Chapter 3

I didn’t know where the tunnel was leading, but I didn’t really care. As long as it took me farther away from the nest, I was happy. I continued to scurry down the tunnel for a few more minutes. Nothing changed around me, and nothing of note occurred, so after some time, my thoughts began to wander.

By that point, I had fully accepted this new reality of being some kind of alien bug, so I no longer dwelled on that. Instead, I wondered where I was, what this place was, and what was going on around me. It definitely seemed to be some kind of facility or complex, but what purpose it served and where it was located, I had no clue.

One thing was for sure, though: it was definitely a much more technologically advanced world than the one I had come from. The energy-based weapons those human beings, who looked more like elves, were armed with were clear proof of that.

I didn’t have much information about the world around me to reflect on, so naturally my thoughts soon shifted toward myself. Or more accurately, to the system I seemed to possess. Back in the Queen’s nest, I had glimpsed it, but I hadn’t had an opportunity to examine it more closely.

So I decided to do it right now. I slowed down and then issued a mental command to display my status screen. It seemed it didn’t matter what particular words I used, status screen, characteristics, stats, or something along those lines, the system understood me perfectly and showed me what I wanted.

The moment I mentally issued the command, the familiar menu appeared before my view. I came to a full stop to examine it more closely.

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Basic Identity  

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Name: Nathan Morgan  

Species: Xmorph  

Evolution Stage I: “Lesser Form”  

Level: 1  

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XP: 0 / 300  

HP: 100 / 100  

MP: 89 / 100  

CP: 0 

SP: 0 

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Damage Output  

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Bite: 5  

Stab: 15  

Slash: 10  

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Abilities: None  

Skills: Night Vision

Traits: Fear of Fire  

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I quickly reviewed the information. While it was mostly the same as before, a couple of details immediately stood out. First, Night Vision, which I had acquired earlier, was now listed in the Skills section. As I focused on it, to my surprise, an additional piece of information popped into view.

Night Vision (Common): It allows you to see better in total darkness. The more advanced the skill, the better you see.

Well, the name of the skill was self-explanatory, so the brief description didn’t really say anything new and wasn’t really needed. I wondered how many rarities a skill could have. Could a skill be progressed from one rarity level to a higher one, and if so, what advantages would that bring?

I also noticed that the obnoxious Fear of Fire trait was now listed in the Traits section. It acted like a debuff and was really annoying. I definitely didn’t appreciate it being able to hijack control of my own body. I summoned the trait’s description.

Fear of Fire: This trait controls your body every time there is fire near you, especially when the fire is chaotic, acts unpredictably, or spreads very fast. Once Fear of Fire takes control of your body, it makes you run in a random direction away from the source of the fire. The duration of the effect can be anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on how powerful the fire is or how much distance is put between you and it.

Yeah, no. Thanks, but no thanks. I sure needed to find a way to get rid of this trait somehow, but how to do that, I didn’t know yet. I certainly hoped there was a way to remove negative effects like this one. Sure, it had helped me break free from the Queen’s mental grasp, but now that I was free, I didn’t need it anymore. In some other situation, it could put me at a great disadvantage.

I also noticed that unlike Night Vision, Fear of Fire didn’t have a rarity level. Did that mean that, unlike skills, traits couldn’t be progressed? Or was that the case only with this particular trait?

The second new detail I saw in the Basic Identity menu was that my MP had gone down by 11 points. What was that about? What did that even mean? How could that happen, and what would happen if it reached zero?

I focused on the Basic Identity menu. XP likely stood for experience, HP for health points or hit points, MP probably for mana points, and SP for skill points. As for CP, I wasn’t sure what it could be.

I requested more information about it all. I hoped for some kind of tutorial to initiate and explain everything to me, but to my disappointment, it didn’t happen. Still, the menu expanded a little, clarifying a few things.

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Experience Points: 0 / 300  

Health Points: 100 / 100  

Mana Points: 89 / 100  

Command Points: 0  

Stat Points: 0

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The other lines stayed the same, so I didn’t pay them much attention, focusing only on the ones that had been spelled out from their abbreviations.

Sure enough, I saw that I had gotten most of it right. As for CP, it turned out to be Command Points. I still wasn’t sure what that meant, though. Could it be that I would be able to command my own group of creatures the way the Queen did? That was probably it.

As for my MP, I still had no idea why it had gone down. Shouldn’t it decrease only when a specific magical spell was used? At least, that was how things usually worked in fantasy role-playing games. Well, I figured I would find out what was going on with my MP eventually.

For now, I turned my attention to my other stats. I had a feeling there were more screens I could check, and when I issued a mental command to display them, it actually worked. I examined the new tabs one by one.

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Attributes  

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Body: 0

Mind: 0

Magick: 0

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Yeah, I definitely had attributes I could improve. I had three of them, but when I tried to summon additional information about each one, nothing happened. Well, it seemed I was going to have to learn what each of them was for and how they affected me on my own once I got the opportunity to increase their values.

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Inventory  

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Biomatter: 0 / 100  

Active Fragments: 0 / 1  

Stored Fragments: 0 / 3  

Core Fragments: 0 / 1  

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Apparently, I had some internal inventory where I could store… something. Biomatter was some kind of resource or ingredient, but as for fragments, I had no idea what those were, how to get them, or what I needed them for. Since the System didn’t explain anything to me, I figured I would have to learn everything on my own.

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Evolution Requirements  

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Level 5 (Current: 1)  

Biomatter: 0 / 100  

Core Genetic Fragments: 0 / 1  

Genetic Fragments: 0 / 2  

Genome Stability: above 60% (Current: no data)  

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That was interesting indeed! So I had to reach level 5, collect some biomatter, and gather something called genetic fragments in order to evolve.

To level up, I needed to gain experience points. That was the easiest part to understand. I would probably need to defeat some enemies, which was a scary thought, considering I had no idea how to fight in my current form.

But on the other hand, considering everything worked like a regular role-playing game for me, whatever enemies I encountered first should be defeatable in my current form. I also had a feeling that biomatter was obtained from enemies I defeated.

So the only thing I needed to figure out was what those genetic fragments were and how to get them. Could they also be obtained from fallen enemies? As for the Genome Stability line, I had a feeling that whatever it meant would become apparent after the rest of the requirements were dealt with.

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Nest Status  

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No Nest Detected  

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It was the last element in my stats, and it made me ponder. Apparently, I could build a nest of my own, huh? The nest I had escaped from several minutes earlier wasn’t listed in the Nest Status, which meant one of two things: either it had been destroyed or it wasn’t considered mine. Either option could be the case. But I definitely felt that in order for information about a nest to appear there, it would have to be my own nest, one I constructed myself.

So yeah, that was definitely interesting. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of nest I could build, what it would look like, how it would function, and so on. Considering I had a stat called Command Points, it definitely suggested I could develop my own army of creatures that would obey me. It was interesting indeed.

But before I could get to any of that, I obviously needed to gain experience and level up. Also, before being able to build a nest, perhaps I also first needed to satisfy the requirements for evolving into the next form, which I still wasn’t sure how to accomplish. I could tell there was a lot to learn, but I was strangely excited about it all. I couldn’t wait to dive into all that.

This new life as an alien bug no longer seemed as bad as it had before. If anything, it was interesting to think about where it would ultimately lead me and what I would be able to achieve as an entirely new species. Being a mouse-sized bug was frustrating and kind of scary, but I’d seen how large the other creatures in the Queen’s nest had been, so I assumed that with every cycle of evolution, I would become bigger, scarier, and stronger.

Eager to proceed, I dismissed the status screen and continued to scurry down the tunnel.

At some point, for no particular reason, I decided to check the Basic Identity menu once more. When I did, I saw no changes other than one small detail. At some point, my MP had gone down by two points, from 89 to 87.

That was when I realized something. My body must be operating on mana. It gave me energy, and every time I moved or performed effort-requiring motions, mana was consumed.

I remembered how hard I had tried to get myself free when I got stuck between two slats in the air vent cover. I had exerted a lot of effort, and it must have consumed several points of my mana reserves.

And now, as I was simply moving down the tunnel, my mana was also gradually being consumed, albeit at a much slower rate. But if I accelerated, my body would consume mana at a much greater rate, of course.

Perhaps even when I was completely motionless, my body still consumed mana. This energy was sustaining my life force, and without it, I wouldn’t be able to function at all. Perhaps I could even die. So I needed to avoid letting my MP drop all the way to zero.

Of course, all of this begged a question. How could I replenish my mana reserves?

I thought about it for a moment, but no answer came to mind. Apparently, my mana wasn’t replenishing on its own like it usually did in role-playing games. Instead, as time passed, my MP kept going down. Perhaps I could absorb mana from the air? Could it be as simple as that?

I tried doing it with a mental command, but nothing happened. I tried the same thing in different ways, issuing slightly varied mental commands, but the result was the same: nothing.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that absorbing mana from the air wasn’t possible. Which wasn’t all that surprising. After all, such a solution would have been way too easy. Perhaps I first needed to gain a special skill to be able to absorb mana from the air.

So the question remained: how the hell was I supposed to replenish my mana reserves? Was there a way to do so without a special skill? Or maybe there were some mana items? However mana was replenished, one thing was for sure: I needed to solve this ASAP.

I continued to scurry down the vent duct, my sharpened, pointed legs clicking and clacking against the metal floor beneath me.

At some point, I even decided to slow down a little in order to avoid consuming mana at an accelerated rate. Sure, I wanted to get as far away from the nest as possible, and quickly at that, but I felt like I had already put a considerable distance between myself and the nest, so there probably was no reason to keep moving so fast anymore.

It had been a little while since I had last heard the Queen’s voice in my head. If she was still alive, she would likely have already tried to contact me again and make me go back to the nest. Since that hadn’t happened yet, it was safe to assume she was dead. The humans must have wiped out the infestation and killed all the bugs within the nest as they had intended.

At least I couldn’t think of another reason why the Queen hadn’t contacted me yet. At the back of my mind, however, lingered the thought that perhaps she had simply decided to let me go because I was so small and basically useless. But on the other hand, that hadn’t prevented her from sending me into battle earlier, had it?

Pushing her out of my mind, I returned to the more important subject, which was how to replenish my mana reserves. As I quickly checked my current MP, I saw to my displeasure that it had dropped to 85. That was bad. I really needed to find a way to replenish my mana.

I continued moving down the tunnel, trying to solve this dilemma, and after some time, I noticed something new. Up ahead, I saw a fork in the tunnel. The main tunnel continued straight ahead, but there was an adjoining one that branched off to the right. I figured the right-hand passage would lead to another air vent cover through which I could emerge back into the enormous corridor intended for giant humans.

As I reached the junction and peered into the right-hand tunnel, I saw that I had indeed been right. There was no reason to go into the human-sized corridor, but I decided to enter the tunnel anyway simply to check what was going on outside. I turned and scurried toward the air vent cover. I peered through the bars.

Outside, there was also a T-shaped intersection. I also spotted huge metal doors of futuristic design. Each was closed. Embedded into the wall next to each door was what looked like a control console.

I observed the human-sized corridor for a few seconds, but nothing else of note caught my eye. There were no humans outside, and nothing was happening. But the alert klaxons were still blaring, and the area was still bathed in red emergency lighting.

I turned, went back to the junction, and continued down the vent duct, moving in the same direction as before. For the next several minutes, I kept scurrying onward. The clicking sounds of my footsteps were the only sound in the vent duct.

At some point, I reached another intersection. Unlike the previous one, this was a four-way junction. I stopped at the center to take a look around. The left-hand and forward tunnels led into darkness. Since I could see only a few feet around me in the dark, I couldn’t tell where those two tunnels led. I guessed that the tunnel ahead continued to stretch along the main corridor. The left-hand one led somewhere deeper into the walls of the facility. Likely, it led to another huge corridor intended for humans.

The right-hand passage, however, led to another air vent cover. This time, I didn’t go there to check what was happening outside. But the reason wasn’t a lack of curiosity. No, the main reason was more immediate. From the tunnel in front of me, I could hear sounds coming. And they were not unlike the clicking footsteps my own legs produced when I moved.

I waited, staring into the darkness ahead. The footsteps were getting closer and closer, and a few seconds later, a creature emerged from the darkness. It came to a stop about three feet from me, as if sizing me up.

The creature was half my size. It had four segmented legs and two long antennae that constantly moved in front of its head. Its body was covered in chitin plates. I also couldn’t help but notice that the creature’s legs ended in sharp, curved claws and that its mouth held two large fangs.

I tried giving a mental command to appraise the creature, and to my pleasure, a piece of information popped into view.

Name: Gray Roach

Level: 1

HP: 30 / 30

Obviously, it was an enemy, and that made I nervous. How exactly was I supposed to fight? What tactic should I employ? If the roach attacked, and I saw no reason why it wouldn’t, what should I do? How was I supposed to defend myself? How was I even supposed to attack my opponent?

This was going to be my very first fight as an alien bug, and it made me nervous. Before I could calm down and organize my thoughts, the gray roach lunged at me.