What do you mean that's him? That General Litharin Fanine? I thought we were on the same level of strength..?!

"General?! You insolent ant! I'll tear you down just like what you did to General!"

Feradon yells angrily, before grabbing the talking ant by its shoulders.

"Woah woah woah!!! I didn't do this, you know! Don't hurt me please..! My foot is already gone!"

It says, trying to push him off. Feradon calms down and takes a step back.

"Finally..! You see, our armies are just better than yours!"

"Shut up, ant. I'll crush you if you say anything again."

The talking ant looks angry but it stops talking. Feradon walks back to where we came from. Is he sad? Depressed? I can understand. Though, I'm more surprised and confused at how these ants managed to defeat someone as strong as him.

"Hey! Feradon, wait!"

Den chases after Feradon. Lare and Liand begins panicking, talking about General Litharin's death.

"W-what should we do?! If General can die... Then that means we're all weaker than these ants..?!"

"N-no..! Calm down! General was probably just attacked by something else before getting ambushed by the ants..!"

"That doesn't make it better!"

Meanwhile, Rintan and Rayan discusses over how General could've died.

"That's your general? Getting beaten by an ant is kind of a disgrace to his kingdom, don't you think so?"

"Hmmmm... I thought he was stronger... Maybe something else killed him and these guys just took his body..?"

Well. Whatever happened, this will be big news. An important figure of the Asanrak army being defeated would lower morale, and it would definitely give the demons a significant advantage over the war.

How should we report this..? Oh wait. Where's Feradon? Isn't he our communicator? He must be talking with Den right now. I guess we can let him calm down for a while.

"Uhhh.... Can I leave now..?"

The talking ant says. I show it a paper that I wrote on.

"No. I need you to give me further information about this place, and the tunnels."

"W-why...?!! Why can't you just leave me alone?!!"

"I'll heal that foot of yours."

"Hehehehehehe..!! Fine fine! I'll give you a tour of this place! Your friends can stay behind..! They don't want to come along, do they?"

Hmm. I guess they're still talking about the death of General Litharin. This place is safe anyways. I doubt anything bad will happen to them. Den is with Feradon, and Rintan is with the rest.

"Sure."

I follow the ant as it leads me further down the nest. There's light coming from small gaps in the roof. I wonder how close we are to the surface. It's nice to know the time at least.

"Hehehe...!! Good good! By the way, my name is Lide Via! The queen of ants!"

So this talking ant really was the queen huh..? Is it because it has the ability to speak, or the ability to think properly?

"Also, why do you wear clothes? Just curious, you don't have to take them off. I just thought that ants don't need any. Did you steal them from the corpses too? Because I'm pretty sure that the terrible stench I've been accidentally smelling is coming from you."

"How rude..! We have morals too, you know?! We don't just steal these from the dead! We make them! Anyways. Back to the introduction. Ahem ahem. You can call us the Ant-People, we're basically just humans... But for the mindless giant ants, you can just call them ants."

Ant-People? I think I've heard of them before. They're uncommon monsters that live with Giant Ants. It's rare to find a queen though.

"This is the food storage! Where we store all of our food! You can take some, there's plenty!"

"I think I'll pass."

There's multiple pits nearby, all of them containing corpses, plants, and meat. I don't think I'd be able to eat those. Does Ant-People have the same body as humans? How does Lide eat those without getting poisoned?

"How picky! When someone tells you to eat the food that they've spent so much time making, you eat them! Declining is not an option!"

Is that actually true here? Good thing I'm not one of them...

Lide continues walking down the nest. Ants are always around us, but they don't seem to care. At the end of the path, an altar sits next to a wall.

"This is where you sacrifice things for the greater good! Basically, where you give us something important, or valuable! Come on come on! That large weapon that you have on your back will work too!"

Divine Intervention? Well. Of course I can't give it away. But what do I have though... Helping them would be nice, but can they even stand a chance against the Void Trilobite? Not that I know about it's strength, but these ants are just really weak... How would they even use weapons?

I take out 50 silver coins. Hmmm... Is this all that I have? I thought I carried more resources with me. Let me check my pockets.

"Are you all actually really poor...? That guy earlier had less money than you, but you only have those...."

I didn't consider buying things along the way..! The food that I carried was only for an attack, and for selling...

Maybe this potato will work? I still had it because I forgot to eat it- oh. Lide slapped it out of my hand. I thought that she wanted something valuable?

"Don't tell me that's all you have....! Even ants are richer than you...."

"Well. That's because you steal stuff."

"No... We have our own currency, different from human money... It's not even funny anymore... I-I'm just... Disappointed..."

Gah-! For an ant to be disappointed because of how poor I am..!

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"Fine. I can give you something more valuable. Does feelings count? You're the most beautiful insect I've ever seen."

"How rude..!! To call me an insect..! Shoo shoo. I don't need anything from you guys anymore. Only your weapons have value."

Tsk! You don't even look good! That was so obviously a lie!

Hmmm... After a long time pondering. I have to come to the conclusion that I should just blast her away and pretend that nothing ever happened. As I put Divine Intervention on the floor. Lide looks at me with confusion as I aim my hand at it's direction.

"Blood Magic: Internal Compress-"

"WAIT STOPP!!"

Looks like a slight hesitation stopped me from eliminating it. Well. That was only for scaring it anyways. I wouldn't want to lose the one who knows a lot about this place.

"Hah..! Why are you humans so violent?!!"

"Aren't you the same? Why did you attack us earlier?"

"What?! I didn't know you could talk!! And no! We were just protecting our home!!"

"Also, can you please stop yelling? It hurts my ears. I would've crushed you with this gun already, if it wasn't for the fact that you know a lot about this place."

"Alright alright..!! Fine..! How about you just heal my foot, and then I'll forget everything about you being disgusting, and poor..?! How does that sound..?"

"Alright. Heal."

I cast [Heal] on it. It's foot is healed quickly. It looks really happy, it makes me want to take it's foot off again.

"Yay!! Thank you..! Now...... Ah! Wow! Who are you?! Are you one of our invaders? I won't let you go! Wait! I can sense your overwhelming strength! Ah! I guess I surrender!"

Is she pretending to lose her memories? She has quick thinking, but still a pretty bad actor. I guess I'll let her go for now.

"Okay okay. Let's go back now. I don't want to waste more time."

We head back to where everyone was at. Wasting more time in this place would be bad. We're still looking for the Void Trilobite after all.

"Oh. I almost forgot. Do you have any tunnels leading outside to the ocean?"

"Why of course we do... We've been using it for years. But there's one major problem though.... And we need your help in order to solve it..."

"Is it a big spider? That's what we're fighting already. We'd help if you guys help us too."

"Oh really..? Well then. I suppose we can let you aid us in capturing this beast. It has already taken down many soldiers. But we haven't even scratched it, after 6 days of fighting!"

"A fight lasting 6 days? Is it just you guys running straight to your doom? That's a bad strategy actually. Can't you just dig around it, and attack from all directions?"

"Oh my. You're right! How didn't we think of that earlier..! You're a genius! Haha!"

Hehe. Of course I am. A mere ant wouldn't even be capable of thinking about-

"Of course not, you idiot!!!! Did you actually think that I was praising you?! That's basic common sense! Even you humans do that! We've tried it everytime and it always failed!"

"Well that's just because you're weak. You and your soldiers are weak. I could take on all of you at once, and still come out victorious. That's just how weak you guys are."

"We may be weak..... But we're not as poor and dumb as you are!!! Think that strength is the only thing that matters in life..? Try using that rock in your head for once!! And then you'll realize that it's actually the strongest thing that you have!"

"In the end. Only the strong remains. Only using your brain will eventually lead to a weaker body. And besides... Having less resources doesn't really matter to me. I don't carry much items because of a curse that I have."

"Curse?! What curse gets rid of your carrying abilities?! If you had such a curse, then you're already weak!!!"

I use Blood to take back Divine Intervention and swing it at the talking ant. It's been annoying me for a while now- oh. It dodged my attack.

"Aaah-! What are you doing?! Trying to kill me?! How violent and barbaric!"

Well. Let's just go back to where everyone was at for now. They're still talking..? Den and Feradon are back though. And Rintan seems to be inspecting something.

"Oh! It's Vixen! Where did you go? We thought the ants captured you so we took down some of them!"

Uh oh. Lide wouldn't like to hear that. Is she going to be mad again?

"Why would you do that?! You know we're the most peaceful animals on this planet, and you still believe we'd hurt you guys?!!"

"Anyways, uhh.... Talking ant, we need to find a way out of here. A shortcut to the ocean would be great."

Rintan says.

"Sigh.... Alright. It's about time you guys left. I guess I'll show you to that horrifying beast back at one of our tunnels."

"Huh?! Why would you do that?! Want us to slice you down huh?!"

"Calm down calm down.... You're still mad that your general died..?? Oh right. I forgot to tell you all about it. A strange spider creature is sitting at the shortcut you all want to go in."

"The Void Trilobite?! Heh. You couldn't stop it, little ant?"

"I'm not really much of an ant, you know..? I'm more human than you guys even."

"Anyways. Lead the way, ant. You'll be our shield while we take down the Void Trilobite."

"Wh-What?!"

"Want us to cut you down already?"

"Kh..!! Fine...!"

I kind of feel bad for Lide.... Later, It leads us down the tunnel where they fought the Void Trilobite. There's many fallen ants around, it smells really bad.

As we reach the tunnel, a huge shiny spider monster is sitting in front of us, eating a giant ant as light rays shine behind it.

"I-It's the Void Trilobite!!"

Rintan takes a steps forward, pulling out a Khopesh. She takes off her hood, letting her long blond hair sway along the wind. When you look at her, you can't really help but say "beautiful", can't you?

"Don't worry. I'll handle this. I'm better at fighting things like these after all. And besides. It's kind of my fault that this anomaly got here."

She says, right before aiming her hand at the monster. She cracks her middle finger, and another Four-Leaf Clover shoots out from underneath her index finger. Is this the [Four-Leaf Clover Trick] again?

"Four-Leaf Clover Trick. Intestinal Break: Fireworks."

Fireworks shoot from the palm of her hand. It explodes right next to the monster, as the [Four-Leaf Clover Trick] hits as well.

The monster shrieks. It's too loud, we were forced to cover our ears. So I cast [Blood Hardening] to block the sound.

"?!!+-&+??!&+-!"

I still couldn't hear anything. Rayan begins shooting the monster, while the rest attacks.

"Attack!! Fireball!"

Looks like it has finally stopped screeching. Crowler swings his sword but it dodges swiftly before sending a counterattack. The monster then proceeds to dash forward, impaling Lare, spitting [Electrical Acid] at Crowler afterwards. All in just a few seconds.

"Blagh!!! Cough cough!"

"This thing..!"

What a fierce beast..! It throws Lare towards the light. His scream fading away as he falls into the ocean.

"AAAHHH!!!"

"Lare!!"

Rayan yells, when suddenly, a slash cuts through her hand, throwing her weapon away.

"Gaahh-!!"

Oh no... This is bad... Only Den, Crowler, Feradon, Rintan, and I can beat this monster. I almost forgot that the rest of the people on our team were just support.

"Don't panic!! Regroup!! Regroup-"

Den yells, as another swing of the spider's razor sharp limb interrupts him. Forcing him to block with his sword.

"I've made a mistake. I apologize, everyone. I couldn't think fast enough."

"We don't have time to talk!! Help me!!"

A myriad of cuts and slashes tear through the monster, but it avoids further attacks before jumping back. Den steps away as well.

We regroup, fixing our formation. We didn't expect this creature to be that strong. Lare has been impaled, and thrown out into the ocean. Meanwhile, Rayan had her right hand cut off. It would be bad if we take too long fighting this thing. We need to beat it as fast as possible.

"Flame Burst! Fireball! Flame Turbine! Fire Amplification!!"

Feradon? He's casting a lot of Fire Magic spells. Is he angry? Getting enraged by a monster like this would be a major disadvantage for us. Den is already trying to stop him.

"Wait!! This monster is-"

The Void Trilobite attacks, swinging furiously at us. Fortunately, it's easy to avoid. Did it slow down?

"Intestinal Break: Rewind Kick."

Rintan sends a flying knee at the monster, catching it mid air. It's good, but how is that even a kick..?

"Intestinal Break: Rewind Kick."

She continues attacking the enemy, sending a combo of kicks and punches.

"Fire-!"

"Stop! We'll let Rintan take care of it! Take the injured ones back to safety! We won't be able to fight at full strength if they're still here!"

"F-fine..! Rayan, get out!"

Den, Crowler and Feradon quickly retrieves Lare before retreating with Rayan. Meanwhile, I cast [Blood Hardening] on Rintan's hands, further increasing the damage of her attacks as she continues punching the monster at lightning-fast speeds.

The monster doesn't have a chance to counterattack. It's head is mercilessly crushed by the non-stopping fists. It's blood splashes everywhere. Though, why is she using her fists instead of that sword?

"Fire-"

"Hold on. Let her defeat it."

"H-huh..? Why..?"

Den and Feradon has returned, but without Crowler? Huh? Where is he? Is he guarding our injured allies? Also, did Lide run away? Because of this fight, I didn't realize that it wasn't even here anymore.

"Rintan, allow me to help! Fire Amplification!"

Rintan and the Void Trilobite are still fighting. They jump around the tunnel, sending attacks at each other. They're too fast for me to follow their movements.

"Intestinal Break: Fireworks."

It is obvious who's going to win. The monster is getting slower with each hit. But it wouldn't be a good idea to join in the fight right now.

Rintan continues punching the enemy, now with burning fists covered with hardened blood. The enemy tries to fight back but her attacks are too fast.

Her strength is greater than what I've expected. Is she even using her full power..?