Sargon was able to make a lot of progress in the 4th floor, all due to his new party member. She was good at navigating the floor and swift in killing the monsters. These were the same looking ants but bigger and tougher than the ones he had encountered before.

All might seem nice and dandy at first glance, but Sargon knew this was not the case. He thought so because as the things currently were, there was no teamwork at all. And this was definitely an issue. Well, not an issue for now but it will be in the future.

Just as Sargon was thinking on those lines a [Warrior Ant] emerged out of the wall, leaving a human-sized hole behind. It was red in colour and was almost half the size of a cow. Its antlers dangled from its head, twitching and tasting the air. It felt an enemy nearby and responded to it by clattering its oversized mandibles. Those looked like they would be able to snap a fully armoured man in half.

“If we want to defeat it we have to work together.” Sargon suggested to Demi-Ura nervously. He did not feel confident at taking down such enemy; his arms trembled while clutching his weapon.

His companion just simply nodded. Counter to the boy she appeared calm and collected, almost like it had been a hundredth time she had to face this particular enemy.

“[Confuse]” she voiced a command for her spell so that her party member knows what she does. At least she hoped that Sargon knew it, after all, he did not look particularly bright or well versed in magic.

A cloud of wispy magic hit the ant in the head dazing it. Ant fluttered to its the side then it began biting towards smaller ants surrounding it. It looked as if it no longer could tell an enemy and ally apart.

Sargon was momentarily surprised by the light show but he quickly collected himself and spoke to his companion “So you are a caster after all!”. He did not sound calm at all.

“Attack it!” Demi-Ura urged Sargon to act before the spell fizzled out. He had a weapon with longer reach so it was safer for him to do that. Also, he was the one who was supposed to be the warrior type.

She did not need to repeat it again; the boy charged at the [Warrior Ant] wielding his coa. He jabbed it right between the ant’s eyes, pushing through the exoskeleton and slicing egg-sized brain in half. The natural armour of this ant was a lot weaker than one might suspect.

The boy killed the oversized insect but his reckless charge left him surrounded by a swarm of smaller worker ants. Before he could dislodge his weapon and swat them all, one pesky worker got close and was just about to snap at his leg. He looked down in dread imagining his foot separated from his leg, surely this was what will happen in a second or so. He became drenched in cold sweat and braced for the pain. However, before he was dismembered, a black ball of energy hit the ant disintegrating it into the ash, not even the core was left behind.

“[Dark Blast]” Demi-Ura chanted another of her spells. This one was an offensive type and it clearly was too powerful to be used on the small ants. She wasted her mana to blow another ant before it could seriously injure Sargon.

Seizing the opportunity, Sargon dislodged his weapon and sliced at the ants with his now signature move, [Swieep]. He killed three in one swift motion and another three in a span of few seconds, and then three more and… Eventually, the floor was littered by the various parts of monster corpses.

“Hey, why did you not use that blast before? You can toast the little monster easily with it.” Sargon was genuinely interested why was she holding on something so useful, her magic was amazing.

“Too wasteful.”

“How about the big one? If you blasted its head, I would not have needed to charge at it. All of this could have been avoided.” Just as he said it he realised that it sounded as if he was blaming her, it was not his intention. Sargon knew that it was due to his inexperience why he almost became a cripple.

“You kill, you get experience.” She shrugged and continued in a mocking tone "You can handle it. No?”

This was probably the longest sentence Sargon heard her say today.

“Sorry, you are right, it is me who needs more practise. I got careless and you saved me, thank you.”

His honest thanks were met with a faint smile which immediately reverted back into Demi-Ura’s default neutral face as she dismantled [Warrior Ant] looking for its core.

“Here.” She handed a pebble-sized core to Sargon.

“This one is bigger than the one from the smaller ants, I wonder how much it will fetch.”

“Bigger core, more cookies?” She already was spending it on food.

“They don’t trade it for cookies but for normal money. I don't know yet how many Shekels I will get for this one.” Sargon let out a sight, he refused to believe that she did not know how this worked he felt like was being teased.

She looked at him twisting her head, clearly still waiting only for yes or no answer.

“Well, essentially... yes.” Or at least he hoped so. He was told that bigger cores are worth more, but the size was not everything. There were other cores which might be small but have some special properties.

“Good.” She said as she squeezed in the hole, the one that big ant made minutes ago.

Sargon looked dumbfounded. It was surely dangerous to go somewhere where formidable monster crawled from.

“You coming?” A voice rang out of the hole in the wall.

“Is it not dangerous to go there? What if there are more [Warrior Ants] there?” He wanted to go and fish her out from the dark hole but hesitated.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

A head popped out of the shadows in the hole and mocked Sargon “Scared?”

Sargon flushed red at what he took for being called a coward. His pride as a man was hurt, he did not like that a woman was braver than him.

“No! I am coming.” He squeezed inside the hole chasing fleeting figure of his companion. He did not want to be left behind. He convinced himself that she knew what she was doing; and that it was safe to do so.

Mere minute navigating in the hole felt like an hour. The passage was pitch dark and cramped. A faint glimmering light illuminated the silhouette of his companion, they have reached the end of the tunnel.

Sargon popped his head into the well-lit room. The usual crystals illuminated a big hall-like room. The room had many various sized holes in its wall, tunnels for ants. The middle of it had a pit full of eggs, ant eggs to be precise. Foetuses of developing ant larva were clearly visible through a thin leathery membrane.

“Where are no ants guarding the eggs?” He was surprised at the lack of active monsters, it was clearly their nest.

“Big ant was the guardian?” Demi-Ura said with a shrug and went to inspect the eggs without a worry on her face.

Sargon looked around suspiciously just to be sure and did the same.

“Shall we collect them? They might be worth something.”

Demi-Ura shook her head. “Too much effort.”

Sargon cupped his chin. What she said might have been right, there was no way to safely secure all of the eggs, and there were hundreds of them. The best he could do was maybe take two or three, besides, then he would need to protect it all the way until he made it back to the surface.

“So, what do we do?” He asked for ideas.

“We smash!” His companion nodded with odd glee in her face and continued with her index finger raised as if teaching him a lesson “Get experience.”

“Leave one. I think one egg will not encumber me too much, I am sure they are worth...”

His sentence was interrupted by a wet squelching sound and a burst of eerie laughter. Demi-Ura didn't wait for him to finish talking and it seemed that she was not listening at all; she was busy stomping on the eggs with her hooves and splattering the contents all over.

It looked fun. Sargon did not want to miss out so he joined in. At first, he tried slicing yet to be born larva using the blade of his coa. It didn't last because the edge got covered in sticky goo making the blade less effective. He couldn't use the edge of his weapon so he used the flat, the face side, to slam the eggs making them burst.

He slapped and slapped destroying dozens of eggs. It was harder than using the edge but it was his only option as he did not want to do it with his feet like Demi-Ura. His feet were not the same, he did not want to injure himself, and what if one of the larvae came alive and bit his toe… he did not want to risk.

All of the hard work got rewarded, after all. He felt a surge in his muscles as he slapped the egg making it literally explode into the spray of goo and grey larvae chunks. He has gained a skill [Slap], a superior version of a mundane attack. Sargon smiled being happy at his progressing as a warrior; a blunt attack skill was sure to come useful.

The boy swung his coa to get the goo off and once done looked around to check, fearing that all of the eggs might have gotten smashed. He got into it too much, it was messy but quite too entertaining.

Demi-Ura stood by the only intact egg giving Sargon a knowing look.

"Got skill?”

“Yes! This beats manual training by leagues.” Sargon was aware that skills can be gained by training in the training grounds on dummies and the like but it was much faster if he did it on living things; they gave actual experience.

“Did you?” He asked her hoping that she got lucky too.

“No, diminished experience.”

Sargon wondered if she meant that she no longer received anything by killing petty monsters. Well if she indeed lived in the Babel Dungeon for twenty-one years it made sense but…

“Then why you still did it if you get nothing?” she could have left them all for him.

“It is fun?” She asked it rhetorically and handed the last egg to Sargon.

He took the egg into his arms and looked around trying to see past the darkness within various small holes.

“Let’s get out before the ants show.” Sargon has remembered how risky it was to be here.

As he made his way back to the tunnel they had come from, he slipped on the goo. Trying not to slam his head too hard he let go of the egg instinctively letting it fly in the air.

His head and clothes were saved but the egg landed on a sharp rock and got pierced, leaking its contents on the stone floor.

“Dang it, here goes the last egg.” He cursed while trying to stand up.

Just as he finished his sentence the ground rumbled causing dust and gravel fall from the ceiling. A large ant dropped down. It was black in colour and many times bigger than the one they mistook as protector of the eggs. This one was the true protector as it was the [Guardian Ant].

Sargon looked at his new foe his eyes wide.

“Did we… Is this an [Event]?”

He had never encountered one here before but he had heard of those. An [Event] can be triggered if special conditions were met, calling a special room miniboss. This looked like it.

Sargon swallowed audibly quite unsure what to do. This was beyond everything he had planned or prepared for.