The ant queen bit down and crunched on the poor soldier a couple of more times before audibly passing on the food through its body. Ackster could only watch with mixed thoughts. He had noticed but not thought anything strange of the ant nest’s lack of cutlery and crockery. After all, what would ants do with things like those? So, when the soldier ant came up, Ackster simply thought it would carry the blood to the queen. But that was not the case.

Well, the soldier ant did carry it all the way to the queen’s belly, so it wasn’t entirely wrong. But it did come as a slight surprise when the ant queen unhesitatingly devoured the soldier to get to Ackster’s blood.

Ackster suddenly realized what had happened with the ant corpses he killed during the initial siege attack.

It seemed like whether it be in life or in death, the ants of the ant queen’s colony existed for her. They carried out the queen’s orders no matter what. And they brought back food for the queen, even if they themselves were that food.

Ackster didn’t know what to think of it, except that he didn’t mind as long as the ant queen didn’t treat him like one of her ants.

The ant queen gobbled up the ant and Ackster’s blood in no time. Ackster could almost feel it licking its lips in satisfaction and pleasure at such a delectable treat. It sent shivers down his spine, even more so when the ant queen turned to look at him.

‘“More.”’

All the soldier and lieutenant ants in the room turned to look at him with sharp stares. The ant general was the same. Ackster felt like a deer trapped in a wolf’s den. But only for a moment before he regained his calm with Iron Will and Clear Mind. The ants weren’t strong enough to make him, who remained calm in the face of the Dragon Slayer, tremble.

If anything, the ants should fear him.

With that thought in his mind, Ackster crossed his arms and stared down the ant queen.

“Sure. But we have a deal, right? Now, I need something to eat and a place to rest and train. After that’s done, I can give you some more blood and maybe even some muscle.”

The ant queen tapped one of her front legs against the ground, and worker ants swarmed out of a nearby tunnel and into the queen’s chamber. They went to a corner and started digging with their front legs and mandibles. The ants dug and cleared out a room with overwhelming efficiency. They even moved away the dirt that they couldn’t pat down and increased the structural solidity of the walls, ceiling, and floor by making it denser.

Ackster once again confirmed that it was a good idea not to try and flee. A single of the ant queen’s moves was enough to move the entire colony and use it to attack Ackster. And since she would eat the ants after they died, she wouldn’t lose out that much since she could just use the energy she gained from eating them to birth more.

Ackster wondered what had happened with the ant queen and the colony in the original story since he couldn’t remember either ever being mentioned. With the ant queen’s intelligence, Ackster didn’t think it would easily die to any stray adventurer that wandered into the Cloven Grasslands.

But The Hero wasn’t the only person in the world. That much, Ackster had already confirmed. And there were a lot of people strong enough to kill the ant queen. So, it wasn’t strange it wasn’t mentioned.

Just like when Kargas came out of nowhere and almost killed him, Ackster realized that the world wasn’t only the original story. And just like he had stumbled upon this ant queen, he could encounter more things he had no idea about. It wasn’t just people.

Characters from the original story he knew about and people he didn’t know about weren’t the only things Ackster had to take into consideration as his actions continued rippling the world around him as per the butterfly effect. He also had to think about monsters, beasts, other beings, natural disasters, and even the weather interfering with his plans and actions.

But it wasn’t all bad. Just like there might be more inconveniences in the future due to unpredictable and unknown factors, there would also be benefits and treasures Ackster didn’t know of yet, but that could still help him stop The Hero. The Guild and Wilma were one such encounter, hopefully. And if he played his cards right, this meeting with the intelligent ant queen could be another one.

But it would be up to him to make sure it was a good meeting and not one of doom.

For that purpose, Ackster offered another portion of blood as soon as the room was completed, saving the meat for when he had gotten some food. He was a little curious about what the ants would prepare or get for him, but as long as it wasn’t stone, he would eat it.

He had eaten a lot of the worker ants during the fight, but he had also been fighting for his life and recovering from the hits and scrapes the ants gave him, so he hadn’t gotten much of a net gain. Ackster was still hungry, but more than that, he wanted to train the secret technique and experience some of the promised potential boost so he could get rid of the ant queen and her colony and proceed south.

He had already gotten sidetracked long enough from his mission of reaching the Sea God’s Temple. If he delayed much longer, he risked getting caught by The Hero or the kraken that The Hero was supposed to be subjugating in those waters.

In the original story, The Hero had ended up south of the continent in a Kraken subjugation a couple of years after dealing with the corruption in the merchant city he went to after investigating the rumors of a Doppelganger around Degrest.

But, Ackster was pretty sure that his actions had already started affecting things, such as the Doppelganger Slime he used to evade death. That was what The Hero would have found and explained the Doppelganger rumors with. But now that Ackster had taken it, he had no idea what would happen. Maybe there were other Doppelganger Slimes around, which wasn’t impossible since they weren’t strictly solitary creatures, especially if they were recently made.

Stolen novel; please report.

But if it was the only one, Mio excluded since it wasn’t a proper Doppelganger Slime, The Hero would continue to investigate the rumors until he found something or got reassigned. That would inevitably affect his future journey, even if it were made in advance by The Hero’s supporters.

So, Ackster wanted to pop down south, snag the Sea God Manual as quickly as possible, and get moving to find a trainer to minimize the risk of bumping into The Hero.

Ackster was startled out of his thoughts by a soldier ant lying down on the floor in front of him.

‘Figures.’

The food Ackster would get to enjoy during his stay in the ant nest as a food packet was ant. It wasn’t that surprising when he thought about it. He and Karandiel hadn’t seen any tracks of other beings in the area with tall grass, probably because the ants swarmed and devoured whatever stepped inside like a school of starving piranhas. And if he had to guess, most of the food eventually ended up in the ant queen’s stomach to be turned into more workers or soldiers.

Giving Ackster ants to eat would be simple and more reliable since he could eat as much as necessary without worrying about when the next creature to step inside the ant region would appear. But Ackster had just eaten more ants than he could count, so he had been looking forward to some proper meat and not the brains or internal organs and muscles of the ants, which were a little weird due to their insect bodies.

Though, he had only eaten worker ants, and he was now served with a soldier ant, so maybe it was a little more tasty. Not that he had gotten the time to savor the taste of the worker ants. The humanoid-esque upper body wasn’t even that similar to other humanoid monsters like the goblins he had eaten, especially with the ant head, so it wasn’t even that off-putting.

Unlike the ant queen, Ackster couldn’t eat the exoskeleton, so he broke the ant apart, killing it in one blow, and devoured as much of its insides as he could. It was a pretty bland taste. It definitely wasn’t anything to write home about, but he had eaten worse.

After eating the ant, he used his sword to cut off a piece of the muscles on his forearm. The ant queen accepted it with a cacophony of happy clicking sounds. And, just like before, a soldier ant was in charge of eating it first and using its body to deliver to the ant queen. Another ant took care of the blood streaming out of his wound until it scabbed and stopped bleeding.

It was the first time Ackster had cut off such a large piece of himself. Usually, when he harmed himself to train Strong Body’s regeneration or to feed Mio, he either simply cut himself and bled until it healed before continuing, or he trimmed barely more than the layer of muscle right below his skin.

As he thought about it while enjoying the second ant, Ackster realized that maybe that was why his skin healed so quickly after lacerations and why he had gotten Leather Skin. But the reason why he could cut parts of himself to feed the ant queen without wincing was thanks to his Pain Tolerance, whose rank he would have to confirm as soon as he and the ant queen took a break.

Fortunately, it seemed he wouldn’t have to wait long. He didn’t know why, but the ant queen, while eager for more, started chewing slower and slower. He didn’t think she was full yet since he had only given her a few strips of meat and maybe a couple of liters of blood. But it should have something to do with why she wanted his blood in the first place.

Maybe she needed time to digest it.

As Ackster saw his bleeding and scabbing body, which looked a lot scrawnier than usual since he had cut meat off of himself like kebab, he wondered what would happen if he tried to digest himself. If he ate pieces of himself, would Strong Body, Iron Stomach, and Monster Muncher extract enough energy to make up for the loss?

If it was necessary, could he sustain himself solely by eating himself?

‘Alright, that’s an insane thought. Let’s stop there for now.’

Ackster realized his own crazed idea. He wasn’t even starving anymore, but he was still thinking of whether it was possible to eat himself out of necessity. That was certainly taking things to the next level.

While eating monsters and debating killing humans, he had once considered what would happen if he ate a human. But, in the first place, he wasn’t even good at killing other humans, much less eating them. But now he could solve that problem. If he wanted to find out what humans tasted like, he could just eat himself. That way, he could also maybe find out why the ant queen was so interested in doing just that.

But not now.

Now, he was going to accept the break from cutting himself into pieces and take a look at his Nomi before trying to continue with the secret technique. So, he went into the room the worker ants had made on the queen’s order, where only the faintest beam of light came in. But there wasn’t anything to see within the room, anyway, so he didn’t mind the darkness.

He put his things in a corner.

“I’m not sure if the queen noticed or cared about you, Mio. But I think it might be best if you stayed up there for a while, okay?”

Ackster got a calming scalp massage in response, which he took as an affirmative response. However, just because Mio stayed in his hair and gave him a haircut that looked like a very glossy afro, that didn’t mean he couldn’t eat. So, Ackster cut off one final, tiny piece of meat and gave it to Mio, who reached out with a scoop and accepted it with another scalp massage as thanks.

With that done, Ackster grabbed his Nomi as he felt his eyes grow heavy. He had done a lot and hadn’t slept in a while. Even with the reenergizing effects of Strong Body and Monster Muncher, Ackster was still dead tired. But before he could allow himself a nap, he had to take a look at his progress.

[Name: –]

[Profession: (Adventurer)]

[Stats:

[Strength: B]

[Agility: C]

[Fortitude: C]

[Mana: –]

[Spirit: C]

[Stamina: C]

[Skills:

[Strong Body]

[Pain Tolerance: A]

[Poison Resistance: E]

[Keen Senses: B]

[Iron Stomach: C]

[Sprint: C]

[Strike: B]

[Soft Footsteps: D]

[Leather Skin: C]

[Survivalist: F]

[Iron Fists: E]

[Iron Will: C]

[Clear Mind: E]

[Battlesight: E]

[Limit Breaker: F]

[Resilience: D]

[Monster Muncher: F]

[Iron Wall: E]

[Guardian: G]

“Huh?”