Busy

Rowan first led them to find some food, but the ants didn't seem interested in the tree roots, only stopping to supplement a bit of moisture.

He hadn't expected these guys to be such picky eaters, which made Rowan want to complain. Their master was gnawing on tree roots, yet they were being selective—didn't they know how much this hurt his pride?

The two ants could not comprehend such complex sentiments and simply ignored him.

Rowan sighed inwardly, a sense of loneliness washing over him.

Once they were full and hydrated, Rowan bit off three tree roots and issued the command, "Bring them back to the nest."

As it turned out, he had overestimated the ants' intelligence. They didn't know how to use reasonable angles to drag larger roots like Rowan did. They only knew how to stubbornly clamp onto the roots and pull with brute force, frequently getting them stuck.

To accommodate them, Rowan had already made the roots they carried quite small, but they still ran into all sorts of problems, getting stuck in the tunnels before they had even crawled very far.

After biting the roots in half again, they were finally able to manage. However, the total amount of roots the two ants were carrying was still less than a tenth of what Rowan was dragging.

Back at the nest, Rowan distributed some roots to the Black Beetles and then fed the rest to the Mother Nest.

While the Mother Nest was busy absorbing the nutrients, Rowan decided to give the two of them names.

He named one of them Black Two and the other Black Three. After some testing, however, he realized it had been a waste of effort. They could only understand the vague concepts of "you," "me," and "him," but had no concept of names and couldn't grasp their meaning at all.

Although the result wasn't ideal, Rowan was actually happy about it. It saved him trouble; he wouldn't have to exhaust his brain cells thinking of names as his number of underlings grew.

Afterward, Rowan led them to dig out a room not far from the nest. This was a Hatching Room specifically excavated to keep the Black Beetles away.

At this moment, the Mother Nest had recovered some of its vitality, so Rowan issued the command to produce an egg.

Once the egg was ejected, Rowan carefully blocked the path of the Black Beetles and instructed the two ants to take care of it.

The ants quickly understood the meaning of his words, and one of them picked up the egg. Then, led by Rowan, they arrived at the Hatching Room to set it down.

Rowan had originally intended to leave them alone and check on the results after a while. Then he realized that one ant was enough to look after a single egg, leaving the other free for experimentation.

He issued the command "search for food" to one of the ants, and to his surprise, it actually understood and took action, crawling toward one of the tunnels.

Rowan followed curiously to see where it would go to find food.

The two insects crawled through the tunnel—the very same one where Rowan had taken them to gnaw on roots earlier.

Rowan already had a few guesses.

Sure enough, the ant crawled all the way to the tree roots, bit through a piece of bark, and began to suck.

In a short while, a bead of water appeared on the two large mandibles at the corner of its mouth.

Rowan watched in amazement; he couldn't figure out how the ant managed it, being able to extract a bead of water from the root and even carry it.

To see more clearly, Rowan moved close to the ant, only to be discovered. He didn't care, as he hadn't been trying to hide himself anyway.

However, what happened next was a bit awkward.

Upon noticing Rowan's position, the ant actually turned around and offered the water bead on its mandibles to Rowan's mouth.

Rowan was stunned for a moment, only realizing afterward that the ant was trying to feed him. This left him feeling both amused and frustrated—how could he be receiving such pampered treatment?

Even though he was an insect now, Rowan still couldn't accept being fed by another insect. So, he issued the command, "Search for food, bring it back to the nest."

A while later, the ant returned to the nest with the water bead.

Rowan sighed inwardly, thinking this was troublesome. The number of insects was small now, but what would happen when the population grew? There would be no way to follow them around and issue commands to direct their work.

Following the ant back to the nest, he discovered that the foraging ant, without any command from Rowan, had fed the water bead to the ants left behind.

Rowan's eyes lit up; this meant they possessed some kind of instinct.

Afterward, Rowan began various experiments.

After half a day of trying different commands, Rowan discovered that he didn't actually need precise instructions. As long as he didn't give them commands like "stand guard" or "stay here," they would start finding work for themselves after a brief period of idleness.

They would find food when hungry and manage the humidity in the Hatching Room; there was simply no need for Rowan to worry about them.

With this figured out, Rowan had the Mother Nest hatch 10 eggs—the maximum daily output possible without damaging the Mother Nest itself.

In the following days, the Mother Nest produced 10 eggs and two small-sized mature ants every day.

Rowan himself, however, was tired as a dog and busier than ever. Because the ants couldn't survive on water alone, and because they were only small-sized mature versions, they were no match for the neighbor's Black Ants. He had no choice but to go out and hunt a certain number of Black Ants every day to drag back.

These prey were prioritized for the Mother Nest to ensure it received the nutrition needed to complete its daily production quota.

The rest went to feeding the Black Ants produced by the Mother Nest, and as their numbers increased by two each day, their consumption grew larger as well.

Rowan's workload became increasingly heavy. Nowadays, he just barely managed to survive by gnawing on a few tree roots himself, rarely even getting to eat ant meat. This caused his body size to grow only a tiny bit over several days, with almost no visible change.

This couldn't go on. He was the boss; even if his underlings didn't pay tribute to him, it was wrong that they were eating high on the hog every day while he was left eating chaff and drinking thin gruel. The direction of the plot was all wrong.

This inexplicably reminded him of the tool-insect White Worm from before. This couldn't continue; he had to find a way to turn the situation around immediately.

Fortunately, the original Black Two and Black Three were developing quickly, and with a sufficient supply of ant meat, their size increased rapidly. They were now able to come out hunting with him—though Rowan still did the actual killing, with the two underlings only responsible for transport.

Still, this saved him a significant amount of effort and time. However, this was only temporary; with two new adults added every day, plus the potential future hatchings, his head ached just thinking about it.

Rowan had considered letting them find food on the surface by themselves, but the current adults were "budget versions" whose bodies hadn't fully developed, and they had been produced at great cost.

With their numbers still so low, he would feel heartbroken for a long time if even one died. It was better to wait until they grew up a bit more. Once they survived this difficult early period and could forage independently, life would be much easier.

Two more days passed just like that, and the first batch of eggs finally began to hatch.