It was only a few days since I left my egg and became a creature in this huge forest, yet almost every waking moment of it was brutal. Every creature out here was almost always stronger than me in some way, I have had to watch my back every second, and with the mental strain that has slowly accumulated only causes more problems. Thankfully, I have found a little underground burrow under the roots of one of the massive redwood trees. Thinking back on myself and my whole spouting of the full desire to get behind the person who killed my race, it now seems to have been a little arrogant on my part when I can’t even survive in this forest without either running away from everything, or hiding in an area that no one goes to.

I shook my head, remembering my previous thoughts wouldn’t help me now, what I need is experience, thankfully it isn’t that hard to find around me. Sighing, I stand up and move out of my little burrow. The area outside of the small hole isn’t that different from the rest of the forest, filled with massive redwood trees and a sprawling undergrowth stretching out as far as the eye can see. I start to climb up the same redwood tree the burrow is underneath, hoping that an Eagle isn’t flying around near me. A painful lesson was learnt the day I tried sleeping on one of these gigantic branches, I was nearly carried away by a Lesser Horned Eagle and only barely held on because the Eagle already had caught a lizard similar in size to me and couldn’t be bothered to fight off prey that could fight back.

Thanking my luck, and knowing that climbing up high in these woods would be an easy way to die, I searched on the ground for a place to stay, where I happened upon my current living quarters. Getting that painful memory out of my head, I started to search for some easy pickings. The higher part of the trees were off-limits, but some prey could be found here and it looks like I lucked out a bit today. After only 4 hours of running away from dangerous monsters, I had a good find. There were some half-meter and meter long ants in front of me, the colony they were a part of is close, as far as I could tell. The closest ant hill near this group was one only 15km away, but that distance is more than enough of a head start for me to kill the little scouts sent out by the colony.

Slowing down my step a little, I started to move to the ants which were on a branch of a different tree, but the two trees were close enough that you could walk from one to the other. The ants had poor eyesight and hearing, their biggest strength lay in their numbers but the little group of 15 ants, only 5 of which were actual soldiers, wasn’t enough to pose much of a threat to me. When I was only around 7 meters away from them, on a branch above their heads, I activated my own skill. It was plenty useful, and any advantage in this world was an advantage I would utilize.

Soldier Ant Lv3-6

An ant, birthed from the Queen, in order to protect the home colony and their operations. While weak by themselves, ants are adept at swarm tactics.

Worker ant Lv1-4

An ant, birthed from the Queen, utilized to build the colony and to gather resources for the next generation. While weak by themselves, ants are adept at swarm tactics.

Good, none of these ants would pose any sort of meaningful resistance against me. Expunging any unnecessary thoughts out of my mind, and being fully focused on the hunt in front of me, I started to inch ever so closer to the first ant soldier, one that was staying close to a worker that was harvesting the nutrient-rich leaves to take back to the colony. When I was close enough that I could easily pounce on the ant, I calmed my erratic heart, and prepared myself. I steeled all my nerves, and jumped down atop the first ant soldier.

The other ants immediately turned my way, but I was too preoccupied with killing the ant I was on. I tried to sink my claws through its hard chitin, and into the unprotected flesh beneath it, but my claws were placed awkwardly so they could only slide off the chitin shell. My mind, at the moment though, couldn’t care. When I realized I couldn’t penetrate it’s shell, I immediately went to bite the head of the ant while the claws on my hind legs quickly cracked the shell on its abdomen. The bite I was going for paid off, with the head of the ant quickly buckling under the pressure of my jaws, my teeth sinking into its brain, killing the first soldier off. The rest of them, while not talking, could still convey their anger by aggressively clicking their mandibles. This branch was perfect, big enough for me to attack 1 or 2 at the same time, but not too big that they all could swarm at me at once.

Focusing again on the battlefield, two of the soldiers were approaching me while one was trying to get behind me. I rushed at the 2, they were the only things separating me from the single soldier and workers behind them. The soldier on the left tried to bite me, and I let it. The only thing I would feel is a light sting after a few hours of rest, but this little amount of time where he is biting me and can’t move his head was perfect. I raised my right hand, slashing at the thorax of the soldier. My claws deeply penetrated into the chitin, and then into the squishy internal meat and organs. The ant didn’t make a sound while letting go of my scales and started to move back a bit. I wasn’t going to let it and raised my left claw to tear what was left of it’s thorax, but the other soldier ant got into the fray and blocked it with its own shell. The other soldier coming in wasn’t something I expected, my mind fully focused on the one ant in front of me. The claws, ready to tear into the thorax of the first ant, only powerlessly slid off the seconds chitin, the position too awkward for me to crush its exoskeleton.

Cursing for a bit, I focused on the new ant. It was exactly the same as the first one I fought with, but instead of going for a bite, this one tried to sting me. I dodged it, I learned the rough way that the poison inside hurts more than the actual damage it causes. While the ant missed its sting, I ran to the first ant and completely ripped open it’s thorax. The ant that tried to sting me now bit me on my tail, which was slightly more sensitive than the rest of my body. Hissing a bit because of the pain, I got my tail loose from the ants jaw. It went for another bite, clearly seeing my discomfort over the bitten tail, but I turned around a bit down hard enough on the ants head to go straight through the entirety of its head.

The 2 soldiers going down finally allowed me to run to the last soldier, and the workers behind it. I rushed forward to the final soldier, which was trying his best to match me in the middle, putting more ground between me and the workers. It tried it’s best, but I turned my body slightly to the right and slammed the entire ant with the full weight behind my body. It fell down and was dazed for just a few seconds, a few seconds that I spent eviscerating the soldiers thorax, its liquids and internal organs spilling on my upper body, turning my brownish-gold scales into a pale-yellowy color.

The workers that were leaving were much slower than me, they were scurrying down the tree and to the colony they came from, to alert the nearby colony to my presence. I climbed down the tree and ran off after them, the noise I’m making is sure to attract many of the scarier creatures, but the amount of experience in front of me is far too tantalizing for me to care at the moment. I reached the worker ant furthest at the back and directly sank my teeth into it, the disgusting flavor permeated in my mouth even more, but I ignored it and went to the next. The worker ants all tried to stop me in one way or another, trying to bite and sting me in hopes of reaching their colony but I eventually whittled down their number to only 2. We were now only 6 kilometers from the main colony, far too close for my liking but I persevered and eventually killed the last of the worker ants.

A huge backlog of messages from the system were ready for my reading, but they would only distract me so I ignored them for the time being and went to a nearby river I noticed when I was chasing after the last of the worker ants. I cautiously looked at it, a wide river 20 meters across and who knows how deep. It wasn’t the clearest nor the dirtiest water, but it was the best way to clean myself. The stench of the ants would attract far stronger creatures than what I could handle, so I went into the water. Surprisingly, the water did not have a mass of creatures swimming my way, it was calm, way too calm for my liking. Calmness meant a creature strong enough to silence the others from doing any drastic action, and it was eerily quiet in this river. I finished cleaning myself and ran off, I didn’t want to stay more than necessary.

I finally came upon my own little burrow 3 hours later, after finding and killing a slightly large 5-eyed lizard compared to the one I first hunted. I laid down to nibble on the dead carcass while looking through the notifications.

Level up 6 -> 8

Observers eye Lv2 -> Lv3

Bite Lv4 -> Lv 5

Cut Lv2 -> Lv4

Hatchling mana sense Lv1 -> Lv2

My eyes were gleaming, almost the entirety of my move set gained experience in my outing, I was really lucky. Brimming with enjoyment was nice, but it couldn’t offset the fatigue I had accumulated over the hunt. A part of my mind was telling me I forgot something important, but I was too tired to care so I disregarded it and went into a deep sleep.