Sure enough, it took us another five tries before the termites finally trusted us enough to leave us alone while they harvested our carefully prepared feast for materials and nourishment. Another five times we had to slaughter all nearby creatures and pile them up in a heap. If not for the two levels I had gained, I would have seen this as a wasted effort. Only when they let us get reasonably close without reacting did either of us feel confident enough to give getting into the hive a shot.

“Remind me why we were doing this again?” I asked, fed up after spending another fifteen minutes killing a single tier 3 monster. Their carapace was as hard as stone, and the worms just split into two parts when cut in half, which made them even more annoying to kill.

“To find a comfy spot to sleep, remember?” Emeri replied jovially.

“I’m starting to think we would’ve been better off heading straight for the temple without sleep… I never thought I would need to court a nest of monsters just to get a full night’s rest.”

“Hang in there, Arthur! We’re nearly at the point where we’ll be accepted into the hie for a while! Furthermore, who knows what those termites have scrounged up over the years. This is an opportunity, Arthur, an opportunity!” she insisted.

A weary sigh escaped my lips, but I acquiesced all the same. The more comfortable Emeri became around me, the harder it was becoming to get a word in edgewise. On one hand, I preferred this bubbly girl over the shy and quiet one, but on the other, being pulled into her eccentricities would be the death of me.

Thankfully, whoever had convinced Emeri that one could enter into a truce with wild desert termites hadn’t been lying. Their methods were proving to be quite effective, because only the most suspicious termites were still giving us any trouble. Eventually, even they let off and left us alone.

About thirty minutes went by without incident, so we decided to head over to the monolithic hive on the horizon. We slowly approached the largest tower, mixing in with the hordes and hordes of termites that scuttled on all visible edges of the base. They didn’t even bat an eye as we advanced to the largest tunnel, though we were stopped once we stood before it. Not by a termite, mind you, but by a pair of voices and an intense pressure that washed over us. One distinctly male voice, the other distinctly female.

“…visitors…strangers…enemy?” the male one asked.

“…food…offering…entry…” the female one responded.

“…Food, entry.” The male one agreed.

The pressure let up, and we felt like we could breathe again.

“What the hell was that?” I whispered to Emeri.

“Didn’t I mention that the king and queen could be as intelligent as a human child?”

“You forgot to mention their tier, though!”

She shrugged innocently in answer to my complaint, unable to feel the two clusters of mana that I felt below our feet. After the wave of pressure, it became far easier to figure out just what we were dealing with. Two tier 5 creatures, both comfortably above the halfway mark to tier 6. If they wanted, they could turn us to dust with a fart, yet Emeri acted like she didn’t care. Was this her idea of a ‘safe’ spot? I sighed and grit my teeth. Stranger things had happened, and this wouldn’t be the first time I followed through on a questionable decision. I comforted myself with the fact that these monsters had little to gain by killing us, and followed Emeri into the tunnel as she took the lead.

Neither of us dared to raise a commotion as we headed deeper into the labyrinth of tunnels and chasms, so we stayed silent all the way through. Only when we reached the royal chamber and had to look up to take in the sight of the bloated queen and king of the termite nest did we both gasp in awe, breaking the silence.

The queen’s massive egg-filled abdomen reminded me of the tsuchigumo queen, the massive invasive spider we had fought on a quest one time, though this queen was far larger in stature.

Though my mana sense allowed me to feel the massive amounts of mana that roiled off of their shapes, neither looked particularly suited for battle. They were large, certainly, but too fat to move around much in this already massive cavern. Which is why it didn’t surprise me that both king and queen were surrounded by a pack of termites with wicked-looking mandibles and thorned carapaces. These were the royal guards of the kingdom, and they made their opinion of us known by clacking their weapon of choice together repeatedly.

After we overcame the initial shock, Emeri bowed low in front of the royal pair. Out of precaution, I copied her. Eventually, the termites’ voices reached our heads again.

“You… bring… food… Colony…satisfy…” the king began.

“You…want…?” the queen asked.

Emeri looked up.

“We…want…shelter.” She said slowly and clearly.

“Give…shelter.” The king rumbled. “Want…else?”

I hid a sneaky smile by lowering my head. So there was something worthwhile to gain here after all!

“What…else…give?” Emeri asked.

“Give…shine?” the king asked, turning his giant head slightly to his queen.

“Pick…shine. One…”

Hearing that response, the king turned his head to one of his guards, who immediately stood at attention. Once he had received his instructions telepathically, he turned and scurried off.

“Follow…” we heard in our heads. Without questioning it, we jogged after the guard, not even taking the time to say goodbye. Did insects care about that kind of thing?

Either way, we were too busy following this maniacal bug as he raced through the tunnels on a mission, trampling any smaller termites in his wake. It took all of our physical stats to keep up with the tier 4, but eventually, we stopped in a deep, large chamber.

I needed a moment to take in what I was seeing, because this chamber looked like both the best and the worst treasury in existence. The floor was covered in doo-dads of all kinds, with piled up in large mounds, while weapons and armour were stacked against the wall. Odd scales of different colours, small gems that radiated small amounts of mana and so much more.

The thing was, all of it was just thrown across the room. No organisation, no care for the items, nothing. I dug into one of the mounds, pulling out one of the older swords, only to find that it had almost rusted over entirely.

Furthermore, while I wasn’t an appraiser, most of this stuff looked like it was tier 1 or tier 2.

“Alright,” I began, “Looks like we’ll have to dig through these piles to find something valuable that we hopefully recognise. A monster part maybe? I don’t think I could figure out if any of this equipment is worth anything, even if you gave me a week…” I grumbled.

To make matters worse, the royal guard was tapping his foot… paw? Against the floor at an increasingly quick pace. He was getting impatient, so we hadn’t much time to find something. With haste, both of us began searching through the heaps of trash, in search of treasure.

I threw everything that seemed useless out of the way, because the guard didn’t seem to mind.

An old brooch with a picture of a chicken in the middle, no thanks. A sword that turned into an axe at the tip, not for me. Oh, a black gemstone that sucked in the light! Oh no, that’s actually just a turd, I think.

With every item I discarded, I lost a bit more hope, until I was starting to give up any I had left. These bugs had just picked up anything even remotely interesting and thrown it on a pile!

Suddenly Emeri, who was digging through a mound on the other side of the room, made a loud clattering sound.

“I think I’ve got something!”

I rushed over to her side and found her bent over a small wooden box. It looked as dusty and worn down as any of the other items, but once she ran a finger across it and removed some of the dust, it turned out that the box was still in good condition.

“I can see just one problem… There’s no key in sight.”

“That’s normal for these types of chests.” Emeri explained.

What chests? Wooden ones?

Emeri placed a hand on the lock, which suddenly started to glow with a white sheen once she’d started to put some mana into it. For a few tense seconds, nothing happened, until, suddenly, the chest clicked and opened by itself. Inside, we found a small white and gold dagger, displayed in a red cushion.

It looked in great condition, as if time hadn’t touched the item even a bit. Emeri carefully pulled the agger out of the box and turned it around in her hand, inspecting its design.

The golden accents displayed symbols of the sun on the side of the otherwise stark white weapon. A single yellow gem shone from its pommel, illuminating Emeri’s face.

“So? What is it? It looks like it belonged to a member of the church, no?”

Hesitantly, Emeri turned to me.

“I- I don’t know what it is… I think… it’s just an ordinary dagger. An expensive one, but…” she trailed off, giving me an awkward smile. She hastily stored the weapon, before closing the chest and hiding it back in the hole she’d made in the clutter.

Ordinary dagger, huh… There was something she wasn’t telling me. Still, I didn’t really care about weapons I couldn’t use anyway, so for now I decided to let it be.

We turned back to the spiky royal guard, whose appendage was now going up and down at record speeds. If he could have sighed, seeing us take so long, I believed he would have.

Once he noticed we were done, he ran back into the tunnels in the other direction, at an even faster speed than before.

It took everything we had and more than a few unfortunate termites we had to bowl out of the way, but we managed to follow him all the way to a small, abandoned chamber. It was a bit off of the beaten path, but it was somewhat close to the surface and an exit, so I felt reasonably confident this place was meant to be our shelter. Our guide refused to introduce us to the place, opting to beat the ground three times to convey his message instead. Before we knew it, he had raced back to the royal chamber, leaving behind a cloud of dust and sending us into a coughing fit.

Once we had finally recovered and set up our tents, we went to bed for the first time in a week. Tomorrow, we would commence the second half of our journey, whilst I tried to weasel out of Emeri what was so special about her new knife.