The further I went in, the less the ants were affected by the insecticide. By the time I reached the fourth group, some of them were only moderately weakened, so I had to end them with magic. My guess was that those closer to the place where I laid the trap would be more prone to getting poisoned than those deeper.
To support this idea, most of the chambers that I came across stored food inside it, and the ant insecticide was found in larger quantities inside the peripheral food chambers.
While busy scavenging for source crystals, I raised a question to Lunaria.
“Hm… I’m still curious about the ruins that you discovered before, Lunaria. I wonder where they are located?”
“Well, by looking at the 3D map that I made so far, it should be about one hundred meters toward the southwest. Just that… you see, we can’t go straight and bypass any wall that stood between that place and us.”
“Fair enough. We just have to make our way there manually, then.”
Although I could use magic to clear the path of the collapsed cave where I threw the grenade, there was a risk of the cave collapsing further if I wasn’t careful. After all, I wasn’t an expert in geology, nor was I familiar with terrains such as caves and caverns.
“Be careful. Something is approaching this place.”
When I was pondering deeply, Lunaria notified me, and soon there were footsteps behind me that were gradually becoming clearer with each passing moment. The steps were akin to a person’s…
A person? No… I denied the thought in an instant. How come there was a person here?
In haste, I brandished my rifle and pointed it at the source of the sound. Seeing what was coming from the dark part of the cave made all my hair shudder and gave me cold feet.
There it was, a bipedal ant about two meters tall with sword-like blades in each hand, standing ten meters before me. Its hands might only have three fingers each, but the grip on the blades was not any weaker than I would have with both hands. Still, its way of walking and standing made it look like a human inside full ant armor, just that it wasn’t. Also, its mandibles were small in comparison to its size.
Gulp… This is… a Second Order! While I had anticipated that some existed in this place, seeing it with my own eyes still gave me a bit of fear.
In any case, I used [Identification] on it to find how strong it was.
Species: Great scarlet knight ant (mutant)
Condition: Food poisoning (initial) | Weakened (mild)
Sex: Female
Age: 11 years old
Height: 201 cm
Source Level: Second Order
Source Element(s): None
Stats:
* STR: E+ (44 → 39)
* AGI: D- (49 → 44)
* VIT: E+ (42 → 38)
* SRC: E (41 → 35)
* SPR: E (36 → 34)
Accumulation Points: 36 → 29 [E+]
Its stats had fallen into between the First- and Second-Order range, but I couldn’t let my guard down even a bit…
Furthermore, it must have noticed me as I lingered in the nest and waited until I was sufficiently deep. Well, they weren’t one of the insects with the keenest sense for nothing. Most of their workers and soldiers were incapacitated; in contrast, it was only slightly weakened. It probably noticed that something was wrong early and didn’t consume the poison too much.
With hindsight, this knight ant must be their commander — I didn’t know if there were more of them hidden in the nest. Getting ganged up by a few of them was the last thing I wanted.
However, what I didn’t notice at first was that through its two compound eyes, it felt as if I had killed its entire family… Not wrong, but… Why was it so agitated?
Seizing the initial attack, I shot my rifle at it a few times. Several bullets left the barrel and cut the air at a speed faster than the sound. The knight ant didn’t bother to dodge and simply crossed his lower swords to block, seemingly oblivious to what was to come.
As the bullets hit their target, they left deep holes in its front thorax, left shoulder, and neck, writhing it in pain. At least, it wasn’t as impervious to bullets as the draugr commander.
“Chance!” I aimed higher, shooting for the spot between its eyes.
Of course, it wasn’t so stupid as to let it happen the second time and dodged quickly. As expected, the speed of a Second-Order creature was exceptionally quick even if its stats were lowered considerably, but I was already used to such burst movements that I was able to aim for its upper left thorax instead.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
In that split moment when the bullet hit, it rushed to my side and diagonally swung its swords at my neck. I had to bend my body backward to an extra degree just to avoid getting beheaded.
Without letting me catch my breath, it pressed on with its attacks. In quick succession, I switched to my catalyst daggers to meet with its blades, but no matter what I did, I was unable to gain the upper hand. Frustration built up inside me, and the reason for all of this was…
“This isn’t fair! I only have two hands and it has four!” I kicked the knight ant and back a few steps; it took my all coupled with it not expecting that attack to do that.
“Like you’re playing it fair with your despicable poison and all,” Lunaria chimed in. “Although, I must admit that I’m on the same boat as well for giving you the formula.”
“Hey, are you on its side or mine?” Sometimes, it made me wonder what was going on inside her head.
“Do I have to answer? Can’t you see me standing next to you?”
“Okay then, prove it to me by distracting its attention for a moment, Lunaria.”
“Mm, ‘kay.” Luna-1, under Lunaria’s control, flew beside the knight ant and released an electric current.
As usual, her job was to pull aggro — to do that, a simple flash wouldn’t do. So long as the knight ant showed a second of opening, I could seize that chance to cast {Air Pistol} to end it once and for all. Well, maybe a few shots if one wasn’t enough.
The knight ant showed a bit of annoyance to the zapping attack and diverted its attention to Luna-1. In the meantime, I prepared some pebbles from my backpack that I’d taken out of necessity two days ago.
As soon as it swung its many swords at Luna-1, I rushed at it and initiated my own attack: a head-on dagger strike. My two daggers were obviously imbued with their respective elements — Pyro and Electro — but they were met with just a single hand. WHAT?!
“Okay… Its rate of regaining its strength is… unexpected. But!”
Such an attack was, obviously, just a feint as I already cast {Air Pistol} at the angle outside of its field of view ready to be released. Now!
A sharp pebble the size of a fist was released. At the speed of almost three hundred meters per second, it struck the back of the knight ant. The force that resulted from the impact pushed back the knight ant into hitting the wall hard.
Taking that chance to end it once and for all, I cast {Fireball} at it, again and again. Although I was only able to cast one spell at a time, the short time gap of releasing one {Fireball} after another made it look like a barrage of unending fireballs.
The knight ant was unable to react on time and could only accept its fate to become my “target practice.” It was dead as it could be when I ran out of magic, burned into a black charred carcass.
I huffed and collapsed on my back, sweat trickling down my entire body and making my entire body slimy. The feeling of running out of magic… It felt like having anemia but worse…
Using {Air Pistol} was an option, though it exhausted my source heart faster. There was also my rifle, but I was trying to save bullets… After all, there wasn’t much left at this time, and I couldn’t have Tuilë to make me some. I wasn’t a heartless boss who worked his employees like slaves, not that I was her boss anyway.
“You okay?” Luna-1 approached me, and Lunaria’s voice could be heard.
“Mm… No problem… Just a second.”
I was spent. Like totally.
The harvest so far had been satisfying, and the source crystals piling up inside my backpack just from this one harvest alone should have exceeded one hundred.
On top of that…
Maxim Peterson (Raymond Orton)
[…]
Source Level: Tier-1 enhancer | Tier-1 evoker
Source Element(s): All (basic)
Vocation(s): [All Elements] | [The Survivalist]
Stats:
* STR: E (27 → 29)
* AGI: E (27 → 30)
* VIT: E (24 → 26)
* SRC: E- (21 → 25)
* SPR: F (13 → 15)
Accumulation Points: 15 → 17 [E-]
What Tuilë said was right. Constant use of source power had improved my stats by leaps and bounds — this was the biggest benefit of constantly challenging myself in countless life-and-death situations.
Not waiting for me to rejoice for my gains, Lunaria continued, “My role is quite minimum this time, so that’s an improvement from before.”
I stayed silent for a few more seconds before opening my mouth to talk.
“Glad to hear that it isn’t just my own illusion. Still, is the perimeter safe? If more of them come here…”
“Relax, it’s safe. But I can’t say for sure for the next few minutes.”
Perhaps I should make some kind of trap that would help me take them down in bulk. Fighting them head-on wasn’t such a good idea, no matter what the reason was.
It was such a happenstance with the draugr commander before, and this knight ant appearance, too, was rather unexpected. But now that I knew that there could be more of them deeper inside, a necessary countermeasure would be for the best.
Alas, there wasn’t much to use as a trap with what I had, especially in an environment like this. This kind of environment… In actuality, there could be some traps worth creating by utilizing the cave’s narrow space, but further planning was necessary. I mean, one such trap would be by utilizing fire inside a small path in addition to certain gas like methane to burn them to a crisp.
Now then, just down the path from where the knight ant came from was a large chamber. Inside housed numerous giant larvae the size of a basketball; the sight of them made me nearly puke and reminded me of my experience with the insectoid monsters.
“So, this is what made the knight ant restless, eh?”
They wriggled on the ground with most of them writhing in pain like slugs that had been given a pinch of salt. My guess was that they were poisoned by none other than the ant insecticide.
One thing to notice, There was a part of the mycelium hanging down from the ceiling in the middle of the chamber, dripping red liquid little by little and making a swallow scarlet puddle below. Is that… a mixture of water and the red fog? The water must have come from above and somehow ended up here.
In any case, I wasn’t so keen on messing with things that were squirming in nature; therefore, I was going to leave them be. Whether they survived the poison or not wasn’t my business.