Wait, we just fought ants, right?

And ants live in colonies. Wouldn’t that mean that there are plenty more of these fuckers?

But why didn’t their comrades help them? Ants are supposed to be social creatures that help each other when in need, not some beasts that just ignore their struggling comrades.

I sighed, tasting the dirt in my mouth again. Maybe I should have listened more attentively in the biology lessons.

Deciding that healing myself was more important than cleaning my mouth, I searched for my core bag.

After a few minutes of searching, interrupted by the occasional wince due to moving in a wrong manner, I found it near where I had been pummeled.

I wiped the dirt away, discovering that it was fortunately mostly undamaged with only a few loose strings and small holes that weren’t big enough for a core to slip through.

A quick count later I confirmed that no cores had been lost. I opened the bag and grabbed two cores, pushing them into my mouth.

They dissolved into a torrent of mana that flowed down my injured channels, causing me to hiss at the unexpected pain.

I then took the miniature house out and threw it onto a relatively smooth part of the road of destruction, watching its expansion quietly.

No matter how strong those insects are, they won’t be able to destroy the barrier of this house. If even that terrifying monster couldn’t then I’m quite sure that nothing in a vast area around the human territory can.

I made my way towards the open entrance.

“Hold on, what do you think you are doing John?” Greta shouted.

I was just short of reaching the doorframe, but her words made me turn around. I saw that she was quite busy with cracking the head of an insect open.

“Recovering, of course. If we were to be attacked in this state even the core of a founder wouldn’t help us survive.” I replied, wasting not a single second in entering the house.

“WAIT, you won’t be going in with these clothes!” Frank shouted.

I looked down on my clothes and discovered that the strange pink liquid was still plastered all over my clothes. If I had entered the house with that stuff clinging onto my clothes I would have been in for a very long cleaning session.

With Frank’s abnormal love for cleanliness he would surely have forced me to scrub every single hair on the carpet. And the wooden boards below them.

Probably the ground underneath the house too.

I scratched my head in annoyance. If I’m already at it, I can clean my mouth too.

Storing my clothes in my core space, I conjured a big ball of water that I used to wipe all of the sticky liquids and other gooey stuff that got onto my body during the fight off while carefully avoiding the spots that were cut open.

Switching that ball of water with a smaller one, I cleaned every nook and cranny of my mouth with a thorough flood.

The others didn’t even bat an eyelid at my nudity. Even though they were normally quite mature they were still children in certain areas. Not to mention that no one had ever told them that being nude around each other was wrong.

Which is definitely something that I have to change as soon as puberty hits.

My cheeks reddened at the thought of the many…unexpected incidents that could happen.

Yes, I definitely have to change that in the future. If possible as soon as puberty hits. Frank’s…business in the night is already bad enough, and I refuse to endure any more than that.

After making sure that I was completely clean, I absorbed the water and stepped past the doorframe. I made my way towards the comfortable looking couch that was covered in furs. I collapsed onto them face first, grunting in pain and comfort at the same time.

I started circulating the incredible amount of mana that was coursing through my channels and put my whole focus on recovering as quickly as possible.

The pain in my channels slowly faded away, followed by a gradual lessening of the pain that indicated that the healing process was working.

The mana from the cores vanished a few hours later. My wounds, however, didn’t.

I turned my mana sight off to properly inspect them. Most of the bruises that should have healed by now were still blue and the cuts only became more shallow.

This is definitely not what was supposed to happen. With the amount of mana contained in the cores I should have completely healed by now.

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I popped another core into my mouth, but this time I focused the mana into one of the particularly nasty bruises that still hurt like hell.

It healed in the span of half an hour. Far slower than it should have.

Checking the mana that was coursing through my channels, I noted that it had also taken more mana than normally.

What’s happening?

I stopped the circulation and looked around.

It only took me a cursory glance to find the others, who were positioned around me in various positions.

I tapped Owen, who was sprawled out next to me, on the head until he snapped out of his meditation.

“W-what?” He shook his head, his mind still clouded from the comfort of meditation.

“Check your wounds. Does anything seem unusual?” I asked him quickly.

He made a confused face, but complied nonetheless.

It only took him a second to look up again, this time with a serious expression. “Do you know what is going on?” He asked.

I sighed, lifting my hands past my shoulders in exasperation. “If I did I would tell you a way to solve it, wouldn’t I?”

I proceeded to point at the still visible wounds. “You see these? I’m also suffering.”

His gaze followed my fingers, finally landing on the spots I was pointing at. He compared them with his, which were far fewer and winced on my behalf.

“Ouch, these look like they hurt pretty much.” He commented, reaching out to touch one of particularly nasty bruises.

I swatted his hand away, giving him a glare that told him to not try that again. “Yes, it does. Let’s get back to healing again. Time is precious, so we shouldn’t waste it.”

Owen rolled his eyes. “John, stop. Seriously, you sound like an old man when you speak like this.”

He closed his eyes again, not giving me any time to respond. Sighing, I did the same.

Another indeterminable period of time passed, but this time I didn’t let my mind drift away like I usually do. No, instead of that I studied the healing process with as much attention as I could, but the only thing I found out was that there seemed to be some kind of strange substance being stuck to the parts that were hit by that strange liquid, which was pretty much everywhere except in the face in my case.

The only reason I was able to discern that it was still stuck to me was that it was that it began glowing so brightly once I started healing that I was even able to see it through the mana circulating through my eyes

But Owen wasn’t hit by the fluid, so how comes that his wounds also heal slower?

Even though I mulled over this issue extensively, the reasons remained elusive. It was as if I had the necessary knowledge, but my mind wasn’t able to convert that knowledge into something that I could understand.

“John, it’s time for us to move on.” Someone blew a gust of air into my ear, causing me to quickly cover my ear.

I sat up to see the perpetrator

“You do know that I hate this, right?” I responded with a scowl on my face.

She shrugged her shoulders. “That’s why I did it. Now hurry up, I don’t feel comfortable staying in such a hostile region for so long.” She left the couch and joined Owen and Frank, who were watching with a lot of mirth.

Looking down at my body, I noted that the liquid had become nearly unnoticeable again. Not that there was much left anyway, it had mostly vanished while I was healing.

I summoned one of the many sets of spare clothes I always kept in reserve directly onto my body, deciding that I was too mature to let myself get caught in their pace.

Looking at the frail clothes that only had some weak enchantments as protection, I made a mental note to make a set of decent armor that would be capable of protecting me somewhat.

But that will have to wait until I get to a safe location, otherwise I won’t be able to gather enough mana to do so without emptying my reserves.

Damned ants, they are destroying every single plan of mine. Once I become strong enough I will come back to this area and annihilate every single of them.

And solve the mystery regarding that freaking fluid.

If I’m able to live that long, that is. I just hope we won’t encounter something even stronger than these ants.

Or else we’d be fucked royally.