Chapter 39 What Is This?!

The crowd, frightened by the overwhelming swarm of bugs chasing the Zhen brothers and others from afar, fled in panic.

"What are those things?!"

"We don't know! We just kept charging forward, and then a huge bug mother suddenly appeared in front of us!"

Zhen Po wailed about their recent encounter in the communication channel, but—

"You didn't even get a good look at the bug mother before you ran away like this?"

"We wanted to get a good look, but we didn't realize it was there until we were right in front of it, and it was gigantic! Before we could retreat, it started spewing out bugs from its belly. How could we spare any attention to look at that thing? We just ran!"

What Zhen Po said wasn't false. The dark, swarming bugs behind them were indeed fast. Yuan Fang tried several times to observe them, but he almost got caught each time, forcing him to focus on accelerating to escape.

Fortunately, they had dual-pilot mecha in their team.

Mu Chen focused on piloting the mecha to escape, while Mingmei was free to adjust the view and observe what exactly was swarming behind them.

However…

After seeing what was behind them, Mingmei's lips pursed into a tight line, revealing her inner turmoil.

"What's wrong?"

Not bothering with the bugs behind them, Mu Chen had the energy to notice the expression of the person beside him.

Mingmei turned off the communication channel and said quietly, "The insectoids chasing us… seem to be enlarged crabs. Although… they're the wrong color and have wings, I think they're some kind of crab!"

The shells of these insectoids behind them were a dark purplish color, occasionally reflecting a faint, greenish light under the illumination of the mecha's acceleration.

Oh, and they also had two extra pairs of wings, which were flapping at a high frequency.

Their size was also different. The ones behind them, with legs spread, were about two meters in size, making them the mini version of all the insectoids they had seen today.

Even with this appearance, Mingmei had a feeling that these insectoids might be some kind of "crab substitute."

Mu Chen: ???

How could anyone tell that these insectoids were crabs? Just because they had eight legs?

"Wait… is there such an insectoid?"

Mu Chen was confused. Leaving aside whether the insectoid looked like a crab, he couldn't recall Mingmei's description at all.

He usually read many books in private, noting down a lot of knowledge that he could slowly digest later.

But at this moment, he was uncertain about Mingmei's description.

He didn't seem to have seen it before.

"I don't know either…"

After talking about her own "lunchbox" (referring to her own situation), Mingmei reopened the communication channel to listen to other players' analyses.

However, in the end, no one seemed to recognize them.

"Just use spatial positioning to determine which insectoid zone we're in based on the star map."

Lou Jia narrowly avoided an attack from the insectoids that had caught up to him because he was distracted.

So, he gave up trying to figure out what the insectoids behind him were.

Despite being small, these insectoids were fast. Even a momentary collision with the mecha could disrupt his current accelerated flight.

If he slowed down, he didn't even want to think about the consequences of that swarming horde catching up!

"According to the star map positioning, there's no end point marked here. The outer area is only labeled as 'Insignificant Insectoid A' on the star map."

When Lu Xiaoyao said what she had found, everyone felt as if a mouthful of blood was stuck in their throats.

They didn't know if they should say a bloody "mmp" (a censored version of "motherfucker").

Insignificant Insectoid A?!!

Did that mean there was also a B after A?

[I want to know what the definition of an insignificant insectoid is…]

[Low attack power?]

[Are you kidding me? They're practically suicide-bombing the mecha, and the players are avoiding them like debt collectors. How can their attack power be low?]

[Let's set a flag: Insignificant Insectoid A is actually delicious?]

[!! The person in front, are you crazy?]

[I'll join in, the next one will be even tastier, hahahahaha! I'm not crazy! Insectoids are delicious! Hahahahaha!]

[...]

Mingmei: "…"

Maybe the barrage was right?

"Ahem~" Just then, Mu Chen suddenly said, "How about we try to capture some and take them back as ingredients?"

Everyone: "Huh!? Are you kidding?"

"So far, among the insectoids we've encountered, the ones behind us are the easiest to catch, and we have enough space in our spatial storage devices."

"Given today's situation, if we don't bring something back this time, we might not have a better outcome if we want to come out again next time… Besides, among the insectoids we've seen today, how else are you planning to catch the others?"

After Mu Chen asked, everyone imagined six mecha, each over ten meters tall, dragging a mountain-like black armored insectoid.

Or, even more boldly, dragging a black armored insectoid mother comparable to the size of a planet…

Emmm, none of that seemed realistic.

Then, imagine catching a Xingyan insectoid?

Forget it. Even if they could catch one, could they eat its stomach full of lava-like stuff?

So, after letting their imaginations run wild, the players suddenly realized that what Mu Chen said seemed to make sense!

"Then let's run out of their attack range first, and then ambush two that are rushing too far ahead!"

Once they made up their minds, their actions became smoother. After running straight for a long time, they finally noticed that the insectoids behind them were starting to retreat, wanting to shrink back into their territory.

And when they retreated, it would be the beginning of their hunt!

…

"Hopefully, there's meat."

In the end, almost everyone caught more than two, filling their spatial storage devices to the brim.

While they were catching them, Mingmei heard Zhen Hu and the others muttering softly as if making a wish.

"Catch more. Even if there's little meat, it'll add up, right? I don't want to come here again…"

Zhen Po caught the most among them, catching five by himself.

According to his plan, if these insectoids tasted good when cooked, he would learn to cook them. Hopefully, this would be enough for him to practice.

When the other players found out about this, they all regretted it a bit!

If only they had caught more!

After everyone had stored the unknown Insectoid A, they faced the return journey.

However, when they looked at their current location on the star map, they realized that they had run too far, even to the other side of their planet.

And according to the provided data, the insectoids distributed on the outer edge of this side of the planet were all more ferocious.

Although these insectoids didn't have the abnormal defensive capabilities of the black armored insectoids, they had strong attacks, high speed, and were much larger than the unknown insectoids they had just caught.

These were all insectoids commonly used as vanguard troops in the war between insectoids and humans.

"Can we detour?"

After a brief silence, Yuan Fang asked this question.

"Detour… My mecha's energy might not last. What about yours?"

Lou Jia had been accelerating madly to escape, and his mecha's energy crystal was only one-third full.

Instantly, the silence in the communication channel said it all.

Their situations weren't much better either.