Chapter 32
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 32
Chapter Title: Hero (2)
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"D-Dodge!"
Amid the ongoing battle, the ants had marked those they deemed "must kill"—and in addition to them, the mana artillery units that had been unleashing relentless barrages while the front lines held were also prime targets for the hornet ants.
Between the mages who canceled their spells in terror and hurled themselves aside, hornet ants swooped in with a chilling buzz of wings, their razor-sharp legs and venomous stingers raining down.
"Aaaagh!"
Those who failed to evade met the fate of the plump mage now being dragged away: seized by the hornet ants and yanked skyward in an instant.
High in the air where chanting spells was impossible, the panicked mage flailed his stubby limbs before the hornet ant's jaws—strong enough to crush solid rock—shattered his skull.
"How... how could they produce more of these monsters..."
Seira, sprawled on the ground and pelted by falling blood from above, murmured dazedly in a stupor.
The sudden appearance of this new variant had flipped the battlefield's momentum in a heartbeat. And shockingly, these were game-changers that rendered useless all the countermeasures she'd desperately researched and devised against the ants.
She'd considered it a possibility given the ants' tendency to keep spawning variants, but their evolution speed had utterly surpassed common sense.
'No reports of these things have come from anywhere. If they'd shown up even once, word would have spread. But they're far too refined in their movements to have just been completed.'
Moreover, the ant colony continuously accumulated and learned from experience, passing it instantly to newborns so they emerged fully formed.
Seira had noticed how the ants' and variants' movements grew ever more precise and destructive over time. It meant they were learning.
But if that was true, these hornet ants' prowess was too exceptional.
As if they'd been produced in advance, trained, and held back just for this moment.
"Ngh!"
She had no time to keep pondering.
A single hornet ant was bearing down on her.
The fierce dust cloud kicked up by its powerful, rapid wingbeats made Seira, who had dropped to one knee to steady herself, squint as she aimed her staff and hastily chanted a defensive spell.
'I have to figure them out. Their strengths... and their weaknesses...!'
A blue barrier unfurled before her in an instant, blocking the hornet ant's advance.
It was the strongest, sturdiest defensive spell she could cast right now.
The hornet ant bit at it with its jaws and stabbed with its stinger to shatter it by force, but the mana-forged magical barrier only cracked slightly—raw physical power alone couldn't break it.
"Th-This insane thing... it blocked a Flame Wave...!"
Seizing the opening, a wave of scorching flame wind from a fellow mage beside her engulfed the hornet ant.
Yet the hornet ant showed no sign of damage from the blistering heat and kept hammering at the barrier.
'As expected, it shrugs off 3rd-circle magic with ease thanks to its insane magic resistance. That aura I sensed wasn't my imagination. It doesn't wield mana or demonic power directly, but just carrying it grants that level of defense.'
Even in the chaos, Seira instinctively racked her brain to analyze the hornet ant.
No matter how destructive it seemed, there had to be a weakness. She had to believe that.
"Hyaagh!?"
But in that moment, her fellow mage screamed.
Another hornet ant had slipped around to the rear, beyond Seira's barrier reach.
"Ah..."
The hornet ant that lunged grabbed the mage's arm and head, tearing him apart in a process that took less than three seconds—but to Seira, it felt like slow motion.
It reminded her of first witnessing the ants ravage her homeland.
As the enemy's stinger hurtled toward her face in a flash, she sensed her life was ending here.
"Get up! And prepare to run!"
Then someone barreled in like a bullet, shoving the hornet ant away with his immovable bulk and strength.
"Tuks!"
She cried out his name without thinking.
Tuks, battered and bruised from the brutal frontline fighting—his armor shattered, helmet gone—swung his notched battle axe, smashing the underside of a hornet ant's jaw as it writhed on the ground.
"The front line's collapsed. They're pushing through."
Breathing heavily, he pointed ahead with a trembling voice.
Where he should have been was now in total disarray, ants surging in like a tide for indiscriminate slaughter.
"If even one more survives, we can regroup and avenge this later. If we all die here, this whole region is done for."
"But..."
"Look. Even your superior's calling the retreat."
Orc horns blared alongside mana flares lighting up the sky.
The retreat order.
The fierce clash between two armies bent on mutual annihilation had ended in defeat for the alliance.
The hornet ants' arrival was the decisive blow. Though only dozens strong, they weren't enough to wipe out the alliance—but they could shatter the deadlock.
"You too, hop on!"
"No. A retreat needs bait. Otherwise, they'll just hunt us down one-sidedly."
Seira, aboard an earth platform conjured by a shaman, thrust out her hand urgently, but Tuks refused it and turned away.
"I'll hold them. I'm the strongest. It's not over yet."
He intended to buy as much time as possible with the rearguard, staving off the ants pursuing the main force.
'No.'
Seira froze, realizing he'd resolved to die.
It was heroic, but heroes paid with their lives.
What good was a second chance without heroes?
"You barbaric bastards, come at me fair and square one by one!"
But she couldn't stop him as he roared and charged forward.
The last she saw of Tuks was a swarm of hornet ants around him abruptly pivoting as if they'd planned it, swarming him from all sides.
"..."
It didn't take long.
From the sky where multiple hornet ants had dragged her, Seira squeezed her eyes shut as something presumed to be Tuks was torn to shreds.
"Phew..."
What did I, with zero insight into warfare, really know?
I watched until the end, only relaxing slightly when the ants shifted from holding to chasing the fleeing alliance survivors. Another win, another survival.
'The hornet ants made all the difference.'
The alliance's forces were no joke.
Endless artillery barrages and orc melee prowess...
What could have been mutual destruction at best turned into an ant victory thanks to the hornet ants I'd held back for this moment.
From resources invested to their performance, they were worthy of being called the ant colony's heroes.
Their debut tipped the scales, smashing the alliance's trump cards.
[Subordinates intend to delay the enemies' reorganization as much as possible]
The ants doggedly pursued the retreating alliance with ruthless tenacity.
If not for some troops sacrificing themselves to buy time and set fires along the paths, the damage would have been far worse.
'No deities intervened this time. Probably too risky, like last time.'
My biggest worry had been a repeat of the previous battle, where someone blessed by a deity suddenly awakened dramatically.
Even hornet ants couldn't handle one—let alone two—such breakthroughs.
「Deity privileges unlock based on local territory and subordinate force scale」
But as the Divine Net explained, deity intervention wasn't free.
For me, with nothing to counter even if they could intervene, it was a relief.
[The Queen, having tallied the spoils, proceeds with additional laying queens and nest construction as planned]
Back at the ant nest, sharing the entire situation in real-time via the hive mind, the next phase kicked off immediately.
Nest and colony mega-expansion.
'That routed alliance was pretty much their full strength right now.'
I opened a pre-made file to check.
My custom map, compiled from diligent scouting and observations.
A coalition led by at least two deities... I'd let over half escape, but something mattered more.
No forces left nearby to stop the ants for the foreseeable future.
The southern human powers? They had no fight left.
The troops massed south were ragtag even to my eyes. The ants had seen through it.
Too few "prey" they liked compared to the west.
So the ants had just tied them down with a few hunting detachments.
If the main ant force, led by hornet ants, turned south, those cities and forts would fall without more reinforcements.
[Subordinates decide to focus on the south]
The orcs' homeland stretched endlessly westward across vast plains.
In that uncharted expanse, unknown numbers of orcs remained.
The ants had already crunched the numbers: not ready to conquer that breadth yet.
[Subordinates begin the great migration]
"A forward base... of sorts?"
I watched in quiet awe as countless worker ants departed the massive fortress-like nest deep in the untamed forest, carrying eggs and pupae.
Nest expansion. Not nearby, but out of the forest into the heart of former human territory for a new one.
With laying queens included, it would clearly serve as a forward base for the southern push.
'How many such nests will there be?'
Some ant species form empires spanning kilometers, linked by multiple queens and nests.
That was obviously the goal here.
The difference? Their empire might span the continent—or maybe the whole planet.
'What to give them now.'
New land, new resources secured—plenty of leeway.
Meaning more evolutions into stronger, more numerous forms, as the Queen desired. My role cropped up again.
"Jin-hyuk, things got messy. What do we do?"
"Pardon?"
Just then, as I stared blankly at the screen and my phone lost in thought, Manager Park Dong-jin approached with a troubled look.
"The gate vanished?"
"You saw the news? About gates that pop up and suddenly disappear."
The news? Impossible to miss.
That "miraculous land" they hyped was my neighborhood.
Our sleepy Seoul suburb had gone viral for gates vanishing right after detection.
Last I'd heard, foreign research institutes were flocking to study this nowhere ville.
"And it happened here too!"
Park Dong-jin excitedly explained the anomaly had struck right here—where we were on business for gate defense negotiations—far from our area.
'Wait, then what about our company's defense contract investment?'
Hunter company revenue included state subsidies for gate defense.
More pay for harder fights—fair enough.
But if gates poofed after all that gear, manpower, and time invested, the company just lost out.
'Hold on... no way?'
Not just us—everyone involved was panicking and buzzing.
Gazing at the scene, I flinched.
「Transcendent Rank: Activated」
The ants' expansion prompted me to bump my deity rank, unleashing some unknown power.
It was still active.
My neighborhood and here—both linked to me. And the anomaly dates matched when I'd awakened again, unlocking more of that power.