Who Needs Magic in a Fantasy World Anyway?

Chapter 105: Exterminators

"Ethrion, cover me!" Ander yelled, surprisingly running on the wall of the tunnel until he eventually even started running while upside-down from the ceiling until he dropped down behind the nightmare beetle that Koko was currently stalling. And after the three giant ants that had attempted to attack him had been pierced by arrows, Ander let out a slight yell as he buried both of his daggers in the back of the beetle. Though while it was killed instantly, he was then forced to roll forward as the swarm of insects were still coming towards them from the tunnel.

As Ander rolled past her, Koko met the next nightmare beetle headon, punching it directly in the head and making it disappear instantly as Ethrion continued to kill any monsters that were attempting to climb on the ceiling in order to get past them. And while Koko was keeping any of the monsters from getting past her, Ander would sometimes run forward and quickly eliminate several of those that prefered to stay away from the small blue-haired girl. Though he and Ethrion eventually had more active roles as some kind of horrifying leeches with circular mouths that were filled with teeth eventually appeared and began spitting acid at them. And while Koko could thankfully skill cancel the projectiles, she didn't have to do it for long as her teammates focused on the creatures so that she could just concentrate on holding back the rest of the tide.

"Hold up. They're retreating again." Ander put his hand on Koko's shoulder when she'd been about to advance.

"Their numbers are growing... Which means that we're either cornering a group of them or-"

"We're getting close to their queens." Ander finished the thought for the elf.

"Wait, queen's'? As in plural?" Koko asked.

"It isn't just one queen doing all of this. Whenever different types of insect monsters gather together in a nest, all of the queens stay in a single room so that they can be protected." Ethrion explained. "And seeing as they're all bound to be boss monsters, we can expect one hell of a fight when we finally reach it. Especially seeing as even the little bugs will change too as we'll start to see the royal guards when we get close to the queens."

"As long as there's no more leeches, I'm fine with that." Koko shrugged. "Though with how many we've seen, I doubt it... I hate those things."

"Yeah, they've certainly made things interesting, at least." Ander agreed.

"Not to mention that they look disgusting." Rose commented as well while finishing picking up all of the loot that the monsters had dropped. "But the good news is that we're making really great progress and we'll have a bunch of loot to divide once we finally get out of here."

"Please don't start setting any flags until we're out of here." Koko asked sincerely.

"Huh? Flags?" Rose asked curiously.

"N-nevermind." She replied. "So what are we going to do then? If the resistance is this strong, then we might alert the queens before we even find out where they are."

"That certainly is a possibility, and one that I've been debating for a while now." Ander replied thoughtfully. "Though seeing as we still don't know if we're almost to the queens, we still need to press forward just in case they're just cornered bugs."

"So keep going until we find a room with a bunch of boss bugs in it. Got it." Koko confirmed. "But are we really going to let the army take care of it by themselves? I mean, won't we support them at least?"

"We'll be supporting them by securing their escape route if they need it." Ander replied. "Though if they need immediate reinforcements, then we might be called to action."