Damn it, back to the theater I guess-
Arata's face splashes against the cold water lining the stone floor. It cooled off a part of his face that felt hot. It was painful; he had always heard stories about every 4th of July, where some idiot would almost blow their face off with fireworks. Now he was in their shoes.
Slowly making his way back up, he looks, a bit of the bug's corpse splattered onto him, a bit onto the wall and a bit strewn across the floor with smoke and ash. Another piece of the puzzle fell into place.
The bugs can explode. Shit! I thought fire magic would be effective. What the hell is the point if I stay in the blast zone?! Frustrated about the fact that it wasn't a rock, paper, scissors situation, he must come up with a new answer. Especially since the bugs who had backed off no longer saw fire and now they were pissed off. The biggest one looked at the fallen comrade with what looked like grief; it felt responsible.
Arata ran to buy himself time but the bugs were surprisingly faster as one tackled him with their size. At the sight of the mandibles, Arata froze. Knowing he'd be eaten alive yet again, he channeled flames through his body, blasting the creature in the face.
The creature let out a screech as the others stepped back accordingly; however, this time, as it swelled, heat began radiating off its bloated body. Arata mustered his adrenaline. Pushing the creature off him. Time felt like it was slowing down and when Arata dashed away, the brittle ground cracked beneath his feet. Stumbling back, he hears the bottle of gasoline shatter as it hits his right side. The Rupture of the bug's corpse caused painful burning to Arata's right leg but he was still alive.
I thought I was dead. I need a second to breathe. Blood wasn't coming out of his leg, some of the skin looked black, other parts looked red and some of the skin was coming off.
Luckily, it didn't cause serious muscle damage, even if it hurt a little to walk on. To Arata, the pain barely mattered; all that currently mattered was that running away no longer worked as he quickly racked his brains. He pulled out a knife and stuck it into the gasoline that had spilled out. Holding it out with his left side, he took great care not to burn himself.
Luckily, using his poor level of fire magic had become second nature at this point in time. The fire wasn't big enough to do any actual damage to him. Magic was surprisingly easy to get the hang of once you pulled it off a couple of times, ignoring the end product. He then threw the flaming blade at the group of bugs.
He was always awful at throwing but it was hard to miss a pack of 19 wolf-sized bugs that were running right at you. An orange light began to emanate from behind Arata. Why did I do that? I am going to die. I need to stop detonating these bugs; there are too many close calls!
Explosions sounded as Arata dashed into a nearby cell, which didn't feel great on his leg as he ended up collapsing from the pain but barely made it into the cell. Hiding away from the explosion, where he could feel the heat coming off of it. What followed was a series of crashing stones.
Arata felt the stress lift from his body as he had a second to lie down. Slowly recovering as he went to check out what exactly happened outside. Despite his victory, it would be impossible to feel anything but stressed. I really cannot wait to get the hell out of this shitty prison. This place is nightmare fuel!
Arata saw that the other direction had caved in; the only direction to travel in was the way where the bugs had their home. Arata tried to calm his nerves; his brother, Ren, often said to let yourself be sidetracked when something seemed daunting. Life wasn't supposed to be a linear path after all. However, in a literal sense, Arata only had a straight path forward unless he wanted to kill himself to go back to the theater.
That was when it clicked to him, this still wasn't a fully linear path. The nest had extended upwards and water kept leaking through the ceiling. There was something above, something which the explosion had just opened up a way to. The prison had a second floor accessible by climbing on the collapsed rocks.
Well, any direction but that shithole is appreciated… nononono why! Are you kidding me?! Making his way up, he saw the floor was covered in the hardened flesh nest structure. It was all the illusion of free choice.
Surprisingly, there were no bugs. As if they all heard the blast and didn't want to come out. What he saw mostly living inside the walls were babies, so it made sense they would try to avoid combat. The adults don't watch guard here… they probably didn't expect someone to come up through the floor.
Moving up was the only option since free will lost all meaning with hell at your feet and the exit in front of your eyes. The decision bore fruit as he saw a guard office. Maybe there rested clues to what the hell was going on in this prison. Arata, weapon in hand, hit the door hard enough until it finally gave way.
This place still gives me the creeps-
He's cut off as a bug turns to him, accompanied by another bug in the middle of the abandoned desks. He takes out the javelin he had saved for when he wanted a safe way to kill the bugs without expending mana. The bugs were much less aggressive; they knew they had no way of getting around the Javelin. Standing still was not an option either.
The fight was pretty easy, one stab and the first bug was dead. One more strike and the second one was gone. Unluckily for him, bugs were in this room, meaning likely anything that was a clue would likely be destroyed. Seeing the second bug corpse was next to an open drawer, he figured he might as well take a look.
To his surprise, there was a paper completely intact. Although a bit of the bug's slime had gotten on it, suggesting that it had been moved here. The bugs could potentially be much smarter than he had thought.
They kept it in the drawer to preserve the paper. Maybe not intentionally but instinctually. It raised the question of: could one understand what was written? Bugs… language… understanding. Wait a second. I don't know this world's language, am I more illiterate than a bug?!
He felt humbled, but looking at the paper, he realized the language had similar Latin origins, an odd coincidence. Maybe the creator Ravenna spoke of was too lazy when it comes to etymology to make a new language. He could make out that this record was for a prisoner yet unfortunately, he couldn't make out much more. It was still different from the English he knew or any other languages from his world, for that matter.
He still took it. Ever since he woke up here, he adopted a "steal first, think later" mentality, which had served him well. Next, he touched it. He heard a rumbling, as if he had touched something he shouldn't have. Like he had awoken a dragon guarding treasure. It sounded like an earthquake but surprisingly, he didn't see any bugs enter. Strangely, he saw rabbits.
They were running around, trying to hide from him. Yet they all still kept tabs on Arata, making noises to each other as though they were talking in their own native tongue. They wave at Arata with urgency.
That's odd. No way the rabbits could've made that noise, they're way too small. Maybe I am losing my mind, but why bother thinking about all this logically anymore? They want my attention, but can I trust them though? Especially when they are afraid to show their faces.
Arata began to rack his brains to come up with an explanation. Unfortunately, that thinking was cut short as something burst through the door, much bigger than what he had seen before. The creature was the size of a train.
With the bug's sheer stature, it didn't fit in the room. It resorted to tearing itself a hole in the ceiling. The monster had a human face but only the whites in its eyes, letting out a wail of rage at Arata. The creature had human skin, but it was all rough and calloused. On top of the head was a gray, grimy mass of hair. Arata saw thousands of various legs, human, animal and insect, supporting its body. They were stretched out in grotesque manners, some legs appearing burly and hairy, while some were slim and feminine. The legs fused in some areas to form tendrils held together by hardened mucus.
The human face with eyes parts, the nose and mouth ripped apart, opening up to the real mouth with what appears to be an endless tunnel of teeth. The creature's body almost looked like an endless tunnel; the size didn't correlate to speed. Arata was too slow to dodge the creature's wrath.
The last thing Arata sees is the inside of the big, ugly bug's mouth. His entire top half of his body is taken off. He stopped feeling his legs, and the creature's saliva covered his skin. He was consumed by the insectoid monstrosity; fortunately, he died of the blood loss before reaching the stomach acid.