Chapter 18: Chapter 18: Flame

Evolution conditions met: Spear dabbler ranks up to spear proficiency
Spears give great reach compared to most melee weapons, and at a pinch can even be thrown, but never let your enemies close in. By successfully driving a spear deep into the brain of a chilopoda sagacitas, you have well earned this upgrade from dabbler to proficiency. This skill increases your competence and damage when attacking with a spear.

Evolution conditions met: Dagger dabbler ranks up to dagger proficiency
Daggers may have shorter reach and less damage potential than their larger, heavier brethren, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous. Lightweight and easy to conceal, they are perfect for surprise attacks. A chilopoda sagacitas found your attacks on its brain to be very surprising indeed, earning you an upgrade from dabbler to proficiency. This skill increases your competence and damage when attacking with a dagger.

New skill gained: Mind magic tolerance
There are few classes of magic more insidious than mind magic, and it is feared for good reason. How do you deal with someone who can make you see allies as enemies or a cliff edge as a paved road? Someone who can rip secrets straight from your head or even completely overwrite your personality? This skill will offer a small amount of protection, and will aid in sensing that your mind is under attack.

Pain resistance advanced to level 14
Spear proficiency advanced to level 11
Sense presence advanced to level 2

That went better than expected. I managed to reset before the eggs hatched, or at least before their contents did any damage, and I earned a bunch of skill levels and evolutions. I'd even managed to injure the big boss monster, although after the initial shock it hadn't seemed overly bothered about the spike I'd embedded in its brain, or the slices I'd cut off it with my spider claw dagger. I shouldn't assume I'd done any lasting damage. At least it hadn't read any important memories, such as my respawn ability, as far as I could tell.

As ever, my optimism was very quickly spoilt. This time, it was by a quiet clicking. It sounded quite different coming from one instead of countless thousands, but I could still recognise it perfectly well as a centipede. There was one in the room with me, and my eyes hadn't yet readjusted to the darkness.

I'd lost one spear in the shrine and another was stuck in the giant centipede brain, which left me with only one remaining in my item box. So, me and a centipede, neither able to see the other. Now what happens? I tried my best with my new sense presence skill, but couldn't pick up anything. The centipedes must be too weak to detect. From the sounds of its legs clinking against stone, I could tell its approximate position, and it didn't seem to be within striking range. I just needed to hope my sight returned before it noticed me.

Straining my hearing, I could hear more clicking from outside. I had to assume they'd thoroughly invaded my safe area. That was, if I may be permitted to make an immense understatement, not ideal. If I started killing them, would I attract the attention of their mother again? But I absolutely needed to remove them from my respawn area somehow. Could I block up the crevice that leads here? But if they built up outside, I'd never be able to go out.

I couldn't beat the brood-mother in straight combat, and I very much doubted it would lower its guard against me a second time. As far as I could see, my only option was to repair the shrine, which should lock the swarm back into its own territory until I was strong enough to deal with them directly. For that, I needed mana crystals, and for that I needed to know what mana crystals were.

In my list of isekai staple skills this class offered, why wasn't appraisal one of them?

In all this time of thinking, the centipede hadn't approached, and my eyes had adjusted to the darkness well enough to see it skittering around on a wall. I stood up as quietly as I could, pulled my last spear from my item box and plunged it into the weak point on the centipede's back. My spear pierced through easily, with far less resistance than I expected. Did that come from the skill evolution?

The sounds in the corridor changed, and I felt the attention once more, weaker and more distant, but still very obviously focused on me. Seriously? I only killed one of them! I hadn't even had a chance to get my armour back on!

A wave of centipedes crawled around the opening into my cave, covering walls, floor and ceiling. I was happy to find that my spear proficiency evolution let me stab even through their thickest armour. The narrow entrance didn't make as effective a choke-point as I wanted, given their ability to use the walls and ceiling as much as the floor, but neither were they as dense here as they had been, and I was skewering one with every thrust.

I kept up my defence for a full minute, but it was obvious I would eventually be overwhelmed. Despite that fact, I couldn't help but notice that the swarm's strategy was suboptimal; rather than the constant stream, they should have amassed at a distance and then attacked in a full flood. If all the centipedes I'd killed so far had come at me at once, I'd have fallen long ago. Maybe the mother couldn't control them perfectly at this distance? It certainly didn't seem able to mind-read me, or it would have done so.

Spear proficiency advanced to level 12

After another thirty seconds, the attention vanished and the centipedes stopped, reverting to their default behaviour of aimless wriggling. That was odd. I doubt I could have held out for a single minute more, so why give up? Did the mother not know how hard it was for me to defend myself, and thought I could keep it up forever? Were more centipedes massing outside right now?

Pausing to recover my breath, I considered my next move. Could I push all the way through to the shrine and down another path, looking for mana crystals? Maybe the empty one? Would I be better off fighting defensively until the local centipede population had been trimmed? If I drew it out for long enough, could I kill all of them, or would they work out how to bring new breeding stock through the shrine?

It was a shame I didn't have any time to spare; the shells of these things seemed tougher than the horned beetle chitin I was currently using, and there was practically an unlimited supply. I was sure I could make something better than what I currently had.

I decided to push into the murder tree's room first, to clear it out before pushing back down the corridor in the other direction, and out into the open cavern. Or at least, that was the plan. When I got there, it turned out to be completely empty of centipedes. There was still a population of munchers scattered around the walls, now fully regrown from my early attempts at genocide, but aside from that, no sign of any monsters. The murder tree was, however, looking particularly smug today, and sure enough, when I looked into its pool it was chock-full of centipede corpses. Maybe they couldn't resist the alluring smell of its nectar?

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I was starting to think that maybe I'd got off on the wrong foot with the murder tree. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all?

I jumped backwards as a root snapped out of the pool, even faster than I was used to. "Seriously? I literally just this second praised you in my head, and you went and spoilt it by trying to eat me again..."

How could it see me to attack, anyway? Its root strikes had always been spot on, whether I was inside the pool or not. Were there eyes hidden among the bark somewhere?

With somewhere safe to retreat to, I donned my armour and pushed in the other direction down the narrow passage, spearing every centipede I came across. They still weren't acting in unity, making the job easy. They really weren't much of a threat unless either directed by their mother or as part of a dense swarm.

At the cavern, I fought my way along the wall, not wanting to risk getting surrounded. The centipede population out here was very sparse, which I suppose made sense; it was a large area, and even if thousands had flooded down the passage, they wouldn't have filled it.

A few minutes in, I felt the brood-mother's unwelcome attention once again, but it was even weaker than before. I couldn't picture in my head exactly how the passages turned and how the caves fitted together. Was I actually further away from the centipede territory here than back in my respawn cave, despite walking towards it? Or had the mother moved? Or, even better, was it suffering from the wounds I'd given it? In any case, it seemed unable to marshal the swarm into any sort of cohesive force, and the only difference it made was that they came to me for me to stab them instead of me having to go to them.

This time, the attack and attention ceased after barely a minute. The attack was repeated again as I headed towards the shrine, again lasting for only a minute. The mother certainly seemed to be having issues... The last time I was at the shrine, it had no difficulty controlling the swarm.

The monster density was greater once I was into the passage, enough that another directed attack would likely overwhelm me, but none came. I rushed to the shrine room, clearing space as quickly as possible so that if another assault did come, I'd be able to retreat backwards.

My shield and second spear were where I'd abandoned them. The spear went back into my item box and the shield I kept out. With this constant running battle, I could probably get novice blocker up to ten.

New side quest: Kill the chilopoda sagacitas
You have stumbled upon a chilopoda sagacitas, which has desecrated a shrine to the Goddess. Kill the defiler and cleanse the area of its spawn.
Clear conditions: Kill the chilopoda sagacitas.
Reward: Gain one class level

That was a rather big ask for a single class level, but I had the impression that a showdown would be inevitable at some point, so... free eventual class level. Yay.

There were still centipedes coming up from their territory; not the same flood as before, but still a steady trickle. I speared them as I pondered which of the three passages to take. I had a choice between downwards, presumably to the next floor of the dungeon, the one with the big scary fiery thing, or the one that had presumably been conquered by the centipedes, given that they were bringing up prey from it when I'd last been here.

Actually, there was no sign of any prey now, at least not alive. I hadn't seen any brought in while I was imprisoned in the centipedes' territory. There were a fair amount of corpses though, both of centipedes and others... That was interesting and suggested that I had hurt the mother more than I'd thought. If it had lost control of its spawn, the poison had worn off and the prey had started to fight back again, the rudderless centipedes may well have killed instead of captured them.

I felt the attention of the mother once more, and made the split second decision to take the fiery passage, on the grounds that it wasn't full of centipedes charging straight at me. I rushed around the corner, wanting to be sneaky but having no time for it, and came out into another large cavern. This one was, unfortunately, very well lit, with every centimetre of the walls and ceiling covered in glowing moss without a single muncher in sight to keep its growth in check.

And I said unfortunately, because it meant I could see the enormous creature curled up in the middle of the cavern. Four long, clawed limbs, a pair of leathery wings, a long neck that ended in an elongated head with a substantial muzzle, thin wisps of smoke curling up from its nostrils, and a pair of backwards-sweeping horns. The whole thing was covered in red scales. It was, quite blatantly, a dragon.

The eye facing my direction opened slightly, in a slow, half-asleep sort of way, before the head lifted up very slightly off the floor and swung around to face me. "Not more pests..." it muttered, in a voice so low pitched that it felt I was hearing it through my feet instead of my ears. The mouth opened lazily, treating me to the sight of an array of pointy white teeth, each as tall as I was.

"Wa..." was all I managed to get out before the world went red.

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