A dog-sized snakefly crept to one of the stalagmites in the cave slowly. Its wings were torn off and two legs broken. Passing a weakly flapping ant, it stabbed the mortal foe with a tail-needle. Hearing footsteps, it hurried to turn around but a spearhead hacked into its head mercilessly. With a champ, the blade was pulled then and driven into the ant in the same manner.

[+500 EXP, +100 BP], [+500 EXP, +100 BP]

Alice swung the spear, clearing the tip from yellow blood and walked by. Snakefly with an arrow in it was next on the girl's way, dead already. As far as she was concerned, it was finished off without sharing any exp. Not only me can steal prey... Alice sighed. Looking over the battlefield, the short girl felt a little lost. Mostly though she was simply tired: shooting from a to-grow-into bow turned out to be a good test for her high endurance.

Positively a good test. Some arrows shattered, some arrowheads got chipped, some cracked. Since they'd done their job noticeably better from a high distance, Alice had no issues.

[+400 EXP, +80 BP], [+500 EXP, +100 BP]

Exp: 13,100/14,000

After finishing off another two paralyzed ants, Alice reached the rodent of interest.

[Worker Ant Lvl. 7]

The poor bastard strived to move its legs, yet only haphazard swings were scratching the rocky floor. It rotated orb-eyes at her. Alice stared back at it for a moment, emotionlessly lifted her spear and pierced between the eyes.

[+1,400 EXP, +280 BP]

"Wha-?"

A familiar warm energy flow descended onto her, slipped inside through pores, washed through her skin, muscles and bones. Reacting to it, a hot stream passed from the heart through the veins. The girl winced when it met and then crushed certain points in her organs, which she knew instinctively were especially rebellion against changes. Soon the stream reached her brain. Alice felt hot, then for a moment dizzy when the stream split up into two and entered the eyes.

When the dizziness passed, Alice relaxed since she didn't go blind and, having learned the lesson, read through typical system messages...

> Level up!
> Hunter lvl. 4 -> lvl. 5
> +5 Skill Points
> Attributes being adjusted…
> You receive one hunter template skill point!
> Allocate it to any of your template skills.
> In case of exceeding the MAX level, any manually allocated skill points would be compensated.

> Level up!
> ###hidden### being adjusted...

"Wow." Alice squinted at the system's sudden announcement as if fearing it would disappear. "Skill list!"

Indeed, she could level up any of her skills, even the Observation. Alice smiled, clearly pleased by an unexpected gift, but then noticed in a corner of her eye as one of the half-dead ants lost its status window, obviously returning its soul to the dungeon without presenting her with any last tribute.

Think later, it was half a meal! Her heart bleed. Alice shook off the system's announcement and rushed to the biggest prize of this battle: the boss snakefly and the level 9 worker ant.

Closing in, she timidly slowed down pace. The big boss, even battered, was still intimidating enough. It lifted up its head, that was no different in size from Alice's, and screeched threateningly at the girl. She didn't hear despair, pain or anything in this screech and this pure functionality strangely helped her. Alice brought the spear up and slashed at the gigantic snakefly's neck. Then again.

When the big boss was beheaded,

[+1,000 EXP, +200 BP]

"The fuck? Do you say I have to solo it? You clearly didn't care before."

Alice turned to the last living worker ant and stabbed it.

[+1,800 EXP, +360 BP]

"I don't get... Huh..."

It must be the naming thing. Two words name represents an advanced creature. The snakefly had only level 10 on its side, if a worker ant has the same growth proportions, it would prevail over it nine times out of ten. Logically speaking, my level 10 should give some advantages too, like a class change or at least attributes grow and maybe more free skills.

"It's also a worker, not a soldier... I should assume there would be more mutations."

After Alice judged it seriously, the worker had a stronger carapace comparing to a normal ant plus an aggro gun, but no other physical advantages. Thoughtfully, the girl walked through the battlefield, cutting down every survivor. Seven more ants and two snakefly's worth of points were added to her status box by the end of the slaughter, all fairly high-leveled.

[+6,300 EXP, +1,260 BP]

"Phew." Alice glanced over the cave and didn't notice anything out of place, like a missed status window. The earliest fallen insects were burning in bluish flames, creating a fairly palpable mana flow. "How long to the level 6... sure not that long, right?"

The girl made an anticipating guess and,

"Wait... the eggs will surely hatch soon. Isn't this a nice farming place?"

As soon as this genius idea appeared, Alice couldn't get rid of it anymore. In fact, she stared at eggs with minimum disgust, as it was her ugly precious. Not all, but a few of the biggest were showing signs of larvae moving inside.

But it's problematic.

Stalagmites were five-six meters each and had hundreds of eggs on them without much free surface. Due to the girl having been able to salvage only six usable arrows... the ascension looked promising new experiences in various ways. For now, Alice poked one of the eggs.

Plop.

[+100 EXP]

Wow! It works!

Plop, plop!

[+100 EXP]

Not every time... but if I target maggots as soon as they move...

Why the system didn't show her any windows? Alice theorized that it was because larvae were hidden from sight behind shells. Of course, no battle points since little bastards weren't any kind of threat.

"Status!"

"I am very close to level 6. Clear this place and back to the safe zone," Alice planned first and noticed the important part later. "My perception bumped in some limit. Must be that 'hidden' surprise coming. Dammit!"

The girl clearly remembered how blood-related energy has entered her eyes. As a glaring premise for a perception-related skill as it could be. So when she looked over the snakefly colony with distress, it was for a valid reason:

What if this time I really go blind?

It wasn't an unfounded fear. The control-related aka dexterity skill had left her paralyzed. The girl was seriously contemplating on farming until 100 EXP to level up and just destroying the nests before returning to the safe zone, but the dungeon, or the system, or God himself had other plans. New noise fell onto the girl's ears. It wasn't a noise of hatching eggs, not a noise of survived ants, not even a noise of a level N guardian snakefly ambushing her from a dark corner.

Clatters of dozens of pointy legs spooked Alice.

The tunnel!

Seconds later centipedes poured from the only hole in the walls, coming to ruin their old enemies' nest. Seemed the snakeflies had been doomed from the very beginning...