Pyro continued. “We are explorers. It is our job and danger is just a part of it. I think we had doomed ourselves the day we let David become the captain —no offence, of course— But we should still take a look. We are on the verge of finding something extraordinary here; something no ant will ever dare look out for. We should not back down now,”

Pyro's speech was unexpected, but it was more surprising than anything else considering his cowardliness. Encouraging us to go into danger was the last thing anybody expected from Pyro; maybe except Mink, because he was excited as hell and was on the verge of rolling. Yep, that’s how you know Mink’s excited.

“Moreover, it’s not like we are completely hopeless. I am still alive and so are you, and we have Mink. This big guy can take a hit or two— I can guarantee that. I’m not forgetting about our own private hero, of course.” He said slapping me on the back. “Seriously, you have to protect me if anything happens; I heard there’s a new princess in town.” The humor helped lighten our mood. And he changed topics quickly enough to keep us occupied.

“And if push comes to shove, we can always abort. There is no one stopping us. Or we can leave now: return back home and give them the bad news.” He said turning serious. “Tell them that we are not up for our jobs and drive them insane with worry, which I don’t want to do. I still have nightmares sometimes about the commander reprimanding me for something I did wrong. Yesterday, he told me to stop breathing in my dream, because he doesn’t want to see me around. I’m telling you all, he’s crazier than me.”

Somehow, when he placed our options like that, the choice didn’t look so difficult anymore. Not that he managed to drive the fear away. No such thing. But the choice once again felt like a choice. And he was right. If it didn’t work out we could bolt; the systems message had already proved that it was possible to leave after clearing a floor.

“So? Are we going?” I said turning toward the sphere.

“You . . .” David uttered and was pushed forward by Dark who had come out of his shadow. “What do you want to do?” he asked David.

“You all know we might not return alive if we went, right?”

I tried to sensibly answer, but Pyro was one step ahead of me and with a much better reply in mind. “Does it matter? We are ants. We live and we die. At least we’ll be dying by choice.”

Choice, that’s the word which got David. He still hesitated though, so I had to drive the idea deeper into his mind.

“Do you remember what you had told me after we were done terminating the termites?" I said. "You had asked me to prove whether I can be trusted with your protection. Do you think you can do that now?”

That froze David, even gave him a jolt of surprise. He stayed still for a couple of seconds, then suddenly shook his head and looked up; and when he spoke next his voice came out hoarse with sentiments like he had felt the burden lifting from his back.

“We are going to die—”

“FOR THE COLONY!” Pyro shouted, cutting him short.

“FOR THE COLONY!” Dark followed.

“THE COLONY!” Mink screamed and rushed toward the sphere. Pyro went behind him. I exchanged my thoughts with Genma as Dark took David into his shadows and jumped out of a shadow in front of the duo.

“Minnie would have agreed,” Genma said.

“She surely would have.” I agreed and we were off toward our last challenge together.

A sea of darkness transported me away from the gloomy neutral zone and dumped me upon a leaf which was hairy and green and big; big enough to comfortably host multiple battles and not get destroyed. Its rib was protruding out like a bone, parting the leaf into two mirroring halves with a large and thin pointed end. The micro hairs covering the leaf's surface were uncomfortable and sticky and made a ripping sound every time I moved.

Genma fell behind me. I felt relief upon finding the others not so far away. At least we have not separated once again; that would have been disastrous for our morale. Dark was climbing up for some reason and David was together with Pyro and Mink, standing on the leaf a level above ours.

“Let’s go,” I told Genma, but he didn’t follow me for some reason. When I stopped to call him again, I saw him looking around, exactly at the nothingness which inhabited the space. Once I saw it I couldn’t un-see it. I had been so nervous that I had seemingly ignored the blatant absence of any other form of life around us. We had been stranded in the middle of literally nowhere. Moreover, below our leaf was another set of leaves and below it was again -- emptiness. We were standing upon the only plant in the darkness and it was frightening.

“What if—”

“DON’T!” I cut him short. “There is no need to think about it. And it’s not like there is no exit, right?”

“Yeah, you are right.”

“So, come on, others must be worried,” I said and started walking again, keeping my mind off how deep the fall might be, or the monster which might lurk in its depths, or — alright, I couldn’t calm my thoughts, but at least we were together. I started climbing and this time Genma followed me quietly.

{Welcome to the Second floor!}

[You party has been deemed as weak and pathetic.]

[The scenario is thus changed from clearing the floor to survival.]

{Survive your assailants for half an hour to leave.}

As the message faded from my eyes I heard Pyro’s conversation with Dark and Mink ring in my head. “Where in the hell are they?” Pyro lamented, sounding sick. He was constantly liting and extinguishing sparks at the ends of his antennas, keeping himself busy.

“I hope they aren’t lost,” Mink said looking up at David’s rising figure. I am sure he wasn’t able to see David and that had him skeptical.

“Of course they aren’t, right, Dark?”

“They are here,” Dark replied at the same time as we climbed atop of their leaf.

Pyro looked like he had been holding his breath. “I told you they wouldn’t get cold feet.” He told the other two, doing a not so convincing job of shifting blames. He was worried. So was I. Nothing had happened for some reason. It was all too quiet, all too normal. This wasn’t a place where normal was supposed to exist. The clock was already ticking and three minutes had elapsed; yet, there was no sign of our enemies.

“Where are the bugs and the other things? Why aren’t we getting attacked?” Pyro groaned, flickering his sparks on and off at a higher intensity than before. He grumbled to himself and then suddenly straightened his back and spoke out loud, “Don’t tell me . . . they don’t know we are here.”

It had been a while since we had grouped up and David was already on his descent back. Unknowingly, we had formed a circle with our backs to each other. Even though there apparently was no danger around, the pressure had us vigilant and nervous. It was a good thing. I kept my senses sharp and watched my surroundings while Pyro grumbled in annoyance, anxious to fight. In the windless place, the leaf stayed still as another two minutes went by.

“Did you find anything?” Dark suddenly spoke, startling me. David was back. I had felt him returning, but he didn’t look like he had brought us any good news. “Did anything happen?” David changed the topic and right then I sensed something. It was something huge and slow and had managed to slip real close to us!

It was too close actually. I looked around in a panic with my sight but I found nothing. No matter how my eyes had improved they were unable to see something invisible.

“Wait . . . invisible, it’s invisible!” I spoke out loud, earning concerned glances from the others. Ignoring them, I hurriedly activated mana vision; and then I saw it. Not on the leaf with us, but below. Directly underneath Pyro stood a monster with only a shred of mana inhibiting its body and it was about to bring us the fight.

“PYRO MOVE,” I yelled and we separated; Pyro didn’t. He froze for a second, and then managed to scramble away from his spot, but the delay hurt him dearly. The emerging monster managed to taste one of his hind legs as its head tore through the leaf and appeared among us. It was big and ferocious. Its wrinkled green torso extended a good few ant lengths above our heads before it gently fell toward Pyro, not caring about us to its back.

Pyro screamed and attacked it with fireballs; I rushed, sending a hail of air bullet sailing toward the giants back. Pyro’s attacks some missed and some struck, but none hurt the creature. My bullets simply bounced off its fluffy back. Yes, they bounced off! Dark leaped out of Pyro’s shadow and dragged him away from the creature, while David jumped upon its back, hurtled forward, and stuck the top of its crowned head with his clubbed antennas. His attacks didn’t seem to have hurt it much because it rebounded with the same amount of vigor as before. It was a caterpillar for shade’s sake, nothing they couldn’t handle. I had seen them take care of a few on the farm but, this one was skilled.

Another three of my air bullets bounced off its body as I rushed toward Pyro to heal him. Meanwhile, Dark went to help the other two and managed to chip away at our opponent’s strange shell with his tentacles. It wasn’t armored, yet it could take a beating; I was surprised to see that. Perhaps, it was different from the caterpillars of before, perhaps they weren’t even the same thing. As David’s clubbed antennas bounced off its head once again, the caterpillar’s head shriveled back into its torso, plunging David onto the leaf. It instantly recoiled back toward David like a spring tensed and let go. I hurriedly mobilized the hairs on the leaf with root to slow its attack and it worked, but not completely. While David prepared to meet it head-on, it was Mink who charged into its extending body from the side and pushed it away, leading to a change in its trajectory, saving David from an unimaginable result. Mink was blown back toward the leaf’s end though. The creature tried to follow up with another attack, but David woke up from the confusion and dug his mandibles into its extended side and pulled. That surprisingly froze the caterpillar and made it shiver. But that’s not the important thing. The important detail was that David’s mandibles had managed to dig past its bouncy skin and take anchor, bringing forth one of its weaknesses! The caterpillar growled like a beast, showing no hint of intelligence. Meanwhile, I was done healing Pyro.

I congratulated myself for believing in the others and not wasting a slotted wind cannonball at it. Hurrying toward them, I prepared my mandibles for a certain death mandible cut. It kicked the leaf with all its legs, spreading shock waves. I managed to sail through the ripples with little effort, keeping balance, skid to a stop near the left of its head and let go of all the mana which had converged at my mandibles with a sharp snap. A glowing crescent of blue left me, pushed into its skin and managed to wound it. The skill didn’t, unfortunately, shear its head, but it still opened the way for others. Once they saw that the caterpillar could be hurt, they rebounded back with attacks of their own. Dark grew thin needles from the shadows under its body and hacked at its bottom; Pyro cooked its face with his fire; while Mink and David turned its bouncy shell into pinched spikes with their mandibles.

It was when I finally relaxed did I notice a timer running down at the top left corner of my sight. It was down to 22:34. It had only been four minutes since the start of the battle and we needed to stay alive for five times that amount; leading me to believe this wasn’t our only opponent. The moment I extended my senses, I noticed another caterpillar coming to life at the leaf on the other side of the plant, separated by a small distance. It was much similar to its partly dead friend in shape, but different in every other physical criterion. It was dark brown with light brown spikes covering its whole body and was smaller and slimmer in size. It didn’t care to join us; instead, it hurled balls of poison our way one after another.

“GENMA,” I yelled.

“I’M ON IT!” he answered back and created a giant enough barrier to protect us from the coming spray. But his barrier couldn’t prevent the attacks. One poisonous ball made it sizzle and steam, another cracked it, and the third one tore through the weakened barrier. One black ball of tar zoomed past me and stuck the leaf near David’s feet, missing him by a narrow margin. The leaf instantly turned brown from the poison and started bubbling. Although David turned out to be safe, the unknown, however, made him jolt away from the caterpillar. While everyone got busy dodging the attacks, the green caterpillar we had almost killed saw our distraction as a chance and slid out of the hole it had crawled up from and disappeared under the leaf.

In between this, my sensitive hearing climbed up the last step and reached its maximum level. I was awarded 2.5 points each in Intelligence and Wisdom for achieving the feat, but that’s not important. Usually, I don’t like to distract myself with skill evolutions during such tense moments, but considering its role in the fight, I decided to make the effort.

Sensitive hearing has reached its maximum level and is presenting you with the options to: be keen or intense.

I knew what the options meant. Although I missed reveals magical ability to bring forth the evolution paths, I knew it was only a viable option for first-tier skills; so without dwell on it for long, I chose to be keen. I knew —thanks to my experience— what the skill would have evolved into had I chosen it to be intense. That option would have widened my perception by a lot, but that’s not what I wanted. I needed to pinpoint the position of my enemies, so it had to be keen. The system rung one more time in my head telling me sensitive hearing had evolved into acute sense, showed me what it could do, and I was back in the fight.

“We won’t survive if we only tried to bind for time. We need to kill it before it gets someone.” David said and everyone agreed — everyone other than me, for I was frowning internally. I’ll start this by saying that tier-3 skills shouldn’t be taken lightly. If sensitive hearing was just a growing bud, then acute sense was like a flower in full bloom. I could feel, no, perceive everything—literally everything! Nothing remained hidden from my sense anymore in the two-meter radius around me. I could feel the leaf under me with such clarity that it is almost impossible to describe with words. I could even feel its breaths to make a comparison. I didn’t have to see any more to know what was happening around. Turns out the green wrinkled crawler which had disappeared amidst the chaos was still hanging underneath the leaf and it was unconscious. Yes, I could perceive its unconsciousness. Not only that, I could even sense the enemies which had us surrounded. I could sense their intentions, their strengths, and even their thoughtlessness. I was now sure that they were nothing more than mindless drones. No wonder they don’t talk. I thought.

Genma must have seen me going stiff, so he asked, “What happened?”

“They are more of them,” I whispered back, yet to wake up from a daze.

“Where?” he asked, turning his head to look at our surroundings and the bad news just slipped through my mind.

“Everywhere,”

[Acute sense][Passive][Lv-1/50][Tier-3]

[It allows you to perceive anyone with harmful intentions around you with pinpoint accuracy.]

[Effect: The radius of perception is 2 meters.]

[Reward: it increases your Wisdom and intelligence by .4 every level increment.]