Infiltration

Rowan first found a lucky test subject. It was truly lucky, because it never got to see the opening move of Rowan's Combat Technique.

He observed the test subject for a while, then, as if by instinct, used his newly acquired ability. The pheromones emanating from Rowan gradually shifted.

Pheromones were a general term for compounds that enabled chemical communication between organisms. They could be further divided into many types, and almost all plants and animals produced various pheromones.

These included Altruistic Pheromone, Selfish Pheromone, Cooperative Pheromone, Aggregation Pheromone, Tracking Pheromone, Alarm Pheromone, Dispersal Pheromone, and Sex Pheromone, among others.

Ant pheromones were mixtures of many different substances, including the scent of the ant's own colony. They could be used to communicate with nestmates, much like an ID card.

The pheromone Rowan was adjusting now was this very one. His new ability let him infiltrate his neighbor's household registry and fabricate an identity out of thin air. Then Rowan put that identity on display.

As the distance between him and the scout shrank, it finally sensed an unfamiliar vibration approaching, and its antennae reached out toward him.

The scout's antennae touched Rowan and searched him from head to toe. Rowan waited nervously for the result. Since this was his first time using the ability, he had no idea if something might go wrong, so he was ready to strike back at any moment.

Fortunately, the scout searched him for a while and found nothing amiss. Rowan hadn't displayed any other information beyond his ID, so the scout paid him no more attention. It passed him and continued searching ahead.

Rowan thought for a moment, then moved and blocked the scout's path again.

This time, he not only displayed his ID but also sent out another message: "There's food over there. Follow me."

The scout's antennae swayed for a moment, and it actually chose to follow him.

Rowan led it some distance away from the nest, then showed it a set of Rowan's Combat Technique. The scout had no idea why one of its own had suddenly attacked it, and it died without managing an effective counterattack.

Rowan's eyes lit up. He seemed to have discovered a new way to hunt.

He dragged the scout's corpse to the Transport Team's meeting point and left the pheromone message "take this back" on it, using the Hive ID, of course.

This was in case he went too far and failed to return in time. After the Transport Team returned, they might not receive a new assignment and could wander off instead. The meeting point was less than twenty meters from the nest; if they happened to head in the wrong direction, they would be walking straight to their deaths.

Though Rowan had more and more underlings now, they were hardly in abundance. He should save where he could and take precautions against anything he could anticipate.

Having the Transport Team make one extra round trip would give Rowan more time to explore. He could take his time enjoying his first infiltration.

Displaying his counterfeit ID, Rowan boldly crawled toward his neighbor's front gate.

There were more and more Black Ants along the way, but either they ignored Rowan outright or touched him with their antennae and then paid him no mind.

Just like that, Rowan easily passed through layer upon layer of defenses and reached the entrance to the Ant Nest.

Looking at the dark entrance, he didn't rush inside. Soldier Ants had been hidden in the nest before; who knew what other strange soldier types might be lurking there?

Yellow Bug had strolled right in earlier, but Yellow Bug's life was surely worth less than his, so he ought to be a little more sneaky—no, cautious.

First, he found a spot and dug beneath the nest. The fine hairs on his body could sense countless densely packed hollow tunnels beneath the area.

He dug several tunnels around the nest. They weren't wide, just barely large enough for him to pass through. That way, if he ran into danger, he could dig into the nearest escape route. The small Worker Ants could barely threaten him anymore, while the large Soldier Ants would have trouble squeezing through these tunnels.

Once that was done, Rowan returned to the surface and went back to the nest entrance.

He took a deep breath in his mind to ease his nerves, then crawled inside.

All kinds of pheromones lingered around the nest entrance. With countless Black Ants coming and going, the passage, which should have been quite spacious, felt terribly crowded.

Aside from their color, Rowan looked nothing like them, but this place only recognized IDs, not appearances or species.

If you had an ID from our colony, you were one of us. It was that simple and crude.

A Soldier Ant crawled out of the cave. Its enormous body loomed toward him, blocking most of the passage and putting a great deal of pressure on Rowan. Besides, the terrain here wasn't suited to agile combat. If he were exposed as an outsider, things wouldn't end well.

Fortunately, the Soldier Ant showed no sign of suspicion. Rowan imitated the other Black Ants, stepping on its head and climbing over it toward the depths of the nest.

The nest gradually branched into many passageways, some wide and others narrow. Rowan was too big to fit through the narrow ones. This was his first time visiting his neighbor, and he didn't know whether widening their tunnels without permission would be rude, so in the end he obediently followed the wider passages.

The nest's interior was incredibly complicated. Fortunately, Rowan had no specific destination in mind. This was his first visit, and he was only looking around, so he wandered wherever the passages took him.

The passages he could fit through were all main routes. After wandering around and around, he eventually reached a huge hollow chamber.

This was his neighbor's Hatching Room. The floor was covered with Insect Eggs and pupae, and some larvae wriggled among them.

Some Soldier Ants patrolled the area, while countless Worker Ants carried various kinds of food in and out. Others busied themselves sorting through the food, eating it, then regurgitating it a little later to feed the larvae.

Mixed in among them were several Yellow Worms. Their yellowish-brown bodies, a little larger than the Worker Ants, stood out sharply among the sea of black.

But the ants didn't seem to find anything strange about them. The Yellow Worms ate the food on the ground just like some of the Worker Ants. But they skipped the step of regurgitating it to feed the larvae.

Rowan watched from the side, utterly impressed. These Yellow Worms were really pulling a slick move—sneaking into someone else's home and freeloading off their food and shelter. No wonder he'd only seen Yellow Bugs going into the nest, but never coming out. Their presence had made him nervous about infiltrating the nest, because he feared it might be hiding some secret weapon.

He hadn't expected these guys to move in as soon as they arrived, with no intention of ever leaving.

Rowan picked up a piece of food from the ground. It looked like the muscle of some kind of insect. After finishing it, he picked up another piece. He'd never seen this one before; it might have been a secretion from some kind of insect or plant. It was a little sweet.

One piece on the left, another on the right. Food was everywhere. This was the accumulated stash of a nest with well over a thousand members.

Rowan was starting to feel like he didn't want to leave, either.