After I easily repelled the first squad, the attacks from the bees became relentless.
I managed to wipe out the second squad without any trouble too, but what came after was the real problem.
Multiple squads started attacking at the same time.
No way.
Well, from the bees' perspective, it makes total sense.
But from my end, I really wish they wouldn't send such overwhelming numbers.
Sure, the inside of the nest is supposed to be safe, but the visual alone is suffocating.
What even is this—no matter when I sleep or wake up, giant bees are buzzing around everywhere?
I sighed and looked around.
Bees, bees, bees, as far as the eye could see.
Seriously, what even are you guys?
When this many of them gather together, the buzzing noise is absolutely insane.
It's so loud.
Too loud to sleep.
And on top of that, when I dutifully take them down one by one, I can't even finish eating them all.
Thanks to the Overeating Skill, I feel like I can eat more than before, but there's still a limit, right?
Each one is already huge, so when I grab five at once—yeah, you get the idea.
In fact, my Overeating Skill level went up to 3 because of all this.
The biggest problem is that I've been so busy dealing with the bees that construction of the nest has stalled.
My number one goal is to escape from here.
Not fighting bees.
But because the bees keep attacking non-stop, construction can't progress.
If they weren't attacking me, I'd already have more than enough food secured and could just leave them be.
Well, they obviously have no way of knowing that, though.
I guess I just have to squeeze in construction work little by little between attacks.
If they're this on guard, leaving the nest would be suicide.
The plan I had before—relying on my speed to bull through—probably won't work.
No matter how high my Speed is at 369, I can't generate that kind of force on a vertical wall, and I can clearly see the future where I get caught and stung while climbing.
Ugh, damn it.
I really don't want to dawdle here any longer.
There's no telling when that Earth Dragon might casually drop by.
The Earth Dragon, casually?
Suddenly, an absolutely terrible chill ran through me.
What is this?
Badbadbadbadbadbadbadbadbadbadbad!!!
I don't want to look.
I don't want to look, but I have to.
『Earth Dragon Arava, Level 31 — Appraisal of Status failed.』
The thing I feared most had come.
And its eyes were locked firmly on my nest.
Wh-what do I do?
No—I can't do anything.
There's no way I can do anything.
There's nothing I can do against that thing.
The only thing I can do is pray that it'll let me go.
But even that prayer was crushed into nothing.
The Earth Dragon opened its maw.
The dragon's greatest weapon—everyone knows it's the breath attack.
A deafening roar echoed out.
A blast of wind erupted.
A vortex of destruction raged forth.
I couldn't tell exactly what happened.
I couldn't tell, but one thing was crystal clear.
My nest—along with the massive boulder it had been built on—was gone.
Not just the boulder—the wall behind it had been gouged out extensively.
Even the walls farther from the blast center had large cracks running through them.
As if following suit, chunks of rock kept peeling off the walls.
A literal collapse.
More than half my nest had been obliterated in a single blow.
The remaining upper section was crumbling too, caught in the cascading debris.
I was in that upper section.
I'd managed to avoid the direct hit from what I assumed was the breath attack.
I was falling together with the surrounding webbing.
Unable to do anything, I slammed into the ground.
It hurt.
My HP dropped by a massive chunk.
But I was still alive.
Alive, but I had no idea what came next.
Everything depended on the Earth Dragon's mood.
The web of silk fell over me.
It was my own silk, but if I touched the sticky parts, I'd get stuck to it myself.
But that wasn't a concern right now.
This might actually be lucky.
My body was covered by the bundle of silk and hidden from the outside.
No falling rocks hit me directly.
If I stayed hidden here, maybe it would overlook me.
Clutching that faint hope, I held my breath.
I struggled to suppress my trembling body.
《Proficiency has reached a certain level. Acquired Skill: Fear Resistance LV1.》 The trembling subsided slightly.
Still scared, though.
My body trembled uncontrollably.
Scaryscaryscaryscaryscaryscaryscaryscaryscary!
《Proficiency has reached a certain level. Skill: Stealth LV2 upgraded to Stealth LV3.》 《Proficiency has reached a certain level. Skill: Fear Resistance LV1 upgraded to Fear Resistance LV2.》 《Proficiency has reached a certain level. Skill: Stealth LV3 upgraded to Stealth LV4.》 《Proficiency has reached a certain level. Skill: Fear Resistance LV2 upgraded to Fear Resistance LV3.》 《Proficiency has reached a certain level. Skill: HP Auto-Regeneration LV1 upgraded to HP Auto-Regeneration LV2.》 《Proficiency has reached a certain level. Skill: Fear Resistance LV3 upgraded to Fear Resistance LV4.》 《Proficiency has reached a certain level. Skill: Stealth LV4 upgraded to Stealth LV5.》 《Proficiency has reached a certain level. Skill: Fear Resistance LV4 upgraded to Fear Resistance LV5.》 How long I'd been like that—I don't know. The Voice of Heaven (provisional) pulled my consciousness back to sanity.
Or maybe it was thanks to the Fear Resistance that shot up during all that trembling.
I don't know how long I'd been hiding there so still.
Judging by how much my skills had leveled up, I'd been holding my breath for quite a long time.
I thought about checking my stamina drain to figure out how much time had passed, but for some reason my stamina hadn't decreased at all.
I used Thread Manipulation to peel the silk clinging to my body away.
I already knew that Spider Silk could have its properties altered to some degree when combined with Thread Manipulation.
I reduced the stickiness and pulled it off.
Slowly, I crawled out from the bundle of silk.
The Earth Dragon was no longer there.
I'd made it.