Chapter 268: I Think We Made I (1/2)

‘Hmmm…how should I say this, I think we got ourselves a slave…ahem, what I mean to say is that her position is basically that of a slave’s.’

Nola ended up tearing the golem apart as expected while we had a nice little talk with that queen ant. After ensuring that she wouldn’t put up too much of a fight in the short term, we proceeded on with our journey. As for that so-called tribute…well, it’s not like we had anything to do with it for now so we had the ants cart the poop back.

‘Come to think of it, exactly how much tribute has accumulated in the last 80 000 years…I bet it’s enough to make a horde of pooplems. Hmmm, if I ever manage to find the method of crafting golems, I should go back and harvest those poop rocks.’

Because we now had a forced companion by our side in the form of that queen ant, our food problem was basically settled for now. Before leaving her hive, we had her bring along a portion of her hive who would then provide her with daily nourishment while acting as walking rations. Mhm…they fed her and then fed themselves to us.

All the marching we had to do essentially meant that the queen ant had no spare time to lay eggs. Thankfully, she was able to control her need to lay eggs else we would have to rub her out…just based on that alone, I could say that she was a pretty smart one. She knew that we would never let her off the hook for such a reason.

The whole idea of bringing this queen ant along was to prevent any attack by some random golems. Even though we had the powerhouse of a salamander, Nola, on our side, numbers was still an issue. She was perfectly fine taking on one golem but what if there were two? She would have no means of protecting us all then. The fact that we discovered an additional use for the queen ant was crucial in preventing any further unplanned incidents.

Naturally, her job wasn’t only to act as a golem ward. She was useful in finding other hives at which point we would attack them for food. After all, the meagre amount of ants we took from her hive was definitely not going to be enough to feed us all.

Thus, the ants became the tribute she offered up to us. It’s not like she could find food for us, so feeding on her ant kin was fair and square. Right? If she dared to disagree, Nola was ready with a few choice words for her. I was, after all, a fair and reasonable person.

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The thought of capturing more queen ants had occurred to me before but in the end, I decided that one was enough. Besides, these queen ants weren’t as brainless as I had originally thought , neither were they the most docile of ants. The more we had, the harder they were to control. Whenever we attacked a new hive, we first had to wipe out a few waves of ants first, forcing the queen out of its hive and then making her offer up some ants.

Throughout all that, I could tell that the our captive wasn’t exactly being very obedient. But before we reached our destination, I couldn’t exactly kill her either. Thus, I had no choice but to have No.3, Big 4 and Sasani keep a 24 hour watch over her, lest she tried to dig a hole and escape again. Or rat us out to some golem.

As facts would soon prove, I was right to do so. After she confirmed that we were all asleep, the queen ant promptly started digging a hole to try and escape. However, she ended up being caught by the ever-vigilant Sasani and was apprehended right there and then.

In order to teach this rebellious dunce a lesson, I had No.3 tear off one of her limbs as punishment.

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Back when that punishment had just been enacted, she spent the better half of the day rolling about in pain, her insect face contorted in all sorts of weird angles. Yet just two days later, I found that her limb had regenerated, albeit shorter and weaker than before. At least it grew back…

‘And that’s why I say that the ability to regenerate is just invincible. To fiendish creatures, even a torn off limb is nothing but a small matter. Hmmm, what if we were to turn her into a meat farm then? Ahem, that was all Mo Na’s idea.’

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With this ugly get-out-of-jail-free card leading the way, we smoothly passed through several defensive lines manned by golems and continued northward. All in all, we continued travelling smoothly for half a month before discovering a ruin.