8 Chapter 7- Despair and a New light

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When someone is truly alone in this world, no family, no relations, no friends, no enemies, they know nothing can save them except for themselves.

Various emotions can be felt coursing through their lonesome self. Anger, despair, sadness, hopelessness, etc. When such things happen the path the person chooses is integral to their future.

They could give up fighting, or force the situation to turn into their favor. You could go with the flow or rage against the tides. But, that is for them to decide... After all, you've decided the difficulty in every game, but how would you fare in a game with a set difficulty.

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As far as I could see, the hole seemed to have dug into an underground cave, and broken into an insect nest. The place seemed to be crawling with larvae with only the lifeless body of the leader between them and me. I couldn't move, but I had gained a drastic number of skill points from the death of the others who had eaten a part of me. The confusion was that it only showed that I had gained stats from killing 6 of the 7 people.

Judging by that I came to the conclusion that skill points seemed to only be gained when someone gives the final blow, in this case, my <toxicity> skill did the trick. I didn't know how to feel about this sort of development. I mean Yukiyo injured them, a lot, but I was the one who dealt the final blow. Except for the leader who was killed by Yukiyo.

...

I decided to focus on the current situation and ignore it, "Ai, Show me my stats."

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Name: Un-Named

Race: Snow Dragon Cactus

Hp: 5/20

Mp: 0/0

Sp: 0/0

Energy: 20%

Reserves: 50%

Status: <Decapitated>

Ai: Default

Skill points: 6003

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"Well, 6003 skill points huh." I needed to increase my stats. As I looked at my stat screen, I gazed at my intelligence stat. 800 points seemed to be my average intelligence points I received or gained when I was a human. "So, by that logic, maybe If I could gain a higher than average intelligence then I should be able to become smarter increasing my chances for surviving" I thought. "First of all, let's get all my stats beyond 1000." With high enough stats it would have been easy enough to crush those bugs with ease. "Ai place 1000 skill points on each stat."

"Hmmm, let's see..."

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Attributes :-

Strength - 190 Dexterity - 190

Intelligence - 900 Perception - 200

Constitution -190 Agility - 190

Wisdom - √[Total of all Base Attributes +

Current Skill points]

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As I looked at the status screen I was bewildered by the results. Confused I let out an internal scream, "Anyaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! Where did all my stat point's go!! Give me an explanation Ai!!!"

<After every x10 starting from 100 the required stat point increase by 10 times of the previous stat points requirement. e.g,

After 100 points 10 stat point's are required to boost stat point's by 1

After 1000 points 100 stat point's are required to boost stat points by 1>

The stat point system was totally unfair. "Isn't this suppose to be a reincarnation type stuff. Where are my cheats!!" I thought in confusion.

"If it's like that, the Wisdom equation doesn't make any sense, a person with 10000 skill point's would have a higher wisdom stat than a person who has placed the skill points into his base stat."

"Ai, give me an answer."

I had no clue but Ai's pop-up had weird broken words.

"Anyways I get it now. But-" before I finished a huge number of pop-ups flooded me.

<Hp has been restored<Decapitated> status has been removed>

<<180-degree vision> has been granted access.<Night vision (low)> has been granted.>

<Mp stat has been granted. (+10 base Mp)1st spell circle has been granted.Basic magic creation has been granted>.

"-wha Anyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!"

Suprised by the sudden large pop-ups in a grim scenario I thought, "Seriously, you have really bad timing."

"Whatever we can do this later. Wait do I have 2 small hands? Wait am I able to move now? These spikes feel weird."I thought. After moving my small fleshy round hands a bit I proceeded to read the pop-ups.

The situation was bad, but all was not lost. I focused on one of my hands and a spike extended poking the dead guy in the nose, and like a reflex I quickly retracted it. It somehow felt natural and easy to do. I thought of it like an instinct every creature has in this world, after all, all living things learn how to breathe, eat, walk naturally. The moment somehow felt like a Deja-vu.

Deciding to think about surviving I wondered, "Let's try it on the small worm now."

I raised one of my small extensions and pointed it towards the larva. The spikes poke the Larva which topples down, falling on the ground while rolling into a ball.

It seemed like I had a rather long reach but with my current size I had difficulty gauging how long it was.

I pointed my extensions towards one of the larva and poked it with full force. The spikes went right through the bug piercing it in many areas. A transparent liquid oozed out of the punctured areas.

"ewwwwwwww..." Thoughts naturally came in my head.

The spikes retracted and the larva stopped moving.

"Ok seemed like these larvas are not much of a threat-" my thoughts were cut short as suddenly the larger adult bugs started coming towards the dead body. They looked like beetles and were small compared to the me but were really large in number. Each one was 1/4th the size of me. Their sheer numbers moving in the cold blue light emitted by the crystal made the me tremble in fear.

I needed a plan and fast. The smell of blood was attracting more and more of them. If I attacked them, I was gonna get swarmed by all of them. But if I did nothing the bugs would eventually get to me.

I was in a pickle. No I was beyond that, I was in a pickle thrown in a frying pan being cooked in flambé style which was gonna be thrown in the trash.

I could try and escape through the hole using my spikes but I run the risk of dropping into the swarm.

So in the brief moment I could only think of 3 ways of surviving.

-Fight till I kill all the bugs. Sadly I still didn't know how strong the adult bugs are.

-Pretend I'm a plant and hope that the insects wouldn't eat me. But I don't think insects are pure carnivores in this cold area where the food is scarce. Even Yukiyo dropped me into the hold for feeding purposes.

-Reach for the hole at the top running the risk of dropping into the swarm. But once I drop it's over.

[The Bugs start to climb the body.]

"Screw it. If I am I gonna die, I might as well die trying." I thought as I directed both of my hands towards the opening and extended all the spikes, but they were not even close to reaching the rock wall.

"Extend goddammit!!!!" Trying to push myself I tried to reach the exit but it was not possible.

Forcing the spikes into the nearest outer wall I could reach I dug my spikes into the hard wall.

"Not enough!!!"

I desperately tried to push all the spikes into the wall. Meanwhile, the insects were getting closer.

"Not Enough!! It's not gonna work"

I retracted all the spikes on his body and directed it towards the wall, I couldn't take any chances I had to make sure and reach it in one go. While on the other hand the insects were getting too close. Concentrating on my entire body I directed the spikes towards the insects.

"I haven't used this skill yet but right now I can only bet on it. <Acceleration>!!!"

The spikes shot hard into the wall jamming themselves into the wall and pushed the insects away from me off the corpse.

"Now!!!"

I retracted the spikes pulling me toward the wall. My hands were stuck in the wall but I had gained a few more minutes.

Suddenly the insects started shaking frantically down below. They started to move the back of their carapace giving rise to yellowish transparent wings. A few of them started fluttering their wings and jumped about. Then they started to fly towards me. They seemed to be trying to fly but were not really good at it, but with each passing moment they were getting closer and closer with every flight.

"Shit shit shit shit! Do I free my spikes from the wall to counter-attack or do I just try to run? Shit my hands are stuck in the wall. Shit shit shit shit!!!!!!"

I forcefully pulled out the spikes of one of my hands from the wall while digging the wall with the spikes of my back with which I was able to fix myself on the wall. And when I finally pulled out my other hand, I pointed both of them towards the insects.

"Come and GET ME!!!!"

The spikes start to extend rapidly towards the insects as I used <Accelerate> to boost them. A few got hit in the eyes, but it didn't pierce through most of them due to their thick carapace. Instead, they just lost their balance a little.

"Shit!!!!!"

I knew It was near impossible for me to pierce the insects with my current strength. I focused the spikes up towards a higher wall trying to dig into it. Frantic from all the insects swarming below I forgot to retract my back spikes before pulling.

As soon as I did, the wall began to topple down towards the ground. A huge amount of soil and snow fell over me and onto the bugs down below. The wall fell burying the entire nest. My spikes broke loose from the wall and I fell onto a pile of soil and snow. The exit was totally blocked out. Not even a tiny ray of light entered the cave. There was only one source of light which came from the buried soil with a few larvae squirming around.

A sudden sound was heard which put the ones above on guard.

"Master what do you think?" Seito asked to which Yukiyo replied, "Hmmm, looks like the ground must have gotten a little loose after the fight."

"Huh? What just-?" Confused as to what had happened I recollected my thoughts and to move towards the bluish source of light. I wasn't any good at it but I was fine for now. I flicked off all the nearby larvae and tried to dig out the crystal using my spikes, which was a futile effort. I looked around for a long time and finally found a flat rock, which was hard to find in a dark area. Using that it was easier to dig out the crystal.

I needed to get out of there but didn't knew how. If I had been a bit bigger or had better digging capability I could have dug out but the spikes were useless for that.

After the blue crystal was dug out it exposed the area with a bright blue light. The area had a number of small holes and large holes. It seemed like the insects used the holes to move around the area.

"Ok, at least I have a proper vision of this area. The night vision isn't that good but it's all I have."

I decided to looked around and found a small pouch covered in blood.

Instead of complaining, I decided I didn't have time to waste and proceeded to rummage through it, "At least it's something. Let's see if it has any useful stuff."

While looking through it, I found a few items. A knife, a small vial containing a sort of liquid and a journal soaked in blood.

The vial seems to be ok, the knife was a little bloody but rubbing some snow would get the blood off quite easily. But the journal was of no use, I couldn't get it to open. I could have gotten some information out of it.

I threw the journal and when it landed hard on the ground, it opened, revealing a page which was still untouched by blood.

"Oh... All according to plan!!! Please let it be some useful information and not some stupid story."

"I don't need Sass from you of all people."

"Never mind."

I then proceeded to read the journal.

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