The Ants' Weakness
The men of Squads 8, 9, and 10 came back drenched in ant fluids. Among them, Amon's face was white as chalk. A mercenary who knew him asked after him, voice tight with concern.
"Hey, Amon... you okay?"
"The hell kind of question is that? Do I look okay to you?!"
The answer came out in a snarl.
"Goddamn it...! Shit...! This is fucking insane..."
Amon looked around as if he still could not believe what he was seeing. Only eight mercenaries had made it back. The other sixteen had been snatched up in the ants' pincers and dragged away into the dark. The survivors, at least, were uninjured — the ants never tried to wound their prey.
"You all did well. I'm glad you made it."
Ayla came forward and offered the eight of them what comfort she could. Rage sat on every face. Amon, more than anyone, was the one who demanded answers.
"Captain! Why didn't you come save us?! If you'd just shown up, those sixteen wouldn't have had to die! Durek hyung wouldn't have gotten dragged off like that!"
"Captain! You said the Red Fox Mercenary Group doesn't abandon family!"
Ayla listened to them howl at her, and not a single shade of her expression changed. They had expected an apology, at least. What she gave them instead was something else entirely.
"Huh? Why would we?"
"W-what?"
Ayla let out a short, incredulous scoff.
"Weren't you lot the Durek Mercenary Corps? You think the Red Fox is some casual club you can join whenever you feel like it? Unbelievable. Christ. I wouldn't even run a reading group that way."
The sheer absurdity in her voice left all eight of them speechless.
How did she know? In the middle of that stunned confusion, Amon caught sight of a rookie standing off in the distance, watching them with a gaze that was trying — and failing — not to look like it was watching. The same rookie Den had beaten down.
That bastard... he heard everything that day.
"Anyway, Amon — congrats on joining a brand-new mercenary company. Founding members always get the better treatment, you know."
Amon's mouth fell open. Founding members? The founder was already dead.
"N-no... Captain! That was just drunk talk at a—"
"Don't give me that shit, Amon."
Ayla's voice came down like frost, cutting the pathetic excuse in half.
"I'd rather you didn't piss me off any further. Hearing those miserable little justifications would only make it worse. While I was busting my ass trying to keep you alive, you were already lining up to stab me in the back."
Amon shook, trembling with a rage he could not swallow.
"You... you fucking bitch...! If you hadn't fallen for Noas and that noble's lies in the first place, none of this would've happened!"
"Heh. Amon. You think everyone sells out their country just because it's falling apart? People like you were always going to be like this. You were just waiting for an excuse."
She turned her back on him as if he were not even worth the rest of her time.
"Ah — almost forgot. The survivors are all being reassigned to Squad 8, and from this moment on, you take the vanguard. Get ready. That's the young lord's order."
"W-what?"
The color drained from all eight faces at once. Their sword-hands were already shaking from exhaustion — and now they were being put out in front again. It was as good as being told to go die.
"Boss... what the hell do we do now?"
"Amon! You're the one who told us to join the rear squads!!"
"Talk to the Captain, please!! I— I only got dragged into your mess by accident! I'm still Red Fox!"
"Boss..!!"
Amon's mind went blank. The crying voices of the men who called him brother reached him as if from very far away.
How did it all end up like this...? Where did it even go wrong...?
Messi watched Ayla walk toward him. Behind her, the mercenaries were coming apart. He thought, without much sympathy, that they had earned every bit of it.
"Did it go all right?"
"Yeah. Got it all off my chest. Don't worry."
"I thought you were too soft-hearted to do something like that. I guess I was wrong."
"...You're the only one here who'd ever call me soft, Messi."
The unshakable mask she had worn in front of Amon cracked. Tears stood in both of Ayla's eyes. Messi reached out and patted her shoulder, quietly, and let his hand rest there.
"...I'm fine. I have to get stronger, like you said. And I don't care if those bastards die. It's what comes next that worries me."
Ayla had watched the last fight. The ants were many, and they were strong. They did not leave wounds — but the anesthetic stingers were a weapon all their own, and a terrifying one.
"I don't think you'll need to worry so much about what comes next."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I'll tell you. The ants' weakness."
"Th-they actually have a weakness?"
"I figured it out watching the last fight. Those things... I think their antennae are the weak point."
He had known the weakness all along. Nobody discovered something like that from watching a single engagement. But he wrapped it up like fresh, still-warm intelligence and handed it to her. His original plan had been to wait — to tell her after a few more clashes, once Durek was dead or Squads 8, 9, and 10 had taken catastrophic losses. The damage had just come faster, and heavier, than he had expected. That was the only reason he was telling her now. A dazed look crossed her face.
"An-antennae... it was something that simple?"
They live in the dark, so their eyesight is poor. For creatures like that, the antennae are a vital sensory organ. They use them to tell friend from foe, and to keep their balance. They even speak to their own kind through them. For those things, it is an essential part of the body.
He recited his master's words exactly as he had heard them, and Ayla looked as if she could not quite believe it. The weak point was not hidden somewhere on the body. It stuck out in front of the head as if it were asking to be cut. And for something he claimed to have noticed from watching a single fight, the explanation was strangely thorough.
"If you can't take my word for it, watch the next fight. Nothing's more convincing than seeing it yourself."
The chance to test it arrived sooner than anyone expected.
The first engagement had produced results, and the ants now knew there were intruders in their tunnels. They had gone out to hunt. From here on, the real battle began.
The ants no longer came straight down the passage the way they had the first time. They climbed the walls. They came along the ceiling. The sight of them was hideous.
The mercenaries called up the weakness that had been passed through the ranks after the first fight, and they were not sure what to make of it.
The antennae? We really just have to aim for those?
Do we trust Messi on this, or not?
The ants, from the beginning, did everything they could to keep from putting a scratch on their prey. The only thing worth fearing, then, was the anesthetic stinger. Nothing else. Well — the pincers, with that monstrous strength behind them, were frightening enough. But if the antennae really were the weak point, the entire shape of the fight was about to change.
"Think what Messi found is actually true?"
"Squad leader, let's just try it. Honestly, whether he's right or not, it doesn't make much difference for us."
Even among the knights, opinion was split. Of course, for men whose combat power so thoroughly outclassed the ants, it hardly mattered where the weak point was — or whether there was one at all.
"They're coming! Get ready!!"
An ant dropped from the ceiling into the defensive line, pincers spreading to snatch a mercenary off his feet. He was one of the men who had survived the first fight, and he read the movement just in time, slipping past it by a hair. Then he remembered what they had been told, and he swung.
The blade sheared through.
The antenna came off clean. The shell there was nothing like the armor on the body; it parted with almost no resistance. And the ant's reaction was anything but ordinary.
SKREEEEEEE!!
It was the first time any of them had heard an ant scream. The creature slammed its body into the ant beside it, then hurled itself in another direction entirely, crashing and reeling without sense or aim.
"It works! This actually works!!"
Glad shouts went up along the line. All they had to do was slip the pincers, then take the antennae. That was the whole fight.
No — before long, they stopped dodging the pincers at all. The grab did not even hurt, and getting caught only brought them closer to the antennae. There was always a delay before the anesthetic stinger came out. In that window, they simply cut. And that was that.
"Hahaha! Messi was right!"
"That son of a bitch is something else. How the hell did he figure that out?"
"Die, you ant bastards!"
Later, the mercenaries started throwing themselves into the pincers on purpose, baiting the grab. The more they did it, the worse the ants' losses became. Unlike the first fight, the mercenaries' casualties were — quite literally — none.
"So that's what it was... that's why he chose the Ant Tunnels."
Ereb was impressed. Messi had watched the first fight's casualties come in and had not worried at all. Now Ereb understood why.
"Young Master. Did I not tell you? I cannot promise I can guide you safely along the shortest route — but I am confident I can escort you safely along the longest one."
"Bwahahaha! You really are keeping us safe. Messi, it's just like you said! Hahaha!"
Hunters terrified of leaving a mark on their prey. There was nothing threatening about them. Flush with momentum, the mercenaries swung their swords with something close to joy, cutting and cutting. Eventually the knights sheathed their blades and simply watched. Using a knife meant for oxen to slaughter chickens felt like a waste of a good edge.
The ants' threat level had plummeted that far, that fast.
But if it's this easy, do we even need to take the Queen?
The question surfaced in Ereb's mind unbidden. Messi had said, with complete seriousness, that they would die if they did not capture her. For a warning like that, things were going far too smoothly. Which meant there was another problem still waiting.
Ereb kept turning it over, trying to guess.
...Do stronger ants show up later? Ants with venom? What is it?
What kind of problem would justify a warning like that...?
He could have just asked Messi and gotten a simple answer. Ereb kept working it out himself anyway.
Time answered him soon enough.
Thirty minutes into the fighting, the ants were still coming, with no end in sight.
"Fuck! There's no end to them!"
A mercenary screamed it more than shouted it. Killing them had become easy. The problem was the sheer, crushing weight of numbers that would not stop. Worse, the ants with their antennae already cut were beginning to clog the passage, occupying space, fouling the formation's ability to move at all.
That was when Ereb understood how serious it was. If they kept fighting like this, they would simply exhaust themselves to death.
"This... wasn't going to be quite so easy after all."
"We're one hundred and forty-four humans fighting an entire kingdom. Of course it wouldn't be easy."
"So that's why you said to put a blade to the kingdom's one and only leash."
"We have no way of withstanding their full strength. We'll have to hold out as far as the Central Plaza, rotating in our reserves as we go."
Ereb finally understood why Messi had been so determined to keep the mercenaries alive. This was not a question of who was strong and who was weak. It was a question of who could last, and who could not. More bodies meant better odds. That much was obvious.
Follow that thought far enough, and a man might ask whether it would not have been better to keep Durek and his followers alive as well. Ereb said nothing of the kind. Messi had fully expected that he wouldn't.
Ereb was a man with a proper military education. He knew better than anyone that the spear at your back was more dangerous than the sword in front of you. Settle the problem inside first. Then put everything you have into the problem outside. It was the right choice.
"Sir Ramang. Let's manage the mercenaries' stamina as well."
"Understood. Knights, draw your swords! We're rotating with the mercenaries."
On Ereb's judgment, the knights who had been standing by threw themselves into the fight.
The moment the anesthetic wore off, Durek came to. Pitch darkness. Not a scrap of light. Terror surged up through him — where the hell was he?
Fuck, where is this?!
The last thing he remembered before he blacked out sent a crawl up his spine. A giant ant's pincers closing around him, those compound eyes filling his vision — and then nothing.
Don't tell me this is their stomach.
He pressed a palm to the floor and groped wildly at his surroundings. The texture under his hand was dirt, thank god. So it was the Ant Tunnels. But then why was he here? The ant had brought him. Which meant...
Was this a food warehouse?
If it was, there ought to be others who had been dragged in with him.
"Hey! Anybody there?!"
Durek's shout rolled through the tunnel. The sound climbed, bounced, and came back to him again and again — a closed space, then, with a ceiling high enough to make an echo like that.
"What the hell is this place..."
That was when it happened.
A strange thought brushed against his mind.
You... have... awakened.