As Adam watched his worker ants feed the recently hatched two larvae, he couldn’t help his heart from pounding faster.
The pupa from yesterday eclosed throughout the night and was tasked with tending to the two larvae. They were fat and was about 1 and a half inch in length. Sadly, the workers ran out of food so they stopped feeding it.
After making sure that Adam and the brood were safe, the oldest worker ant once again took the lead toward the trap-jaw ant nest.
When they arrived, they waited for a few minutes… which quickly turned into an hour.
‘Strange…’
The oldest red jade worker ant thought.
‘Why are the trap-jaw ants not coming out?’
She waved her antennae and after sensing the weaker-than-usual mana around the trap-jaw ant nest, she decided to lead her three sisters inside.
Krrr…?
After entering the nest, they found it to be full of battle scars. There was scattered carcass around, and most of them were from trap-jaw ants. Some were from a magic beast wasp with silver-colored bodies.
Krrr…!
The oldest worker ant waved her antennae, and when she sensed a magic beast approaching, she warned her sisters.
‘Ambush!’
She said through her pheromones and didn’t wait for the magic beast to show itself.
KRR!
Bzzzz...
After the four red jade worker ants reached the magic beast, which turned out to be a wasp, they were filled by an unknown source of anger and all four of them stung the wasp.
BZZZ!
Being stung four times at once was the opposite of painful, and the wasp trashed around to bite one red jade worker and luckily sting another one. The wasp quickly succumbed to the venom, but it used all its mana to bite off a red jade worker ant’s head. The stung red jade worker ant was long dead, squirming to the floor as its exoskeleton bubbled as if it was boiling.
The ones that died were both the younger workers. The remaining two worker ants were livid as they devoured the wasp without leaving anything behind. Strangely, they felt compelled to first eat the wasp’s legs, which they do.
After eating the wasp, they ate the decapitated red jade ant and left the poisoned one.
Then, they ventured deeper into the nest which they knew had been destroyed. They didn’t sense any more mana inside, so they were sure there were no threats inside.
As expected, it was littered with dead trap-jaw ants and wasps. They ate all the wasps they could find. Each wasp was 3 inches in length and was stronger than the trap-jaw ants. Their choice was natural.
After eating three wasps each, they felt bloated and realized that they looked more like a replete ant rather than a worker ant.
Nevertheless, they ventured further in hopes of finding the queen.
Their efforts were not in vain as at the deepest chamber, they found the trap-jaw queen ant. She was still alive, albeit all her legs were torn off.
SHAA!
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The queen roared when it saw them, but they didn’t care. They figured that the wasp was likely planning on bringing the queen back to its hive alive. The queen was 4 inches in length, twice as big as them, but she was an easy target without her legs.
One of them held the queen by her gaster, and the other held her by her head.
Holding the trap-jaw queen like a sacrificial lamb, they marched toward the nest at a hurried pace.
Once the ants reached home, they quickly closed off the nest entrance after delivering the queen to Adam.
Adam was disheartened to find that two worker ants died, but after his workers fed the two larvae into pupae, his mood turned a little better. Then, he focused on his meal today.
The trap-jaw queen looked at him, her eyes filled with intense hatred.
‘Ha, you’re so unfortunate.’
Adam mocked. He already knew what happened as his oldest worker ant reported the wasp to him and the reason why they closed off the nest.
‘For a magic beast wasp colony to be around…’
I’ve been quite lucky, for once.
If he had met those wasps while out hunting, he’d be toasted meat.
Getting rid of the dark thoughts, Adam ordered his workers to cut off the trap-jaw queen ant’s head. He can’t do it on his own. Two of his legs were gone, while another one was still unusable.
‘I really need a way to grow back my limbs or something…’
After the trap-jaw queen ant was decapitated, Adam limped over to eat the trap-jaw queen’s head. Mid-way through, however, he encountered what seemed to be a black stone in the middle of the queen ant’s head.
It was her core.
All magic beasts have cores, but not all have solid ones like Adam and the trap-jaw queen ant. Adam was curious about what would happen after he eats the core, so he didn’t wait and nearly slurped up the small core.
After doing so, he felt his gaster become itchy.
[[SS — Queen Ant] Eggs: (20 mana) Worker Ant: 0, (??? Mana) ??? Ant: 1% Complete]
Adam stared at the air for a hot minute before reacting.
‘I can create new eggs? But 1%... do I have to eat 100 trap-jaw queen ants to unlock it?’
Adam huffed in anger and circulated mana into his gaster. Strangely, the mana disappeared and the status window updated.
[[SS — Queen Ant] Eggs: …, (??? Mana) ??? Ant: 2% Complete]
‘I can use mana? That’s good!’
Adam rejoiced, only to become depressed again.
‘But I used up all my mana just for 1% of progress?’
That means I need around 500 mana! That’s 30 worker ants!
After the discovery of the wasps, Adam forbade his workers from going out until they ran out of food from their social stomachs.
After three days, Adam laid another egg, which hatched into a larva.
The two pupae from before had long hatched into strong workers.
‘Remember that when going out to hunt, avoid the wasps.’
Two of his worker ants met the wasp before so they knew its mana signature. As expected, the two worker ants nodded and lead two other worker ants to hunt. They left the youngest to tend to Adam and the larva.
As they went out to hunt, the oldest ant kept waving its antennae. It wasn’t paranoid, their lives literally depended on its sensing abilities.
As the oldest, her sensing ability was more refined than the rest. She could also sense farther than her fellow sisters, making her the perfect scout.
As they traveled, her antennae twitched when she sensed an “empty” space nearby. In a world where everything was constantly enshrouded with mana as if a mist of mana covered the world, an “empty” space could only mean one thing.
There was an obstacle.
It can be either a plant, a rock, or a normal animal. These obstacles don’t possess mana, hence being an “empty” space.
The oldest turned and signaled for her sisters to be prepared. The empty object was long and was moving swiftly without making too much noise. This was the first time she sensed something like it.
Shrrr….
Along with the rustling of dead leaves and the swaying of grass, the four red jade ants were met by a one-foot long forest python.
Krrr…
The oldest paused, not sure what to do.
The python paused as well, but it soon resumed its journey. The four were just ants, what can they do? With an uncaring attitude, it passed by the ants without so much as a second glance.
The oldest red jade ant saw this and was livid.
‘Don’t underestimate… us!’
With a wave of her antennae, she commanded her three hunting partners after flexing her gaster upward. Then, all four of them charged at the snake who was slithering farther from them.
KRRR!
In an instant, the four ants drained their mana to enhance their venom to the fullest and stung the snake simultaneously.
SSSSS!
Unlike the wasp, the snake was no magic beast and after coiling and twisting around itself, it died in less than a second.
Krrr!
The oldest ant was satisfied, and so were her three siblings. After telling them to carry the snake back home, they all bit and dragged the snake toward their nest.
They have to hurry, or else the snake will turn into a puddle of goo with all that venom.
Furthermore…
Bzzzz…!
The red jade ant’s antennae all twitched at the sound.
Bzzzz…
Then, a wasp landed not too far away in front of them. It was facing them, and it was silently watching as they dragged the heavy snake around.
Its target was not the big and juicy snake, but rather the thin and small ants.
Adam, who has no idea that his ants were in great danger: The caterpillar is getting smaller and smaller!