Busy

Rowan first took them to find some food. The ants didn't seem interested in the roots and only replenished some of their moisture.

He hadn't expected these guys to be so picky. Rowan couldn't help complaining to himself. Your master is chewing on roots, and you're still picking and choosing? Do you have any idea how embarrassing that is for me?

The two ants couldn't understand anything that complicated and simply ignored him.

Rowan sighed inwardly, loneliness settling over him.

Once they'd eaten and drunk their fill, Rowan bit through three roots and gave the order, "Take them back to the nest."

As it turned out, he'd overestimated the ants' intelligence. They didn't choose sensible angles to drag the larger roots like Rowan did. They simply grabbed the roots and hauled them along, often getting them wedged in the passage.

To accommodate them, Rowan had already made the roots they carried very small, but they still ran into all sorts of problems. Before they'd crawled very far, they got stuck in the passage and couldn't move.

He bit the roots in half again, and this time they finally fit. Even so, the total amount of roots carried by the two ants was less than a tenth of what Rowan was dragging.

Back in the nest, Rowan gave some of the roots to the Black Armored Beetle, then fed the rest to the Mother Nest.

While the Mother Nest absorbed them, Rowan gave the two ants names.

He named one Black Two and the other Black Three. After testing them, though, he realized it had all been for nothing. They could only understand the vague ideas of "you," "me," and "him." They had no concept of names and couldn't understand what they meant.

The result wasn't ideal, but Rowan didn't mind. This saved him the trouble of exhausting his brain cells coming up with names once he had more underlings.

After that, Rowan led them to dig a room not far from the nest. It was a Hatching Room, specially dug to keep the Black Armored Beetle at bay.

By then, the Mother Nest had recovered some of its strength, so Rowan ordered it to produce an egg.

Once the egg had been laid, Rowan carefully positioned himself in the Black Armored Beetle's path, then instructed the two ants to look after it.

The ants quickly understood what he meant. One of them picked up the egg, and Rowan led them to the Hatching Room, where they set it down.

Rowan had originally planned to leave them alone and come back later to see how things had gone. Then he realized that one ant was enough to watch over a single egg, leaving the other free for an experiment.

He ordered one of the ants to "find food." To his surprise, it understood and acted on the instruction, crawling down a passage.

Curious, Rowan followed behind to see where it would look for food.

The two insects crawled through the passage. It was the same one Rowan had taken them down earlier to chew on the roots.

Rowan had a few suspicions.

Sure enough, the ant crawled all the way to the root, bit through a patch of bark, and began sucking.

Before long, a droplet of water appeared between its two large mandibles.

Rowan watched in amazement. He couldn't figure out how the ant had coaxed a droplet of water out of the root, let alone how it could pick the droplet up.

Wanting a better look, Rowan moved closer to the ant, and it noticed him. He didn't mind; he hadn't been trying to hide.

But what happened next was awkward.

After noticing where Rowan was, the ant turned around and offered him the droplet of water between its mandibles.

Rowan froze for a moment. When he came to his senses, he realized the ant was trying to feed him. He couldn't help laughing in disbelief. What kind of pampered treatment is this?

Although he was an insect now, Rowan still couldn't accept being fed by another insect. So he gave the order, "Search for food and take it back to the nest."

A little while later, the ant returned to the nest with the droplet of water.

Rowan sighed to himself. This was going to be a hassle. There weren't many insects yet, but what would happen when their numbers grew? He couldn't follow them around and issue instructions every moment, telling them what to do.

He followed the ant back to the nest and saw that, without any instruction from Rowan, the forager had fed the droplet of water to the ant that had stayed behind.

Rowan's eyes lit up. This showed that they had some kind of instinct.

After that, Rowan began conducting all sorts of experiments.

After half a day of trying out different instructions, Rowan realized they didn't need precise orders at all. As long as he didn't tell them things like "stand guard" or "stay here," they would sit blankly for a while, then find something to do on their own.

When they got hungry, they went to find food. They could regulate the humidity in the Hatching Room, too. In short, Rowan didn't need to worry about them much.

With that settled, Rowan had the Mother Nest hatch ten more eggs. That was its maximum daily output without harming itself.

Over the next few days, the Mother Nest produced ten eggs and two small Mature Form ants each day.

As for Rowan, he was exhausted, busier than ever. The ants couldn't survive on water alone, and since they were only small Mature Forms, they couldn't beat the Black Ants next door. So every day, he had to hunt a certain number of Black Ants and drag them back himself.

The prey went first to the Mother Nest, ensuring it got enough nutrition to complete its planned production each day.

What remained went to feed the Black Ants the Mother Nest had produced. With their numbers increasing by two each day, their consumption was growing, too.

Rowan's workload grew heavier by the day. These days, he barely got by chewing on roots himself. He hadn't eaten much ant meat at all, so his body had grown only a little over the past few days—barely enough to notice.

This couldn't go on. He was the boss. It was bad enough that his underlings didn't pay tribute; now they were feasting every day while he scraped by on meager fare. Things weren't going the way they should.

For some reason, this reminded him of White Worm, his former worker insect. This couldn't continue. He had to find a way to turn things around, fast.

Fortunately, the first two, Black Two and Black Three, had developed quickly. With enough ant meat to eat, they'd grown fast, and now they were big enough to go hunting with him. Of course, Rowan still did the actual hunting; the two underlings were only responsible for carrying the prey.

Still, this saved him quite a bit of effort and time. But it was only a temporary solution. With two adult ants added every day, and more eggs possibly hatching in the future, the thought alone gave him a headache.

Rowan had considered letting them forage on the surface by themselves, but the adults were all reduced versions. They hadn't reached their full size, and a lot of effort had gone into producing them.

Their numbers were still so low that he'd be upset for ages if even one died. He'd wait until they'd grown more before trying that. As long as they got through the difficult early stage, things would get much easier once they could forage on their own.

Two more days passed like this, and at last the first batch of eggs began to hatch.