Adam left the colony, following the winding tunnels deeper and deeper until he reached the spot. A tunnel, one sealed with packed dirt and webs long ago. He stood before it for a moment. He began digging, the memory playing vividly in his mind.
That day… the day he first woke to three trembling ants. They nudged him, clicking desperately, begging him to save an ant who had fallen. He was confused, unsure on what to do. But he'd dug, clawed, and pulled that ant from the abyss. And from that darkness, he first met the cricket.
The memory made his mandibles twitch. That same tunnel, where he once faced against such a brute, that was only defeated by an intricate game of cat and mouse, a trap Adam would lay.
Why hadn't I thought of it before? The answer was right in front of him.
The cricket back then. It didn't look like those from the western camp. It had no spear and neither the will to use one it seemed. He. Was just a brute. A savage creature driven by hunger and lust for the torture of weaker creatures. It was a predator. And predators didn't eat mushrooms.
"If that thing had lived here… there must be others. Or prey. Something with meat." Adam mumbled under his breath as he neared the end.
He tore through the seal, earth giving way beneath his weight, dust falling like dry rain. The air beyond was colder than he could've imagined. Adam's legs twitched with anticipation and cold, as he slipped into the tunnel, his eyes adjusting to the deeper dark.
The further he went, the tighter and more uneven the earth became. Strange, unexplained wet patches shimmered faintly as he walked through them.
Then he saw them. The hairs. Thin, almost invisible filaments rising from the ground. Adam froze. He still knew those all too well.
Hidden larva.
He crouched low, studying the area. His gaze fell on some loose mud upon the wall.
"Found one," he whispered.
Adam quietly plucked a few chunks of damp mud from the wall, rolling them between his legs. He hurled one toward the hairs. The moment it met the ground, the wall erupted.
From wall burst a pale, veined larva. A massive, slimy body slamming into nothing but dirt and air where prey should've been. Its mandibles snapped wildly, drool splattering the walls.
Adam didn't wait. He lunged.
[Skill Activated: Mana Slash]
A burst of bluish light traced his mandibles as he sliced. The air hummed with raw force. The larva twitched violently, half its body splitting open as steaming fluid gushed from the wound. It wriggled and hissed, before eventually succumbing to its wounds.
Adam stood over the corpse, chest heaving with excitement. "Let's dig in."
He bent down, bit into the flesh—and instantly regretted every decision he'd made in his second life.
"EWWWW!!!" he gagged, flailing backward as the taste hit him. A vile bitterness that burned his tongue. "GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT!"
He scraped at his mouth with his legs, rubbing, spitting, anything to erase the flavor. It clung to him like poison. He bit into the mud wall just to mask it. But even that didn't help.
He panted, trembling, larva pieces dripping from his mandibles. "How… can something taste so horridly disgusting?" he rasped, his voice trembling between nausea and rage.
Disgust twisted through him. Yet it wasn't going to stop him. He wasn't going to go back. Not after coming all the way down here. Adam webbed the twitching body, dragging it back toward the hole it came from. He sealed the entrance neatly with more webs, leaving it wrapped like a corpse in a coffin.
"I'll… take you to the Core later," he muttered. "At least let your awful taste be worth something."
With that, Adam shook his head violently, trying to rid himself of the phantom flavor still clinging to his mouth, and traversed deeper into the tunnels once again.
The air grew thick and humid, growing warmer with every step. The now common bioluminescent blue mushrooms enveloped the walls, luminating the tunnel ahead. However, His mandibles still ached from scraping the vile taste of the larva meat off his tongue. He had tried everything; mud and even the mushrooms, bland and spongy. So, nothing truly rid him of the rotten flavor.
"What horrible luck I have. It can only get better from here… right?"
He sighed, dragging his weary limbs through the narrow tunnel. The glow of the mushrooms became brighter, merging into a faint orange haze ahead. Contrasting the blue hue that dominated in the air. He slowed, his antennae twitching with expectation at the sight in front of him.