Chapter 15 – Ants.

‘That’s better… Now what should I do?’

Rusty had expended a large amount of bronze to restore the rest of his body to its original shape. After crawling through the initial hole, it gradually expanded enough for him to walk on both his metallic legs. The entire place felt somewhat peculiar as if still under the lingering influence of the dungeon but not entirely so.

While he was falling down the large hole, he also heard the voice screaming at him before suddenly going silent. It was as if something had severed or blocked the connection he previously had. However, this was still similar to him going down to the second floor where the connection was lessened as well. Once here he also noticed a new peculiarity.

‘If that thing tried to eat me, I should probably assume that those aren’t friends either…’

There were other monsters down here, ones that differed from the ones on the first and second floors. They didn’t have the usual humanoid shape but were more similar to the smaller insects he dispatched for one experience point each. The area here had become dimly lit thanks to strange glowing insects sticking to the walls. This let him examine the insectoid monster in more detail.

The first thing that caught his metallic eyes was the creature’s head. It had two large antennae that were constantly twitching. It had a set of mandibles that opened up the moment he was spotted. Its size wasn’t that large as it reached up to about his knee but it was also somewhat lengthy. The monster had two other main parts besides its head and was somewhat similar to the monstrosity that had almost eaten him. However, it has one less set of shorter legs, not as many eyes and its coloring was dark brownish.

‘Is it charging?’

Rusty had been able to reform his body and blade with the help of his leftover bronze. His resources were running low and he was down to two more bronze ingots. To his knowledge, there was no bronze to be gained here so he couldn’t let himself be damaged anymore. This large ant monster didn’t seem to be a friend like the skeletons or zombies, he needed to protect himself.

The ant monster hurled itself at him as soon as he made himself known. Preliminary analysis indicated that this was a G+ rank monster and not something Rusty had encountered before. Rusty, classified as an F-rank monster with some F+ stats, found himself unsure whether this made him stronger or weaker than the creature. However, judging by its movements, he was inclined to believe that it was actually much weaker than him or any of the monsters he had encountered before.

Its attack pattern was quite rudimentary as it came at him in a straight line. The only weapon it possessed was a pair of mandibles that could potentially chew through his armor, a theory Rusty was unwilling to test. Instead, he sidestepped the attack and instinctively activated his power slash move. His sword executed a swift downward strike, effortlessly cutting the creature in two.

‘It’s kind of weak?’

The monster ant proved unable to withstand more than one hit from his sword. In comparison to all his previous experiences with adventurers, this monster felt like a joke. It moved slowly and approached him without any strategic or intricate thought. Then to make things even better the experience gained from defeating it was much higher than from any other insect or rodent he had faced. While it didn’t come close to the experience received from killing an adventurer, the risk factor associated with this creature was rather low.

‘Isn’t this rather good? Maybe I shouldn’t return to the upper layers…’

Rusty thought to himself, as his main reason for existing, was still the pursuit of power and further evolution. He was able to attack the monsters here and gain much more experience than when he was on the upper levels. The adventurers he had previously hunted proved to be too much for his current capabilities but these G-rank ant monsters could be just the thing that he needed.

‘Oh… there is a lot of them…’

While he had dispatched the first Minuscule Myrm Ant Drone, more of them appeared afterward. He assumed that these creatures functioned similarly to the monsters he was acquainted with. If they were any more close by they would be drawn in by the sounds or some other commanding voice. Soon instead of just one ant there were five and the battle started again.

They started coming at him from the front as there was no other way to approach him. At first, he imagined that this would allow him to take them on one by one. However, some of the ants started to crawl on the sides of the tunnel and one moved onto the ceiling. They attacked him from all directions and the battle got quite hectic.

After thrusting his sword into one of the monster’s abdomen another one bit his left leg. Soon after, another descended from the ceiling and met a swift end as he cut it in half. Its green innards sprayed onto his armor but it didn’t bother him too much. It appeared that this time around, his armor was sufficient enough to prevent any substantial damage. The monster’s mandibles were bending the bronze but they couldn’t rip through it. Finally, his armored form was coming in handy and he quickly dispatched the five other dog-sized insects.

‘All this experience! This is great!’

Rusty began to cheer as he gained sixty experience points in a matter of minutes. Previously, it would take him multiple hours of trying to find small rodents or other creatures to achieve the same result. It was not something he was accustomed to and he craved more and to his surprise, this was not quite over.

‘Oh? They are still approaching? This is becoming a bit… troublesome… perhaps?’

While he loved the continuous experience grind the monsters kept appearing, and he was forced to endure more gnawing attacks. His armor managed to withstand the assaults but the more ants bit the same spots, the sooner he would start losing body parts. He utilized his swordsmanship as best as he could but he felt that he couldn’t sustain something like this forever.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

After another five minutes, there were now more than fifteen corpses in the corridor where Rusty had appeared. He had managed to push through and finally arrived at a fork in the road. The chamber he entered had multiple entrances and from several of them, he could hear some suspicious echoes. It was evident that these monsters were being attracted from a greater distance. His skeletal friends and other living armors weren’t capable of such feats and he was realizing that this place probably held some other secrets he didn’t know.

‘I need to leave, even though they are easy to kill, I can’t handle hundreds of them at a time.’