Chapter 4

The roach opened its mouth wide with the clear intent to drive its two fangs into my flesh. I darted to the side just in time, and my smaller opponent’s jaws snapped shut on empty air.

Undeterred, the roach spun toward me and charged again. I darted out of the way, once again avoiding being bitten. The vent duct had enough room to maneuver, and the four-way intersection where the fight was taking place felt even more spacious thanks to the tunnels branching off from it.

The roach attempted to sink its fangs into my body once more but missed again thanks to me reacting just in time. My small body was surprisingly agile, allowing me to avoid my foe’s attacks without much trouble.

I no longer felt as terrified as I was at the beginning of the fight. Also, my opponent was half my size, so my chances of emerging victorious should be pretty good. The roach obviously wasn’t going to leave me alone, so it was time to fight back.

Just as the roach turned toward me for another lunge, I prepared to counterattack. While the roach was smaller, it didn’t discourage it in the slightest. Its two glowering red eyes stared right at me menacingly as the creature charged once more.

I waited until the last possible moment and then darted aside. This time, however, I didn’t try to get far from my opponent. Instead, I sidestepped just enough to let my foe pass without bumping into me. Then I twisted as fast as I could toward my opponent and sank my own two fangs into its flesh.

It was a natural impulse. I didn’t even think about how exactly I was going to attack. Instead, the thought of using my fangs came naturally to me, as if I had been using them in battle all my life.

I felt the tips of my fangs pierce the roach’s chitin exterior without much trouble and sink into the soft flesh within. Just as it happened, a system notification flashed before my eyes.

You have hit [Roach Gray Lv. 1] for 5 points of Bite damage.

The roach twisted and squirmed, scurrying away from me and making pathetic sounds that resembled a blend of squeaking and hissing. My opponent didn’t like getting bitten. It didn’t like it at all.

Well, you started it, I thought with satisfaction.

The roach skittered two or three inches into the tunnel it had come from, moving away from me. For a moment, it looked like the creature was going to flee, and I prepared to chase it.

However, the roach then skidded to a halt and turned to face me again. The small creature was now half-hidden by the darkness of the tunnel, but its two evil red eyes were clearly visible.

The roach didn’t immediately charge at me. Instead, it just stood there, waiting. It definitely looked like now that it knew its opponent was willing to fight back, it wasn’t as eager to charge headfirst as it had been before.

But it didn’t seem eager to flee, either. As I summoned my foe’s stats again, I saw that its health bar had gotten a bit shorter.

Name: Roach Gray  

Level: 1  

HP: 25 / 30

While successfully dealing damage to my foe felt encouraging, I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that I had only dealt five points of damage. My fangs didn’t seem particularly powerful.

That was when I remembered something. In the Basic Identity menu, there were three lines depicting various types of damage I could deal to my enemies. Seeing as the roach wasn’t about to charge, I summoned the status screen and glanced at the three lines that interested me.

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Bite: 5

Stab: 15

Slash: 10

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Right. Bite was my weakest attack. No wonder I hadn’t dealt much damage to the roach. The Stab damage was the most powerful, which was understandable. After all, my legs were tapered to a point and quite long, so I definitely could deal quite a lot of damage with them.

The Slash damage line made me wonder. How exactly could I deal slash damage? As I lowered my gaze to look more closely at one of my front legs, I saw that its inner side was quite sharp, like the edge of a blade. I only then became aware of that.

That was actually pretty cool. I definitely could use my legs not only for stabbing but for slashing too, using them like blades.

The roach charged at me once again, snapping me back to reality. Either the roach was more determined now or I had grown overconfident due to my last successful attack, but whatever the case, this time I wasn’t able to dodge my opponent’s attack in time. I felt a pang of sharp pain as the roach’s fangs sank deep into my side.

You have been hit for 10 points of damage.

I screamed in pain, or at least tried to, but the sound that came from my mouth resembled something between a hiss and a squeak. I tried to ignore the pain and counterattacked, trying to bite my foe, but it managed to slip past me this time unscathed.

In retrospect, I should have used my legs to deal either stabbing or slashing damage, but some sort of instinct seemed to have kicked in, causing me to use my fangs instead. It definitely hadn’t been a very good move. After all, not only did my fangs deal the least damage, but their range was far inferior to that of my legs.

Well, I wouldn’t make this mistake next time.

The roach stopped a couple of inches away from me, staring at me with its evil red eyes.

Gloat while you can, I thought.

I didn’t move from the spot, staring back at my smaller opponent. I had a feeling it would charge at me again, so I simply waited. A moment later, the roach indeed lurched at me again, and this time, I was ready.

Or so I thought. The little slippery critter once again managed to dig its fangs into my side, piercing my chitin exterior.

You have been hit for 12 points of damage.

This time, the roach managed to inflict additional damage, tearing a piece of chitin from my body. Immediately, another system notification flashed across my vision.

You have received Mana Bleeding (Mild): your MP will be decreasing for some time.

While I couldn’t see it, I could tell the roach’s savage attack had left a torn wound on my side, which was leaking something vital from my body. Mana. Considering this magical energy was essential to my survival, it was really bad news.

As if encouraged by its successful attack, the roach immediately lurched at me again, eager to follow up the previous hit with another one before its opponent could recover. Unfortunately for the roach, I was furious and eager to repay my opponent. This time, I intentionally allowed my foe to bite me again.

You have been hit for 10 points of damage.

The roach immediately tried to retreat to avoid retaliation. However, this was exactly what I had been waiting for. As expected, the small beast tried to leap back out of reach. As it began to pull away, I stabbed at the smaller opponent from above with one of my legs.

The sharp tip slammed into the chitin exterior, pierced all the way through the roach’s body, and emerged from the bottom to stab into the metal floor beneath, effectively pinning the roach in place.

You have hit [Roach Gray Lv. 1] for 15 points of Stab damage.

The roach hissed in pain and jerked its body from side to side, but being weaker than me, no matter how hard it tried, it just couldn’t get free. I yanked my leg from the roach’s body, but before it could get away, I immediately slashed at it with another, carving a long furrow into its flesh.

You have hit [Roach Gray Lv. 1] for 10 points of Slash damage.

The roach’s body jerked, then collapsed onto the metal floor and went still, greenish ichor seeping from its wounds.

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Enemy Killed. +100 XP

XP: 100 / 300

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My very first opponent had been defeated. That felt amazing. Sure, my foe was smaller and weaker, but it was vicious and had managed to deal some damage to me, so killing such an enemy felt really good.

I quickly checked some of my stats.

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XP: 100 / 300

HP: 68 / 100

MP: 57 / 100

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My health and mana didn’t look so good. The [Mana Bleeding (Mild)] debuff had already stopped, which was fortunate, but I had lost nearly half of my total MP. I really needed to find a way to replenish it and a way to heal myself too.

However, before I could give it more thought, I heard a menacing hiss from up ahead. I looked that way and saw two glowing eyes as another level 1 roach emerged from the darkness.

Immediately, another similar hiss came from the tunnel on my left as another similar creature emerged from the shadows. Two more enemies to defeat. Great.

Just then, I heard the clicking of claws against metal above me. Surprised, I looked up and saw another tunnel right above me, stretching up into the darkness. Until then, I hadn’t even been aware of that tunnel at all. And sure enough, yet another level 1 roach was scurrying down the tunnel toward me.

I had defeated one roach only to be faced by three more. I was in deep trouble now. I was far from being in the best shape to get into another fight so soon after the previous one. But if I chose to run, then where to?

To my right was a tunnel that led to the air vent cover. It was essentially a dead end. And from the tunnels that led straight ahead and to the left, two roaches were approaching. Getting past them without being injured wouldn’t be possible.

The same held true for the vertical tunnel above me. Besides, I didn’t even know yet if I could stick to vertical surfaces like the roaches. So my only option was to retreat to the tunnel behind me.

But getting closer to the nest was far from what I wanted. If I got closer to the nest, I might come within the Queen’s mental reach, and she would be able to control my actions once more.

But what choice did I have? Getting into a fight with three more roaches didn’t seem like a good idea. Getting back likely wasn’t a good one either. So what should I do? Flee or fight?

There was no time for lengthy consideration. Just as the roach before me lurched toward me, I made a decision.

Two of the roaches, the ones in front and to the left of me, attacked at the same time, but by darting to the right, I managed to avoid being bitten by either of them. The roach that came from the tunnel above dropped to the floor next to the other two creatures.

The third roach reached the center of the intersection at the same time, and as a result, all three of them momentarily jammed themselves together. I immediately took advantage of their predicament.

I leaped at the closest insect and, before it could do anything, rose on my hind legs, lifting my front legs and then immediately bringing them down, stabbing deep into the roach’s body.

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You have hit [Roach Gray Lv. 1] for 15 points of Stab damage. (X2)  

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Enemy Killed. +100 XP  

XP: 200 / 300  

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That was awesome. I managed to kill an enemy in less than a second. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what to do about the other two foes. I simply hadn’t planned that far ahead.

It took me a moment to wrench my front legs free from the dead body. I had to pull them out one at a time to get proper leverage.

By the time I got them loose, the other two nasty creatures had already dashed around the body of the fallen insect and lurched at me from different directions.

I tried to lurch back, but the smaller creatures were faster. They buried their teeth in my sides, eliciting a hiss of pain from me.

You have been hit for 10 points of damage. (X2)

This was bad. Even without checking my HP, I knew it had dropped to 48. One of the roaches let go of me while the other kept its teeth buried in my flesh.

Suddenly, it jerked its head back, tearing a piece of flesh from my body, dealing 2 additional points of damage and inflicting [Mana Bleeding (Mild)].

This was  bad. Really, really bad. I needed to try to run away from them, but I was starting to panic and couldn’t think straight. So instead of turning tail, I turned toward the roach that had just torn a chunk of flesh from me and attacked it with raw fury.

You have hit [Roach Gray Lv. 1] for 10 points of Slash damage.

I immediately slashed at my foe again, dealing another 10 points of damage to it. Just then, the other roach attacked me from behind, sinking its teeth into my rear. Pain and panic caused me to lose track of my HP. I tried to remember how many hit points I still had. Thirty-something, maybe?

It was still more than the roach before me had, which had only 10 HP left. Likely because of that, the injured roach tried to get away. However, I wasn’t willing to let it go. If I was going to die in this fight, I wanted to take at least one more roach to the grave with me.

So as the insect turned away from me, I slashed at it once more, finally finishing the nasty creature off. Immediately after that, several system notifications momentarily flooded my sight.

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Enemy Killed. +100 XP  

XP: 300 / 300  

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Level up. 1 → 2  

+1 SP  

XP: 0 / 600  

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You have received Battle Rage: When killing an enemy while your HP is low, you can receive a temporary buff called Battle Rage. It increases your attack speed, movement speed, and the damage you deal while making your armor more damage-resistant. The effect lasts for only a short duration, and you can receive this buff only twice a day. Even when Battle Rage is active, your mana depletes at a regular rate.  

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As I wheeled toward the last remaining enemy, I immediately noticed that my movement had definitely become faster. Encouraged by this, I lurched toward the enemy and lashed out at it with one of my front legs. The razor-sharp edge of my forelimb cut deep into the insect’s body.

You have hit [Roach Gray Lv. 1] for 20 points of Slash damage: 10 points of regular damage plus 10 points of Battle Rage damage.

So the regular damage was now doubled, which was great. I didn’t know how long the effect would last, so I knew I needed to finish the roach before it ended. Luckily, the roach had only 10 HP left, so it shouldn’t take much effort to finish the disgusting insect off.

I thought the roach might try to retreat now that I was stronger than before, but it didn’t. It lurched at me in a clear attempt to bury its teeth in my flesh, but I dashed out of the way with plenty of time to spare thanks to [Battle Rage].

Even before the roach could turn toward me again, I was already facing it, swinging one foreleg at it. The razor-sharp edge carved another long furrow into its body, causing green ichor to seep out. The roach’s body convulsed once, then collapsed to the floor and went still.

Enemy Killed. +50 XP

XP: 50 / 600

I quickly scanned the area for more enemies. If more roaches were to emerge from the darkness, I would rather deal with them immediately while [Battle Rage] was still active.

I peered into one tunnel for a few seconds before turning my attention to another. I didn’t forget to check the vertical one above me as well. Just to be safe, I also turned and looked into the darkness of the tunnel I had come from.

However, none of the tunnels produced more enemies. There was no movement, no skittering. So at least for now, the battle seemed to be finally over. I could now take a breather. A moment later, [Battle Rage] wore off.