In the end, I surprised myself with just how long I managed to stick things out before the boredom truly got the better of me. In retrospect, perhaps it was some kind of innate ability of my small Parasite brain, or rather a lack thereof, to keep myself from getting bored.

Because I don’t know how else I might have endured over a week, by my count - eight days, sunrise to sundown, plus a handful of hours - without going a little bit crazy, sitting in the big guy’s ear with not a lot happening.

The big guy lived a pretty quiet life, for the most part. I saw him eat big bunches of leaves off of trees and bushes once in a while, furthering my theory that this was some kind of mutated rhinoceros that supplemented its herbivore diet with helpings of insects every so often, like an anteater. I couldn’t fathom how a creature as big as this sustained itself on handfuls of insects, but I’d learned to not question this place and its logic.

I mean, there were skills that literally made it so I got more sustenance out of the same amount of food. Stomachs did not work like that!

Anyway.

The big guy had also taken up a new hobby, it seemed. One that involved finding monsters twice his size, and fighting them to the death. In those eight days, I’d seen it happen twice, and now on the dawn of the ninth day, he had a third encounter, which he won just like the two previous ones.

I wasn’t even sure why he was out to battle like that. As far as I could tell, there was no rhyme or reason to why the battles started. I know rhinoceroses could get territorial, but animals didn’t usually fight to the death, especially if the winner didn’t get to eat the loser. Which the big guy didn’t, I might add. I’d not seen him taking a single bite out of his victims.

Of course, the idea that he could be trying to gain levels had already occurred to me, but that seemed implausible. Animals were mostly driven by survival instincts, weren’t they? It seemed like a stretch to say that ‘getting stronger within the System and make big numbers bigger’ was part of those instincts. But then what did I know, I hadn’t been in this world for a month nor had any access to resources I could’ve used to inform myself about such topics.

And now, this questionably stable state of affairs was disrupted entirely. It was shortly after that third fight I had just witnessed, the the big guy was pushing the carcass of his now-dead opponent out of the way. That was when the two of us were suddenly engulfed in darkness, and found ourselves in a familiar-looking black void.

“Rocky! So good to see you again”, a joyous voice called out. “It’s been a hot few days, hasn’t it. And you’ve been keeping busy, haven’t you?”

I had no idea who this voice might belong to, but I could only imagine that its owner was addressing the big guy. So his name was Rocky? Kinda fitting, if a bit of a cutesy name for a beast that was heavier than your average car. Well, I wasn’t about to scurry deeper into the big gu- into Rocky’s ear and stay hidden while this very interesting conversation happened… I did not recognise this voice, but I damn well recognised this darkness surrounding us.

Still, I was a little surprised. First Thorgrimm and Irena, now a third guy… these gods were pretty hands-on in this world, weren’t they. Or was I just that lucky, or unlucky depending on the perspective?

As I heaved myself up and crawled out of Rocky’s aural canal, just enough that I could poke my head out and see what was going on, I saw that there was someone facing us. Someone who looked very familiar, in fact. Those long mandibles, the six legs supporting a segmented body, the chitin carapace that covered that body like shiny plate armour… Its proportions weren’t quite like those of the Queen I had met, but what I was looking at was very clearly a Myrmidon Ant. It looked almost exactly like the ones in the hatchery I had hatched at. I say almost, because the adult ants I had met were maybe three or four times my size. This one was as big as Rocky.

Was this what he always looked like, just like Thorgrimm appeared as a dwarf and Irena as the fox-eared woman? Something didn’t quite strike me as right about that. It would be a huge coincidence that he randomly had the same appearance as the creature I was. So, maybe it was some kind of shapeshifter… but then, why would he take on this form, if his interest clearly was on Rocky?

Ohhh, what if it was one of those… damn, there was a trope for this. The thing where every onlooker perceived the subject in a different way, or the human brain made them look a certain way because their true form could not be comprehended or induced insanity. I remembered there being some trope cases like that in comic books and with Eldritch abominations? But if that was the case, why didn’t I see him as a Parasite, like I was? Or a human, for that matter? I might physically be an insect monster, but I still had a human mind!

It also felt odd that the Ant before me looked so much like the Queen I had spoken with but sounded so different. Namely, it had a deep baritone man’s voice. The ‘Queen’ that stood before Rocky and I was of course not the same one as the Queen, I knew that, but my mind recalled that Queen because of their similar looks. Maybe this was an Ant King? I was a layman on insects, but if I remembered correctly there was no such thing on Earth, where ant Queens just copulated with… soldier ants? Worker ants? Something like that.

Luckily I didn’t miss anything of importance: Rocky just made a snorting sound with his nostrils while I climbed my way out of his ear to get that first-row seat. That probably meant something, but the best I could guess was that it had kind of a… proud ring to it? Like he considered the ‘you’ve been keeping busy’ as a compliment.

“So then”, the big ant said, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about things. We’re still fixing the problems surrounding your death, but we’ve sorted out most of it. Don’t worry, you get to stay alive and all, no issues on that front. However, you’ve been… quite active of late. I mean, a kill-count of twenty-two smaller monsters and four big ones in nine days, including a manticore…” The huge bug gave an admiring nod.

Huh, four big monsters? I must’ve missed one. Maybe Rocky killed it while I was busy evolving or asleep. And twenty-two smaller ones… I’d seen Rocky slay a few, but I’d dismissed it as smaller monsters trying to attack him and getting killed for their effort. But that was a pretty steep killcount for a herbivorous animal.

Much more importantly, this whole thing answered a question that had been burning on the back of my mind for a while: why was Rocky alive? I’d definitely killed him, even though it was by accident, yet here he was, hale and hearty, like he had been for the last couple of days since my evolution.

“... yeah, that’s a bit of a problem, Rocky”, the ant explained in the meantime. “See, normally your kin are supposed to be docile. Your aggression could be explained as a panic or temporary frenzy as a side-effect of your revival, but not for this long. I’ve named you by, ah, accident, when I revived you, you remember that much. That has changed you a little bit, made you smarter and such. And now you’re using those smarts to decide that you want to level up. That’s good and all, but you’re way too hasty. Drawing attention in the wrong ways. So, if we have to turn our attention to you and audit the activity logs… oh, let me reword that. I meant: if we look at what you’ve been doing these last few days, your behaviour will not go unnoticed, and I can't cover for you if you’re this blatant about it.”

Rocky gave a snort at this, and I was inclined to agree. What this guy was saying boiled down to “You’re using my ‘accidental’ gift to cause me trouble, and if you keep doing that you’ll land yourself in deep shit and I’ll have to throw you under the bus to save my own hide.” I didn’t know what had transpired between Rocky and this god, but just the way he spoke of the supposed accident, his tone and body language, made it clear to me that it was anything but. Hell, give him a suit and a fat cigar and he’d look the mafia gangster part of a crime drama movie too! Well, setting aside that he also looked like a giant insect of course.

“I’m glad you asked!” the bug continued, smacking its mandibles together hard enough to make a clapping sound. I wondered what that looked like to Rocky… “All I need you to do is to lay low for a while. Go back to eating greens and insects like you used to, don’t look for trouble and all that. Doesn’t have to be for too long, just until this little situation blows over, then you can go back to your shenanigans. The audit will… we’ll look at what has happened, nothing too odd will pop up and this’ll all be settled and forgotten about before you know it. Then you can- hm? Hold on. Is there… ah, never mind. I could’ve sworn that… no. Sorry Rocky, guess I’m just seeing things, haha. So as I was saying, once this has petered out a bit, nobody’s eyes will be on you anymore and you can go back to doing what you want. I’ll let you know. Sound good?”

Rocky made a guttural sound that sounded like a gruff dad’s grunt of approval.

“Great!” Again the bug ‘clapped’ its mandibles. “Then all that’s left is to send you back. Take care Rocky, and stay safe out there!”

With that he faded into the darkness again, and Rocky and I were plopped back to where we’d been fetched from, complete with the fresh carcass right before us. Rocky shook his head a little bit - thankfully I had gripped on hard so I didn’t fly off - and stayed still for a bit. I didn’t need to see his face to tell that he was reflecting on this.

Then, he just returned to pushing the dead body, and I was left to think about what had just transpired.

I had a definite feeling that I was not meant to have seen what I just saw. I was like the child hiding at the top of the staircase to eavesdrop, while their parents talked to the well-dressed man who’d shown up late in the evening.

I wasn’t sure, but I thought he might have noticed me, but only almost. Or maybe he did but pretended not to have seen me… and yet, I was almost certain that I saw him wink at me right before sending us off. Even though insects had no eyelids to wink with. It could just as well have been him winking at Rocky, but… ah, it wouldn’t do me any good to rack my mind over this, I couldn’t change what had happened anyway.

There was also a notification window in my field of vision. I felt reasonably certain that I knew what it would contain, but I read it anyway.

Trait acquired: Touched by Divinity: The Knife [Profaned] has absorbed [Touched by Divinity: The Knife]

Yep… that damned [Profaned] had taken it away again. Well, I didn’t know what those Touched by Divinity-named [Traits] did, but it could only be beneficial, right? Well, at least I’d learned something else; the big ant was the ‘Knife’. And if Thorgrimm was the ‘Hammer’... were their titles set after weapons or tools? Was there also a ‘Screwdriver’ god, or maybe a ‘Gun’ one?

There was a lot of information to process from this brief meeting, but one thing I’d noticed was that even though the Knife used simple speech, probably so Rocky could understand him, he’d used a few words that I recognised from when I met Thorgrimm. “Activity logs”, mainly. And “audit”... it really sounded like they had a system behind the scenes, something that logged everything to form a record. Then Thorgrimm had to be an auditor that checked people’s handiwork. And even now, over a week after the incident, they were still verifying things… probably working out every last kink and fixing things as much as possible. Maybe holding the wrongdoers accountable too.

The way the Knife had said things though, to me implied that there was something bigger at work. His overt warning to Rocky that if he kept drawing attention to himself there would be consequences, and his saying that naming Rocky was an accident… on that note, names were apparently a big deal, if it ‘changed’ the one who got a name? Maybe that was only if you got named by a god, though. Anyway, the way he had threatened Rocky, it sounded like he was worried about getting into hot water himself. Maybe because his naming Rocky had caused Rocky to start power-levelling in the first place, and that could be traced back to him? Was naming a monster not allowed for them?

The more worrying prospect was what might happen if, as the Knife had put it, he couldn’t cover for Rocky. What would be done to him? And more importantly, me? I’d already found that by sticking to Rocky, I could get transported along with him, so what if someone like Thorgrimm teleported him to his realm and struck him down with a bolt of lightning? I’d be gone along with him!

This, along with the growing concern that I’d become collateral when Rocky got into more scuffles with the local monster populace, sealed the deal for me. Rocky was becoming too dangerous. It was time for me to get off and find a new host.

So, uh…it was nice meeting you Rocky, thanks for all you did, and sorry about accidentally killing you. Emphasis on accidentally! So, I think it’s time we parted ways. You go do whatever you want to do, I’ll just focus on surviving. Alright, bye!

I couldn’t actually communicate this to my oblivious host, of course, but it was the thought that counted. Then I climbed out of Rocky’s ear while he took a little break from pushing, and descended along his neck to his upper body, then down his leg. [Grip] was doing wonders for me here. I waited patiently until he finished getting the carcass of his most recent kill under a tree, then as he turned to leave I jumped off.

Under my chitin legs, I could feel the still-warm body. It now lay still without life left in it, though given what Rocky had done to it, I expected nothing else. I wandered over the relatively unharmed torso, trying to not look at the head. That was a gory mess of things meant to stay inside the body. While I hadn’t caught all the details from the battle, I’d caught the crucial moment, when Rocky had driven his horn into the other creature from below, through its lower jaw and palate and into… yuck. Just thinking about it gave me the heebie-jeebies. Of course, death was never clean and hygienic, but I couldn’t help it. I’d worked in an office rather than a hospital, I wasn’t used to seeing this kind of blood!

Speaking of blood… It still turned my stomach to think of it, but I was actually feeling a bit hungry. Fairly hungry, actually, in spite of the gory mess I had just seen. The carcass beneath me might not have a beating heart pushing the blood anymore, but I might still be able to get some of it before it coagulated. Best try it fast though, because between getting pulled into that god’s domain for a little lecture and everything else that had happened, it had been a little while since Rocky had dealt the killing blow.

Well, bon apétit to me. Chomp! And… shlllrp.

The blood I drained was definitely thicker and more syrupy than Rocky’s, but I didn’t need much, so I was able to fill my stomach just fine. Still, I would not be able to do this often before the blood became too thick for me to feed off of. Perhaps [Mooch] might let me eat a dead body, but I would need to get through its hide first.

Now what was my next goal? That one was easily answered: I needed to find a new host, preferably one less dangerous than Rocky. That shouldn’t be too hard; this big carcass was bound to attract scavengers sooner or later, and I could latch onto one of those. If it didn’t, I would have to try and make like a tick, climbing onto a tree and letting myself drop onto the next victim to pass below me. So thinking, I drank as much as I could stomach then crawled underneath the body and hid away, ready to jump at whatever came by.

As I waited, I fantasised a little bit about what potential carrion eaters might become my next generous host. Perhaps a pack of wolves would come by? Or a bear, even? Bears were carrion eaters as long as the meat was fresh, right? I would probably have to forego ravens and the like, since those were too small to ignore me. Maybe a buzzard could work, even though I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to have a flying creature as my host.

I was prepared to bide my time for a few days, however long my stomach might let me before I would have to try something else. But I was spared a wait that long, because after only a few hours I heard voices and footsteps, and they were drawing closer.

Immediately I was on edge and worried. It couldn’t be the same human and elves that I’d seen before, right? After the time I’d accidentally killed Rocky? They weren’t back for me, were they? However, as I listened more closely I found that the voices sounded different, and there was no clatter of the heavy armour that I’d seen the knight wear. It put me a little more at ease, though not by much. Just because these people were not the same, didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous to me.

Soon a figure came into view. From behind a tree, a man with a spear in hand stepped into the area and looked around in a way that led me to think he had done this many times before. Probably scanning the area for Rocky and other obvious dangers. Then he turned his head and loudly spoke a few words, to which I heard the sound of more footsteps. I guessed that he let the rest of the group know that the coast was clear.

True enough, three more people came into the clearing: two women, one of which was trailing slightly behind, and a girl that I would guess to be a teenager. The woman that was with the girl, and the girl herself, both had daggers on their belts, while the one in the back held a long staff in her hand. No, not a staff, I realised when I noticed the metal ends on it. It was more like a polearm, and a nasty-looking one at that. I certainly didn’t want to catch it in the ribs… or wouldn’t, if I was a human and had ribs big enough to aim at.

All four of them were dressed in a mixture of woven fabric and furs, held together with hemp rope. They looked like players dressed up for a medieval LARP game. It was a stark contrast to the proper clothes that I’d seen on the knight, the huntsman and the elf lady. The spear-wielding man and the polearm woman also had leather boots whereas the other woman and the girl went barefoot.

The spear-wielding man and the polearm woman were both humans, sporting round ears that I caught peeks of here and there, but the other woman and the girl had pointed elf ears. They also wore no shoes or even footwraps, whereas the two humans had leather boots on. Judging by the way their clothes deformed when they moved, I guessed that they hid something beneath the outer layer. Maybe metal plates or fired clay shingles, sort of how modern-day bulletproof vests had kevlar plates slid in?

It didn’t help with my unease though, since even if they might be different people, they were still armed. Best to just try and not draw attention.

The spearman motioned in my direction - actually, that was probably towards the carcass, not me - and said something else. He did not look very happy, and the human woman was also looking around. Were they worried that Rocky might come back, maybe? Or that somebody might see them? I knew that poaching was a big deal in medieval Europe, where everything on a land was considered to belong to the local lord and hunting could only be done with permission, so perhaps this was similar. The older elf responded saying something in a firm tone, and the spearman relented. He did not look too happy, but focused his attention on something on the ground, while the two elves came closer.

“Let’s switch now”, the older woman announced. “Show me your progress.”

“Switching already? I think it is needed only when we give last rite!” the younger girl answered.

I blinked. There was something odd at work here, perhaps magic of some kind… the woman’s words were crystal clear to me, but the girl’s sounded a little distorted. I had no better way of describing the sensation, it was something between a bad telephone connection and listening to someone on the other side of a glass wall.

The woman sighed. “You’re not going to progress [Animal Speech] if you don’t train it, Leah. It’s ‘when we are giving the last rites’. You made several mistakes in that. That’s why I want you to use it more, even if it’s hard.”

The girl looked unhappy. “The olders make fun of me when use wrong words.”

“You mean ‘the older pupils’ and ‘when I use the wrong words’. And everybody starts somewhere. They were just as inexperienced as you when they were your age. Now, can I trust you to speak the rites over this body while I take a look?”

“Yes, but… What kill it?”

The woman looked towards the head end of the dead animal. “It takes a lot to kill a High Deer, but judging by its half-destroyed head, I’m almost certain that it’s the rogue Ironback’s doing.” She reflected a moment, then motioned towards the body. “It’s dead, you can come closer without fear. Tell me, what do you see?”

The girl knelt down and ran her hand over the cooling body. “Warm. It dead for not long. Short pointy horns… female. Maybe injury separate it from group?”

“Take a look at her legs.”

“Mmm… I see nothing.”

“Yes. She was healthy as far as those go. No limp or the like that would lead others to leave her behind.”

“So, she alone for other reason? Look for food?”

“That is my guess as well. High Deer need to eat much to sustain themselves. This one probably separated itself from the group to find food for itself. Can you tell what level it was?”

“Hard. It dead too long. Mmm… level 12?”

“15, but you’re closer than last time. You’re improving.” She let the girl beam with pride for a moment, then continued. “Still, you’ll need to continue working on your [Skills] if you don’t want to fall behind. Now, let’s not keep our guardians waiting. Remember the last rites?”

“Yes!” the girl - Leah - said with an eager nod. The woman stepped off to the side to continue her inspection, while she laid both hands on the carcass, just above me, and began to speak. “Mighty, uh… High Deer, we pray that your passing was swift and without pain, and that the System guides your spirit back to the Anima from which you were born. We pray that your death has not been for nothing, and that you are unburdened of grudges. Be at peace, and rest.” She drew the dagger from her waist - I noticed that it was not made of metal, but flintstone - and tapped the creature’s underbelly with the flat side.

I felt an odd warmth through me as she finished. A comfort that I’d not felt in a long time, even before my arrival to this world. As formal as this ceremony was - and judging by the girl’s eloquence compared to her usual error-laden speech, she had practised them time and time again - there was a certain reassurance that somebody cared for you after you died. It was perhaps due to that sensation that I let my guard down, and didn’t notice that the girl was tapping her dagger downwards along the High Deer’s underbelly, until she had to reach down, and her hand brushed my carapace.

We both froze for a moment, then she pulled back her hand and laid down flat on her belly to get a better look. I couldn’t crawl backwards because the body was blocking my way, so I hastily made a few sideways steps as best as this body’s limited joints allowed me to, but it wasn’t fast enough. The girl’s eyes locked on to me. I had been found.

The girl spoke a few words in the language I couldn’t understand, but a warning ‘Leah…’ from the older woman made her switch back to what I presumed was [Animal Speech]. “A weird bug.” Then, looking back at me, she asked: “What you do here…?”

I nervously clicked my mandibles. Should I reply or stay silent?

“Oh. I not… not danger? Ah… here.” She reached into a pocket of her clothes and produced a half-eaten loaf of bread, then plucked some off the side and placed it within my reach.

While it did seem like she meant me no harm, I couldn’t just trust her because she’d offered me a bit of food. Still, I decided to take my chances and return the goodwill by speaking to her. If this group decided to take the carcass away, my plan of getting a scavenger host was a bust, so I should try to make the best of what I had.

Actually, could I even speak? The Ant Queen had used some kind of telepathy with her antenna to speak with me and read my thoughts. I wasn’t sure if I had vocal cords in this form, but… no way to find out but to try.

Click click click.

Nope. I could sort of push air out of my mouth, but it did not produce noise, and trying to move my lips and tongue just clicked my mandibles again. Moving my claws didn’t help me much either, they were too rigid to imitate hand gestures in any way that could make me understood. Maybe if I knew the local language I could try to write something into the dirt, but I doubted that we shared a common tongue.

But it seemed like my waving arms around clued her in on that I couldn’t speak aloud, because she put on a pensive face. “I… hm, you wait. I find help.” Without giving me time to answer, she turned away and spoke loudly in the language I couldn’t understand. Judging by the way she faced, it was an easy guess that she was talking to the other woman.

“Found what? Relax, girl, you’ll swallow your own tongue at this rate”, I heard her voice reply, and after another slew of words from the girl - Leah, if I’d understood their previous conversation correctly - her feet entered my field of vision, then she knelt down. “Well, let’s have a look then.”

The dead body above me shifted a bit, until it was enough out the way that I could see both elves above me, looking down. I felt a bit uneasy to have two people’s attention, but in for a penny, in for a pound.

“Hello. I’m sorry for the bother”, she said in a friendly tone. “Would you mind repeating your words?”

I just repeated my mandible clicking. Still can’t talk, lady.

“Ah, I see. Allow me to… [Spirit Voice], form link.”

[Stranger] wishes to establish a mental link with you!

[Accept] [Refuse]

A… what now?

“You can accept that. It will just let you communicate with me, nothing more.”

Right… I chose to go ahead with it - for now. I wasn’t too happy on having someone I didn’t know do the magical equivalent of sliding me a contract and pressing me to just sign the dotted line real quick… But on the other hand, I didn’t have much of a choice if I wanted to speak with these people. [Accept!] please.

[Spirit Voice] is now in effect! You are currently linked to [Stranger]

“Could I ask you to repeat one more time? This time I’ll understand you… you can communicate your thoughts back to me through the link.”

“I was saying ‘Sorry, I can’t eat that’”, I replied and motioned towards the chunk of bread. “Talking about that bread your apprentice offered to me, I assume as a sort of peace offering… is everything okay?”

The older woman had a surprised look painted across her face. This also drew Leah’s attention, who shot a question at her in the language I could not speak, with big eyes.

“I… you’re very eloquent”, she replied.

Oh. Well, she was right in a way - insects were probably more simple-minded. Now what? I couldn’t suddenly pretend to be just a regular bug anymore…

A smile crossed the woman’s face. “I can tell you’re uneasy, but you needn’t worry. My granddaughter and I are [Druids]. You have nothing to fear from either of us.”

“[Druids]? I don’t know what that means.” It wasn’t entirely the truth; I knew what a druid was, at least back on Earth. But here, things were different. A [Druid] could be something entirely different.

“Our [Class] strongly attunes us with nature, to put it simply. It would have disastrous consequences to us if we harmed you, even by accident, so we are very careful.”

Of course, I could only trust a statement like that so much without the System-related knowledge to support it, but I had to trust her on that. “Okay, I’ll believe you for now. Don’t take this the wrong way, but when you’re a couple hundred times bigger than me it’s not easy to feel at ease.”

“Hah, I suppose that is true”, she admitted with an amused smile. “But rest assured, we have no reason to bring harm to you, and many reasons to avoid doing so.”

Leah chose this moment to interject a question of her own. “What it say?” This time she spoke using [Animal Speech], so I could understand her.

“It told me that it can’t eat the bread you offered it”, the older elf translated for her. “Actually…” Then looking back at me, she continued: “Would you be okay to let my granddaughter in on this conversation as well?”

“Sure.”

It took them a moment of conversing in the other language, then Leah cast [Spirit Voice] on me, I accepted and the second link opened between us.

“This will make things much easier. But remember, Leah, just because our friend here can understand your Common now, does not mean you can skip out on your training today. Keep speaking with [Animal Speech] as much as you can.”

Leah grumbled a bit but nodded. “Okay.”

Looking back at me, the elf said: “The fact that you speak not just in emotions and concepts, but in words… that is very unusual. It has me curious… would you allow me to [Inspect] you?”

I would have frowned if I had the facial muscles to do that. Or at least narrowed my eyes. I had a vague idea by now what [Inspect] did, but I couldn’t rely on the limited information that the System was giving me. “What’ll that do?”

“It will allow me to see your [Status]."

“Do I have a choice?”

The girl scrunched her face at this. “Granny always ask! She friendly! You rude!”

“Right”, the woman interrupted her with a hand on her shoulder. “I understand that the power dynamics make you wary, but I assure you I will not [Inspect] you against your will.”

I reflected on the request. Being able to see my [Status]... so [Inspect] didn’t just show some general information about whatever creature I targeted. It actually showed the [Status] to an outsider. That felt a lot creepier than I had already felt about it when I’d read the [Skill] description in my list. And given my unique species… was it really a good idea to allow this lady to look? If she really wanted to see it, she could probably just [Inspect] me without my agreement, despite what she had just told me. I was dependent on her goodwill. And if she saw what she did, she would probably have questions, like how on earth a little bug had [Profaned] and [Titan Slayer].

On the other hand, she may have information for me as well, and would probably answer me some questions if I answered hers in turn. Knowledge for knowledge… a fair trade? I direly needed information if I wanted to make it anywhere.

“Can I hide any parts of my [Status] from you?” I asked.

“No. But I can exclude parts of it from [Inspect] so I will not see them.”

“Then please do that, to exclude everything other than my [Race] and [Skills].”

Without hesitation, she put a hand on her chest. “I swear it. I will exclude everything else.”

With how fast she agreed, I guessed that she wanted to look at my [Race] and didn’t care about the other things, at least not enough to haggle with me. “Okay. You can go ahead. But I have a bunch of questions afterwards, can we trade? I let you sate your curiosity if you sate mine?”

I felt a wave of discomfort wash over me, as though I felt ill on a ship, only less strongly. The next moment, it was gone.

“Ohh, Granny, what you see?”

The older woman’s eyes darted back and forth as she read lines of information that were invisible to me - and probably to Leah too. If she was surprised, her face didn’t show it.

“Very curious… very curious indeed. I thought that you looked different from the usual insects who call the forest their home, but it seems that you’re a kind I have never met before. Do you know if you are mutated? An Aberration, perhaps?”

“I… yeah. I hatched from a Myrmidon Ant egg but I’m different somehow. The Queen called me an ‘Aberration’ too, actually.”

“That explains why you don’t have [Omnivore] like the ants do… though eating the morsel that Leah put out for you should be possible with [Mooch], if you want to try it. Can I have your permission to share my findings with her?”

“Yeah, might as well.”

In turn, she began to speak with Leah, sharing the list of [Skills] that I had, and my [Race] with her. The girl glanced back at me every so often with those big eyes that only a fascinated child could do. While they were doing that, I tried nibbling on the bread - it was true, I could eat it! - and examined both of them a little more closely.

Despite how the girl called her ‘Granny’, she looked to be about twenty-five, thirty at most. That was probably the elven heritage. Still, there were some fine details on her body showcasing her experience: she had numerous little scars and marks along her lower arms and hands, and the way she moved even while kneeling was made with the elegance that only someone with a lot of life experience could display.

Her clothing, and the girl’s, was also simpler than that of the two humans: they both wore one fur draped over their shoulders like a cloak, and their clothes were plain fabric tunics and trousers. The two hunters both wore several pelts and had knick-knacks like bone rings and shells woven into their hair and sewn onto their attire. The contrast of the hunters’ elaborate attire to the two [Druids]’ simple clothes evoked in me the image of the stereotypical withdrawn hermit or the old wizard that was beyond flashy displays of power.

“I wanted to ask something else, if it’s not too much trouble”, ‘Granny’ eventually said, turning back to me.

“Actually, would you mind answering my questions first? Not to sound impolite, but I’m kinda on hot coals here.” If they decided that they were hurried and didn’t keep up their end of the bargain after getting what they needed from me, I had no way to stop them. So while I still had leverage, I needed to use it.

“On… hot coals?”

“I mean I’m impatient. It’s a saying.”

“Oh, of course. What do you want to know?”

“What are those two [Skills] you’re using, [Animal Speech] and [Spirit Voice]?”

“They are [Skills] that we use to communicate with other creatures. [Animal Speech] is more… shall we say, general. You train it by speaking it and it lets you understand and speak with [Animals], as the name implies. There are a few limits to this, for instance we can only speak to [Animals] with it, not to [Monsters]. Then there’s creatures like you who don’t normally communicate with sound. That makes it much harder for us to understand them.”

“Hold on… I am a [Monster] myself. How come I can still understand you?”

“That’s because you also have the [Insectoid] type. Certain types exist as both [Monsters] and [Animals], so they are considered as both.”

That sounded like another oversight by the Gods… but I wasn’t about to complain if it meant I could speak to more people.

“So that’s why you had to use [Spirit Voice] on me?” I asked. “Because it’s harder for you to understand me, I mean.”

“That’s right. [Spirit Voice] forms a two-way link between your mind and that of whoever you want to speak to. It lets us communicate without language barriers and without speaking… it’s a useful spell, though it comes with trade-offs compared to [Animal Speech], like costing mana to maintain. Also, normally creatures your size are too simple-minded to communicate more than instincts and base concepts, which is why I was so surprised earlier.

I clicked my mandibles again. “I don’t even have mana.”

“That’s normal, especially for a creature your size. Most [Animals] and [Monsters] never gain it. Still, we two are the casters, so we supply the mana to keep the magic running. Don’t worry, the drain is not substantial.”

“Thank you for explaining it… so, you had another question? I can’t promise I’ll answer, but let’s hear it.”

“Right. You see, we are… searching for someone. Have you perchance seen the creature that has killed this High Deer you were hiding under?”

“I’ll do you one better. I know a fair bit about it.”

“Oh, really?”

“It was this big guy, been using him as my host for a few days. There’s… something really weird going on with him.”

The elf’s face hardened to a serious frown. “Something weird… yes, we had assumed as much. Could you tell me more?”

“I can, but on one condition…” I didn’t like doing the shrewd negotiator thing, but I had no option. If I wanted to live and prosper, I couldn’t give my information away for free. So, waggling my front claws, I explained: “You folks have kinda spoiled my plans to find a new host. With [Mooch] and [Leech] being my only two ways to feed myself, I need someone who I can feed from, and I was hoping to jump on whatever comes along to eat this carcass. So I’d like you to help me find a new host… and, I have a few more questions that I was hoping to get answered. There’s a lot going on around here. If you can do that, I’ll tell you everything I know about Ro- ehm, about the creature you’re after.”

“That is easily arranged. To return your words, I can’t promise that I will answer all the questions you have, but finding you a host will be easy enough. You have an agreement… say, what can I call you? I can’t very well [Name] you, but it would make things easier if we have something to refer to you by.”

“You can’t name me? Why is that?”

“Because of how [Names] work. I’ll explain it later. For now, please can you just give me something, and Leah and I can call you that.”

I reflected on this. Should I give my old human name? Would it be weird if I did that? On the other hand, if I gave myself a new name, would that mean that I disconnected further from my original self? I wanted to hold on to the humanity in me. But then, a human name on an insect just seemed to push it too far. Naming your pet cat ‘Tom’ or your iguana ‘Edward’ was one thing, but ‘Joe the Parasite’ or ‘Carl the Insect’ just pushed it into ridiculous territory, no matter what name you picked.

So, a non-human name it was. I hadn’t thought about that at all. Should I pick something fancy? No, if I picked some joke name, that would wear thin before long. Overly presumptuous long names were right out the window for the same reason. What about something properly inhuman, like a science-fiction insectoid race? Something that I could remind myself with, that this was the name associated with my very-much-not-human shape, that I wanted to get rid of as soon as I found a way back to Earth and to my human self? Yeah, I liked the sound of that.

The problem was just, what kind of name should that be? Hmm… Scarab, like the dung beetle? No, that just evoked the mental image of me pushing dung around. Mantis? Nope, that just brought up the memories of a certain villainous psychic from that one stealth game series. What about… hmm. Maybe I was taking things too far. I opened my [Status] and looked over the information I had. Something simple. ‘Parasite’. I disliked that racial name, and all the stigma it brought with it. In a roundabout way, it made for a good name parent, because I did not like this form either. ‘Parasite’... Pa… Para… Parasite… Site…

“Xyte. You can call me Xyte.”

“Very well, Xyte. I’m Ava, and you have met my granddaughter Leah. Now, I believe that we have much and more to discuss…”