There are a couple more characters you can fight, but the Mantis Village is basically an area full of NPCs, even though none can talk.
A good chunk of the area down by the Waterways is full of characters to chat with. You’ve got the Nailsmith, Lemm, Bretta, and on first pass, Cornifer. There’s even a spot to chat with Quirrel, if he appears. Millebelle isn’t over there, but she was also covered in this section. I was waiting to have 4500 geo so that I could get the maximum amount out of her: that’s a lot of bonus cash that I won’t have to get later. Between Millibelle’s bonus and what I do later in the stream, I hopefully won’t have too much cash grinding to do, but I’ll still probably have some.
With the Monarch Wings, the Fungal Core is now open. It’s not the most critical of locations, but it has a little bit of lore and a mask shard. There’s one other thing there for later as well, but I don’t really need to worry about it for now. I’m certainly not feeling up to that challenge. Either way, it’s one more of the tiny areas of exploration that opens another way into Deepnest. The Mantis Lords’ door is shut before you fight them, by the way, so that’s not actually an alternate way in, no matter how open it looks when you come from their side. Hollow Knight is filled with tiny little shortcuts here and there, and while not all are practical, at least it gives you easy navigation even without the convenience of Benchwarp.