Scouting Ahead

Rowan made his way to Ant Nest No. 1 and carefully dug open the wall of its Hatching Room.

He didn't hurry inside to investigate. Instead, he waited a little. A Earth-Yellow Ant that had heard the noise poked its head out through the hole. Before it could get a good look, Rowan finished it off with Rowan's Opening Move.

He had barely dragged its juice-splattered corpse into the passage when another round Earth-Yellow Ant head eagerly poked out. Rowan showed no mercy, bursting it and dragging it outside.

He repeated the process until he had killed five Earth-Yellow Ants that had come to investigate. Then he waited a long while, but no more heads appeared at the opening.

Only then did Rowan poke his own head inside.

He had already suspected as much when he saw the Earth-Yellow Ants coming out, but when he saw the scene before him, he still sucked in a sharp breath.

The chamber was spotless. The Soldier Ants, Worker Ants, larvae, Insect Eggs, and food scraps inside had all vanished. It was as if several layers had even been scraped off the walls.

Rowan didn't go in. One could infer the whole from a part: if the Hatching Room had been scraped so clean, there was no need to inspect the rest of the nest. The Ant Queen had probably met the same fate.

He returned to the Insect Nest by the way he had come. He couldn't reach Ant Nest No. 2 or No. 3 directly underground; each route included a stretch across the surface. He considered the risks and finally decided to venture out and investigate.

He ran into a few minor troubles along the way, but dealt with them on the spot. After spending some time, he finished checking both nests.

Though they were larger than Ant Nest No. 1 and had several thousand members each, the Black Ants were no match for the Earth-Yellow Ants in individual combat. And even in sheer numbers, they were crushed. They stood no chance against an army of millions of Earth-Yellow Ants.

So they had met the same fate as Ant Nest No. 1.

After casually killing a few Earth-Yellow Ants lingering nearby, Rowan felt weighed down. This was a serious problem.

His Insect Nest was growing rapidly, but that growth depended on siphoning a steady stream of resources from the other nests. Now that the Granaries had been destroyed, feeding such a huge colony would be no easy task.

But the situation was even worse than that. If they had only lost the Granaries, then the adult insects in the Insect Nest could spread out to search for food, while he temporarily halted the Mother Nest's egg-laying. By tightening their belts, they might barely make it through the crisis. Once the larvae had matured in large numbers, the Insect Nest could start expanding again.

But all of that depended on finding food in the wild. Given how thoroughly the surface had been stripped, the plan clearly wouldn't work.

Rowan planned to scout the surrounding area first and see how far the Earth-Yellow Ant army had ravaged. If there was no other choice, he might have to move the nest.

Dragging the corpses of several Earth-Yellow Ants behind him, he returned to the Insect Nest. Every bit of food was precious now; not a scrap could be wasted.

He connected with the Mother Nest and ordered it to conserve energy and temporarily stop laying eggs. His body had grown rapidly ever since he gained a steady food source, but the Mother Nest was still somewhat larger than he was.

He could probably drag the Mother Nest now, but it had neither legs nor wheels. If he dragged it for too long, its underside would inevitably get scraped up.

If they were going to move the nest, they had to take the Mother Nest with them. They would need to find something to cushion it from below. Otherwise, it wouldn't withstand being dragged any great distance.

He also ordered the insects to cut their daily food in half and forbade them from going outside. Then Rowan hurried out of the Insect Nest to scout the surrounding area.

Half a day later, he realized he had vastly underestimated the size of the Earth-Yellow Ant army. There were far more than a few hundred thousand or even a million of them.

The places the Earth-Yellow Ant army had passed through had a landscape that looked completely different from before, making them easy to identify. And in those places, many dangers had already been cleared away.

For the first time, Rowan let loose at full speed, sprinting as fast as he could. When he came across scattered Earth-Yellow Ants, he mostly went around them rather than getting bogged down in a fight.

Using the Insect Nest as his center point, he kept widening his search area. But after running for half a day, he had covered roughly a one-kilometer radius and still hadn't made it beyond the area ravaged by the Earth-Yellow Ant army.

By then, the sky had begun to lighten. Rowan returned to the Insect Nest to rest briefly and sort out his thoughts.

He had managed to search a one-kilometer radius in half a day for several reasons.

First, his exceptional range of vision. His eyesight had been improving all along, and he could now see clearly for about thirty meters. That might not be much by human standards, but among insects, it made him one of the best Clairvoyants.

Second, he had the advantage of the terrain shaped by the Earth-Yellow Ants. Their habit of stripping the land bare had eliminated many dangers hidden underground. Apart from a few tall trees, they had even cleared away the grass, leaving very little to block his view and making it easy to observe from a distance.

Third, he was large, so he took big strides and moved quickly. He also had decent stamina. An ordinary ant wouldn't be able to search even a hundred-meter radius in a week.

Fourth, he had only taken a cursory look and hadn't searched carefully. He wasn't trying to find anything in the area; he was checking how much land the Earth-Yellow Ants had ravaged. There was surely not enough food in the places they had stripped to sustain the Insect Nest.

Only by combining all these factors had he been able to scout such a large area in half a day. The other insects in the Insect Nest could never replicate what he had done.

That meant there was no food within at least a one-kilometer radius. The distance beyond that would be too great for the other insects, so moving the nest was unavoidable.

He still needed to scout for a new place to build the nest. The main problem now was that he didn't know how much land the Earth-Yellow Ant army had ravaged. If he continued circling around as he had today, it would be far too inefficient.

He needed to pick a direction and head straight ahead, covering as little ground as possible and getting out of this wasteland as quickly as he could. That would also make it easier for the Insect Nest to move.

After thinking it over, Rowan decided to explore along the underground riverbed. It had been by following that riverbed that he had first crossed the wasteland and found this place.

Water was the source of life. Following it was the fastest way to find the next thriving place.

Now that he had made up his mind, there was no time to waste. The Insect Nest still had some food in reserve, which would last a few more days with the insects' rations cut in half.

But it was still a finite supply, with nothing to replenish it. Sooner or later, it would run out. Rowan couldn't return until he had found a solution, and he had no idea how long the search would take. If it went on too long, the insects might not survive until then.

So he couldn't waste a single second. The faster he went out and returned, the better his chances of saving the Insect Nest.

He sealed off the Mother Nest's chamber and strictly forbade the insects from approaching. Then Rowan set off without hesitation in search of a new home for life.