Daz thought that the best thing to do currently was, of course, to identify the wasp-like creatures since knowing thy enemy is the best way to win a battle.

Basic Wasp's Status Basic Information Name: N/A Species: Magic-Infused Wasp Age: 0 Sex: Male Class: N/A Affinity: Neutral Description A simple wasp whose duty is to serve its Queen. Energies Lifeforce: 20/20 Stats Strength: 5 Agility: 15 Dexterity: 5 Rasphilia's Status Basic Information Name: Rasphilia Species: Magic-Infused Wasp (Nobility) Age: 6 Sex: Female Class: Pollen Polluter Affinity: Chaotic Evil Description The last Queen of her colony whose duty is to serve the system faithfully in order to help free her Species from the bindings of the system. Energies Lifeforce: 4,000/4,000 Stats Strength: 50 Agility: 200 Dexterity: 100 Constitution: 300 Regeneration: 400

"Fuck." Daz was worried. He felt like with Rimmy's help, dealing with the common wasps would be possible, maybe, but the Queen? Her stats were off the charts. 'Fuck you, Gods! Giving me a super hard boss monster on top of thousands of mobs?! FUCK. YOU.'

While Daz was screaming out his complaints in his head, both he and Rimmy were charging at the quickly approaching horde of over-sized bugs. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that they were currently blotting out the sun, and quite honestly, Daz was afraid. He couldn't stop the tremble of his hands and rough breathing as he ran. This was only normal though, considering it was merely day two of the Apocalypse and despite how 'adaptable' he was, Daz was still human. For now at least.

'You can do this. You killed over two hundred Zombies, what's a couple more bugs? Ahahahahahahaha!" Daz let his inner voice seep out into the oddly warm air with a powerful laugh. It was at that moment that the wasps reached him.

Shovel swinging madly, with no technique nor talent, purely by using his stats, Daz began decimating the creatures. Meanwhile, Rimmy was jumping, literally sailing through the air as he let his entire body slam down onto the cold, hard concrete and instantly killing about 50 or so wasps in one go by using his vast body to squash them. The pair couldn't do anything more than this for now, but surprisingly enough, it was effective.

Rimmy's jewelled core was emptying a bit quickly, while Daz's was slowly going down, very slowly. This was thanks to Daz's armour granting him a very high Defense.

'I have a bit more leeway than I thought I did... I guess I should try that skill?' Daz thought before he stopped moving and took a swinger stance, like a professional baseball player. He slowly drew back his shovel, ignoring the countless stingers being implanted on his body, and when he was at the zenith of his swing, he thought, 'SHOVEL SMASH!'

With a thunderous boom, Daz's arms swelled to double their size and his shovel rocketed forward before it directly smashed three wasps, instantly turning the first two to paste, while the third was sent hurtling through the horde fast enough to actually manage to kill about ten more wasps with the impact before it weakly fell onto the ground with a wet thud.

'HOLY FUCK! THAT WAS A SKILL?! Calm down... calm down... it makes sense... the description said it was made by the God of Shovels... I wonder how strong that would have been if I had invested more into the strength stat?' Daz thought with a gulp. He quickly pushed the thought aside since he had more important things to deal with.

Daz and Rimmy continued to kill, and kill, and kill, and kill some more for about fifty minutes, and Daz was getting suspicious. The two of them had successfully killed roughly four thousand wasps, a huge number, but they were all extraordinarily weak. However, what Daz was wary of, was the Queen. She hadn't moved even once, despite the fact that only about five-hundred of her wasps were still alive.

There was now only about forty left. Rimmy had had to withdraw from the battle due to running low on energy, so he had returned to the base to eat some more jewels, but Daz had double the Golem's energy capacity, so he continued. He was now feeling a bit weary, but he wasn't feeling too strained, so he was killing the wasps one by one while focusing half of his attention on the Queen.

'Only ten left... why isn't the Queen moving? I don't get it...' Daz thought as he started killing the last few wasps. His weariness was catching up to him, but he ignored it while he watched the final wasp fall to the ground, sliced in half by the blade of his shovel.

He stood still while he gazed at the Queen. She was quite beautiful, that is if you ignored the fact that she looked like a wasp. Daz had decided to try something that could only prove to make him seem like a fool, but it was worth it to try at least.

"Why aren't you attacking me?" Daz asked, in the hopes that he might just get an answer from the human-shaped wasp.

Surprisingly enough, he did. "... I... waiting... "

"What for?" Daz followed up with surprise in his tone. His ears hurt a little bit at the raspiness of her voice, but he was very shocked that his stupid little question actually got a response. 'So do only boss monsters have intelligence, or is it all monsters? Speaking of, what happened to the humans without weapons? Didn't they turn into monsters?'

Daz was pulled out of his side-thought by the Queen's reply. "...A... few... seconds... you... will... see..."

"... Okay," Daz said. That was clearly his mistake. His curiosity and fear of the Queen's strength had led him to the floor in a heap of sweat and ragged breathing. Daz couldn't understand why. What had happened? True, he had been feeling a bit sluggish near the end of the battle, but nothing this bad. Why? Then suddenly, it clicked.

"Ahahaha... of course... Pollen Polluter... you poisoned the air, didn't you?" Daz asked with a trembling voice. He was feeling like an idiot for not just attacking straight away, but seeing her stats, it had got to him. 'If only I'd checked her class too,' Daz thought in defeat before he used a little bit of his remaining strength to store his shovel into his inventory. He felt like it would have been impossible to trick her into picking it up and letting it consume her, so he had decided to store it before his death.

'I wonder what will happen to Rimmy when I die?' Daz wondered before he felt his body become weightless. The Wasp Queen had picked him up by his throat and was looking right at him.

"... Perhaps... letting you... kill my babies... was a mistake? You... are... very weak... " the Queen said in dissatisfaction, almost to her self. Daz just laughed lightly before he closed his eyes.

'Is this it? Really, those fucking Gods... why did they increase the difficulty? I doubt I would have won in a fair fight anyway... LIKE HELL! Surely there's some way to kill this fucking bitch?!' Daz thought in a rare moment of fervour.

The Queen slowly tightened her grip around Daz's neck, but just as it was about to snap, a sudden gunshot resounded throughout the air and deafened Daz. He saw that the Queen's head had cocked back, and he instantly decided on what to do.

Before the Queen could reorient herself from the impact of the bullet that had bounced off of her head, Daz suddenly took his shovel back out from his inventory and slashed it down as hard as he could.

"AHHHHH!" came the Queen's raspy scream upon having her arms cut halfway through. It would seem that Daz's shovel wasn't quite sharp enough to finish the job, but he didn't care. Immediately after pulling his shovel out of her arms, which forced another scream to escape her bug-like head, Daz swiftly used the last of his strength to take a swinging stance with his shovel.

"Go to fucking hell. SHOVEL SMASH!" Daz had roared before his arms used the last scraps of energy left in him to bring his shovel to meet the Queen's face, instantly forcing it to contort and contract, before it exploded in a haze of messy gore.

Daz collapsed to his knees and willed his shovel to be stored and a small bag to be taken out of his inventory. He feebly plucked out a small topaz from within it and began munching on its polished edges. Straight away he felt his strength returning, although he could still barely move due to the poison.

When he took a moment to look back at the base, Daz could see Rimmy sprinting towards him, and Ger was standing atop the shoddy gate with his pistol in his hand, a big stupid grin strewed across his old face.

Lyle, Ellie and Sarah were standing next to him, and oddly enough, the happiest looking was actually Lyle. Daz wondered why that was while he tried to avoid breathing in with his nose due to the horrendous smell of the wasp and zombie corpses. It was at that moment that everyone's eyes glossed over at the sight of the all-too-familiar blue screens.