Chapter 58
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 58
Chapter Title: The Queen's Arch-Nemesis (4)
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"Sorry to keep you waiting. Like I told you, this one's especially hard to come by, so I had to pull some strings in Japan to finally get it."
"Damn, it is big."
The dealer I'd been seeing most often lately—the guy who sold me all sorts of insects—showed me the creature in its plastic container.
Truth be told, I'd placed the order quite a while ago. But due to how tough it was to source, it only arrived today.
Inside the container was a massive, dark brown insect about the size of my palm. It was a rare foreign bug commonly known as a rhino beetle.
Famous for its combat prowess among insects, it would surely be useful for my ants.
'It looks a bit scrawny, but as long as it's alive, that's what matters.'
Compared to its ferocious appearance and size that would make bug-haters scream on sight, the rhino beetle just sat there motionless in the container, as if it were sick or something.
Since I'd bought it as ant food anyway, I didn't bother mentioning it.
"Uh, about that one..."
"Oh yeah, weren't you there too, sir? During that dungeon collapse incident when monsters spilled out nearby?"
As I was about to head home with the rhino beetle, I spotted something unfamiliar on the shop wall that I hadn't noticed on the way in.
It was a photo with a signature.
"She's the hot new prospect making waves these days, right? Hunter Ji Ye-eun of Silver Snow. Lives around here, apparently, and she guarded the shelter even though it was her day off."
A clear fan of hunters, the dealer rattled off details I hadn't asked for with more enthusiasm than he'd shown explaining the insects.
'That's the woman.'
I half-listened to his chatter while staring at the woman in the photo with him.
Ji Ye-eun—the same person who'd grabbed my arm back then and told me to evacuate.
I used to know all about promising hunters thanks to my job, but now that I'd stepped away, I was out of the loop on industry news.
'Maybe I should check the Earth board for once.'
The Divine Community naturally came to mind first. Deities active on the Earth board often bragged about the hunters under their command.
A famous rising star like her was bound to have a deity watching over her.
'I've changed a lot too.'
A chuckle escaped me.
In the past, I'd have been starstruck at the sight of a hunter. Now, my first thought was which deity's influence she was under.
If my plan to drive out not just the outer gods invading Earth but also the Divine Net deities treating it as their territory succeeded, the position of hunters—subordinates of those deities—would become incredibly precarious.
Hunters who suddenly lost both their enemies and the system... what would they do?
Could I even handle the fallout back then?
[Asmodra is pleased upon seeing the new prey.]
Of course, right now, I still had my hands full just raising ants.
"No, seriously, is it sick or something? Why isn't it moving?"
[Asmodra is slightly bewildered by the enemy's feeble resistance.]
Tossed into the breeding pen, the rhino beetle showed no signs of activity. It left even me—and Asmodra—taken aback.
Asmodra had fully prepared its combat troops, eager for battle data after seeing that brutal form and massive size, but it made no difference.
Far from a fierce, savage bloodbath, the rhino beetle offered no real resistance even as a swarm of worker ants openly tore into and dismantled its body.
[Asmodra realizes there's another meal inside the enemy.]
But it didn't take long to uncover the reason.
As the ants ripped open the rhino beetle's abdomen, something grotesque wriggled out.
It resembled a black thread but moved with a will of its own—the infamous horsehair worm that had been parasitizing inside the rhino beetle.
'Even rhino beetles can be hosts.'
After looking it up online, I sighed upon learning that the foreign rhino beetle was also one of the horsehair worm's hosts.
"Damn."
The horsehair worm wasn't part of my plans.
Worried about any unexpected issues, I'd meant to retrieve it, but I was too late.
By the time I reacted in surprise, the ants had already shredded the horsehair worm into chunks of meat.
[Asmodra devours prey of a completely different form from its usual fare.]
One unexpected fact was that Asmodra didn't just consume the horsehair worm as nutrients like regular prey—it absorbed its abilities.
Horsehair worms belonged to an entirely different category of creature. I hadn't expected it to be edible like that.
'Well, it's just translated that way for my sake. No rule says it has to follow the latest human academic classifications on Earth.'
I got confused looking up the horsehair worm's exact classification online and felt a bit flustered.
Until now, I'd too naturally assumed it could only prey on things in a stepwise progression.
But that was just my bias, still viewing myself as an ordinary Earthling.
My ants, led by Asmodra, had long surpassed normal ants.
Plus, Asmodra had grown again recently, expanding the types of prey it could consume... So if it could unexpectedly eat something else next time, and it fit 'my ants' own progression,' it wasn't impossible.
[Asmodra puzzles over how to use the abilities of its newly devoured prey.]
Having devoured a parasitic organism for the first time, Asmodra was confused by this novel prey.
I couldn't easily guess how it would utilize that ability either.
"Special Agent, shouldn't we test for weaknesses first? Like a poison that could be lethal?"
"No, there's something more important. They're known never to have made a single vocal sound. So how do they coordinate such precise group tactics...? We need to figure that out."
While Asmodra kept growing in its own way,
the church's mages had begun studying the worker ant Asmodra had deliberately infiltrated.
'Does that woman ever do anything but work?'
I could easily watch them nonstop by pulling up a screen, a sight from the otherworldly humans I rarely saw except through the ants' eyes—outside of wars or scouting.
And the one who stood out most was her.
A beauty in mage-like robes with long silver hair and blue eyes.
Seira, was it?
The sense of familiarity wasn't just from seeing her on-screen all day or because this wasn't our first encounter.
I'd definitely seen her before—probably during the ants' battles in the north.
Having survived that warzone and escaped the north, she'd joined the goddess's forces and was tirelessly devising ways to fight the ants.
"If we can crack their unique communication method, we might disrupt it or even turn it against them."
"Oh..."
Stuck by the captured worker ant for days, conducting nothing but research, she had impressive skills and knowledge—pinpointing what even I recognized as a true vulnerability.
One of my ants' greatest strengths was their hive mind.
The secret to their even more mechanical and thorough collective movements compared to normal pheromone-communicating ants.
If they found a way to interfere with or neutralize that hive mind, as Seira said, the ants would suffer an unprecedented blow.
'Wait, then I...'
Watching Seira, a needless wave of dread hit me too.
If my ants lost to another deity's forces, I wouldn't be unscathed.
Unlike their wild misconceptions, I wasn't some true outer god treating the ants as mere created tools.
"Seira, good news."
"Lady Erianne?"
"It looks like the church council approved your artisan mobilization order and wartime economic reform proposal."
And that wasn't all.
As I watched blankly, someone approached Seira, who was standing by the worker ant.
A woman with light pink short hair, looking like a perfect game character in appearance and attire. The goddess's apostle, Erianne.
[Asmodra reacts to the appearance of its arch-nemesis.]
Asmodra was especially wary of Erianne.
Its recent fascination and research instinct toward humans stemmed from anger originating there.
True to her status as a hero empowered by the goddess, Erianne had slain many ants on the front lines—making her Asmodra's 'sworn enemy.'
Goddess Henes had described such apostles on the community like this: she'd really wrung her out.
"That means we can produce more supplies and secure more resources now. But if we do..."
"I know. The idiots badmouthing you are already multiplying. Not the first time, right? It's all to kill the demons."
Unlike Asmodra, which still didn't fully grasp how human society worked, I'd unwillingly observed this woman Seira enough to know who Asmodra's true nemesis—the one it truly gnashed its mandibles at—was.
The superhuman driving all changes to hold their own against Asmodra and the ants, the 'queen' of the human hive Asmodra so desperately sought.
'It's her.'
I gazed at Seira with mixed feelings.
The ants' enemies were my enemies.
And among those enemies, the core forces of rival deities were obstacles that absolutely had to be eliminated.
Yet her desperate struggles to fight back and find ways felt all too familiar to me.
[Asmodra once again ponders ways to lure its nemesis from the barrier.]
Regardless, Asmodra—its rage reignited—was racking its brain to kill its enemy.
Of course, no matter how furious, Asmodra was still a queen bound to the hive.
Impulsively leading the entire army to assault and breach the barrier wasn't an option.
The barrier was a precious trap the ants had induced the humans to build.
Without sweeping the area, the humans would select and deliver prime, tasty prey right to the barrier.
The ants just raided periodically to harvest it.
[Asmodra orders the nomadic hive to attack the orcs south of the great plains. The main hive's forces will eliminate the enemy's remnants in their territory, then target the foes from across the sea who struck first.]
'No way... trying to lure them out?'
Unexpectedly, control of the blade shifted to the nomadic hive.
I quickly grasped the intent.
By deliberately diverting major forces elsewhere, it would force those inside the barrier to come out.
If they didn't, the ants would still profit from resources gained by attacking new lands.
[The nomadic hive's queen accepts the order.]
With the main hive offering support, the nomadic hive's queen had no reason to refuse.
Unlike Asmodra, the nomadic queen—hooked on frontline combat—immediately mobilized her forces.
< 58- (4) > End