Darkness.
That was the first thing I noticed. Not the void of unconsciousness, but something worse—a never-ending blackness that stretched in all directions. No light, no sound, nothing.
And yet, I was aware.
"Am I… dead?"
It was a reasonable guess. The last thing I remembered was getting crushed by a falling steel beam at a construction site. A very ironic way to go, considering what I was about to become.
I tried to move. My body twitched, but something was… off. My limbs felt weird, like I had too many of them but also not enough? And my mouth—it was so tiny, barely even functional.
Panic set in.
I tried to scream, but all that came out was a weak, pathetic clicking noise.
Click. Click.
"What the hell?!"
I forced my body to move, dragging myself across what felt like cold, rough stone. My tiny, tiny eyes barely picked up anything—just vague shapes and shadows. It was like trying to see through a pinhole in a pitch-black room.
I needed to figure out what was happening. My body felt… weird. Alien. I focused on my limbs.
One… two… three… no, six?!
My heart—if I even had one—skipped a beat.
"...I'm a bug, aren't I?"
That realization sent shivers through my tiny, chitin-covered body. But before I could even begin processing my existential crisis, something else took over.
Hunger.
A deep, primal, all-consuming hunger.
I had never felt anything like it before. It was as if my entire being needed to eat, or I'd simply cease to exist.
I scuttled forward, my near-blind eyes barely making out the texture of the ground beneath me. Something hard and metallic brushed against my mandibles.
Instinct took over.
I bit down.
CRUNCH.
A strange sensation rushed through me as the metal flaked apart in my tiny mouth. Despite my pathetic size, I could taste it—iron, rust, a faint trace of mana.
[Steel Consumed. Processing…]
A voice echoed in my mind. I froze.
"...Huh?"
The moment I thought about it, something clicked inside me. Information flooded my brain, as if I had always known it.
[Steelvore Beetle (Juvenile) – A rare, metal-consuming insect once thought to be extinct. Absorbs properties of consumed materials. Evolution possible through consumption of sufficient resources.]
I processed that for a long moment.
So. I was a bug. A beetle. But not just any beetle—a Steelvore Beetle.
And I could evolve by eating metal.
Somewhere in the depths of my insect brain, a single thought surfaced.
"Okay. Maybe this isn't so bad."
Then, I kept eating.
I didn't know how long I had been gnawing on the cold, rusted metal, but the more I ate, the stronger I felt.
Not in a "punch-through-walls" kind of way, but I could feel my tiny body processing the metal, hardening my exoskeleton ever so slightly.
The voice in my head popped up again.
[Steel Consumed: 10g. Basic Reinforcement Applied.]
I flexed my legs experimentally. They moved more smoothly than before, with less of the awkward clumsiness I had started with. It was subtle, but I was improving.
That was a good sign.
I scuttled forward, my super tiny eyes struggling to make out anything in the dim surroundings. My vision was absolute garbage. It was like looking through a foggy window with a hole the size of a pinprick.
But my other senses? Sharp.
I could feel the faintest vibrations in the ground. Smell the scent of metal in the air. Even taste the lingering traces of whatever was in my surroundings.
And right now? My senses were screaming one thing: MORE FOOD.
I pressed on, my tiny feet clicking against the stone floor. It wasn't long before I bumped into something… different.
It wasn't rusted or brittle like the last thing I ate. It was dense. Heavy. My mandibles barely made a dent when I bit down.
[Unprocessed Mithril Detected.]
Mithril?! I didn't know much about this world yet, but even in fantasy settings, that was big stuff.
I needed this.
I wanted this.
I bit down harder.
CRUNCH.
It was slow, agonizingly so, but bit by bit, I scraped off tiny fragments. Each piece sent a jolt through my body, a tingling sensation spreading across my exoskeleton.
[Processing…]
[Mithril Consumed: 2g. Minor Magic Resistance Gained.]
I froze.
Magic resistance?!
That was a game-changer. I didn't even know what kind of monsters roamed this world yet, but if magic was a thing, then I just took my first step toward not dying horribly.
Emboldened, I kept eating.
[5g… 7g… 10g…]
With every gram, my body changed. My exoskeleton tingled as it grew denser, tougher. My once fragile little legs felt sturdier. My mandibles, previously struggling against the mithril, now scraped through slightly easier.
I wasn't just eating.
I was evolving.
And then—
Rumble.
I froze mid-bite. The ground trembled beneath me, faint but undeniable.
Something big was moving nearby.
For the first time since reincarnating, I felt something close to fear.
I might have gotten a little stronger, but I was still tiny. If something bigger saw me as a snack, I was done for.
Slowly, carefully, I pressed myself against the mithril, hoping to stay out of sight.
The vibrations got stronger.
Then, through my useless tiny eyes, I saw it—a shadow moving in the distance. Something long. Slithering. A faint glow reflected off its scales.
I didn't need perfect eyesight to know one thing.
It was a predator.
And it was hunting.
I had to move.
To be continued...