C54- Depths of the Nest (1)

"Woah... What kind of crazy bee made these?"

"Well, we know what kind it was, right? The monster kind."

As the group entered the room at the end of the corridor, they were met with the rumbling of many creatures moving, the faint smell of honey, and a giant room, as big as a building by itself. The walls were covered with honeycombs of various sizes, from half a meter in lenght to as big as two people. The beeswax that made the honeycombs were glowing yellowish, lighting up the room with a slightly golden honey colour. The small ones were much more in numbers, and most honeycombs had a door like structure made up of six triangles each attached to one edge of the hexagonal shapes that met in the middle. 

Some of them were closed, and a shadow could be seen inside. At parts where there were no honeycombs, there were instead entrances to other corridors. The room had different platforms made entirely out of stone or a cement like mixture of big pebbles and beeswax that were connected with various bridges.

The corridor the group came out of was close to the ceiling, and they could see almost the entirety of the room from where they were standing. Down in the room, many bugs of the same pink and black colours could be seen. Most of them were ants with some honey bees mixed in. But there were also many praying mantis, different beetles and-

"LET'S LEAVE!", shouted Clair.

"Hey! Quiet! Do you want to die?!"

"B-b-b-but l-l-look at that th-thing!"

A giant cockroach, twice the size of a human. Except it's six legs and and head, it was coloured in darker tones of pink than the other bugs, making it look special between the horde of bugs.

"That's a.... cockroach? So what?", asked Corvin.

"What do you mean 'So what?'?! I am not going near that thing!"

"Well... you can stay back, you know. You are the only one who refuses it.", said Corvin and turned towards the other two.

Amy averted her gaze, and Noah took two steps back from the end of the corridor.

"...You two too?!"

"Not going to lie, man... I don't want to live in the same world as that thing..."

"Me neither..."

Corvin loked at the three with a face full of shock.

"! I-I was betrayed!"

As Corvin stepped backwards as a joke, he slipped and almost fell down the corridor.

"Ouch!"

He quickly climbed back easily with the use of his magic, but ended up scratching the side of his knee slightly with a sharp edge on the rough stone wall. His knee bled slightly, and a single small drop of blood trickled down the wall.

"Are you okay? Here, put this on."

Amy took out a small band-aid from her emergency pouch and gave it to Corvin. Corvin spoke while sticking the band-aid on his knee.

"I am sorry, guys. I forgot you all were raised in rich environments, away from most bugs, so I understand why you would be disgusted by roaches. Because they indeed are really dirty and also you three don't see them much..."

"...Yeah, no problem dude, but why are you talking so serious right now?"

"A small drip of my blood fell on the wall..."

"So what?"

whirr~

A faint sound of wings could be heard from afar while they were talking.

"Uhm... Did you know cockroaches have amazing smelling sense?"

"Huh?"

Whirrr~

The sound of wings came closer with time, and became noticable.

"Y-You d-don't mean..."

"Sorry... But, on the bright side, this corridor is wide enough for me to fight it so it's okay. I know how to kill a roach..."

"C-Corvin... Please be joking..."

WHIRRR~

Noah wished for this to be all Corvin's joke, but instead of Corvin's laugh and telling them it's a joke, he was met with the giant silhouette of a roach right at the end of the corridor. He ran away by reflex, just like the two girls besides him, and when he looked back, he saw the white shine of Corvin's sword, and a dark pink roach landing inside the corridor.

"Noah, you don't need to play your violin except emergencies since that would only bring more attention here. Thankfully, I did take Amy's pills so I should be okay. But if you can, please find a way to help me while staying silent enough to not wake up the entire colony."

"Ugh... Corvin, I am sorry man."

Noah, Clair and Amy ran far away from the roach and back into the corridor, leaving Corvin without looking back.

"Sigh~, I guess it's just you and me, roach..."

The roach leaped towards Corvin and kicked him with it's two front legs. Corvin jumped backwards and blocked one of the legs, and swung his sword at the other one.

Clank!

"Great. This one is armoured too..."

He jumped towards the roach and attacked the root of it's front leg. The roach moved it's leg, turned towards Corvin and launched forwards. As the bug opened it's mouth in an attempt to bite Corvin. He pushed himself sideways with magic, and swung his sword with magic. The white sword glowed light green and moved towards the root of the leg with great speed.

Crack! Thud!

The exoskeleton on the leg cracked and the leg was severed from the body. The seperated leg fell on the ground and started to quickly disappear.

The roach retreated a couple of meters and Corvin jumped towards the other leg and swung his sword once again. The other leg was also severed and immediately started to disappear. Corvin quickly took care of another leg and was aiming for the fourth one, but the roach flew backwards and blocked the corridor with it's wide elytron while shielding itself behind it.

Whirr~

"What... You are scared? Sigh~"

Corvin walked backwards in the corridor, towards the others. When he got there, the first thing he saw was Amy working on something with her pestle shining light purple from time to time.

"-♪♫"

"?"

Corvin heard a faint whistle and turned towards Noah. He was very silently whistling a melody.

"What is he doing?", asked Corvin to Clair.

"He said he was preparing something to help you and told Amy to make a poison for that thing... Wait, why are you here?"

"Me? I cut half of it's legs and it went into defence mode."

"Really! Did you already win!?"

"...Nope."

"Huh? But, it's legs are gone, right?"

"Well... I don't think you tortu- inspected bugs in your free time like me when you were little, so I guess you don't know..."

"Wh-What?"

"Well... Cockroaches are really good at healing themselves, did you know?"

"Huh?"

"...Yeah, I saw it happen once when I kept a roach captive for a while when I was small."

Clair showed visible disgust on her face and walked away from Corvin.

"What kind of hobbies do you have...?"