I retreated into the safety of the grass, dragging the body of the dead ant with me to hide it. As I did, I was able to draw nearer to the Arkhor's corpse, my main target.

I appraised it and now that it was dead, its status was revealed.

________________________

LV12 Melior Arkhor

Specie: Ailith Oryx

HP: 00/87 Defence: 65

MP: 00/75 Intellect: 32

SP: 00/55 Magic: 53

Attack: 74 Agility: 85

Skills:

[Sturdy: LV4] [Endurance: LV4]

[Silence: LV4] [Night Vision: LV4]

[Enhanced Hearing: LV6] [Sprint: LV7]

[Acceleration: LV4] [Earth Magic: LV2]

[Soil Manipulation: LV7]

Title:

[Herd Member]

Resistances:

[Hunger Resistance: LV1]

[Faint Resistance: LV1]

_________________________

Looking at its stats, the only skills that could explain its quiet footsteps were [Silence] which I already had or [Earth Magic] and [Soil Manipulation] which I didn't.

I suspected it used [Soil Manipulation] to make the ground under its feet soft to cushion the sound of its approach.

I wasn't sure of the exact application of [Earth Magic], but I was sure it was also useful. I wondered if it was something I could gain passively without the aid of [Devour], if I wasn't successful in eating the Arkhor.

Entering the soil again I drew nearer to its position, but I faced another problem. Where the Arkhor fell, its huge body had flattened all the grass around it, leaving it in full view from the vantage point of the hidden archer. If I tried to take it away I would surely be noticed.

The Elves moved quickly, fighting off the remaining attacking ants that were now at a disadvantage due to their reduced numbers. With only three left and in addition to the damages they had taken, the battle ended all too quickly before I could reach the Arkhor's corpse.

The surroundings grew quiet once again, save for the rustling of the grass.

The three elves came together, talking amongst the fallen corpses and I watched the broad shouldered swordsman grasp one of the Arkhor's horns, his voice full of elation.

"Can you understand them, Sensei?"

«They are speaking in Sidrian, the common tongue of the elves. Do you want to know what they are saying?»

"Only if they are discussing my location. If not I really don't care."

«Their Cleric, the elf girl is afraid of getting pursued by the whole ant colony.»

Sensei continued with a light chuckle.

«This specie of Formica is known to be fiercely protective of their young.»

«They mark them with pheromones when they leave the nest and they have been known to break out of the Labyrinth in hordes while chasing after people who have captured or killed their brethren.»

«She wants to avoid detection and insists on taking only the horns of the Arkhor, to leave the body behind to placate the ants for their dead. The Rogue and the Swordsman, however, refuse. They both disagree with her, insisting that every part of the Arkhor is of value.»

I wondered about the archer and if his opinion could sway the group, but he failed to make an appearance.

The elves kept talking amongst themselves, completely unaware of Sensei listening to their every word.

In the end I watched as the large body of the Arkhor disappeared into the spatial ring worn by the swordsman, along with the bodies of the dead ants. They didn't seem to notice there were a few missing or if they did, they chose not to pursue it.

The elf girl remained tensely silent, clutching a dark velvet satchel in her palm.

«Do you plan on attacking them?» Sensei asked.

Somehow I felt a little bad for the elf girl whose opinion had been ruled over.

"Do I have a chance of winning?" I retorted.

«Not at your current level.»

I sighed helplessly. That much was obvious.

The elves soon left, emerging out of the grass to enter the forest, hopefully, along with the archer who never revealed themselves.

The path they took led them in the same direction I arrived. From there they would cross the stream leading them into denser jungle and for that I was relieved at their departure.

Returning to the place where I'd stashed the bodies of the ants, I retrieved them.

In the safety of the tall grass I was content to eat. The bitter, acrid taste of the ants burned the roof of my mouth, making me gag. Why couldn't anything ever taste good?

With the source of danger gone I was able to eat my fill undisturbed. Unfortunately, the bodies of two ants were not enough for me to gain any abilities. Their terrible taste aside, I was tempted to follow after the elves to see what they were after. I was under no illusion that they were friendly, but they probably carried some tasty food I could steal.

Yet I did not. I hesitated to leave the area because I had a feeling there was something important I had to get.

Moving through the ground amid the many vibrations of the fight had been too tasking on my senses but with the quiet, I was now able to turn my full attention to my body. To my surprise, the trembling I noticed earlier was gone. Was that because I'd eaten?

However, as I traversed the grass I noticed my body was still slow. Paying close attention to my movements, I saw that the lower end of my body remained still while I crawled. Stiff, like the very blood under my skin had hardened, leaving me to drag the frozen section through the ground as I moved. No wonder I was slow!

My thoughts spun at a frightening realization. Was this paralysis? But what was the cause?

I replayed the events in my mind, trying to remember what had happened since I came out of the forest but there was a gap in my memories, an event that remained out of focus just in the periphery of my mind.

Panicked, I crawled out of the grass to retrace my steps. Everything began with the mushrooms! I had to start from there.

My eyes scanned my vicinity, drawn to the spot of dark earth where the yellow mushrooms shaped like flowers grew. Dragging my stiff body I crawled over the ground towards it when I felt a familiar distortion in the air.

Instinctively I twisted my body. Clenching my muscles to a tight coil, I withdrew my head from its current position. If it was an arrow, the archer was surely aiming for my eyes.

Contrary to my expectations I failed to see the glimmer of silver in the air. Instead I felt a thunderous crash in the ground as something thicker than an arrow gouged a hole in the earth right where my head had been.

The object was pitch black in colour and shaped like a large needle.

I was immediately pushed back by a sudden gale of wind that threw dust and sand in my eyes, but I didn't dare look away. My gaze followed the length of the needle up to the bulbous abdomen of a winged insect hovering in the air above me, before I felt my whole world spun upside down.

Retracting its stinger from the cracked earth the creature swerved in the air before making a plunge down at me and its six limbs snatched up my body from the ground.

Suddenly vaulted in the air I was riddled with pain from where the sharp serrated blades on its arms snagged at my soft underbelly, my vision spun in circles at the unsteady flight of the creature. It seemed to be trying to balance our combined weights.

But before it managed to, I frantically twisted my body, loosening its grip. The arms of the creature were segmented but they lacked the proper grip like an arm would have and as I hung loosely from its grip, I was able to slip away.

The wind whooshed over my slender body as I plunged like a stone to the ground. Remembering the teachings of my female guard, I twisted in the air, expanding the shape of my body to an 'S' shaped curve.

With my form enlarged, I was able to ripple over the winds slowing down my descent. But since the lower end of my body was still sluggish, I couldn't execute it perfectly, and I painfully crashed onto the ground on landing.

I looked up and was finally able to get a good glimpse of the creature.

It was shaped like a wasp with six limbs extending from a lithe black thorax and body that glimmered in a dark green metallic sheen.

Its abdomen was slim, and from there extended its needle-like stinger that was half as long as its whole body. Its whole length gleamed brightly, its serrated edge looking just as deadly as a blade.

I couldn't let it hit me!

The insect's wings buzzed in the air, vibrating so fast it appeared like a blur of silvery light to my hazy eyes before the creature flickered from my view. Appearing next to me in the blink of an eye, it readied its vicious stinger to stab me once again.

Fast! It was too fast!

My body was heavy and I barely managed to twist out of the way of its plunging stinger a second time.

Following up, I lunged at the abdomen of the creature with my fangs while its stinger was still stuck in the soil. But it quickly spun around on the axis of its stinger, releasing itself. My fangs only managed to scrape the hard shell of its abdomen before I was slapped away by the spinning force of its streamlined body.

My fangs could not pierce it.

The insect immediately took off, the vibrations of its wings sending waves of sound crashing down on my amplified senses.

My head spun with piercing pain when I tried to filter through it to find its position. But I failed to keep up with the insect's speed. It blinked behind me in an instant, hovering over my body. There was nothing I could do as its stinger plunged down from the air with force, breaking through my skin.

I was flooded with excruciating pain as a scorching heat spread through my body. I felt the burning pain even in my extremities that had frozen over from the mushroom's poison.

I twisted around to bite the creature and as I did, I felt my skin tear away from where my body was stuck to the ground with the stinger of the wasp. I heard the sharp sound as if something was ripped apart.

The sinister insect retracted its stinger and no matter how high I lunged I was unable to reach it. Noticing my inability, it stopped attacking and simply hovered over the ground out of my range, watching me.

And then I felt it. A rigid sensation spreading fast through my blood, up to the rest of my body from my unmoving tail.

In an instant the fluidity of my body was gone, replaced by the sensation of heaviness as the searing heat spread to my upper body. It felt like my mass had increased and I was now too heavy to move. My sight blurred once the rigid feeling reached my head and my enhanced vision quickly turned dark.

The last thing I saw was the insect flying down to clutching me in its sharp limbs.

In my fading consciousness, the tall grass shrunk away, disappearing to mere specks of green as I rose up in the air. And like stars in a bleak sky on a dark night, the many lights of the fireflies and moss faded away to nothing.