You don't have to cheat to murder the deathsquitos. I had to pass through a section of plains to get to my main swamp in my most recent game so I was taking on the buzzing murder bugs while still having troll armor (Not grinding hours for a few points more in armor and no sneak bonus when switching to bronze). If you aren't yet prepared to take on plains, approach it carefully. Make sure you have at bare minimum over 100 health, and a good amount of stamina and/or the deer power so you can run like the squishy b**** you currently are at that stage.

Also bring a shield/buckler, hunting sea serpents is great for this game stage. They give great food possibilities and if you can get the scales, the shield made from them is especially protective against piercing damage. When you hear the buzzing get close, pull out the shield to block the bug, then immediately swing after it lands it's hit and boom, you now have a nice material for piercing arrows and one less lethal annoyance to deal with. If you are worried about your timing, just block it, put the shield away again and continue running into the neighboring biome. Mobs from different biomes tend to hate each other and will easily get distracted fighting each other instead of trying to kill you. If you are good with a bow you can also snipe the bugs out of the air. They are quite fragile, just fast and small so it can be hard to hit them with the bow sometimes if that doesn't happen to be your strong suit, but they do conveniently glow red giving you a pretty clear target even at night...they are just likely to notice you before you get a clear stealthy shot at them so you often have to hit them when they are rushing you.