Chapter 183 (1/2)

Chapter 183

Ch. 183 One Long Queue

After making sure that the ant safely returns to the nest, I return to meet back up with the ball rabbit and Adofu. After meeting up, I notice that there is a strange bluish-green liquid coating ball rabbit’s mouth. Once again, I guess it defeated and ate some weird monster somewhere. Since its HP hasn’t decreased, whatever it was, it wasn’t too strange.

After that, we roam around the outskirts of the red ants’ nest, eventually coming across a spot with a big cactus. It has already gotten very late. Making my base here, I decide to rest my body while keeping my eye on the red ants’ nest. From here, I’m able to see the state of the red ants’ nest by simply flying above it.

Depending on whether or not the centipede dumpling plan is a success, whatever move I make next could radically differ.

If I can’t level myself by using the red ants, then catching up with the hero’s stats in just a few days will be impossible. If that happens, it’ll be bad for Adofu. We’ll end up with no other choice but to s.h.i.+ft the plan to saving Nina instead and quickly making an escape. If that happens, then it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to afford to save any of Adofu’s relatives.

However, initiating the plan where I level with the red ants means a red ant ma.s.sacre. The image of the red ant lowering its head to me is still lingering in my mind.

I shake my head, dismissing the image of the red ant that appeared in my head. I must do this. I must have determination!

I slap myself on the cheeks with both hands in order to fire myself up. My claws pierce into my cheeks a bit, and they hurt a little now. The ball rabbit stares at me, narrowing its eyes.

Hey, red ants, sorry about this. Forgive me, please

don’t hold any grudges. However, even if it’s only in my head, allow me to apologize.

I periodically fly up into the air to survey the red ants’ nest. Fifteen red ants come out from the nest and split up into three groups of five, each going in their own separate direction. I see several more groups come out, doing the same thing.

Although I’ve already known about it, the red ants’ management abilities are extensive. I don’t think there’s any point in the red ants acting in groups of more than five members, especially in this desert. Other than the Giant Centipede, I haven’t seen any other B ranked monster in this desert. In the case of C ranked monsters, five red ants should be enough to break through any of them. That much is very clear from Big Scissor-senpai’s case.

Conversely, in the case of the Giant Centipede standoff, five or ten red ants were not enough. The red ants couldn’t escape from the Giant Centipede, and that Giant Centipede’s carapace was impossible for them to break through. Even I had to utilize the Centipede’s [[Heat Ray]] to get through its carapace and cut its pointlessly long body in half. It doesn’t seem like the red ants would be able to pull off such a feat.

If you’re outside and see the Giant Centipede, you’re pretty much dead if it decides to lock onto you. Is it because of such a thought that the red ants are still alive? Maybe confronting a Giant Centipede cla.s.s monster with only a five bodied unit reduces the total risk of annihilation of the colony? It’s a little heart-wrenching if you think about.

Are they acting on instinct or is there something at the top…? If they’re acting on instinct, they won’t be as effective since it’ll be possible to take advantage of their habitual behavior. On the other hand, it’ll be troublesome if the red ants are

are receiving commands from a leader. If I’m unlucky, and there’s someone on top, then there’s a possibility that they’ll stop the centipede dumplings from being carried in… I can’t say for sure that there is someone controlling them from above due to the situational adaptability they showed when I entered their nest. So what is it?

As I continue observing the nest, I see the red ants carry a variety of things into it.

A huge mantis-like monster; a cactus. A mantis, I haven’t seen that before. Although it doesn’t seem like it would taste too good, I wonder how many experience points it gives? It seems like cactuses are valuable sources of water out here after all, they’re carrying in several of them.

One by one, three ants are each holding a head of the camel. Is that perhaps the mortar camel? If so, then where did its body go? How do I put it, somehow, seeing it like this, it’s surreal. That three headed camel, isn’t this a cruel sight to behold? No, each individual head is from the same body. The species is a hot commodity.

There’s an Amagaras.h.i.+ that’s still breathing that’s being lead to its slaughter. With the red ants overpowering it, it frantically squirms around. Why are they waiting to kill it? At least kill it sometime soon. The poor thing looks so miserable.