There was a huge beehive there.

Karina-chan here! Right now I'm progressing through a dungeon in the mood of a certain game!

Oh, a big spider this time. It's also bigger than a human, so is this another one of those? A chance to say that line about being wrapped in thread and all that—

 

 

"—wait, it just attacked me normally. What the heck, getting my hopes up."

If I had to describe it, it had thread strung between its front legs like cat's cradle, using the sticky strands to try and catch me. Hmm, just shoot the thread at me already. C'mon, shoot webs at me like that friend character from a certain gorilla game.

Huh? What comes out of a spider's butt is just thread to begin with, so shooting it as a web is impossible? Shut up, figure it out with magic! You're a monster! … No wait, that's probably too much to ask. That'd be more unreasonable than asking someone to shape chewing gum into a spider web in their mouth and spit it out.

Well, I dismantled the spider too and tossed it into storage.

Oops, I sense adventurers. Let's avoid them and find another path. Running into them would be a pain.

As a Spatial Magic user, I have a complete grasp of the passages I've been through. My mental map is perfect in 3D. I can go back whenever I want, and I could just return to my storage space if I wanted to skip the dungeon altogether.

I'll just keep pushing forward randomly while avoiding people.

Oh, it's a Crawler. You're actually the tasty one—ah, it's being attacked by a Yellow Hornet. What, you're food even inside the dungeon? It's sad, but this is what they call the food chain… oh, I just thought of something good. I'll hide and follow the Yellow Hornet. Optical camouflage! I concealed myself and decided to tail the Yellow Hornet that had been attacking the Crawler.

If I'm lucky, it might lead me to the Mother or Queen that's supposed to be deep in the dungeon!

So I quietly waited while Yellow-kun ate and rolled the leftovers into a ball… Okay, it's taking off. Tailing commences.

Hm? Hey, hold it, you red mantis over there. That Yellow Hornet is my prey. Kill stealing is prohibited.

Geez, that was close. I'll put Yellow-kun in invincible mode. The red mantis gets joint-dismantled and tossed into storage. And there we go. You might've just been trying to grab a passing snack, but tough luck.

So, after stealthily escorting Yellow-kun, I reached a descending staircase.

What looks like a boss room is in front of it, but there's no boss and no door. Could this be what they call unexplored territory? Maybe stuff like wandering bosses appear because of areas like this. Or so I theorized.

Oh well. Let's go deeper.

Following Yellow-kun further, there was a huge beehive there.

A wasp-type nest, shaped like a cumulonimbus cloud. It was packed into a massive chamber that spanned two or three floors, filling the space. And a huge swarm of hornets was flying around.

Uwaaah, just looking at it gives me goosebumps. It's making my skin crawl. This is physiologically unacceptable. Humans are programmed to loathe bees. I'm gonna develop trypophobia at this rate!

There are yellow ones and red ones, and orange ones that split the difference. Ugh, gross. So buggy, so creepy-crawly… hey, mosaic. I want a mosaic over my entire field of vision! Can't show this!

… Anyway, now that I've made it here, Yellow-kun has served his purpose. I disabled invincible mode and watched Yellow-kun carry the Crawler ball into the hive. Thanks for the guidance.

"… Hmm, I wonder if these are the kind I'm allowed to exterminate. I have no idea."

For now, let me use Spatial Magic to check this room's structure… and the moment I released magic power like active sonar, all the hornets in the room turned to look at me at once.

Stop? Don't look at me?

Before I could even decide whether to say that, the bees came flying at me.

"Uwaaaaaah grosssss!!! Somebody help meeeee!!!"

Wait, listen to what I have to say… as if bees could listen! They're bees!

When I made noise, naturally, bees came attacking from inside the hive too.

Hieee! The swarming is terrifying! Gross! They can't damage me, but please don't come near me, seriously, they're huge bugs! Nooo!!

Before I knew it, I had killed every single bee in the room—all of them, without exception, down to the last one.

… It couldn't be helped!! Ahh, I almost got traumatized there…