His recovery from using the manifestation skill went by quickly but it took a bit longer for the poison status to go away. Once it finally did though Quill stood up and took a deep breath, he knew he needed to be prepared for anything.

  Deciding not to open up with energy manifestation, wanting to save that for tougher opponents or potentially the king himself if he wasn't willing to listen. This could also potentially put them on the back foot as a surprise attack by manifesting the new weapons. So he pulled out two clubs from his storage ring and knocked loudly on the trap door.

  “knocking? I thought you were going to go in guns blazing. Even if you would miss every shot.”

  “Well I thought I would try knocking. Maybe that would actually allow me to start a talk as opposed to a massacre.” he responded as he waited for an answer though none came.

  After knocking a second and then a third time with still no answer he had to determine that they either weren't around and couldn't hear him or they were just waiting to attack him. He did regret not putting a rat kin corpse in his storage ring to test out if he would get attacked immediately the moment he tried to enter this Grand Station. Somehow he felt like using a roach's corpse wouldn't do anything.

  He reached up and tested the trap door, it wasn't blockaded so he threw it open while making sure he wasn't seen and yelled out as loud as he could. “ I come in peace. Please for the love of all that is holy or unholy, I don't judge, just please don't attack so we can talk.”

  “That'll convince them. Good job.”

  “Please, no sarcastic remarks during this period.”

  “I make no promises.”

  He looked up through the opened trap door only really being able to see the ceiling which had a painted mural similar to the one in the other Grand Station. It was a small side tangent but he was going to see if the system really did just copy and paste the grand stations as well when this was all over.

  Slowly and steadily he climbed his way out into the Grand Station, being ready to jump back into the tunnels at even the faintest whiff of an attack. Surprisingly though none came and as he poked his head out, he quickly got a feel of his surroundings.

  He saw 10 giant bulky roaches with a weapon in each hand, standing by the walls of the Grand Station. They held a similar build to the ones that could fly so he had to assume these were also capable of flight and thanks to the high ceiling they would have an advantage which probably wasn’t good for him.

  However there was one roach that was bigger than the rest, and that one stood at the pay gate, all four arms crossed over its hard chest with four cruel looking blades sheathing by its side. It wore no garments or armor but there was a crown resting squarely on its head. Its giant bug eyes never left Quill as he very carefully got out of the trapdoor and into the Grand Station.

  He quickly casted his identify skill towards what he presumed was the roach king

  Roach Kin

  Level 25

  Class- within the ruler group

  There was a ruler group? Also he was level 25 so he did have a couple levels up on him but he still needed to be careful. Levels weren’t everything given how Quill was constantly punching above his weight thanks to his skills.

  Thankfully they weren't attacking him which he took as a good sign, he also noted that there weren't any of the smaller roaches around. They should have had enough time to at least use their spawner to make more but they hadn't. Perhaps they just realized how pointless the action would be. Either way he was thankful.

  As he fully emerged trying to look as harmless as possible, even with his weapons in his hands he spoke out. “ I wish to discuss peace terms with you and your people. Are you willing to parlay with me.”

  “Parlay? why are you using such an old word to-”

  “Not now” he uttered under his breath as he watched to see what kind of reaction the roaches would give. The winged roaches showed no sign of anything, simply stood there menacingly. The King's antennas however twitched a little at Quill's statement while making a few clicking sounds. When it spoke it held an almost grating sound to one's ear.

  “You come here, kill all of my subjects and you speak of peace!” Its voice contained barely concealed rage as its body began to tremble, the flying roaches all taking a step forward as they were getting ready to fight as Quill frowned.

  “Literally none of that had to happen had you just told your subjects to not attack everyone the first time they saw them! And maybe you should have also taught them some basic survival instincts. Huh?” he didn't mean to get defensive, but the stress from the past few…. however long it's been, slipped out a bit there.

  “You would dare insult my brethren's noble sacrifice! You will die for this, starting with me ripping out your tongue!” And the roach King charged him with unbridled fury, drawing all four of its blades as he rushed him like a bull.

  Quill instantly jumped back over the trap door and as the roach King tried to do the same he brought his mace down, hitting him as hard as he could and knocking the king down into the tunnels. Thinking on his feet he quickly kicked the door shut and dumped all of the content of his storage ring on top of it. Creating a massive pile of stuff completely barricading and burying the door.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Nice going! Pretending to be nice so as to bait him into a rage fuel of attack so you could trap him in the tunnels while you dealt with his guards!”

  “You know damn well that wasn't what I was trying to do!” he retaliated as he jumped out of the way from several strikes of the guards that had tried to get him.

  “Eh, just take credit for it. No one has to really know your true intention.”

  He didn't have a chance to respond as he was more focused on dodging all of the attacks from the other roaches. In retrospect he probably should have identified them as well just to get a better idea of what he was dealing with. He certainly didn't want to do that now as having a giant screen appear in front of his face while trying to fight seems like a recipe for disaster.

  He continued to backpedal as fast as he could while dodging the various roaches trying to hit him. Their teamwork was immaculate which wasn't good for him. He had two roaches constantly on top of him striking, and attacking as fast as they could, two more who were behind those trying to hit him with Spears, two others kept trying to flank him, with a further two flying in the air trying to shoot him with crossbows.

  The final two were quickly moving all of his crap off of the trap door in order to free their King and if that happened his disadvantage would become all that much worse. He realized he wasn't going to be able to play it safe at this rate and needed to take risks.

  He ditched the weapons he was holding and quickly manifested his Pizza Cutter and Rat Tail. Catching off guard the roaches as he also manifested a piece of armor where their oncoming blows would be from their weapons and brought his pizza cutter into the closest Roach, easily cutting the creature in half.

  He quickly used his rat tail to fend off the two trying to flank him, but once again forgot that they didn't have any survival instincts as one of the flankers allowed itself to get skewered by him just so it could bring its own sword down onto Quill. Had it not been for his survival instincts skill kicking in at the last second, it might have been a mortal wound or even his death. However he barely managed to dodge the lethality and instead it merely took a chunk of his shoulder.

  It hurt like hell but it was manageable as he used his rat tail, still skewered within the roach and flung him into the roaches with the Spears causing them to fall back and giving quill enough time to cut through the second close combat roach.

  While all of this was happening he was having to dodge repeated crossbow bolts getting shot at him from above, none of them scored direct hits thanks to his constant moving but he did get a few grazed cuts for his trouble.

  Since he'd stupidly dumped his crossbow into the pile of stuff to blockade the trap door he gripped one of the benches that were in the grand hall and flung it towards the roaches with the crossbows. he didn't expect to hit, which he didn't, but that gave him enough of a distraction to charge the last flanker. It only managed to deflect a couple of blows before his rat tails scored a blow and then his pizza cutter split it down the middle.

  It was just in time too as both the spear and crossbow roaches had recovered from their initial delay and we're now trying to get him with increased intensity. The spear tips started to glow as they continued to their thrusts and Quill had to assume that it was some kind of skill as he blocked and dodged their attacks.

  However, despite the urgency, he didn't really have time to deal with them, and waiting for his opportunity, quickly broke free from their attacks. Charging the two roaches that were trying to free their king from the blockade.

  To those bugs' credits, when they realized Quill was charging them, they brought their own weapons out to meet him head on. Chittering in some kind of challenge as the first one blocked his pizza cutter with the second attacking him from the side.

  He realized he was limiting himself for no good reason other than a lack of imagination and quickly manifested two arms out of his sides each holding their own weapon. One blocked the attacking Roach while the other jammed its blade into the roach in front of him, skewering the bug which allowed him to bring his pizza cutter down and cut his way through its exoskeleton. He quickly pivoted towards the other and bisecting it.

  “For the record, if these two new arms become a mainstay for you, you better not start calling them your roach arms.” She commented at the brief lull in combat while the last four remaining roaches eyed him carefully.

  He was half tempted to change the human looking arms into roach looking arms just to fuck with her but now wasn't really the time. He had managed to stop the roaches from freeing their King but that didn't necessarily mean the king couldn't get out. The loud banging from the trap door underneath the massive pile of stuff was certainly an indication that he was trying his best.

  After a couple more seconds of everyone catching a breather, the crossbow roaches fired with both of their bolts immediately multiplying as soon as they left the crossbow, making a swarm of the projectiles start raining down on him.

  Thankfully he had expected this, though admittedly had expected it to happen earlier. He quickly manifested a tower Shield to hide his body behind as multiple thuds could be heard and then quickly leapt back just in time to dodge the two spear roaches who had tried to attack him from the flank. Their spear points glowing once again.

  This time however, the spears tried to bend towards him, trying to catch him but he quickly had his extra manifested arms grab the glowing tips to block the attack.

  Once the tips touched the hands though the glow let out of burst and blew both of the hands apart, dissipating the manifestation. However he just used that as an opportunity to manifest three more rat tails and send two each towards his two opponents. Skewering both where they stood and taking a page out of her book, threading them through their body until he had killed them both.

  Now it was just the two roaches in the air with the crossbows. If he had an accidentally dumped his own crossbow into the pile they could have had a crossbow battle which-

  “You'd lose.” She cut him off before he could even finish the thought and he grumbled. Wishing he could at least pretend-.

  “Sweetie, there's a difference between pretending and lunacy.”

  He dodge 2 on coming bolts making sure there was enough distance between him and them so they wouldn't be able to explode suddenly. And they didn't, instead they just changed directions mid-flight to hone in on his back. Had his survival instincts not blared at him again he probably would have gotten two serious wounds, instead he barely managed to take one grazing blow to his side and a hit to his arm.

  “These blasted crossbow skills! Why can't I have one of them!?”

  “Cuz you suck”

  “Rhetorical question!” He countered and started flinging various benches towards the flying roaches, missing every single time which seemed to hammer home her point and only made him fling more things faster.

  “Screw this!” He complained after the 12th Miss and summoned up several hundred needles with strings attached and fired them towards the crossbow roaches. Since he could actually see where they were, he quickly directed the needles hitting the roaches in the air, hooking them and dragging them down to the ground where he quickly manifested his pizza cutter again and cut through them.

  He'd finally dealt with the last of the guards and his attention slowly turned towards the constant banging of the trapdoor that was underneath all of his junk. Just one more to go.