Damn it.

That thought crossed my mind as I was already running.

I wasn't entirely sure what was happening, but people nearby were screaming. Maybe it was because the ground had suddenly collapsed. Or perhaps they were screaming because a barbarian was charging toward them with a fearsome expression.

Honestly, even those screaming might not know the exact reason.

In an instant, I reached the spot where the guild employee had disappeared. The hole where he fell was deeper than the one we had found in the forest. It was wide enough for maybe two people to fall through.

Amid the rising cloud of dust, a dark hole gaped open, almost resembling the mouth of the massive snake den I had seen when I was a child. Deep inside the hole, I glimpsed the guild worker's arm. He was being dragged away.

His screams faded quickly into the distance.

I swung my new axe, wrapped in wind, at the edge of the hole with all my strength. With a deafening noise, the ground broke apart. At the rim of the pit I had just created, I saw shattered parts of an ant's body.

"Damn."

I had been careful to avoid hitting the employee, but it seemed I had used too much force. It was a new axe, and I hadn't quite mastered its strength yet. The hole I created was larger than the ant tunnel. Any stronger, and I might have crushed the guild worker along with the ants.

Somewhere beyond the pit, I could hear the delayed screams of the guild worker.

"Ahh! It's cut in half! It's cut in half!"

He was probably talking about the ant body I had sliced in two.

There were two and a half dead ants—two of them barely identifiable as ants, with just a few legs and antennae left. The third one, the one that had dragged the guild worker, was in pieces—only its front legs and a part of its thorax remained, the rest crushed to dust.

It looked almost like pulverized buckwheat husks.

Wow, that was close. A slight deviation, and I could've easily crushed the worker's legs.

"Sorry."

I offered a brief apology as I jumped down into the pit. Still lying at the bottom of the hole, I grabbed the worker and pulled him out, hurling him back up.

He rolled across the ground, where a man nearby rushed over to pull him further away.

"Run! Run!" the man shouted in panic, and the two stumbled away.

But the guild worker, once he was a bit further from the hole, started shouting at the top of his lungs.

"Rafa! The nest could be as big as this city—no, even bigger! One thing we know for sure is that there's a feeding chamber somewhere. We discovered this when we found the ant nest in the forest!"

Afraid I might not hear him, the guild worker practically screamed. His voice was incredibly loud.

"During the investigation, we learned that people have recently gone missing from the city. It’s possible they were dragged off to become food for these things."

The guild worker wasn't just speaking to me—everyone around could hear him, too.

Some people screamed. Some yelled, "Magical beasts!" and ran away.

I couldn't see much from inside the pit, but I could hear the panicked sounds of people scattering in all directions.

"And some of them are really big! We found carcasses in the forest, and they were at least twice the size of the others. It seems there’s a mutated type among them!"

No, that's not a mutation; it's likely a soldier ant. Soldier ants, which act as defenders of the colony, are often several times larger than worker ants.

I learned this when my company went bankrupt, and I moved into a rundown boarding house. There were cockroaches and ants, as well as rats and even a beehive. I still don’t know how a beehive ended up in the middle of a city building.

I’d done extensive research to try to get rid of the ants that swarmed my room, even if I left just a pack of gum out. But despite my efforts, I never managed to eliminate them.

Even after laying traps and buying peppermint plants, the ants didn't disappear. I still sigh just thinking about it.

On Earth, you could look up anything with a simple click, but in this world, information doesn’t flow so easily. There might be people somewhere with knowledge about ants, but that information isn’t widely available. That’s probably why people here don’t know about soldier ants.

I wasn’t entirely sure if these creatures were real ants, but their behavior was similar enough.

"Be careful! Other guild members are alerting the guards and adventurers throughout the city!" the guild worker shouted.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Just before he finished speaking, I saw dark antennae emerge from a tunnel beside the hole I had made. It was definitely an ant.

It wasn’t very big, only about the height of a three- or four-year-old child. But since it was crouching down, its length—from its head to its abdomen—might be longer than I was tall.

Seeing its triangular face emerge into the sunlight made me feel a twinge of disgust.

Small ants are one thing, but seeing them grow to this size makes them just as revolting as cockroaches. And ants act as a collective.

I suddenly had a vivid image of ants swarming over a dead worm, and I shivered involuntarily. The thought of these creatures moving in a massive swarm—ugh, my heart pounded furiously, and my usually calm demeanor was momentarily shattered.

“Let’s kill them as we see them.”

The best way was to eliminate them before they could gather in numbers. It wasn’t so much about danger or fear—it was the revulsion. The thought of them swarming made my skin crawl, like a horde of tiny insects running all over my body. The very idea made me feel itchy all over, and I shook myself without realizing it.

Using wind or my axe wouldn’t be feasible here. The axe would be hard to swing in the narrow tunnels, and the wind would be too strong. If I wasn’t careful, I could cause the entire tunnel—and maybe even the whole city—to collapse.

Just the thought of that happening was terrifying.

That left me with only one option.

“I never thought I'd have to use this,” I murmured quietly.

Something rippled and settled over my skin—my spirit armor.

I reached out toward the ant just as I heard a panting noise behind me. Tatiana was rushing toward me, gasping for breath, and she threw something in my direction.

There was a faint scent of peppermint.

Herbal powder?

The powder settled over my head, and Rella sneezed with a tiny "ping" as the powder must have gotten into her nose.

"T-The ants… they'll move a bit slower now," Tatiana said, panting.

Just as she said, the antennae of the ant emerging from the hole twitched and hesitated.

On Earth, peppermint plants hadn’t been effective at all, but this seemed to work here.

"Unfold," I muttered as I extended my arm toward the ant. The moment my spirit armor made contact with the ant’s face, its head jerked back as if it had been struck by an invisible force.

I stepped forward, and the hardened ant head pressed against its thorax, and then the rest of its body, crumpling until it eventually disintegrated into dust.

“…”

I had expected the ant to be pushed back, but I hadn't anticipated it shattering completely. I had imagined the barrier would be a flexible, transparent dome. But if I maintained contact, it seemed the armor behaved like when it was directly on my hand—it crushed everything it touched.

I recalled Rella playing by jumping into my arms. Despite all the times she had come into contact with it or slid along it like a slide, she had remained unharmed.

“Could it be that phoenixes are just that resilient?” I wondered.

Or perhaps the armor's strength changed depending on my intention or the other party's hostility.

There was still a lot left to test and understand about this armor.

A new ant emerged from the dark hole, but it wasn’t alone this time. Two, maybe three, ants were coming out together. There could be more behind them.

I sighed softly.

I didn't want to go into that tunnel, but there was no choice now. I had to take care of them before they came out and spread further.

With another sigh, I extended my spirit armor forward and charged into the tunnel.

With one arm stretched straight ahead, I probably looked like I was playing Superman. It was mortifying.

As I ran with the spirit armor extended, the flesh-eating ants turned to dust the moment they touched my hand.

There were too many ants to count—probably dozens at least. I couldn't feel them through the armor, but I could hear the crunching noise as they shattered and fell to the ground, and I stepped over their remains. That sound went on for quite some time, which meant I must have crushed hundreds of them.

But eventually, as I ran through the tunnel, the noise ceased, and all around me was darkness—pitch black, without a glimmer of light.

This darkness was nothing like the night. In the tunnel, without even moonlight, it was utterly dark.

When humans are in such deep darkness, they lose all sense of whether their eyes are open or closed, whether they're standing or floating. My senses felt distorted.

I almost felt like I was abandoned in empty space, drifting weightlessly. I knew my arm was stretched out, but I couldn't even be sure of my own posture.

I turned around. The exit was now too far behind me to see. It was utterly dark.

Since I had run in a straight line, all I had to do was turn around and run back.

It was fine.

I hadn't lost my way.

"…"

Right. I just needed to turn around and run straight back.

I hadn’t lost my way. Not really.

Just as I reassured myself and began to move, I heard a faint sound from somewhere.

A strange, rasping noise—like labored breathing—and soft sobbing.

It wasn’t coming from an ant.

“Could it be a captured person?” I wondered.

The guild worker had mentioned earlier that people had gone missing. Judging by the sounds, there might still be someone alive.

I didn't want to use my axe in case the tunnel collapsed, but it seemed there was no other choice. In this darkness, I couldn't do anything otherwise.

I felt around until I grasped my axe, and took a deep breath, swinging it hard.

When the axe struck the ceiling, the tunnel shook with a deafening noise, and dirt began to fall. Wrapping myself in wind for protection, I swung the axe again, and with another loud crash, the ceiling came down, and people fell along with the debris.

I quickly pulled one of them toward me and shielded them with wind. A man’s voice echoed from within my arms.

“H-Holy… Rafa! I thought I was finally going to be eaten by those ants this time.”

It was the guild worker.

His face was blue, as if he were already half a corpse. Well, I couldn’t blame him.

“Someone might still be alive here,” I said.

“The feeding chamber…” he muttered and pulled himself away from me.

“Rafa, I’m counting on you. Among the missing people, there are children,” he said before looking up at the tunnel ceiling.

“Please wait for a moment while I prepare a torch.”

The worker scrambled up the pile of rubble toward the entrance, then started shouting.

“Hey! Pull me up! Pull me up!”

They’d pull him up soon enough.

I grabbed his arm and flung him upwards. He flew out of the tunnel with a startled scream.

“…”

Was that too rough?

Well, it was an emergency, after all.

While I waited for a moment, I strained my ears to listen.

But it was too noisy outside for me to hear anything from inside the tunnel.

“Rafa! Rafa!” the worker’s voice called out, his face appearing above the hole with loud footsteps.

“Here! Here’s a torch and some water.”

It was too high for me to reach, so the worker dropped a leather pouch and a torch down into the tunnel.

In the distance, I could hear the faint sound of terrified screams.

“How are things outside?” I asked.

The worker’s face stiffened, but he soon replied, “There are holes appearing in other places—on the outskirts. We’re handling it for now, so don’t worry about that. Just please, save those captured.”

“Hold on,” I said.

The worker nodded repeatedly.

“Take care,” he said.

With that, I raised a hand in acknowledgment, then turned and stepped back into the darkness.