Chapter 105: Nest of Full Moon Ant Colony
Alros decided to seek the answers of the question, and to do that, he needed to ter the nest. There should be something that could reveal the reason of the monster colony action, and he intd to find it.
Searching for the best target, Alros spotted several Full Moon Ant, alright, that name sound stupid so he changed their name to Lunar Ant while the colony name would be the previous name he gave them.
He spot several Lunar Ant carrying a large beetle and flew on top of it and drop himself on it. As he did so, he lowered his body so they would not be able to detect him, and attacked him. He come here to do some research, not become food.
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As he let himself being carried into the nest, he began to realize how spacious the tunnels are. While from the outside it seem small, in the inside, the size is equal to a manmade tunnel, ough for cars and lorries to pass through.
He do look upward though, fearing there would be ants at the top that might prevt him from escaping. Soon, he felt the bodies being dropped, prompting him to look at his currt whereabouts.
As he scanned his suring, he realize not all the ants come out. The ants in the same chamber as he is are smaller in stature, likely workers while the ones outside are the soldiers, hunting and raiding the differt insect colonies.
"I'm so glad I learned Darkness Magic," he muttered to himself, before coating his body with shadows and making his way out. The only way for him to be revealed if there us light magic casted towards his currt position but it seems the soldiers who should have light magic based attack, as he had se them use before, all at the topside.
As he began to look at differt chambers, he began to realize how big the food storage chambers really is, ough to fill more than 00 bugs, all of them a the large size.
And there is chambers, a lot of them. He counted maybe so far, but they could be more, he just not sure of it. He took a little notebook and write it down, intding to jot his observation in case he forget about it.
After leaving the storage chambers, Alros head towards wherever he wanted to go. Or to be exact, he found himself lost in the anthills. He tried to trace his steps but with all of it looking the same, he was not able to find anything.
So, he just walked all over the place, until he find a place of interest, the nursery chambers. Inside it countless eggs and larvae are being tak care off, being feed with the giant bugs that they have killed.
The worker ants seem to not notice his presce, their focus on the broods. Alros walked towards one while using Stealth, Disguise and Illusion, making it like nothing is there before grabbing some of eggs and larvae and chucking it inside his system space.
His action seem to alert the worker ants, though they merely looked a, likely unable to see what happed clearly before going back to work.
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After that daring stunt, Alros quickly find himself in the storage chambers, not that he was not thrilled of it. After all, he could snatch several worker ants and study them, though the soldier ants and the que should be a better specim.
And so, the incubus find himself eying the worker ants. While subduing them would increase the numbers of his monster, how many ants could he ev subdued? With him being in their home, he would be greatly outnumbered.
Ev if he took out his forces, the only result of the confrontation would be the annihilation of his force, and he did not intd for it to happ.
So, he could only wait for several worker ants to stop get inside the chamber. And luck soon have it that not only are there worker ants, but also soldiers ants tering the area. Blasting the holes to the chambers, it cause the ants to screech in confusion, before he revealed himself.
And the screech of confusion changed into screech of rage, as the ants charged towards him, intding on killing the intruders.
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"Slightly annoying that all of them are large, but still something a group of soldiers could handle, but it depds on the numbers," Alros muttered, the carcass of the ants find a place in the system space, as the demon intd on dissecting the ants for research purposes.
Now that he get himself several samples, the best course of option would be to leave, but he did not want to do it just yet. The demon wanted to seek the ques' chambers and observe the ruler of the Grassy Hill with his own eyes.
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The first rule of trying to find the que's chamber is to find the ants carrying food to the place that is not the storage chambers or nursery chambers. After all, the que would be feed by the workers, and would be guarded by powerful Guard Ants, ants that are stronger than regular soldiers.
He quickly find several ants, that did not head towards the two aforemtioned chambers but instead heading elsewhere. He followed them, knowing there is a high chance of it being the que's chamber.
Yet, that's where there are some peculurities, in that the ants began to split up. Feeling something is not right, Alros release his Phantom Wasps, and have them followed the other ants while he followed the one with a convoy of two ants, feeling they should be heading somewhere more important.
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As he followed them, he quickly realize the two ants are heading deeper, not like the others that seem to be heading on a more horizontal path. Which put several warning signs inside his head.
"What would be here?" he whispered to himself as he followed them, wanting to find out.
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While he was still followed the two, the wasps sd telepathic message, before sding what they have se. At first, he thought there is nothing wrong, before he realize it is not right.
" ques?! This colony has twelve que!" he said in shock, his voice still lowered for the fear of the ants noticing his presce.
He quicky realize why the population is so large. While large ants still the most numerous organism in a group, it could not compare to human and the other stimt races.
At the very least, there would be a 00 at most for an ant colony of large sized ant as they would not be able to have a bigger colony without stripping the resources of their suring, slowly killing them off in the process and making them came into conflict with man and other powerful monsters.