Misfit’s Journey

I know that the last few chapters have been a bit repetitive. After this chapter, the plot will get more variety. 

It took some time, but eventually I managed to dispose of all the drones outside the ribcage with the exception of the two drones at the tunnel entrance. Since they were so close to each other, it had a high likelihood to turn into a two against one situation that I decided to avoid.

Thanks to the terrain and my stealth skill, I managed to dispose of the drones without suffering any injury, although the usage of Shadow Cloak left quite the dent in my mana pool.

The most troublesome was actually to locate each of the drones without stumbling into one. Even if my ears were a great help, the roots still made navigating complicated. Although in return, it also  allowed me to quickly slip away after the deed. Corpses were their favorite food, after all.

The drones also weren’t anything special, and highest one had been level 15, although the level difference between us was of little significance after I stabbed a mandible through its head.

Despite the effort it took to take all of them down, I didn’t remain completely unrewarded. My class’s level increased by one and I could put another point into Willpower. Additionally, the level 15 drone provided me with two new weapons that would replace the level 13 ones I had been carrying around. However, to be honest, I expected to gain more levels for killing ten drones, but apparently it was not enough experience for a second level up. 

After clearing the area around the skeleton, I made a quick return into the tunnel to meditate and recover mana.

Even after all this time, there was still no word from Veraxia and I started questioning her. The time she had given me until her return had long passed and I began thinking that she might have no intentions to return. I didn’t dislike having my mind for myself, but I would also love a way to increase the capacity of my mana pool.

Naturally I thought about possible reasons for her long absence. Maybe whatever she was doing took longer than expected or something happened that kept her from returning. In the worst case, she was already dead or judged me to be useless and abandoned me.

Having no idea what was going on was kind of frustrating, but I couldn’t do more than wait for her return. There was no way to know what was going on, so making assumptions and giving in to fear was not helpful at all. Also, if I thought of her as dead, it was also almost-certain that my own death was not far away and that was kind of demotivating. Hence, I tried not to think about it or at least believe in the optimistic options. Holding on to a little bit of hope would do no harm, would it?

Returning to the chamber, I sneaked back into the ribcage area and thought of ways to kill the remaining drones that were still roaming around. To be honest, confronting all of them simultaneously was far beyond my capabilities, but I had just recently proven that doing it the silent way was very much possible. However, different from the outside, the ribcage area was very open and the drones weren’t that far apart from each other. At the same time, most of them were busy nibbling on their own dead.

The exception to that was the unusually big corpse in the middle of the ribcage, which had been yet untouched by any drone. A few of them had already walked past or over it, treating it as if it didn’t exist, which was both, weird and interesting.

The mandibles of this particular corpse was already enough to tell that it was not a drone, but something else and it seemed like that made it a no-go for the drones to eat it. Or it was related to those damn mandible. I was certain that the bristles on those were covered in some kind of poison or acid.

Naturally, I tried to make those acid weapons mine, but no matter how hard I pulled of them with Telekinesis, they wouldn’t budge. And since I couldn’t grab them, I had to give up on them. First the giant tooth and now acidic mandibles, I really wasn’t allowed any of the heavy-hitters.

Leaving the mysterious Exapoda aside, there were currently a total of fifteen drones within the reaches of the skeleton’s ribcage. I ignored the two at the second tunnel’s entrance for now and focused solely on the ribcage.

Although none of the drones formed groups or stuck together, the ribcage was still not that big an area, so there was a high chance that others would notice if I started a fight. There was no guarantee they would spread out anytime soon, and honestly, I like it the way it was now. This way, I wouldn’t have to search them again.

Of course it was more likely that other drones heard me, but with Shadow Cloak and if I played things right, I was confident that I could avoid the worst of situations.

Among the fifteen drones were five at level 14, which was the lowest and made them my first targets. Drawing nearer to one of these level 14 drones, I prepared to strike. As I closed the distance, I readied a mandible with Telekinesis. With a swift motion, I launched it into the drone’s head, piercing through its exoskeleton and silencing its hissing screech before it could alert the others.

You have slain [Exapoda Drone | Lvl. 14]. Experience will be awarded. Bonus Experience for slaying a higher-leveled enemy will be awarded.

As I retreated into the shadows, I noticed that the other drones hadn't reacted in the slightest. They were still preoccupied with eating. Which presented me the perfect chance to continue thinning their numbers, one by one.

I moved like a shadow, choosing my targets carefully. Each strike had to be precise and quick, avoiding any prolonged confrontations that could alert the remaining drones. That way, the other four level 14 drones soon followed their fellow drones.

While doing it this way cost a lot of time and mana, I was surprised at how well it worked and that not one of the other ones noticed as I murdered drones throughout the area.

Also, their deaths leveled up both, my class and species, once. You really couldn’t underestimate the level difference experience bonus. Good thing I killed all the level 14 drones before reaching the same level. Both stat points went into Willpower since I still hadn’t given up on that tooth as a weapon. I knew that I was still missing stats to lift it, but hoped that would change after disposing of all the drones in this chamber.

Taking the level difference bonus into account, I targeted the level 16 drones next since they were the lowest after the level 14 ones. However, since the mandibles I was wielding were only level 15, killing the three would be harder than before. So before continuing, I retreated again to meditate.

Now that the outside had been cleared, I considered just resting at some isolated spot within the chamber, but in the end, I judged it still too risky. If even one of the drones suddenly decided that it wanted to go exploring and happened to find me while meditating, it would be my certain death. So I returned to the tunnel and after meditating, I was ready to go again.

Killing the three level 16 drones was harder than the previous ones, but I still managed to kill two of them without any complications.The third one proved to be more resilient, surviving my initial surprise attack and letting out a loud screech that naturally alerted all the remaining drones. I swiftly dispatched it with a decisive stab to the head before promptly turning tail. Sticking around at this point would just be an unnecessary danger. I left the ribcage area just in case and undid my Shadow Cloak. The three kills had given me not even a single level, which was disappointing, but there was nothing to be done.

I saw no reason to return into the tunnel and with over eight hundred mana still in my pool, I could still keep going. I still waited a short while to let the situation de-escalate. None of the drones should have seen me, but the death of another drone should raise some alarms.

When I finally went back, the two drones—level 15 and 17—that had been around the second tunnel’s entrance all this time, were now also in the ribcage area. Apparently they were hungry and chose to feast on one of my recently produced snacks. And to my surprise, contrary from my fears, none of the drones seemed even the slightest bit agitated. The last thing I needed from the drones was vigilance, and they seemed more than happy about the new food.

I did not mind the two new arrivals, since now that they were here, they split up and distanced themselves from each other. Before, their closeness made it difficult to attack either, so I actually appreciated them coming here.

And since my level was still 14, I would still get the level difference bonus from killing the level 15 drone. Luck seemed to be on my side recently.

With the drone immersed into its food and isolated, its death came quick and it had no chance at resisting. Unfortunately, the experience from the kill was still not enough to push me to a new level.

Ever since reaching level 10 with my class, the leveling seemed to be harder, or at least take longer. Gaining experience wasn’t technically hard, since all I had to do was stabbing unaware drones and kill them quietly. Maybe it was just the system judging that it was too easy to reward me from it? Could the system do that? Shame that the almost-all-knowing voice in my head was gone.

Left alone to my own devices, there were still eight drones left and all of them were level 17 and higher. I disliked that the level difference between and the drones just grew, but maybe the more the difference the bigger the reward?

Wait, that… would actually make sense wouldn’t it?

An idea sprang to my mind. Since my weapons were now too weak to penetrate the exoskeleton from any of the remaining drones, there wouldn’t be much of a difference if I attacked the level 17 or the level 21 drone. And if my theory was right, then killing the level 21 drone right now would give me the most experience.

Naturally, it would lower the experience I would get from the others, but if I managed to pull this off, I would have two level 21 mandibles. It would certainly be risky, since it was a level difference unlike any of the drone before, but level was hardly a factor that stopped me from doing it.

Facing higher leveled enemies was nothing new to me. Only recently, I was still level 1 and unaware that I could even level, yet I prevailed until now and I would continue to do so. The drone had eight levels worth of stat points more than me, but I still had the advantage, since it could not sense me.

However, aside from physical prowess, this also meant its Perception could be quite high. Until now, I had avoided getting even close to them, since I was unsure if their Perception stat was high enough to see through my skill. A head on fight would be too dangerous and put me at an undeniable disadvantage.

But when I stepped into what I estimated to be its antennae’s perception radius, it still didn’t react to me in any way, so there was nothing stopping me from approaching until, unexpectedly, the drone sprang into motion. It swiveled, sweeping its antennae along the ground, prompting me to stop. Carefully observing it, I noticed that there was no corpse behind it, so it must be on the search for food.

After a few seconds, my assumption was proven correct when it slowly made its way towards one of the corpses I was responsible for. I trailed it and waited for it to come to a halt.

And indeed, the drone started searching for another corpse and I followed it. Attacking it while it was on the move was too risky. Launching an attack while it was moving carried undue risks. My telekinetic control was not bad, but I also had no confidence in landing a successful hit, much less a lethal one.

My time for action came when the drone started eating.

Since this needed to go quickly, I decided to go all out on this one. I sneaked in arm’s reach, then sent the first mandible piercing into a big gap between plates, then I rushed closer and manually stabbed the second mandible in. However, even after both pierced into its flesh, the drone was still alive and so, I put one hand on the fresh wound, while pushing the mandible deeper with the other. Through the hand that was pressing against the drone’s flesh, I activated Aggravating Touch. Its effects weakened the resistance  of the flesh and allowed me to cut deeper into its flesh, tearing its body apart.

You have slain [Exapoda Drone | Lvl. 21]. Experience will be awarded. Bonus Experience for slaying a higher-leveled enemy will be awarded.

[Novice Witch] has leveled up! Stat points have been allocated! 1 Free Stat Point acquired!

[Novice Witch] is now Level 12.

The drone died, but it was not a quiet death, so I prepared to leave the scene quickly, however, before retreating, I didn’t miss my chance to acquire two level 21 mandibles. With my new weapons, I fled just in time to avoid the group of drones that were furiously moving towards the dead body.

But in centipede fashion, their anger seemed to disappear into thin air the moment they found the new source of food. These shitty bugs really were a heartless bunch.

After meditating and returning from the tunnel, my mana pool was filled to the brim and with my two new weapons, none of the remaining drones could muster any resistance to my attacks. Since I now had some leeway, I could target the lowest leveled once first again, taking every bit of bonus experience with me that I could.

And once the last drone lifelessly dropped to the ground, for the first time, full silence encroached upon the skeleton room.

Opening my status, I checked the notifications I had gotten.

[Unregistered] has leveled up! Stat points have been allocated! 1 Free Stat Point acquired!

[Unregistered] is now Level 15.

[Novice Witch] has leveled up! Stat points have been allocated! 1 Free Stat Point acquired!

[Novice Witch] has leveled up! Stat points have been allocated! 1 Free Stat Point acquired!

[Novice Witch] is now Level 14.

The totals were less levels than I had thought I would get, but stats were stats and so I was happy with what I got. I still had one unused stat point from before, and now that there were no more threats in the skeleton chamber, I assigned two points to Willpower and two points to Intelligence, respectively.

Now it was time to test if I was finally able to lift that tooth.

Hope this was still enjoyable. Thanks for reading^^