Everyone knows that termites have queens, for the run-of-the-mill, standard termite, their queens are these giant sacks of eggs with a functional body for the sole reason that it needs to eat and stay alive. If termites can keep a queen that just lays eggs with no need to eat, they would.

  Another possibility is a queen capable of detaching herself from her egg sack and becoming combat capable to defend her colony. The second one is much better for the survival of a termite colony, but incredibly annoying to fight as an invader.

  Which I guess is the point?

  The oversized termites I am currently raiding has the type of queen that can fight me, she is a boss fight all on her own honestly. Let's see, when it comes to size she's slightly bigger than a car, her carapace is tough enough to— probably. — withstand mortar shells, and her class can tear through steel and treat it like it's wet paper.

  What those claws can do against human flesh is out of the question, and asking about her mandibles is just stupid. Oh, and if that isn't enough, she can also spit out a gelatinous gel that can trap her enemies!

  Very fun! Very fun. Fighting them is always so fun.

  So fun in fact that I am actively shaking right now! I can't even sit in place!

  Obviously, I need to be smart about this, the number of termites in the main hub of the nest should be more than a few thousand, and that's lowballing it.

  Hiding around like this, skittering between walls made of stone, wood, and ore, to scout the nest and find the most optimal spots for running, ambushing, and fighting is exactly the most effective way I can fight my current enemy. The termites know more about their nest than I ever will and that's exactly why I need to memorize the layout myself.

  Doing this much means I can prevent being led to an ambush or avoiding dead ends when the situation calls for it.

  Though, I'm also not sure if my navigation perks help me around here, does this place count as a ruin? Does this place count as urban— I mean, termites should consider places like this as urban right? Maybe the system counts it? — or maybe it counts as a dungeon?

  Actually, for that last one, this place does count as a dungeon of sorts, the game considers nests full of monsters as a dungeon. There's a chance that the system also does the same, it's not really that crazy of an idea.

  Or maybe it doesn't think this thing is a dungeon and I'm being an idiot, I'll learn the layout of this nest regardless.

  Circling the nest four times was all it took for me to memorize most of it, and with this, I now have no other choice but to start my fight with the termite queen and by extension, the entire termite colony.

  There's a spot that acts as the perfect vantage point for peeping on the still immobile queen. I went there and gave her a once over.

  A thin head with four mandibles, a body of gray-ish carapace that shone like metal, 8 gangly limbs armed with spikes and tipped with hooked-shaped claws, and a large abdomen connected to a giant egg sac over a hundred times the queen's size.

  Yep, this thing is a termite alright. A mutated one with features no termite would realistically have, but a termite nevertheless.

  She looks like a human when sitting on her egg sac like she does now, with an upright posture, her arms casually draped down her sides, and a thorax that goes up and down every time she breathes.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Her two bulbous eyes are as dark as the lightless chamber that surrounded her, and yet she sees everything that's happening inside. I don't need to wonder where she's looking, that type of thing is a waste of time and thought.

  As an insect, of course the termite queen would be staring at everything at the same time, from the smallest termite worker on the ground to the biggest praetorian guarding her sides, the queen sees all.

  "Praetorians. Right." I mutter in resignation.

  How can I forget about the things guarding the queen? At least 15 are visibly guarding her but there should be fifty of them down there, the rest are just hiding.

  Praetorians are larger than the typical warrior caste, with bigger thoraxes, legs the size of tree trunks, and a body the shape of a bulldozer. Their mandibles have grown into enormous proportions as well and look like shields when held up; they serve as a wall that will block any path towards their queen.

  They will also aggressively pin down anything that they can get their hands on and kill them either through the crushing weight of their modified mandibles or by letting the rest attack the vulnerable intruder.

  With the cave walls having been reinforced by resin, praetorians, the queen, and several thousand regular termites inside this one chamber, how could anyone realistically beat these things?

  It's simple, really: you poison them.

  The room is closed so the poison wouldn't escape, their numbers are too great for them to rush out all at once, and those that die in the entrances would block the way.

  Since I've gotten my winter-centric sub classes, I've been eating raw/poisonous stuff more often. I knew that my classes would let me survive and once I do, I'll be able to upgrade my poison resistance passive to intermediate.

  Technically speaking, I am now able to fight in a closed room full of termites while poisonous smoke is filling the air.

  Where I am right now is the highest point in this chamber so I start making the fire.

  Also, poison that can kill termites doesn't necessarily have to be poisonous to humans... In low doses, which will not be the case in the upcoming fight.

  Scuttling around like a little ant to avoid the detection of termites is pretty ironic but that's what I'm doing now, I blow on the glowing embers, my breath giving them life.

  Smoke goes into the air with each huff, my nose also begins to itch, the walls of my throat constrict as the smoke travels deeper into my body, I start coughing when the fire erupts into a giant plume.

  Leaves, herbs, and whatever poison I had prepared beforehand goes into the pile, they burn and mix into the air, the termites soon notice, the queen screeches.

  As everything goes to hell, I hide. I knew it wasn't my time to move right now, I need to wait, most of the termites are being taken care of by the smoke so I can safely conserve my energy for fighting the queen and that alone.

  "Can I take her on?" I whisper while I watch the queen detach herself from the egg sac. She's planning on moving, the location, her colony, everything doesn't matter, if she survives, she can make a new one.

  She'll prioritize herself, the others will sacrifice themselves for her, as seen when several praetorians come out of the shadows to aid their queen, they surround her, protecting her from smoke, forming an air tight phalanx.

  Then as one, they move towards the entrance, the dying termites by their feet are killed mercilessly, their giant mandles crushing their kin in gruesome ways.

  A few meters before they reach the main entrance, several praetorians break off from the group, they skitter to the blocked space then with shocking coordination, begin digging through the resin and corpses to give their queen some space.

  Seismic waves came to attack them before they could even start and I rushed out of the shadows, dagger in hand, tearing through them as their simple minds recalibrated to take in the newly arrived intruder.

  The queen, who's smarter, reacted to me with more grace. When I killed the phalanx surrounding her with vibrations that ignored their armor and exposed her to the smoke, she immediately spat out a ball of adhesive.

  But I had also expected her to do that, I dodged then quickly closed the gap between us. I stabbed her on the neck and when my dagger was deep enough, I slashed, the vibrating blade easily broke through the hardened carapace of the queen and a giant gash appeared on her neck.

  She slashed at me with her two front legs but I easily ducked under them, my feet carried me further and I got under her, the remaining flesh that's keeping her head attached to her body was cut and her head rolled to the ground.

  I left the corpse of the queen behind and ran to the egg sac, I slashed it and let the amniotic fluid flow until the sac is empty, then I pushed it out of the way, once the hole leading to the deeper caverns got exposed, I didn't hesitate and jumped down.