Insect Monsters
The countdown to start the game ended, switching to a game time countdown. Seth activated his hoverbike, flying away from the place to at least seek shelter.
People might think this quest was easy, but their expressions suddenly changed as flying monsters appeared from all over the city. They all sputtered, trying to find protection in abandoned houses.
The most troubled one was Seth, considering he was hovering in the sky on a hoverbike. The cockroach-like monster with a decent size can float freely after anyone in the surrounding area, including Seth.
"Why is there a cockroach?!" groaned Seth, annoyed.
His eyes squinting, his left hand reached for the fully loaded pistol holstered in the back pocket of his trousers. He opened fire endlessly at the cockroaches approaching him, one laser shot managing to perforate the monster's body all the way through.
Seth's eyes focused on the gemstone-like green crystals falling from the monster just as Seth managed to kill it. He managed to kill six cockroaches and six green stones sprawled on the city street.
"Damn! It turns out they kept the stone, too," Seth complained.
He turned his hoverbike around, descending from a high altitude to pick up the stones. A survivor picked up two of the six scattered stones, making Seth's heart rage.
DOR!
Seth launched his laser pistol to strike back at something, not a monster, but the survivor who picked up his stones. The blue laser hit the survivor's right leg, causing him to drop to the ground with a scream of anguish echoing through the place.
"That's mine, dammit!" groaned Seth.
"Why ... did you shoot me?" asked the survivor, mortally wounded with tears in his eyes.
"You stole the shard of life I got from killing that bug!" insisted Seth.
He managed to collect all six stones perfectly, stored them in his black bag, and walked away from the game's epicentre. For now, the best option he could do was to wait until the conditions in this game turned calm.
Shouts of fear, agony, and suffering spread throughout the city. Some died in horrible conditions, their bodies ripped apart by flesh-eating cockroach-like insects.
The pungent odour spread to every survivor's sense of smell, whether they participated in the game or not. Seth arrived at the eight-story building, putting his hoverbike on the roof.
Seth turned his head to the right, finding dozens of cockroaches flying close to him, some crawling up through the building walls, about 24 in total.
"Damn cockroaches! I've always hated them!" Seth groaned.
He walked up to the door that led to the lower floor, leaning against it with both hands ready holding the laser pistol. The attack of laser fire was inevitable. He continuously shot at the cockroaches crawling closer to him. They were pretty medium in size, about the size of a scooter-type bike.
"Come here, you filthy bugs!" shouted Seth.
One laser shot was enough to knock the cockroaches down. They made a strange sound with a rotten smell that bothered Seth's nose. The man deliberately let the cockroaches crawl close to him. It was to prevent the green shards of life from falling down and being stolen by someone.
The place became a massacre site for cockroach monsters the size of a scooter. Whenever a monster approached him, Seth attacked it with a laser gun in both hands.
It wasn't tiring for Seth; he managed to eliminate all the stinky bugs until the roof floor was soaked in their fluids, and his hoverbike was buried among the dead cockroaches.
"I have lost my appetite for eating anything," Seth complained.
His mind was already full of the smell and shape of the insect, so no food would work on him. He didn't expect this bug to appear, whereas previously, Seth remembered carnivorous rabbits attacking him before the time loop.
"This can't be happening! This can't be happening!"
When Seth picked up the 24 shards of life from the rooftop, his ears faintly heard an unfamiliar voice behind the iron door. Seth put the shards into his bag, walking away from the pile of dead cockroaches until he reached the iron door.
His hand grabbed the doorknob and forcedly opened it, revealing a lone woman crouching in fear with her face buried between her knees.
The woman's clothes reminded Seth of someone. The man tried to approach her until the smell of the insect fluid accidentally startled her. She raised her head and looked at Seth.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" she shouted.
The woman ran down the stairs until Seth had to chase her. He certainly didn't want her carelessness to make the cockroaches know they were in this building.
Seth ran faster towards her until his hand managed to grab the woman's left wrist. Unfortunately, Seth failed to keep his balance until he accidentally fell from the stairs and hit the woman violently.
HWEEK!
Breathing in the pungent odour of cockroach liquid made the woman unable to stop vomiting. She vomited right next to Seth. Fortunately, the woman's vomit didn't touch him.
"Iwh, that's disgusting!" complained Seth, pushing the woman away.
"I can't bear the smell-"
She fell unconscious, right on top of her vomit. Seth sighed lightly while trying to smell his body. It was true there was a stinky odour that no one liked.
"Looks like she was right. This smell is killing me!"
***
The building was an office with dozens of rooms inside. Seth brought the unconscious woman to a room with a long sofa handy to let her sleep on her back comfortably.
Seth was also in the room, still dressed the same and had not yet washed himself. The man was pretty unsure if the office had a bathroom or not, as Seth remembered offices like this only had a toilet.
Time went on, Seth peeked out of the window of the room that seemed to be covered by a wooden curtain. The man deliberately closed it so the cockroaches would not notice them.
From the look of Seth's eyes, he saw hundreds of cockroaches in all corners of the city. The tall building made it easy for Seth to see the entire city. The insects crawled a lot on the walls of the building, but they had difficulty breaking the glass.
"I already guessed it. People are going to die in this game," Seth whispered.
The man hurriedly closed the window curtains when he felt a tremble in the glass, indicating that a monster was crawling up the building. Seth stepped back, drew his laser pistol and pointed it at the window, preparing for the worst.
After about five minutes of waiting, the trembling finally ended, and the cockroach appeared on the building's roof. Cockroaches are cannibals. They will eat the corpses of the cockroaches on the building's roof.
Even so, Seth and the woman were safe in this building. They couldn't enter through the small iron door on the rooftop, as it was bigger than the door.
Just when the atmosphere had become favourable, the woman who had been unconscious began to wake up. She found herself in a room with Seth, who smelled of cockroaches. Realizing the woman's nose was sensitive to such smells made her jump quickly behind the sofa, causing Seth to be confused.
"Don't be afraid. You're safe here," Seth said, trying to calm the woman down.
"Where am I?" the woman asked.
"On the eighth floor of a building. The cockroaches won't be able to get inside," Seth explained.
The woman seemed to squint her eyes, gaining the courage to stand right behind the sofa where she had been sleeping for twenty minutes. Her head circled to the side, realizing this room was closed off, right after seeing the windows of the room covered with tight curtains.
"Are you sure they won't be here?" the woman asked.
"100% sure they won't come here," Seth replied.
She could breathe a sigh of relief. The woman sat back on the sofa with laboured breathing, occasionally looking up at the curtained glass window.
"I am thankful to you. I don't know what my fate would have been if you hadn't found me," the woman replied.
She was the strange woman who met Seth before the game started. Seth thought she had excellent survival skills, but she was immediately attacked by her weakness, insects.
"You're safe here. We'll wait until the bugs leave."