Neighbors

It was a Black Ant, seemingly one of their scouts. Alone, it crawled aimlessly forward, occasionally tapping this and then that with its antennae.

Rowan slowly approached it, watching the area around it. The direction it had come from was teeming with ants; Rowan could see seven or eight of them.

But the nearest Black Ant companion to this suspected scout was still more than two meters away.

For ants, that was quite a distance, making it difficult for the two to communicate in time.

Rowan fixed his gaze on it. The more than ten meters between them rapidly dwindled.

Even as he scurried at full speed, Rowan stayed alert, dodging a Stinky Earthworm's trap along the way.

Apart from the first time, when he'd been caught off guard and ambushed at close range, the earthworms were easy to spot as long as he was prepared.

That was because the places where they dug their traps always had a little whirlpool of sand and dirt. For sharp-eyed Rowan, noticing these anomalies in advance was child's play.

This ant was much smaller than Rowan, making it exactly his favorite type.

As Rowan drew closer, the Black Ant finally noticed something was wrong, its antennae waving wildly. But it was too late. Rowan was already right beside it, and one sturdy Digging Leg was coming down on its head.

Calling these Black Ants poor-sighted would be giving them too much credit. They mainly relied on the olfactory organs on their antennae to find food. Now that Rowan had gotten right up to one while it was unprepared, it could do nothing but take a beating.

The Black Ant was still dazed from the heavy blow of Rowan's Digging Leg when he bit off one of its hind legs.

The Black Ant's other limbs scraped rapidly against the ground, making faint sounds that seemed to be a distress call. Unfortunately, even the ant nearest to it showed no reaction, so it seemed the signal wasn't getting through.

With no answer to its call for help, the Black Ant had no choice but to fight back. But Rowan had it beat in both size and weight, and it was much weaker than the Earth-Yellow Ant he'd encountered before. It couldn't use Fecal Spray Attack, and the two mandibles beside its mouth were much smaller, making them unlikely to threaten Rowan's armor.

Ants were always called strongmen, and supposedly, if one grew to human size, it would be far stronger than a person. But now they were all bugs, and who didn't have some kind of Exoskeleton Armor?

After several rounds of fighting, the Black Ant lost two more limbs. Only then did it think to flee, but it was too late. With just three legs left, it could barely keep its balance, let alone move quickly.

It could have kept struggling for a while, even though the result wouldn't have changed. But by fleeing, it turned its back on Rowan, saving him a lot of effort.

Rowan easily caught up with the limping Black Ant from behind and pinned its slender waist with a Digging Leg. The Black Ant twisted desperately, trying to attack him with its mandibles, but they couldn't pierce the armor on his Digging Leg.

After subduing the Black Ant, Rowan mixed some mud with his saliva to make a hood, sealing its mouth shut. Then he dragged it away from the scene of the attack before digging his way out.

After digging for a while, he found a passage he'd made earlier. He dragged the Black Ant through it, quickly heading for his underground room. The ant kept fighting stubbornly, but with its mandibles sealed, it posed no threat to Rowan.

Near the room, Rowan stopped and set the ant down on the passage floor. He blocked the way back, forcing it toward the underground room.

The Black Ant was terrified of Rowan. It didn't even think of charging into the passage behind him, and instead limped toward the room on its three legs.

When the Black Ant crawled out of the passage, it found itself suspended in midair. Its three limbs couldn't hold its body in place, and with a plop, it fell out of the passage and landed on the floor of the enormous cavern.

The Black Armored Beetle, which had been wandering around the room, immediately stopped, alert. Its antennae reached toward the spot where the ant had fallen.

In the dark cavern, vision was nearly useless. Without mutated Compound Eyes like Rowan's, it was impossible to see anything at all.

Meanwhile, hearing had become several times more sensitive.

The Black Ant could sense the sounds and vibrations made by the Black Armored Beetle's considerably larger body as it moved across the ground.

It reached its antennae toward the beetle as well, and the pair's antennae collided in midair.

After a brief entanglement, both concluded that the other wasn't a familiar bug. Before the Black Ant could react, a pair of huge, spiked mandibles reached out and clamped down, snapping its body in two.

Black Ants were incredibly tenacious. Even split in two, it kept struggling, its antennae thrashing wildly. The intruder wasn't dead yet, which meant the fight wasn't over. The Black Armored Beetle's mandibles came down again.

After its mandibles opened and closed several times, the scene had become hard to describe. Unidentified fluids clung to them. The intruder threat had been eliminated, and the Black Armored Beetle went back to wandering around.

Rowan, watching from the shadows, nodded with satisfaction. The experiment had gone pretty well. The Black Armored Beetle couldn't communicate, but it really could guard the place. He could safely leave the room's security to it from now on.

As Rowan crawled into the cavern, the unrecognizable mess on the ground killed his appetite. The Black Armored Beetle was a vegetarian, too, but there was someone here who didn't mind eating it.

After tidying up a little, he fed Mother Nest all the pieces that were still fairly intact. Then Rowan went and bit off a section of tree root, which he dragged back as a reward for the Black Armored Beetle.

The Black Armored Beetle showed no sign of pride, as if everything it did was only to be expected—and so was Rowan providing it with food.

Rowan felt irritated every time he looked at this stupid bug.

He wasn't one to hold a grudge, but once supplies were plentiful, he'd definitely melt this bug down and start over.

With the Black Armored Beetle guarding his home, Rowan rested for a bit, then prepared to head out again. He'd found so many Black Ants in that direction, which meant there was an Ant Nest nearby. He needed to go check it out and learn more about this neighbor.

A few days later, Rowan lay in the cavern, pondering the meaning of bug life. After absorbing some genes from the Black Beetle, he'd grown a little over the past few days, going from the size of a fingernail to the size of a one-yuan coin.

As a result, some of the passages he'd originally dug had become too small. He'd widened them all today and had just finished.

It looked like he'd be using this cavern for a while. For the time being, it counted as his home base.

After patrolling for the past few days, he'd finished exploring the area within a hundred meters.

The solitary wanderers came and went in a hurry. He might spot one today, then have no idea where it had gone by tomorrow, so there was no need to pay them much attention.

The greatest threat to his home base was the only neighbor that stayed put: the Black Ant Ant Nest, more than fifty meters away.

The Ant Nest was enormous, but there was no need to worry too much for now. The farthest point its scouts had reached was still more than ten meters from Rowan's home base.

Besides, lately, the scouts it sent in the direction of Rowan's home base kept disappearing for no apparent reason.

So it had reduced the number of scouts it sent that way.