Pick Up the Spoils

The ants tangled their bodies together, forming a net around the Black Beetle.

And the Black Beetle found it harder and harder to shake them off. The battle had gone from a sure ten-to-zero victory to an uncertain outcome. If anyone had placed bets, they would have expected another spectacular disaster.

After the Black Beetle had lost two of its hooked claws and half an antenna, it finally chose to flee.

If the battle continued, it might eventually be defeated, but if it ran, the ants' slender bodies couldn't stop it.

Like a heavy tank charging through an infantry line, the Black Beetle roared away with ants clinging all over it. Along the way, ants were flung off whenever it went too fast.

Since Rowan had been watching from far away, the Black Beetle and some of the ants were out of sight in the blink of an eye.

Rowan didn't stand around dazed. Why had he watched for so long? Besides enjoying the spectacle, he'd also been hoping to see if he could pick up some spoils.

By now, both sides had left the battlefield, leaving plenty of spoils behind. Passing up loot wasn't Rowan's style. He got to his feet and hurried toward the battlefield.

A distance of a dozen or so meters would have taken his former self only a few steps, but for him, now no bigger than a fingernail, it was like running a marathon.

Fortunately, he'd been hoping to scavenge the battlefield all along. While watching, he'd planned his route there well in advance and checked for any dangers along the way.

He hadn't noticed anything unusual, but he'd encountered Foolish Earthworm before, and a predator that hunted by hiding like that was hard to spot unless you got close.

So even as he ran at full speed, Rowan paid close attention to the ground, lest his joy turn to sorrow.

Luckily, he ran into no trouble and reached the battlefield safely. His mouthparts weren't up to the task of quickly eating meat, so he could only pick up the lower half of an ant, stick his rear end up, and start digging underground.

He dug a small hole deep underground and put the food inside, then went back twice more to drag over a head and a piece of a body. By the time he surfaced again, a few ants had appeared on the battlefield. He didn't risk staying and turned back toward the depths.

Carrying the ant parts, he moved even farther underground, then dug out a chamber and opened several escape routes. Afterward, he found some roots to supplement his food.

When he returned again, it was finally time for the main course. He hoped he'd get something useful out of it.

After spending a long time licking the ant meat clean, he tossed the pile of remaining exoskeleton and shell to one side, then settled down to rest, full of anticipation.

Time passed. When Rowan awoke, he ignored his hunger and the warning that his energy reserves were low, and hurried to examine his body.

He checked his antennae, eyes, limbs, and back shell one by one. Nothing had changed.

Rowan was a little disappointed. After watching that Black Ant fight for so long without showing off any special tricks, he shouldn't have expected much.

He pursed his lips in frustration. Huh? Something felt off about his mouth.

Unfortunately, his mouth was in one of the few blind spots of his big eyes. He could only carefully touch it a few times with his limbs, using the fine hairs on them to feel it out.

If only he had a mirror. Then he wouldn't have to go to all this trouble.

Suddenly, a thought struck him. He really was an idiot. His mouth had changed because of the Black Ant, so it must be something like its mouthparts.

The hollow ant head lay nearby. Rowan went over for a closer look.

Comparing what he felt with the hairs on his limbs to the sample in front of him, Rowan got the picture.

"Finally got this damn mouth replaced."

He sighed. He'd resented his old lapping-sucking mouthparts for ages. Couldn't they have given him something more useful as his starting equipment? The moment he was "born," he'd been given a mouth for freeloading.

Now he'd replaced it with the same kind of chewing mouthparts as the ant in front of him. His original mushroom-shaped mouth was gone, replaced by several new lip lobes, jaw lobes, palps, and some plates. They were responsible for pushing food into his mouth, like having a ring of little hands around a human's mouth. Could you picture that?

Although chewing mouthparts were the most basic kind of insect mouthparts, lapping-sucking mouthparts had evolved from them. Strictly speaking, going from lapping-sucking mouthparts to chewing mouthparts shouldn't count as evolution. It was more like devolution.

But sometimes the most basic was also the most versatile. What suited you best was what mattered.

It was a bright, sunny day, and the familiar shrubs had unfurled their little green leaves.

As the underground river drew closer to the surface, the vegetation grew denser. The yellow sand and stones were no longer visible on the ground; instead, it was covered with decaying leaves.

Rowan crawled underground for a long time, moving far from the battlefield above him the day before. Then he pushed aside a layer of leaves and emerged.

Unknown insects hid among the shrubs, making all kinds of chirping sounds. Compared to the lifeless desert, this place was clearly much livelier.

It also meant there were many more dangers.

Rowan had only been crawling for a little while when his antennae picked up some strange sounds coming from a nearby shrub.

He quickly turned to look and spotted a relative of yesterday's "War God" chewing on leaves. Those sounds were coming from it.

This Black Beetle was even larger than the one from yesterday, and all its limbs were intact. That was how Rowan could tell at a glance that it wasn't the same Black Armored Beetle he'd seen the day before.

But he never expected such a mighty, domineering big shot, who'd taken on so many opponents at once, to be a vegetarian. Rowan was stunned. It was like a burly man in sturdy armor, wielding an unmatched greatsword, charging back and forth through the enemy ranks and returning drenched in blood—then grinning at the crowd cheering his triumphant return and saying, "Actually, I'm just cosplaying."

Rowan was deeply resentful. He considered himself a carnivorous insect, yet a vegetarian had outclassed him in every way, from size to equipment. It didn't feel good at all.

But before he could complain much, he noticed what looked like a piece of bark shift not far from the vegetarian big shot.

Rowan immediately focused and looked closely. He saw a pair of long, slender antennae twitching wildly at the front of the "bark." That piece of bark was actually an insect.

Rowan hadn't even recovered from the first shock when he was stunned all over again. Were insects really getting this flashy these days? What kind of black technology was this?

His knowledge of entomology was woefully limited. He'd heard of chameleons, but never of insects that changed color. The insect's camouflage still had a few tiny flaws, but if it didn't move, it really was hard to spot.

Whenever the leaves were stirred by the wind and the branches swayed with a rustle, the insect used the sound as cover. As if it were being blown by the wind too, it inched toward the Black Beetle, which was leisurely chewing on leaves.

Several minutes later, the Camouflage Bug had crept to within a step of the Black Beetle.

The Black Beetle still hadn't noticed a thing, but Rowan, watching the spectacle, was on edge. What was that Camouflage Bug going to do?