Downpour

Since arriving in this world, System had encountered ants many times. Each time, they had been a different kind—black, dark red, blackish-brown—differing in both color and size.

Clearly, these various ant colonies were thriving in this forest.

Having fled in disgrace from ants several times, System had developed a grudge against them. He dearly wished he could immediately take revenge on those ants.

But after calming down, System knew that would be difficult.

Even if he grew into a large grasshopper in the future, he would still find it hard to defeat an ant colony head-on. Besides, there were far too many kinds of ants in the forest. Even if he wanted revenge, he would have no idea whom to take it out on.

After hopping continuously for some time, System returned to the tree covered in butterfly cocoons.

Several hours had passed. The unfortunate insect corpses along the fire path had most likely already been scavenged clean by ant colonies or similar creatures, so System did not waste time continuing to search for such remains.

For System, the most reliable source of food was still these cocoons, enough to feed him for over ten days.

As long as he found a way to break open the cocoons, he would not need to worry about finding meat for the next dozen days. He could safely undergo his second molt and become an adult grasshopper; it might even be possible to rely on these cocoons to complete a third molt.

System swung his mandibles at the silk threads fastening a cocoon to the bark. Before long, one cocoon fell from the tree trunk and hit the ground.

System naturally did not expect the fallen cocoon to shatter. He was merely testing whether he could get these cocoons down to the ground.

The cocoon shells were even tougher than the sturdiest exoskeleton on a katydid corpse's head. Even after leveling up, System still had no way of breaking them open.

But System had not come up empty-handed. He had thought of a particularly underhanded method.

With this method, even if these cocoons were not wiped out to the last one, they would come close.

System's method was to bury the fallen cocoons beneath dead branches, fallen leaves, and soil.

Just like burying seeds in the earth.

Bury a cocoon in spring, and in autumn, harvest a butterfly or moth.

System's idea seemed childish, foolish, and laughable.

Yet it was deadly to these butterflies. During the first few minutes after emerging from their cocoons, butterflies were extremely fragile. One could easily imagine what would happen if their unspread wings encountered soil and dead leaves.

There was nearly a ninety percent chance that, after emerging, their wings would become deformed from dirt and leaf fragments sticking to them, completely robbing them of any chance to keep living.

However, this underhanded method was clearly one that harmed others without benefiting himself. Burying the cocoons would obviously waste a great deal of System's time, and waiting for them to hatch merely brought the problem back to square one.

Were the butterflies to emerge from their cocoons months later, was he supposed to wait for months?

After trying several times without success to attack the cocoons with a wooden thorn he had found, the sun set once more.

System hopped back to the nest he had found while molting.

As night approached, System saw yet another insect hunter—bats flying swiftly through the dense forest.

The sudden appearance of these bats made System decisively abandon his plans to forage at night. Though he had [Dark Vision] and [Information Reading] to assist him, his sight was still far more limited than during the day, and he had already expended a fair amount of mental energy. [Information Reading] could not be used for very long either.

In the danger-filled night, going out to forage was truly not a wise choice.

After being a grasshopper for several days, System had become increasingly familiar with controlling his body. With great ease, he let his body enter a motionless dormant state, and his mind soon slipped into a state between sleep and wakefulness.

This night was unusually hot and stuffy. During the first half of the night, the heat woke the dormant System three or four times.

Each time he awoke, only after his abdomen pumped rapidly several times did System's body return to normal.

System's antennae sensed a damp, stifling air spreading through the atmosphere.

"Low pressure and oppressive heat... is a torrential downpour coming?"

Just as System had guessed, scattered raindrops began to fall not long afterward. Then they fell faster and faster, and the stifling weather quickly turned cold and gloomy.

System's shelter was battered by the torrential rain. The dead leaves shook constantly beneath the impact of the water, but fortunately, the wind was not strong on that rainy night. The dead leaves wedged in the gaps of the bark remained secure, and System's nest was in no danger of collapsing.

Feeling the sturdy dead leaves above his head, System gradually relaxed. Before long, he entered dormancy once again.

Yet as time passed, a grave expression slowly appeared on System's insect face.

Faint light filtered through the gaps between dead leaves and branches. Dawn had come, but the torrential rain showed no sign whatsoever of stopping...

Although he was not directly exposed to the downpour, the splashing rain still soaked System beneath the dead leaves. Amid the still-violent roar of rain, he heard the sound of flowing water below.

The torrential rain had gathered into running streams. Though he could not see it with his own eyes, System, hidden amid the dead leaves, could imagine the rainwater pooling outside.

He was immensely grateful that he had not, as he had on his first night after awakening, found some spot beneath dead leaves on the ground to hide in. Had he done so, there was a ninety percent chance he would have been swept away by the rain. Then, whether he lived or died would have been left to heaven.

On the second day after the rainy night, the torrential rain continued without pause, though there were signs that it was gradually weakening.

But as evening approached, the downpour intensified once more, as though playing a joke on System hiding beneath the dead leaves.

As time continued to pass, aside from the sound of rain washing over the tree's branches and leaves, System could no longer hear rain striking the ground. Setting aside the rustling roar of rain hitting the tree, all he could hear was the ceaseless sound of dripping water.

The ground beneath System's tree had probably turned into something like a small lake, and the sound of the previously rushing current had completely vanished as well.

Usually, heavy rainstorms did not last long and would generally end after a few hours. Yet the torrential rain in System's forest had continued for three days without showing any sign of weakening.

On the third day of the downpour, System's abdomen was unbearably hungry. Moreover, as the continuous rain lowered the temperature, System felt his body becoming extremely stiff.

System could only force himself to move his body a little, lest the low temperature cause the blood in his body to congeal, leading to necrosis, injury, and disability.

But moving his body only made System's abdomen hungrier, and to ease that hunger, he had no choice but to keep his body still and reduce his physical exertion...

The cold brought by the rain, coupled with his inability to go out and forage, undoubtedly plunged System into an unimaginable vicious cycle.

The hunger in his abdomen drove System to gnaw at the rain-soaked, softened bark with his mandibles, but it was useless. Even after being soaked by the rain, the bark was not something his mandibles could handle.

On the fourth day after the torrential rain began, System, hiding beneath the dead leaves, finally decided to venture out into the rain in search of food.

His body might still be able to hold on for another day or two, but by then, his strength would no longer be enough to support him in going out to look for food. He could only passively wait amid the dead leaves for the downpour to end.

System had no intention of leaving his life for heaven to decide...