What if there wasn’t? What if this was all pointless? What if we were both just going to die here?

These thoughts all made sense, but I had to force them back and ignore the warning bells ringing as we stepped deeper into the dark corridor.

And when I say dark. I mean, the swarm got denser.

Like liquid tar, the insects flowed around us. An incessant buzzing noise was now present, and it was full of animalistic and desperate hunger.

Also, the deeper we went, the more I could hear those bizarre whispers from before. Despite the deafening noise, I could somehow understand the proper meaning in that strange intent the dungeon was emanating with.

Feed.

Feed.

Feed.

Transport.

Feed.

Transport.

It wasn’t exactly the words, but more the meaning, that those magical circuits kept injecting into my head.

I understood the feeding part… but what did it all mean by transporting something? I didn’t really have the opportunity to think about it at the moment.

Considering you’ve read this far; I’ll assume you can handle the thought of insects to some extent. Knowing that is quite reassuring to me as the person writing this because the disgusting crawling horrors got bigger. The deeper we went, the larger the freakish flies were.

Now, that we were able to see them properly, I’ll be able to make some assumptions and guesses about their morphology.