A battle with so many people would be chaotic. There is no real way around it. Things were never going to be simple with everyone clustered around the arch. Some people are still exhausted from difficult challenges. Our group has spent half their wishes on different magical items. I take a drink from my refilling phial.

  It refills slowly, and there’s not quite enough for me, but that’s okay. I don’t need it to be.

  As the creatures crawl closer, I turn off my headphones,and switch my phone off to conserve battery. It’s at fifteen percent now. How depressing. I need to learn how to charge it, or have Bay learn. Gently, I sigh, placing the headphones in my backpack.

  “Oh, look who’s up!” Blondie teases, smiling brightly.

  “We’re not close enough for you to try and tease me,” I say.

  “Come on, don’t be like that,” he says, giving me his best puppy eyes. It makes my fucking skin crawl.

  I look at the people around the arch. Maximillian is cracking his knuckles. Clone girl has two copies of herself present, and grimoire guy is chanting spells. I look at the dark tunnels, then turn to my group. “Do we have a flashlight?”

  Blondie talks, trying to get me to pay attention, but Bay waves a flashlight, and I nod. “Cool. We’re leaving.”

  And with that, I walk off. Blondie keeps talking, looking after me. He even tries to walk after our group, but very gently and very firmly, Opal pushes him to the side. “Stay here,” they say. “It’s gonna be safer.”

  The man blinks at them, then laughs. “I don’t need safety, I just wanna-”

  Opal looks at them, and this time, they place a hand on his shoulder. “Stay,” they say.

  Again, he tries to protest. But Opal holds down his shoulder, very firmly. I brush my senses against him.

  [Fighter, lv. 14]

  Yeah right. Fuck that.

  “C’mon, at least tell me your name,” he asks.

  “I’m Gem,” Opal says. “And you?”

  He smiles, wide. “Vincent. I told you last time, actually.” Then, finally, he takes a step back. “Hope to see you again.”

  Opal teleports to catch up with us, and I’m glad he finally backed up. I was going to stab him soon, otherwise. Even now, I still feel that discomfort clawing at me, and I have to [Suppress] the sensation.

  Slowly, step by step, the noise of the gathering gets drowned out as we walk deeper into the cave. Instead, the chittering of insectoid legs gets louder. I pull out a knife, wishing I had a bigger weapon to swing around. Actually…

  Mana gathers at the tip of the weapon, solidifying, extending outward. It turns it from a knife into a proper dagger, giving me another couple inches of range. The mana is thin, drawing from my regeneration, but if I break it off inside something, it might mess up their skills. A thin smile crawls onto my face. Magic is so awesome.

  [Solidification 5 > 6]

  Opal blinks again, then falls in lockstep with me, eyeing my enhanced dagger. It glows a little in the darkness, though Bay’s flashlight is way, way brighter. “Whoowee!” they hum. “Lovely piece of work there, Snow! In a few hundred levels, you might be able to make a sword like mine.”

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  I smile. “Yeah, yeah,” I say.

  “Enemies incoming,” Thatch warns us, his eyes glowing, and almost immediately, Opal’s playful attitude vanishes. The smile on their face is replaced with a serious nod, and they point their sword forward, quickly heading to the front of the group. Inu takes her spot next to them.

  And then, all at once, I see them. Bay’s cone of light sweeps across the cave, and there’s dozens. Spiders hang from the ceiling, centipedes skitter across the ground. There are massive beetles clinging to the walls of the cave, too.

  “Do insects even smell things?” Thatch asks.

  These are each as big as dogs. “Probably,” I say. “These do at least.”

  “Ants generally smell with their antennas,” Amelie enlightens us.

  “There are no ants among these,” Thatch notes.

  “And you should be grateful for that. A colony can have millions of members. We would die, almost certainly,” the girl confirms. Her puppets walk to the front, too, one a metal vine, slithering across the floor, and another one a headless armor from the Dreadburg.

  I stand behind our vanguard, smiling just a little. The insects charge, a rolling tide of chitin and legs. We won’t kill them all, but that’s fine. We’ll farm some of the experience while the others behind us regroup, wait for party members, or seek out different tunnels.

  My mana moves again. It twists and roils, and a thin tether of [Selection] sneaks forward. But there are dozens of insects, so I don’t select any one of them. Instead, I apply it to an area. If I could reduce my world down to a tiny point, then surely I can widen my selection, too.

  [Selection 7 > 8]

  It’s hard, but I press on through the barrier, braving the strain on my head. The insects chitter ever closer, towards the light, towards the morsel we represent. And then, my [Suppression] comes down.

  The entire area I have selected suddenly becomes heavier. Spiders drop from the ceiling, smacking into the centipedes on the floor. Beetles lose their hold on the walls. Bloody tears pool from my good eye as I strain to maintain the skill, mana tearing through my infantile channels.

  I’m not far enough into my build to do this, but I don’t care. Limits? Those are for nerds.

  [Suppression 8 > 9]

  My skill levels as I mess with the mana pattern, and yet more insects fall. Rather than a charge, it turns into a train wreck. Centipedes crawl over spiders, legs thrashing against each other. Tough beetles squish the others beneath them. The insects descend on the dead immediately. It turns into a messy pile of havoc.

  [You have killed a lv. 5 Cavern Centipede]

  [You have killed an lv. 8 Ironhide Beetle]

  [You have killed a lv. 3 Webweaver]

  [You have killed a…]

  Gravity does much of my job, and I cause havoc. My party does not need to see it twice. They descend on the mob like harpies, carving through it. Kuro snakes out from my shadow, devouring a bit of chitin, and sometimes striking up at the undersides of insects when they get a chance.

  Blocks of fire and ice descend onto the small horde, as Richard and Jess begin their barrage. Jess sends electricity pulsing through them. Opal and Inu keep any away from the squishier members of our group, and occasionally, a barrier snaps out from Norman. Thatch is tearing the things apart with his bare hands alongside Dar…

  Strangely, It feels wonderful. I channel more and more mana into the suppression, supporting the pile up. I smile. It’s bloody and disgusting. The noise and squelching is terrible. I wish Sylves were awake to see it, but we stride on. Slowly but surely, the charge breaks around us.

  Some of the insects make it through, of course, and I cut a centipede in half with my dagger, stabbing downwards around my legs. A beetle tries to nibble on my ankle, and Kuro absolutely shreds the thing, spilling ichor all over my shoes. It’s sticky, and my socks squelch. The texture makes me wanna tear off my feet, but I [Suppress] the disgust.

  Quite frankly? The blood flowing from my eyes is more pleasant than needing to deal with the sensory nightmare going on in my shoes right now.

  Instead, I just focus on walking forward. Slowly, people’s eyes trail to me, and there are nods. “We move,” I say, and that’s exactly what we do.

  The tide of insects breaks around us. My area of crushing [Suppression] moves forward with each step I take. Amelie creates more puppets from the intact corpses, using them to weave a barrier around our sides, and letting the insects pool past. They devour some of their own remains, and even more scuttle past us into the cavern… and yet more break against us.

  [Level up! 17 > 18]

  More mana, again. My reserves refill, my control sharpens as the moments go by, and we walk. And walk, and walk, and walk.