Chapter 14 Rescue
They had to be there.
The thought repeated over and over in my head as my doubt and fear rose.
"They're up ahead," I whispered loud enough for everyone to hear.
We slowed to a crawl as the roach encampment came into range. At this point, everyone could sense what was inside.
We could barely distinguish between roach and human signatures, which was what allowed us to confirm that they were indeed here. Still, we didn't know any details regarding terrain, nor could we make out any exact locations due to the congregation of so many mana sources.
Suppressing ourselves to avoid detection, we snuck forward under the cover of bushes and trees until the roaches finally came into view.
The sight before me… was uncanny to say the least.
These monsters, that we were used to seeing act as relentless predators and merciless killers, looked peaceful.
Their home, like ours, was a cave etched into a small hill. Many of them hardly moved; some, I'd go as far as to say, were sleeping. Others were just loitering around—maybe patrolling?
Either way, none of them were being very active. I guessed they wanted to conserve energy. It was like watching a scene from a nature documentary.
"What do we do now?" Dwight's eyes were darting around nervously. "Do you think they noticed us?"
"Obviously not," Andre whispered harshly. "You're a bigger pussy than Sunny."
"And that's really saying something," Sunny added—surprisingly self-aware.
Even in this tense situation, a couple giggles escaped our mouths. Except Dwight; he looked like he wanted to sink into the dirt.
"Is it really just the basic roaches here?" Havi asked.
Part of the reason we were so calm was that we sensed none of the strong roaches. If it were just these guys here, we'd have no problem dealing with them.
"Maybe the other ones are just suppressing themselves?" Sunny asked, paranoid—for about the millionth time.
Nat sighed as she had been tacitly assigned to addressing all his worries. "Why would they be actively suppressing themselves in their place of rest? They'd die of exhaustion or be so weak they couldn't hunt."
Sunny exhaled a breath of relief.
There were about twelve basic roaches. The plan was to walk in there, kill the bugs, find wherever Jessie and Simon are trapped, and get out.
From their mana, they seemed hurt, but not nearly as badly as I expected. Overall, we got really lucky with how this went.
"Let's go in and kill them," Andre wasted no time in suggesting.
"Wait!" Dwight hissed.
The impatient Andre gave him a harsh glare. "What?"
Being met with Andre's intimidating frame, Dwight shrank back a little. "We should make a plan before we rush in there."
"We have a plan," Andre spat out. "Kill them, get Simon and Jessie, and go back. What more do you need? There's only twelve of them."
"Yeah, and what if they call for backup?" Dwight shot back. "Listen, we don't know everything about these bugs or this magic, but if you'd try to remember: these guys have a way to subconsciously lure in prey. Who's to say they can't do something similar but to call for help."
Realizing he had a point, Andre calmed down. "Okay, fine. What do you want to do then?"
"I'm not sure exactly what to do. All I know is that we should kill them as quickly and silently as possible. We could maybe assassinate them one by one or kill them all at the same time."
"We don't have time to single every one of them out to kill them one by one," I added. "More might come or they might decide to do something to Simon and Jessie while we wait."
"So, we're going with kill as many of them as quickly as possible," said Dwight. "There's about five outside and six of us. I guess everyone pick a target and make sure to kill them in one blow."
"The backs of their heads are exceptionally weak," Nat pointed out. "If you hit them there, it'd be over before they blink."
Everything was coming together nicely. It gave me a sense of ease.
Soon enough, our plan was formed. Each of us assigned ourselves to a roach except Sunny.
Andre would attack first because he could get the closest to his roach. Immediately after, while the rest were distracted by him, everyone else would attack.
Sunny was assigned to cover for anyone who made a mistake, but ideally, he would just do nothing.
Afterwards, we would charge the cave and kill the ones inside as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, we couldn't think of a way to get them outside and kill them with the rest, so we had to hope they wouldn't do anything that messes up our plan before we killed them.
We spread out to our positions and waited. I kept my eye on the roach Andre was targeting and primed myself to attack my own.
Andre jumped out of a bush at a speed I was not used to seeing his big frame achieve.
With deadly force, Andre bashed the bug's skull in. I saw my target turn its head toward the commotion. With the back of its head exposed to me, I rushed in and struck. Its soft flesh burst apart from my blow and I watched as its mask fell to the ground.
I looked around to see everyone had dispatched their targets successfully.
No hitches yet.
My hand dripped with roach blood once again. But now, my nerves were holding strong.
As we discussed prior, we didn't waste any time and rushed in to kill the remaining bugs. Running deeper into the damp cave, we sensed the remaining roaches heading our way.
It didn't take long for our parties to converge. As soon as we saw them, one of them was already charging up their cyclone attack.
It charged forward but Andre stepped in front and met it midway. With his legs spread, he caught the blow with the entirety of his body. Then, he put the roach's head in a lock before squeezing it so tightly that it popped right off.
Andre was brutal and reckless with the way he took it down, but his raw strength was still impressive.
He might even have more raw strength than me. A thought that would have never made sense coming from me if we didn't end up in a world filled with superpowers.
The rest of us jumped in as well.
I saw Sunny grab a roach while Andre killed another one.
Dwight slammed one against the wall and bashed its head in.
Nat decapitated one of them like her hand was a blade.
Havi, nearly the same height as the roach, uppercut it into the ceiling and stomped on it once it came back down.
For the final one, I blindly punched into its chest, accidentally finding its heart and crushing it. These normal bugs felt as weak as paper now.
Taking a moment to wipe off some of the blood and body parts, we continued forward.