The Beetle Nest

Rumble~

The sound of rocks falling reached Anput's ears yet again but she paid it no head for she had heard it many times in the past twenty minutes while digging out the many corpses of beetles buried in this pit

"Wuu, wuu"

She panted heavily as she finished rolling yet another oversized beetle into the clump of bodies gathered in the middle, the rabid breaths carried a rancid smell into her mouth making her eyes watery

After catching her breath she gave the place a quick glance, scanning the different bodies of beetles

Some were big with blackish-red colour like the first one but most of the bodies were yellow and their build was the same as the ones she had fought a short while ago

Now that she had gathered enough bodies it was time she started with the next phase of the plan, the part she was reluctant to do

In the beginning, the plan was for her to lure and kill beetles and then extract a certain part nestles in their abdomen, that part holds certain hormones that help the beetles to tell each other apart from different beetle nests, swallowing it would make her body produce a friendly scent that allowed her to sneak inside the nest and steal the item away

To that end she was more than willing, the hormones would taste bad but they weren't something she couldn't handle, but now the situation forced her to eat it out the dead bodies of these beetles since that would hasten the plan which she thought would benefit her master, since if she had to lure and fight those beetles group by group she would take a long time

Her face was scrunched up in disgust at the mere thought of how they would taste, in the end though she valued loyalty above all and proceeded to hesitantly rip open the abdomen of the closest beetle which in turn let out an even more puke-inducing smell

Her nostrils flared to the point of sting but she bared with it and reached out for a very small sac inside, the sac was so small it fit in between her claws

Giving a fleeting glance toward this sac she shook her head and hastily closed her eyes, then threw the thing right into her mouth and gulped it down

"Huuu"

Once the sac reached her stomach she felt like throwing up, in fact, it wasn't just a feeling as she indeed had to throw up mere seconds later

"Awuu wu"

Whimpers came out her mouth, feeling defeated, the taste was just unbearable and she had to remove it, yet she still walked over to another dead body and opened it up to extract another sac

She didn't want to, hell no, but she had to, she wasn't like her master who could go wherever he wanted without anyone the wiser, nor did she have the battle prowess of that exhibitionist, even that newly added root was more powerful than her

This left her no choice but to suffer to keep up, if she couldn't even do her mission what would she amount to her master? She refuses to be bagged that slowed him down

Another sac went down her throat and into her stomach, it rumbled in rejection making fluids climb up to her mouth but she swallowed them back stubbornly and went for yet another sac

The crazily determined Anput went through body after body, extracting and eating the sacs until they wouldn't fit her stomach anymore, by then she felt like she wanted to die but pushed herself toward the edge of the pit instead and started to climb up while she was high on her feelings

The climb wasn't too hard since she chose a side that wasn't as steep as the one she came from, four minutes later her claws clutched onto the soil outside pulling her out of the pit

Click Click?

The first thing to appear in her vision was the smooth head of a confused beetle, it clicked its mandibles while turning its head sideways as if trying to figure out what the weird creature in front of it was, then it moved toward her and started to push her back down the pit

Anput panicked thinking it was an attack and smacked the poor thing down the pit, ensuing a screech from it which attracted the rest f the beetles around her

When the beetles came they madly looked around the edge for the killer of their kin, sparing no effort in their search yet they ignored her exitance

"Awu?"

She was beginning to think they didn't see her anymore, but her voice though attracted their gaze toward her momentarily

She instantly shut her mouth and remained still, and the beetles soon ignored her

Soon they stopped searching altogether and returned to work

She took that opportunity to move her limbs forward a bit, testing to see if any of the nearby beetles would notice her but other than giving her a sideglance they didn't do anything

The plan had worked and now she was almost invisible in their minds, the cautious testing steps turned into a sprint, taking her toward their nest

Once she arrived there she walked right into the cave without any fear

Sure enough none of the beetles here paid her any mind allowing her deeper into the cave, soon she made it out the long entrance of the cave and arrived at a surprisingly well lit spacious dome

This place wasn't anything like what the entrance entailed for its walls were smoother, though still a little uneven but she could see beetles working on it right now, there was a huge hole in the roof that allowed sunlight to shine down upon a small pit in the middle of this place, other beetles were moving in circles around it, extracting the stone to make bigger pits around it

She couldn't see whats in the pit from her position so she walked closer

Click!

Accidentally she brushed against one of the working beetles, that made it instantly give her a hard stare and click its mandibles at her making her retreat, then she felt two feet behind her roll her to the side onto another beetle which started to carry her out the cave, once they were out it gave her to a beetle that carried her in the direction of the pit

Anput finally understood that these beetles didn't see her like a beetle as planned, instead they seem to see her as a rock, or perhaps more accurately a dead body, that's the consequences of eating a dead bodies sac

Once she learned of her predicament she relaxed, jumped off the confused beetles back and rushed back into the cave

Just as before she went through the entrance normally and got back to the dome-like area, this time she didn't go toward the pit from this side but started to circle around it

In front of the entrance many beetles were busy taking rocks in and out thus she might accidentally touch someone again, so she started to approach from the back where the beetles were scarce

Thankfully she didn't bump into anything and got to peer into the pit

What she saw made her wince, as inside the pit lay two huge beetles, they were double her body in size, on their head was a horn resembling that of a scarab, it was chipped at the tip making it look less like a crown and more like a shield

Those two huge beetles faced the entrance in silence, guarding a platform made of yellow stone behind them, it was a circle with six pillars around it

In the center she spotted three gemstones of varying colour surrounding a bigger gemstone that shone with reddish-black hues

Her eyes sparkled seeing it, that must be the treasure her master asked for

She crept slowly into the pit while making sure those two huge beetles didn't take notice of her, thankfully she had eaten the dead beetle's sac's or else she would have been thrown out as even other beetles didn't dare come close to the pit

Once she was near the platform she slowly extended maw to the gemstone then grabbed it silently

Crunch!

Or so she planned but once maw closed in on the gemstone is cracked in her mouth, its content seeping down her throat

"...."

Silence, no clicking sound, no rock crunching sounds, even the wind seemed to still with the halt of the creatures

The two huge beetles turned their head to the back ever so slowly, she couldn't see their eyes but she could feel the death stare she was receiving

Her response was to sweep the remaining gems into her mouth and jump on top one of these beetles and head for the entrance as fast as possible

Hideous screeches echoed behind her followed by the entire populace of the cave attacking her

She obviously couldn't slaughter her way out so she jumped on top the beetles and used their shells as stepping stones

A deafening sound of rocks tumbling came from the back but she dared not slow down to look behind as she knew it was the huge ones chasing after her

Still, her momentary thoughts distracted her and she didn't notice that she had jumped onto one of the beetles who had their mouth open waiting to bite her

Her mind raced with thoughts on how o deal with the situation, should she jump back before it bit her? Would she have enough time to outrun the two huge ones if hse did, would she even land properly and not be surrounded

These thoughts were useless though as the second she came close to it the beetle shivered and froze in place allowing her to jump off it safely

This made her relieved and also allowed her to notice that all the beetles she got close to gave the same response, making her wonder just what it was she ate

She couldn't entertain the thought though with two seething giants hot on her tail, she merely hoped whatever it was wouldn't have them chasing her all the way back to her master