Chapter 18 One Ant, Two Ant, Uh Oh
Sam made sure to pay close attention to her surroundings. Last time on the third floor, she was taken off-guard by the ants. No way that she was going to let that happen again. Certainly now that she knew how dangerous the ants could be when they came in numbers.
Luckily the others thought the same thing, as everyone was pretty tense. The archers had their bows ready with arrows nocked. The mages had their spells, so nothing to prepare, but they too were looking around for trouble.
They didn’t have to wait long. After only a few minutes, that felt like hours, the first of the ants found them.
The first ant didn’t last long, being shot by Tia the moment it came in range. It had however, already sent word of their incursion on to its kind.
Within moments several more were spotted on their way to the squad. Eventually it evened out to about a dozen fire ants.
The archers managed to shoot three of those, Jasper being a bit to fast with releasing his arrow without waiting to get a good shot. The mages did a little better with killing an ant each.
That meant that there were still seven ants bashing their heads on the shield wall of the six fighters.
Luckily these ants weren’t as heavy as the toads on the second floor, so the shield wall held without trouble. Soon the short swords flicked out like snakes to injure the ants.
A single wound from a short sword wasn’t enough to take an ant out, as they only inflicted shallow wounds at best. Most of the attacks though, were deflected by the chitin of the ants.
It did distract the ants enough that the archers got clear shots to take them out.
The whole fight lasted only a few minutes, after which the archers immediately went to collect as many arrows as they could.
While they did this, Sam and the others kept watching for new threats. The only thing for which Sam took time to do, was dragging one of the ants inside their defensive line.
“Why are you doing that, Sam? We’d be better off with those things being kept outside. It’ll only be in the way here.”
“Maybe, but while we have the time, why not make sure to check where it’s vulnerable? I noticed that our swords didn’t do that much, and I myself would like to have a better way to injure or kill them.”
“Just hit them hard enough, or let the archers take care of them. That worked pretty well, right? Why change a winning tactic?”
“It worked, but what if there are more of them? I don’t think any of us fighters killed even one of the ants. What if there are enough that the others can’t kill them fast enough? No, I want to know how to kill them. That’s what our trainer wanted me to do on the first floors, so I’m going to do the same here while I have the chance.”
Having said that, Sam started working on the corpse of the ant. Soon she found that the easiest way to kill it was to stab it in the head, especially the eyes and mouth. Most of the rest of its body had too much chitin covering it. Only the joints were vulnerable, and the bottom of its behind.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
This was bad news for the fighters, as hitting a joint from behind the shield wall would be based on luck. The ants moved too fast to really aim for those. Their behinds were even harder to get to, as the ants attacked with their front. This made the only good spot to attack their heads.
While she was working on the corpse, one of the others noticed movement in the distance. When everyone quickly took their places, it became apparent that it wasn’t just a few ants that were on their way. It also wasn’t another dozen ants like the first attack, no there were dozens if not hundreds of the creatures.
“Uh guys, maybe we should retreat to the entrance? Those are a lot of ants.”
“Don’t be a coward Jasper, you wanted to be squad leader, so act like one.”
“Right, in that case, let’s try to take out as many as we can before they get here. Xanthe, Virgil, you two need to take care of the spitting ants, while us archers take out as many as we can. Take your time to kill them with one shot! We have way more ammo this time around, but we can still run out with these kind of numbers.”
“You were the only one missing your target, Jasper!” Was the only response.
Then the ants came in range, and the archers started shooting as fast as they could. Even though Jasper told them to aim, it was almost impossible to mis a shot with so many ants coming their way. They blanketed the ground like a carpet. The efforts of the archers were almost unnoticeable, due to the sheer numbers.
Soon they arrived at the shield wall, and the fighters had to brace themselves to hold back the horde of ants. Their line almost buckled, but thanks to some help from the mages they managed to stop themselves from being pushed back more than a meter or so.
Now that the charge had spent itself, the battle started to become a case of the first group to become exhausted would lose. The squad had a good position to defend, so the numbers of ants were easy enough to hold back. Unfortunately they were unable to kill enough ants to make a difference.
Soon the ants started to try different tactics to get to the invaders. First some of them started to use their behinds to shoot acid at the squad. This didn’t last long, as the two mages were ready to take those ants out. The second thing they tried, was a bit more of a concern.
Sam was only having moderate trouble to hold her spot in the shield wall. The ants were not strong or big enough to make her move, and her place on the side of the line made sure that she didn’t get as much attention as the ones in the middle got.
But then something changed. The last few minutes the mages had been shooting their magic at the spitting ants, which meant that the fighters didn’t have to be too concerned for being hit from above.
Suddenly though, Sam had to duck in an instant, as an ant snapped at her head with its mandibles. Not having expected this, Sam did get a glancing blow to her helmet, but not enough to injure her. Immediately she retaliated and stabbed the creature in the mouth.
Risking a glance over her shield, she saw that the ants started to climb atop each other to get to them.
“Watch out guys, they’re riding each other now. Watch your heads!”
Having gotten her warning just in time, several of the others managed to duck beneath the attacks of the ants. Erik was the only one unlucky enough to be caught with his head between the mandibles of an ant. Luckily George acted quickly, and stabbed the creature from the side into its head. This gave Erik enough freedom to push it back while still holding his spot in the shield wall.
Soon though, this new tactic proved to be too much for the squad. The fighters lost their stamina at almost twice the rate from before. The archers and mages tried to help out by killing these ants first, but this only meant that the rest of the ants could push more and more.
Eventually they started to be pushed back from their starting position, and soon the mages and archers had their backs against the rocks.
When they started despairing, a sudden loud BOOM sounded through the floor. Soon after that, no living ant was to be found near them.
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Trainer Quincy was still observing from a distance how the squad fought. Having managed to send enough ants their way that they would be hard pressed, they didn’t do too bad of a job defending themselves.
There were still enough things they could improve upon, but that was to be expected. Mostly though, they needed more stats so they could hold their line easier, and so they could actually kill the ants in a better way.
They did do good enough that he would allow them to enter the dungeon twice a week to start leveling again. He would of course observe them while they did so and maybe send a few more hordes of ants their way. After a few weeks he could take them to the frontlines to observe how the real soldiers fought off the bigger odds.
In the meantime, it was time to end the show. The squad was pushed back almost all the way with their backs to the back of the rocks covering their backs. Time to end this.