In addition to teaching and learning from Gregory, I worked hard to master moving quietly well enough to be able to leave my tree. I did not allow myself to leave until I could wander freely around the tree without ever attracting attention from nearby monsters. When my life changed, I just wanted to make a few more tests to see if my stealth was good enough before we headed out.

I was able to approach the greenery outside the area around my tree without any monsters trying to kill me years before. However, I was smart and kept improving my stealth skills for a few more years until I was able to succeed every time, not just sometimes. It was absolutely a decision I made based on logic and reasonable caution. It was not at all that I was terrified of all the monsters that seemed to be everywhere in this horrible forest. Yep.

I should mention that because of all my failures there were a LOT of monsters that attacked me. I suffocated them all after the termites immobilized them with their painful poison. Of course, I couldn't move them off into the forest so I ended up having to leave them where they fell in the bare area under my tree. This made a rather gruesome prospect over the years as the meat all rotted away but there were so many bones that it looked like some ancient battlefield. The wall of green around my tree ended up with a white ground under it made of bones. It was not creepy in the slightest. Or so I told myself every time I saw it and shuddered. It was home sweet home.

Much as I wanted to leave this horrible place behind as quickly as possible it was Gregory who was the most reckless. He wanted to go exploring and was always pushing me to leave. Just because I could go undetected for a day did not mean I could do it every day. I needed more practice to go for a week or even a month completely undetected. It got to the point where when we played hide and seek with the other bugs they couldn't find us.

Then one day, I finally left my tree.

It wasn't entirely a voluntary decision.

On one fateful day, Gregory and I were conducting one of our long term tests of my stealth by going around the perimeter of the area under my tree. We had been doing this particular test for over a week. Like I said before, I had to be sure I was up to snuff. Gregory seemed bored and was dozing off on my shoulder. I was in a state of constant awareness of my surroundings, not because I was terrified of being so close to being out from under the protection of my tree but because I was well trained. Really.

Around mid morning, a rather large hole appeared in the vegetation around my tree. One moment there was an unbroken wall of green surrounding my tree, the next there was a growing hole of nothing except a black fog. When I noticed the hole it was a meter wide. Within moments, there was no vegetation on that whole side of my tree.

I stood there completely shocked by this sudden change and Gregory seemed to be stunned too as he stood there shaking. Then a moment later, he had rushed off my shoulder and moved toward the black fog. His fellow termites had rushed out of the tree as well and were confronting the black fog. Because the termites were so small, from where I stood it looked like a brown fog was pushing back against the black fog. Lights flashed as they confronted one another. I guessed they were magical abilities but they were so small that all I could see was the flashes. It was beautiful. It was terrifying but still incredibly beautiful.

As the conflict approached me, I realized that the black fog was made up of winged ants. Countless numbers of them were fighting my friends the termites. To my horror, I was only able to watch as the brown mass of termites was pushed back. In many ways, I was glad I was so far away that I could not pick out which termites were falling to the ground even as they fell back. It was obvious that we were losing this fight.

I desperately wanted to run in to help but I knew I would just die for no reason. One bite would be enough to kill me since I had zero hit points. I was also a huge target which the ants would no doubt find tasty.

While I was trying to figure out what to do, a termite I recognized as Gregory's mother flew up to me. She seemed to be a big deal in the community but I had only seen her a few times. In her grasp was Gregory. He was missing a wing and looked to be in terrible shape. His mother wasn't much better. She was missing a leg and had a gash along her abdomen. If you are wondering how I can see all of this on bugs the size of a grain of rice, all I can say is that my vision improved thanks to a skill called microscopic vision I seem to have gained after spending so much time around my termite friends. Gregory's mother placed Gregory in his favourite spot on my hair and then started pulling. She was pulling me away from the battle. I thought about resisting but knew protecting Gregory was all I could hope to accomplish.

As soon as I started moving in the right direction, Gregory's mother left us and went back into the battle. She clearly planned to continue the fight. Even I could see her flight was much slower than normal and she was flying rather erratically. I have never felt so worthless or powerless.

As I started to run, I unknowingly passed into the green wall of vegetation that had been my greatest fear for over a decade. All I could think of was getting Gregory and I away from the fight. We would come back when it was safe. Our termites, our people, would win and be safe. They had to be.

I was quickly surrounded by plants of all sizes. I could not see more than a meter in front of me at most. Grass, ferns, bushes, and enormous trees were everywhere. I wished I knew more about the natural world as this enormous variety of plants seemed really strange. That said it wasn't like I could identify them so I just tried to avoid touching anything that looked dangerous. Avoiding the dangerous plants and monsters in this horrible jungle was made significantly more difficult by the fact that my vision was blurry. It wasn't that I was crying or anything. I just had something in my eyes. Both of them. For a few hours.

As time passed, my feet seemed to move on their own. I was increasingly unable to think about anything except for those last moments before I fled. I completely lost track of time and just moved mechanically. What saved me was that I had been unconsciously using the stealth I practiced all day every day for years. Luckily, nothing had noticed me as I performed a heroic rescue of the injured Gregory. I only stopped running, I mean rescuing, when I thought to give Gregory some first aid.

I found a spot that was relatively clear of vegetation and tried to take a close look at my best friend. One of his wings was gone and the other was only hanging on by a thread. I thought I might be able to staunch some blood loss by bandaging him up with a leaf. I grabbed some blades of grass and a few leaves to use as bandages but of course as soon as I picked something up my curse activated and it would fall away. I may have fallen into a small panic about my inability to save Gregory all the while once more cursing the goddesses and their parentage which clearly must have involved sludge, poison, and only the worst kind of low life scum.

After trying to think of something, anything, I could do help Gregory, I did something I swore never to do. I prayed to the gods for help. Of course, a long time later there was still no response to my efforts. I even had the title "Hated by the gods". There was no way they would save my best friend just because I asked. After my prayers went unanswered for half an hour or so, I went back to staring at his still form and trying to think of a way to help. It was bad enough that I was not able to do anything to help when the ants came but I was entrusted with Gregory and I had to save him. He was my best friend. He had to pull through.

After an unknown amount of time, I was able to calm down a bit and think. I realized that while my curse prevented me from bandaging Gregory with leaves or grasses, the answer to my problem was right in front of my face. I wrapped him in some of my hair, put him on the ground and then pulled the hair out of my head which I had wrapped him in. This way I was never holding anything that wasn't a part of myself.

After that, I could do nothing except watch over him. It was not like I had any medicine or healing abilities. It was also impossible for me to go back to the tree for help. I was not paying attention when I ran so I wasn't really sure of the way back to our tree. Even if I knew the way, I did not want to leave Gregory alone while he was so badly injured.

As I sat down with my back to a tree trunk to watch over Gregory, I noticed something rather important that I had missed. A half dozen meters in front of me was a small creek. On the far bank was a cave. In that cave, I could just make out the nose of a snake. It was bright red and as with everything in this horrendous forest, seemed incredibly deadly. After sitting stock still for a few moments, I realized it had not seen me. I breathed out a sigh in relief.

I did not want to move Gregory any more as I was not sure if my curse would effect his bandage if I picked him up. Also, the jolting of moving could not be good for him. That said, I had very little desire to test my stealth skills against that snake in front of me. I would likely have to stay here for days. Even if I could go undetected for a while, I was not at all confident about staying undiscovered for as long as Gregory would need to recover. For that matter, I wasn't sure what the snake would do if it found the badly injured Gregory.

I decided. I had to kill the snake. I could not move because of Gregory and if it noticed me there was very little chance of it letting me live. Therefore, it had to die. It was kill or be killed. I may have come up with a lot of motivational phrases while staying stock still doing my best to not realize I hadn't killed anything on my own since I came to this world all that time ago. I did not have any good ideas on how to kill it. Up until this point, I had only ever killed monsters that were paralysed by the pain of the termites poison. I realized once again just how helpless I was in this place without my termite friends.

As I thought more about how to kill the snake a desperate plan formed in my head. I would wait for the snake above its burrow and when it put its head out I would jump down on top of it. I would grab it by the neck and strangle it. All those achievements had boosted my stats over the years so I thought I might be able to manage it so long as I caught the snake by surprise.

Okay so I was clearly out of my mind at that point but it was the only thing I could think of. I was already feeling worthless after everything that had happened today. I did not want to be eaten by a monster without at least trying to put up a fight. I snuck over to the top of the snakes burrow and was trying to find a comfortable place to stand so I could pounce on the snake with a moments notice before the ground gave way beneath me. The whole creek bank collapsed at once. I knew I was slightly larger than normal but I didn't expect this at all. So much for me being stealthy.

I lay where I fell for a moment waiting for the snake to burrow out of the ground and eat me. Then I came to my senses and quickly moved a distance away to hide. Several scary monsters showed up after that but luckily none of them spotted me. I kept waiting for the snake to come out of its collapsed burrow for over a minute. Then I once more heard that incomprehensible voice saying something emotionlessly. I could tell my stats had risen once again as I felt lighter and stronger than ever before. I hurriedly opened my stat window and looked for new achievements. I had new achievements called Master Hunter, AOE Master, and Assassin.

I realized that the snake was unable to burrow through the ground. I vaguely recalled hearing that snakes generally are not able to dig but I never thought things would work out this way. Hahaha. I successfully hunted one of the monsters of this awful jungle. The feelings of helplessness and weakness I had felt earlier were swept away.

I was still terrified of facing one of the monsters of this place in a head on confrontation. But I was now confident that I could kill one from ambush if I grasped their weaknesses. With this, I was no longer at the bottom of the food chain. I was no longer helpless. Okay so once again I may have over reacted. After being pushed down for so long I may have become a bit overconfident after just one victory.

I returned to Gregory in a much better mood only to get worried all over again as he was still not moving. I had no idea if he was even still alive. It was not like I could see him breathing normally anyway. I did not have a mirror to hold in front of his face to see if he fogged it up. That might not even work given how small he is. He is definitely not dead. His mother would not have brought him to me if he wasn't going to make it. He just needed some more time before he would wake up.

As I stood there once again worrying endlessly about Gregory, he did what I had been desperately hoping for and he moved. Gregory was alive. As long as we had each other, I knew we would somehow manage.