Re: Butterfly (Reincarnated as a Butterfly)

"Adon, I appreciate your detective work, and I have no doubt that it is fine deduction," Rosslyn said. "Believe me, I recall your resourcefulness well." She gave him a thin smile, and Adon felt her remembering the bittersweet discovery of Celeste's betrayal. "That said, I do not believe it would be wise to further alarm the remaining members of our party by interrogating them. We should instead focus on clearing this level of the dungeon quickly. When we move on to the next level, this monster will be left behind. If Samson and Frederick are correct, and the dungeon has been adapting in a way so as to specialize for a fight with us, then this monster you have theorized exists might be the most dangerous life form in this dungeon. Better not to try to find it if we do not have to. We have already lost enough people here. I think that haste is the order of the day. With you here keeping an eye on the rest of our group, it sounds as if it would be very difficult for the monster to murder more of us."

There it was. Adon had explained his deductions from the rest period, Rosslyn had listened with patience and clear understanding, and she had said they would not—should not—act to find the monster.

She has good reasons, Adon thought to himself, only slightly disappointed. Even if I'm getting a little invested in who or what this monster is that has managed to evade us and kill two of the team, it's probably only one creature. With powers like these, it has to be the boss monster, like the wyvern from the last level. Hmm.

"Are you all right with that?" Rosslyn asked, watching him carefully.

Yes, I'm all right, Adon sent, wondering how the Princess had noticed he was a little unhappy with the decision.

"Good, I am glad," she said, narrowing her eyes and wrinkling her nose slightly as she looked at him carefully.

What are you doing? he could not help but ask.

I think I am getting better at reading your body language, she answered in her mind.

That answered his other question.

Gosh, can't get anything past you now, Adon thought, sending a faux nervous laugh. I thought I would have to wait until you saw me in human form before you knew, um, my every thought just from reading my face.

Rosslyn let out a little, snorting laugh.

"I am still figuring out knowing people's 'every thought' from their faces," she said quietly, with a smile. "I will let you know when I master it."

Discreetly, could you please inform William, Frederick, and the spiders of what you observed? she added in her mind. I do not want to further alarm the rank and file, but it would be good if the six of us are at least keeping our senses keen for this invisible enemy. In the meantime, I will get the group moving out. Just sitting here does us no good.

I'd be happy to, Adon sent. One more thing, by the way. It just occurred to me. If this monster is the strongest monster of this level, the dungeon would probably deploy it close to the exit to the next level, for defensive reasons. So we might be near that opening here. It might be one of the tunnels outside. Closer than we've been imagining.

The valley they were in was honeycombed with caves, like a block of cheddar cheese, but at least it was a place to start

Rosslyn seemed pleased, too. She nodded, her smile and energy slowly growing as she listened to this latest idea.

"That might be a very important insight," she said. "It is the closest to a clue—"

The whole cave around them began to shake, cutting her off.

"Everyone, to the exit, now!" Rosslyn shouted, coming to an instant awareness of the situation.

Cracks began appearing in the walls, small rocks shaking loose and falling from the ceiling, and the floor started to visibly sag as if it was about to collapse.

There was a sudden scramble for the exit. If these had been untrained men and women, without leadership or discipline, Adon doubted that any of them would have survived.

Since they were instead an experienced group of magical knights, being directed by Rosslyn and William, they remained significantly more focused than that. The front line of knights used mana-enhanced swords and axes to quickly smash a huge hole through the barrier of ant corpses they had erected in front of the entrance. Then the group managed to rush, while maintaining a single file line, into the breach.

The leaders followed last, Adon perched on Rosslyn's back as she stepped into the gap. He could hear the sound of fighting outside, and for a moment, he wondered if it was an ambush. Then he noticed that the sounds were quieter than they should have been if the group was surrounded and fighting for their lives.

As Adon emerged from the tunnel, he spotted the knights finishing off the last of a small group—just twenty or so—of the Gold-Digging Ants. The young lords were already moving to assist the knights, having stepped out just before Rosslyn. Frederick leaped toward two of them, mana gathering around his heels before he crushed their bodies underfoot. And in a single fluid motion, William drew his sword and decapitated the largest—plainly the leader—of the gold-plated creatures.

After that, the other giant bugs seemed to lose some organization and become confused. Their death was pretty nearly instantaneous after that, with the knights slaughtering them with professional efficiency.

The Princess stepped forward to help after spending a moment surveying the scene, though the matter was almost done even as she began to move.

Adon turned to face a noise from behind himself and the Princess and saw that the tunnel, which had been shaking before, was now caving in behind him. Larger and larger slabs of stones fell.

He sent a quick telepathic warning to all around: Get away from the canyon wall!

Then Rosslyn was in swift motion, to the point that Adon's vision blurred for a moment. It reminded him of his new Rapid Movement Skill, though of course, Rosslyn was doing this all-natural somehow.

When his vision settled, the two of them were on the opposite side of the valley, and the knights and young lords were rushing to catch up to her—though, of course, William and Frederick were somehow only a step or two behind the Princess. All three of them were still out of Adon's league as far as physical capabilities were concerned, in his quick assessment, though he was catching up.

More important, however, was the fact that, behind them, the collapse had continued, and it had not been limited to their tunnel. Perhaps there was a chain reaction, or perhaps the Quugaarpaks had deliberately undermined the structure of the cliff face as a whole. Either way, as the party watched in silence, the entire cliff face, towering high above all of them, crumbled to the ground with a tremendous crash.

The sound was deafening. The collapse of what must have been hundreds of tons of rock and soil let loose a large cloud of dust that left the group coughing, spitting, and choking for almost a full minute.

To Adon's surprise, nothing came charging in through the dust to take advantage of the group's lack of visibility and relatively vulnerable position. Nothing attacked them at all as the knights slowly cleared their throats, passed around water skins to hydrate, and blinked to moisten their eyes.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

It was a moment that practically screamed "attack" to Adon, but nothing happened.

He was relieved, of course, but more importantly, that result confirmed something for him. Whatever else they would have to contend with on this level, the monsters were not cooperating together, at least not across species. The Quugaarpaks concerned themselves with Quugaarpak matters, and although they considered the Gold-Digging Ants as a friendly species and were displeased with the idea of being asked to attack them, they did not bother letting the ants know that they were about to collapse half of the valley the Quugaarpaks made their home.

Perhaps no Gold-Digging Ants lived there, but clearly, some at least patrolled the area; the group had fought and killed such a group. If the Quugaarpaks had wished to, they could have given the Gold-Digging Ants a heads up and allowed them to bring a much larger force to confront their mutual enemy.

So, maybe the two species couldn't communicate with each other at all.

Adon also thought that it was evident that the Quugaarpaks could not communicate with whatever monster had killed the two knights earlier. The collapse of the structure that had forced the group to flee had split everyone up for a short time, while they were navigating through the gap in the barrier they had made.

It was a perfect opportunity for that creature, too, with the arthropods separate from the knights while they were forced to escape single file through the hole they had made in the golden barrier.

Then again, if we had taken an extra few seconds, we could have made the opening larger so that we could all pass through at once. Still, the fact that there was no attempt to kill anyone as far as we noticed seems to support my theory. Every species in this floor acts independently from the others.

As he was processing that, Rosslyn's voice broke in.

"Is everyone all right?" she asked.

Silently, she added a nervous, Adon, please tell me you have track of everyone in our group?

I do, he replied instantly.

Excellent, she thought. The enemy are surprising me today. Please inform William, Frederick, and the spiders of what you told me before we left the cave. I will rally the rest of the group. There is a silver lining to our haven being destroyed. If we are near the opening to the next level, as you suspect, we may find it in today's search. And the monsters who destroyed half of the valley we were about to explore may have simply made our jobs easier. I do not believe the dungeon would purposely allow the monsters it creates to destroy paths deeper into the dungeon. It may go against the nature of dungeon cores to do so. It may be a violation of some sort of rule of their nature. It would certainly make the dungeon outbreak, where it releases all the monsters it has created to the outside world, more difficult. I have never heard of a dungeon core damaging its own structure in this way. So I believe that it is extremely likely that our search zone just shrank, if only by a little bit.

That's great! Adon sent back. I will communicate with the others and let them know what we know.

He quickly created a group telepathic chat between Samson and Goldie and repeated what he had told the Princess, with the additional detail that this should remain between them and the young lords. And while Adon would have been happy to pass on the details to William and Frederick himself, the spiders said that they would do so.

At the same time, Rosslyn was telling the others about the new plan. They would search every cave and tunnel on the surviving cliff face of the valley, in order to hopefully find the exit to the next level. If that failed, they would move on to searching every pit and cave above the cliff face. Then they would move toward the walls of the floor, pieces of which had crumbled during their previous outing within the level.

"Search this place from the bottom to the top," she concluded. "Avoid fighting any more than necessary. We already know how these ants respond to aggression. And we want to move out quickly and not stay near these dead bodies, as well." She gestured to the golden ant corpses littering the ground, covered in a layer of mountain dust. "Undoubtedly, their fellows will be here soon enough, looking for whoever killed their brethren. We do not want to be here when they arrive. So let us search the nearest caves as quickly as possible. We will remain together as a group, but we will use the buddy system to make it more difficult for anyone to go missing…"

Rosslyn finished speaking, and the group moved out. They advanced with a renewed energy now that they had slept, and they cleared each cave quickly. One simple method was for Rosslyn or one of the young lords to throw a fireball or a small bolt of lightning respectively, just to see how far it went. Most of the caves were shallow, and they would be briefly lit up from the entrance all the way to the back, providing visual confirmation that the tunnel in question did not go as far as the next level.

On several occasions, the magical attacks struck ants waiting in the distant dark—and, as Adon was growing accustomed to, they bounced off or redirected into the soil, leaving the ants glimmering for a moment but clearly unharmed.

In those moments, the knights showed their worth, advancing silently, like the medieval special operations force they effectively were, and quietly and efficiently butchering any creatures that dared come forward to investigate what had just happened. Then they withdrew just as quickly, in perfect order, feet almost marching in sync.

Adon kept himself in touch with the knights telepathically during this, feeling the rhythm of their movements and attacks, somehow perfectly coordinated and in step with each other despite the absolute silence.

It reminded him of the cooperation of the eusocial insects, the Gold-Digging Ants and the various ant and wasp species from back in the garden.

The entire search that day was marked by relative quiet, both the deadly silence of the knights and a peaceful calm between Adon and Rosslyn. Though he remained perched on her shoulder or her back for most of the day, they did not say much to each other, or to anyone else. Despite both their anxieties about their situation together, they seemed to have arrived at a place where they were more comfortable. There was no tension about to tear them apart, no burning issue that needed to be immediately addressed.

It felt reassuring to the butterfly, until he recalled Rosslyn's insecurity—that poisonous tree growing within her that he had touched—an insecurity that was somehow almost as profound as his own.

And he wondered if he should not be more worried, if this quiet was not the calm before a storm.

The search continued, and Adon felt the knights' minds, keeping firm track of them with most of his focus. He grew especially intensely connected to them as they walked into the caves to exterminate ants that had been stirred up by their presence.

It wasn't until Goldie interrupted Adon—How much of the valley do you think we have cleared now?—and his connection suddenly wavered, that he realized he was actually doing something. Having an effect.

The cooperation between the knights, which had been good from the beginning, had turned almost supernaturally perfect as the day went on. It was as if they were all parts of one body.

When Goldie spoke into Adon's mind, and his focus on his connection to all of them was disrupted, that coordination also faltered. The knights briefly became clumsier, less aware of each other's respective positions and plans within the cave, more prone to error.

It didn't get anyone killed—the Gold-Digging ants simply were not that dangerous unless they had overwhelming numbers on their side—but Adon and the knights all noticed it.

Adon heard them discussing it within the cave after they had fended off the attack that came during the disruption. He was surprised by how they felt about the connection, but the sentiment was only confirmed when the knights exited the cave and Sir Humphrey approached him after the skirmishing was done.

"Whatever you are doing in our heads," Sir Humphrey said quietly, "please keep doing it. All the fellows in the squad agree. We have never seen anything like it. Never been part of such an effective fighting force." He let out a little laugh, then smiled. "It was kind of exhilarating."

All Adon could say was that he would do it as best he could.

The search was remarkably successful at eliminating wrong options, but unfortunately, it found no sign of the correct tunnel.

As the day wore on, the artificial sun remaining in its usual place—directly overhead for the group, Adon observed—they gradually ascended the cliffside, searching caves in higher and higher positions until they reached the top.

"We will stop and eat some of our supplies once we exit the valley," Rosslyn announced.

That motivated the knights to clear the last few caves more quickly, in anticipation of a break from the monotony of searching and a meal.

The group was clambering over the cliff's edge to reach the top of the valley when it happened.

I don't know what's happening!

Help!

Adon heard Samson and Goldie cry out, and he turned just in time to see them flying through the air, as if supernaturally yanked from William and Frederick's backs off the edge of the cliff.

It took a moment for Adon to collect himself, and then he threw himself after them.