Floor 42, The Ant Nest (1)
Subdue the Ant Nest. Time remaining: 09 hours 56 minutes.
The ants that came crawling through the passage were not black.
Five massive ants, red as freshly spilled blood.
They weren't exactly the ants I knew. Something like ants… the Tower's correction had apparently decided to call them ants anyway.
Granted, they were certainly monsters worthy of the 42nd floor. They were enormous, and far more grotesque than any ant I'd ever seen.
But that wasn't what struck me as odd.
"Damn it, how are ants this damn tough?"
The shell and gore of a dead ant clung to my axe, refusing to let go. It was as if their muscles contracted deliberately the moment they died — all to keep their enemy from pulling his weapon free.
I wrenched the axe out of the ant's severed head with a forceful tug.
That part was fine. These were 42nd-floor monsters, after all; it made sense they'd have some peculiar trait or other.
What genuinely unsettled me was the fact that the ants could cast magic.
I'd charged in expecting mindless beast-ants to swarm me — instead, they put distance between us and started chanting.
A orb of black flame streaked in from the left; a blue spear hurtled in from the right.
I rolled forward across the ground, ducking the fire and the spear with room to spare, then immediately spat out a chain of lightning at the ants.
The ants seized up in an instant.
I didn't let the opening slip. Right away, I activated the Shadow Monarch.
Three shadow spears erupted from the ground and skewered the frozen ants through their heads.
And still, the ants didn't die. They thrashed about with holes punched clean through their skulls. Their lives ran longer than I'd expected.
I formed shadow spears again and drove them deep into the ants' abdomens. I deliberately left one for Dobby to handle.
Soon enough, Dobby ran his sword through the last remaining ant — first through its body, then through its head.
Hm. Whoever taught him, the boy fights well.
Still — ants that cast magic? What next?
Honestly, I'd expected a straightforward brawl from something called an "ant nest," so I'll admit I was a little thrown.
Five ants. As the first to appear, they were clearly some kind of scouting party.
It was manageable now, but…
If they came in a swarm, dodging magic in a narrow tunnel would become a serious problem.
Ryun spoke slowly.
"This… much, I… can… understand… There'll be… hundreds… thousands… more… of these… things.... Quite… the… annoyance… they'll… be...."
He was right.
It wasn't just the magic — swinging an axe at every single one of them was a losing proposition when they were this damn durable.
I nodded at Ryun's words.
"Exactly. Something's off about this, isn't there?"
That was something I hadn't heard from Ha Heijeong.
Since the trial was clearly going to change anyway, I hadn't pressed her for details — but if the floor had traits this distinctive, she would have told me for sure.
These were more than the ant monsters I'd been picturing.
Hm. Other climbers are actually supposed to clear this?
Judging by every climber I'd watched so far, very few of them looked capable of getting through this.
My personal floor had definitely been made harder.
The 29th floor had held the same trial, but with two murderous monsters thrown in just for me.
So — ants of the Demon Realm. On other climbers' trials, it probably appeared as something generic like "ant monster."
So… the 41st floor gave me an Ent swordmaster, and now this floor gives me ant mages.
Looking at it through the lens of "my personal floors are harder," something about it felt strangely fitting. Like the trials before it, it seemed designed to summon powerful foes and forge me through them.
Floor 41 was the sword. Floor 42 was magic.
So what would the 43rd floor throw at me?
The question crossed my mind, but I shook my head almost at once. There was no need to agonize over it now. I could think about it in the next Waiting Room.
First things first — dealing with these ants.
One on one, they're nothing special…
The magic was the real problem.
The tunnels of the ant nest were five or six meters wide. Not cramped, but hardly spacious either.
If the ants simply charged, I'd never get surrounded — good news for me. But once they started slinging spells, the calculus changed.
Dozens of ants would rain magic down from the far end of the tunnel.
I'd have to eat it head-on, with nowhere to sidestep.
And there was no guarantee the ones I'd just met were all that would appear.
I knew nothing of ant ecology, but I did know that worker ants weren't the whole story — there were queens, and soldiers too.
Presumably, the deeper I went, the uglier it would get.
Well. Either way, it was time to move forward again.
Subdue the Ant Nest. Time remaining: 09 hours 32 minutes.
The swarming ants kept multiplying.
Magic missiles. Flames. Blue spears. Every kind of spell imaginable came screaming in, and the ground beneath my feet caved in and churned.
Dobby had his barrier, so he was fine — I spent the whole time sprinting up and down that cramped tunnel.
Swinging the axe directly in a situation like this barely helped. Dead ants' flesh clung to the blade and dragged at it, besides which, killing dozens one by one was hopelessly inefficient.
I was mowing them down as much as I could with the Essence of Lightning and the Shadow Monarch…
One cast for lightning, two for the shadow curtain.
It wasn't exactly exhausting — but with my hands constantly busy and spells to dodge on top of that, it was a genuine pain in the ass.
This was the kind of hour where I started missing Ha Heijeong.
If she were here, she'd just wipe them all out with fire…
Her on the 13th floor came to mind — burning away a horde of insects that came surging in like they'd swallow the sky. The crisp popping as they burst was so satisfying, too.
Granted, the Essence of Lightning could kill them just as dead if I pushed it hard enough, but it wasn't as efficient as flame.
"How… boring…"
Ryun, dangling in my grip, complained at length.
I'm sorry, what?
"You'd rather be inside one of those ants?"
"Well… better… than… sitting… still… I'd… say...."
"You're serious?"
I could not comprehend it. So bored of sitting around that he'd rather occupy an enemy's body — what a truly one-of-a-kind Ent.
I shook my head.
Then I finished off the incoming ants, stood in place, and sank into thought for a moment.
What if I just threw up the shadow curtain, slipped inside, and took out the queen first?
Not a bad idea.
As a rule, the queen ant had her own chamber. Kill her first, then pick off whatever ants came pouring through the chamber's entrance at my leisure.
After all, the nest's entrance was sealed behind a barrier — the ants had no route to retreat through.
Breach the queen's chamber, and every ant would come running to it.
Defense beat pushing through.
I could even plant shadow spears at the entrance ahead of time.
Truth be told, what I really wanted was to collapse the whole nest from the outside, but that wasn't possible…
"Dobby, from here on we move quietly."
"What do you mean?"
"We sneak in through the shadows and kill the queen first."
"Taking… the… easy… road… is… beneath… me...."
"Ryun, quiet down. It's not like these are guys we need to swing axes at."
"That's… true, but…"
"Then hush up."
Irritation had crept into my voice without my meaning for it to.
Until just moments ago, I'd been trading blows with a swordmaster under a swordmaster's tutelage — and now here I was, throwing lightning and shadow spears at ants. What was I supposed to call that feeling? An identity crisis?
I wanted this floor over with, fast.
I pulled the shadow curtain over myself, planning to dash in a straight line all the way to the queen's chamber.
Subdue the Ant Nest. Time remaining: 08 hours 08 minutes.
An hour and a half had slipped by before I knew it.
I'd been moving in without fighting, under the cover of the shadow curtain — but contrary to what I'd expected, the queen's chamber wasn't easy to find.
The nest bristled with forks and branching paths, and on top of that, every so often the tunnels would be packed solid with ants.
Like right now.
God, I could use a flamethrower.
I had no idea what they were doing, but hundreds of ants stood motionless in the tunnel, blocking it end to end.
The forks I could handle — Dobby's instincts knew the way. But this… there was nothing to be done about this.
Something like this had happened earlier, too.
I'd been weighing whether to use the Essence of Lightning when the ants suddenly shifted and let me through — but this time, there was no sign of that happening.
Fifteen minutes of waiting, and the irritation was starting to gnaw at me.
Should I just blast them with lightning?
Every fiber of me wanted to. But then all this sneaking around would've been pointless — the ants at my back would swarm in, and things would get messy fast.
…Fine. Five more minutes.
Just then, a faint ripple of energy spread out from beyond the wall of ants.
The epicenter wasn't far. A hundred fifty meters, maybe?
Wait — is the space behind them the queen's chamber?
Is that why they're camped out here like statues?
It made sense. If I could feel a ripple of mana, then the queen had to be doing something in there…
A hidden mission. The odds were strong.
Moving without a single fight, I'd reached this point absurdly fast. Which meant this floor's hidden mission was probably…
Reaching the queen's chamber within a set amount of time.
About six minutes left on the clock. The odds were high that the queen lay a hundred and fifty meters ahead.
Even if it strained me, my best move was to shove through the ants and run.
The moment the thought formed, I wrenched my mana up roughly. Lightning flickered and coiled around my body.
"Dobby, hop on."
"Got it!"
Dobby took my axe off my hands and scrambled onto my back in a hurry. He was bigger now and armored on top of it, so he weighed more than before — but nothing I couldn't handle.
Then I sent a descending bolt of lightning knifing through the ants as I charged down the tunnel's length.
"Kkiiiek!"
"Krreeeaagh!"
The ants seized up. A few of them must have died, but the vast majority just convulsed where they stood.
Killing them all hadn't been the plan to begin with. Getting into the queen's chamber was what mattered right now.
I kicked off the ground and launched myself. The lead ant's head was right beneath my feet.
One, two, three — leaps chained into leaps.
"Kkieeeek! —!"
A few ants, whether from high resistance or plain stubbornness, were still moving just fine.
Spells came flying in. Some I ducked under; the ones too fast to dodge simply, I evaded with a sideways leap.
I kicked off the tunnel wall and landed on another ant's body.
Then I let lightning fly again and sprinted across the ants' backs.
I was driving my legs near their absolute limit. In under ten seconds, I covered a hundred meters.
And there, past the sea of ants — the queen's chamber came into view.
Huh?
Oddly enough, the queen's chamber had something none of the other rooms had: an iron door.
Winged ants, apparently having caught wind of the disaster unfolding, were scrambling to slam it shut.
Like hell I'll allow that.
I activated Flash Step and hurled lightning in the same breath.
Time slowed to a crawl.
The distance was just enough to make it through before the iron door closed.
The winged ants writhed where the bolt caught them, and I tore across the tops of their heads at a dead sprint.
Before the door was even half shut, I was already inside the queen's chamber.
A cavernous hollow.
Winged ants were turning to face me.
And at the center of them stood an ant noticeably smaller than the rest.
Small as she was, the aura rolling off her was in a class of her own — the queen, no question about it.
Hm?
Then, behind the queen, I spotted something strange.
Something was descending through a hole punched in the chamber floor.
More than half of it had already vanished below, so I couldn't see it clearly — but the trailing end looked like a silkworm cocoon.
I watched it a moment longer, then released Flash Step.
In an instant, the cocoon sank out of sight, and the churned earth sealed itself back over the hole.
That settled it — that thing was the hidden mission.
If I'd come in the standard way, it would've been long buried by the time I arrived, and I'd never have known it existed.
"I cast a barrier, for heaven's sake! My children haven't said a word either. You! How on earth did you get in here?!"
Unlike the other ant monsters, the queen shrieked in an actual voice.
Ants were already wheeling around me, boxing me in from every side.
First I'd have to deal with the queen and her swarm — then go hunting for that cocoon that had slipped away beneath my nose.