Dahlia should’ve asked what Emilia meant by making the Mutant come after them instead of the other way around, but, admittedly, the three of them completely lost themselves prettying up their hollow mushroom base.

  Three days passed, and while they hadn’t strayed even a hundred or so strides away from their mushroom even once, they sure made their little homebase look good.

  “... Nice,” Emilia muttered.

  “Perfection,” Muyang agreed.

  “Feels good to make something with your own two hands, hm?” Dahlia said, grinning at Emilia as she did. “And you wanted to shove all the hard work onto me. Do you feel it now? Pride? It’s fun breaking your back over something you can really enjoy looking at, right?”

  Emilia didn’t bother responding, but she get a scowl back. Dahlia grinned and took that as an admission of defeat.

  It was early in the morning of the third day, and the three of them were just lazing around the room. Emilia had crafted low stools and tables from chunks of sturdy mushroom stems, arranged neatly along the left wall, and she was currently sprawled out comfortably across the sofa with her legs up on the armrest, arms folded behind her head. Muyang had carved makeshift shelves and decorated them with dried plants and berries by the right wall, and there they stored their weapons, armour, and other trinkets too heavy to carry all the time—mostly just Muyang’s giant beetle head, but there were small bundles of medicinal herbs, colourful stones Emilia had insisted on keeping as souvenirs, and a few boxes of stored insect flesh they could cook in the small hearth in the centre of the room. He was humming as he polished his beetle head with a mushroom rag.

  Then, there was the rest of the room Dahlia filled out by herself. She looked around dreamily as she lay flat on her stomach, kicking her legs back and forth on her bed. There were three of them at the back of the room: thick layers of moss woven together with the soft, fibrous bark of smaller mushroom trunks. Surprisingly springy. For lights, she’d peeled off chunks of the bioluminescent moss from the wall and hung them from the ceiling strategically, braiding them like glowing bulbs so the room was evenly lit. She’d even carved three small alcoves in the walls and covered them with vines, turning them into wardrobes for more private items they didn’t want to put on their shelves.

  She could go on and on about the other things she’d done—the small washbasin she’d dug outside the mushroom to redirect water flow from a nearby river, the working door that didn’t creak on its hinges, and the engraved sets of kitchen utensils she’d carved out of mushroom wood—but it was only when all three of them sighed in utter peace and bliss that their eyes twitched at once.

  Emilia sat up straight.

  Muyang stopped polishing his giant beetle head.

  Dahlia stopped kicking her legs back and forth, and the three of them shared a solemn, knowing look.

  “... What are we even doing?” Dahlia said, shaking her head in disappointment as she groaned, rolling off her bed and onto her feet. “Let’s… go. To hunt. We’re supposed to be bug-slayers, aren’t we?”

  “Do we have to do it now?” Emilia mumbled, rolling around and burying her face in the armrest. “There’s even ventilation from the little holes we poked in the walls. It’s breezy here, Dahlia. . Where I come from in the east, ‘warm’ is sweating buckets in your academy uniform while the professors–”

  “Miss Dahlia speaks the truth. We have grown content under the weight of stillness,” Muyang said, slapping his knees as he stood up with a heave, lifting his giant beetle head off the ground, “or has some unseen reason bound us to this inaction, Miss Emilia? I seem to recall you saying we did not have to scurry after the bugs, but instead, we could simply let them come to us. Pray enlighten me, but what wisdom lies within those words?”

  Emilia peeked out from under her armrest, throwing Muyang an irritated glare. “I meant what I meant. We don’t need to put a hundred percent effort when it comes to hunting bugs. We only have to give a hundred point performance.”

  Dahlia and Muyang blinked at the same time, so, reluctantly, Emilia crawled off the sofa and stretched her arms, cracking her neck.

  “Fine, fine. Let’s go bug-hunting, then,”

  ...

  Dahlia shared another look with Muyang before Emilia sighed, beckoning them to follow her out of the mushroom. The moment they pushed out the front door, they were met with a loud, lively fungi forest. Morning dew clung to every leaf, vine, and mushroom stem. Sharp chirps and trills echoed from branches unseen, and above—the cloudless blue sky shone bright down between the gaps of the mushroom canopy.

  It was a peaceful morning, like every other day she’d spent in the forest, but Emilia immediately whirled on her and stared at her antennae.

  “You have some sort of predator class, don’t you?” she said, before gesturing wildly at the forest. “I’m a cicada, so my antennae aren't suited for hunting, and the big guy’s obviously some sort of horned beetle, so his antennae are club-shaped and pretty useless when it comes to finding prey—but can do it, right? Sharp, dagger-like antennae means you specialise in tracking down living organisms, yeah?”

  “Um… I don’t–”

  “Look around. Feel around. Is your antennae picking up on anything out of the ordinary?”

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Muyang and Emilia looked at her expectantly, and for her part, she was just fidgeting with her claws. Her antennae were certainly good at sensing danger, but her perception level was neither particularly high nor particularly honed—so it came as a surprise to her when she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and found her antennae tingling in a particular direction.

  Right.

  A whole jolt and shiver ran down her spine, but before she could even open her eyes and tell her teammates her ‘findings’, Emilia was already strolling casually to the right with all four arms crossed behind her back. Muyang didn’t want to lag behind. He started dragging his beetle head through the ground as well, glancing back at Dahlia and clicking his tongue at her to follow.

  Sucking in a deep breath again, she sprinted after the two and shouted at Emilia to wait up. The shorter girl, of course, didn’t listen. They stepped over thick roots, brushed past wide leaves that left cool droplets against their skin, and eventually, she stopped pestering Emilia to explain what they were doing.

  Her antennae made that apparent enough.

  The further they left their cosy little section of the forest, the more the colours around them began to fade, and the more consistent the tingling in her antennae became. Bright green and red mushrooms gave way to dull browns and blacks, and thick, heavy scents hit her nose. Damp rot mixed with sour earth.

  A twinge of unease settled in her stomach as they saw the first carcass: a giant beetle with its carapace cracked and hollowed, legs curled stiffly towards its body. Bits of fungus grew on it, creeping along its joints, feeding on what was left. A little further, she spotted another bug carcass, then another, and another—each one in varying stages of rot, most barely recognizable except for their broken, blackened shells.

  Then, there were the bodies. bodies. A few hung from low branches, torsos pierced by jagged vines or thin roots. Some were slumped against mushroom stalks, giant bug legs wedged through their chests, stomachs, and necks. Most were sprawled out across the earth, hands still clenched around their oversized bug-slaying weapons, and even more flesh had given way to fungus, greyish-yellowish spores dusting the bodies in patches and turning skin into sickly, moulded surfaces.

  All in total, they must’ve passed by at least five hundred giant bug carcasses, and at least ninety, maybe a hundred people. Dahlia couldn’t stop her antennae from shivering wherever they pointed now.

  “Is the first stage really supposed to be this bloody?” she whispered, hugging herself as her eyes flitted nervously around. She felt as though she could hear leaves rustling overhead, talons clawing along spiralled mushroom stalks, and it made her all the more jumpy. “This is… don’t the Hasharana… want–”

  “They knew what they were signing up for,” Emilia said quietly, holding up a fist to stop them from walking any further. Muyang screeched to a halt, and Dahlia walked head-first into his muscled back, wincing as the cicada girl knelt before a particularly fungus-infested corpse lying in front of them. “See, this is why I wanted us to do nothing for the first few days. Three thousand Giant-Class bugs and over two hundred participants? let the crickets chirp before the katydids sing.”

  “... You wanted the weaker participants to fight first?”

  “I wanted the weaker bugs to fight first,” Emilia corrected. “It’s only been three days, but I’m probably right when I estimate about… eh, two-thirds of the bugs have probably already been slain. We can move around more freely now, and there’s also less participants who might come after us, we also relaxed for three days. I know it's not a pretty sight, but do want to hunt for Mutants in a forest with three thousand Giant-Class bugs lurking around?”

  Dahlia bit her lips, walking around Muyang to look down at the fungus-infested man with a heavy heart. “I don’t. Even still… we shouldn’t have–”

  “Get down here as well, big guy,” Emilia said, beckoning both of them to kneel alongside her as she patted the spores on the man’s back. “This guy and his team didn’t die so long ago, and I highly doubt the Empress planted any fungus that’d consume the dead so quickly. If it’s not the forest doing this, then these spores have got to be a Mutant's ability. Do either of you know any bugs that can make decaying fungus grow this quickly?”

  Muyang shook his head immediately. “Unfortunately, I am not a well-read man in the entomological texts of Amadeus Academy. My talent in identifying bugs is… woefully incompetent.”

  “I figured. And you, Dahlia?” Emilia turned on her, throwing her a pointed look. “You’re the one cooking and turning insect flesh into half-decent dishes the past three days. You probably have an idea, right? Spill the beans.”

  For her part, Dahlia hesitated, feeling bile rise up in her throat, but… curiosity tugged at her. she’d be doing the man a disservice if she didn’t figure out what got him.

  Reaching out slowly, she brushed her fingers against a cluster of small, white mushrooms sprouting from the corpse’s shoulder. They crumbled at her touch, disintegrating into fine, powdery dust that was immediately whisked away by a gentle breeze.

  As she recoiled slightly, she inspected the rest of the man’s remains, noting how the fungal growths had infiltrated the skin. Tendrils weaved through the flesh, turning it soft and grey.

  Frowning, she glanced up and around her, noting once more how the giant mushrooms nearby were similarly dull in colour. Their caps bowed and pocked with rot. Dark stains marked the stalks where the grey fungus had taken hold, creeping upwards like a disease. A few giant mushrooms had even collapsed entirely, their caps sagging and split open, revealing hollowed interiors that dripped with a thick, dark ooze.

  And then the carcasses—humans and bugs alike—caught her attention.

  “... Mama’s encyclopaedia spoke of a particular type of beetle that drills into trees and cultivates fungi that breaks down the tree’s nutrients, which serves as their larvae’s primary food source,” she recited, half-mumbling under her breath as she snapped her head back around to look at Emilia and Muyang. “Ambrosia beetle. The fungi they introduce into trees are particularly aggressive and harmful. When left unchecked, their fungi can cause entire forests to decay and rot away.”

  Emilia grinned at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Muyang nodded sadly. “I concur with Miss Emilia.”

  “Basically… Mutant beetle,” she said, eyes twitching as her antennae suddenly swerved backwards, thrumming loudly. “They’re not particularly fast runners or flyers. Sluggish. But… they travel quickly through trees by drilling tunnels through the wood, and that lets them ambush their prey from hard-to-defend angles–”

  Muyang lifted his giant beetle helm and slammed it into the ground on Dahlia’s right, using it like a shield, while Emilia whirled around and screeched aloud.

  The human-shaped shadow that'd been clinging to the side of a giant mushroom pounced at them, but then Emilia's physical sound wave slammed into its head, knocking it out of the air.

  Dahlia blinked.

  Before she knew it, though, the human-shaped shadow with four arms and two legs scurried away, hopping from giant mushroom to mushroom as it left a trail of greyish-yellowish spores in its wake.

  “... And the ambrosia beetle was just waiting to see if more humans would show up to crash its party, eh?” Emilia said plainly, patting Dahlia’s back as she stood up with a heavy, exhausted groan. Muyang grabbed his giant beetle head by the horn as well, and then the two of them took off after the Mutant—waiting for her. “Let’s get that thing buried in the ground before noon, yeah? The one who kills it has to pay for lunch after we get back to the city!”

  The link to the Discord server is with nearly five hundred members, where you can get notifications for chapter updates, check out my writing progress, and read daily facts about this insect-based world. My is here with up to eight advanced chapters for this story and Storm Strider and Thousand Tongue Mage, so it's twenty-four advanced chapters in total.

  See you next Friday for chapter seventy-two!