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Chapter 87: Armored Ant Nest (1)
The year ended and it was March.
It’s been about six months since she ran away and she is feeling much better now. Because of Mihai, she is working harder than ever to learn.
“Allen, take me hunting with you.”
Cecile told me this. Apparently, Cecile wants to become stronger. This is not allowed by the Baron, so I refuse to do that.
I’ll be twelve years old in a little over half a year. Three and a half years have passed since I came to the mansion, and I can feel how fast time flies.
Six months later, I still don’t know what kind of duties the Granvelle family has that resulted in Mihai’s death. I had asked Rickel before if the Kingdom was at war with any other country but he said no. I asked Rickel again because of Mihai’s case, but the answer was the same.
To the north of this Kingdom, there is a huge Empire that boasts an area dozens of times larger than the Kingdom. Decades ago, they were at war with each other, but now they have a peace agreement and are not at war. Rickel told me about this.
As for hunting, at the end of February, I destroyed all the Orc Nests. It took quite a bit longer than the Goblin Nests, but it was worth it, and the Orc Nests disappeared from the foot of the White Dragon Mountains. However, Orc Nests do not only exist at the foot of the White Dragon Mountains on the Baron Granville side. I’m sure that someday Orcs from somewhere else will come and start to form Nests at those places again, but for the moment they have completely disappeared.
Thanks to this, we were able to secure the manpower to work in the Mithril mining area as scheduled from next April. With the Goblins and Orcs gone, it seems that many adventurers have switched jobs. When I heard this, it made me feel bitter that the Goblin and Orc Nests that I destroyed caused them to lose their jobs, but when I see the bodies of the people who actually sacrificed their lives, I think it was the right thing to do.
The village where the blast furnaces for smelting Mithril ore into Mithril will be located has been decided and its construction will begin in the spring. As for the mining areas, it was said that mining would begin in the summer.
For the first few years, I don’t expect that much production, but I think it is important to start.
If there’s one thing I’m worried about, it’s about Viscount Carnel; two years ago in March, there were reports of a White Dragon movement.
It’s been two whole years, but we haven’t heard anything from the Viscount. The White Dragon has moved to his territory and Mithril is no longer minable, but we haven’t heard from him. I don’t think he can run the territory without Mithril, but he hasn’t come crying to the Baron. This silence feels eerie to me. The Baron also seems to be concerned, and often has the Butler check on this matter.
Even though I have wiped out the Goblin and Orc Nests, I am still in the White Dragon Mountains. I am not at the foot of the White Dragon Mountains.
I am in a desolate area where the vegetation is starting to diminish after the forest. As I passed through the forest, the entire White Dragon Mountains came into view. The mountain range was long and extensive. What I was looking at now was only a part of the slope. However, there was a difference in the power of seeing the mountain surface directly from the air, as opposed to seeing it via Eagle.
“That’s the Armored Ant’s Nest.”
There was a large bulge created in the slope. Armored Ants about three meters in length and width were moving in and out of this bulge.
(Hmm, the burrow is pretty small. No, the Armored Ants are bigger.)
The size of the burrow is only large enough for one Armored Ant to enter and exit. It looks big enough for a person to enter and exit, but small for an Armored Ant. The size of the burrow is almost the same as that of an Armored Ant.
(Aren’t these Armored Ants in the way so outsiders can’t get inside?)
I asked Raven about the method of defeating the Armored Ants. Raven didn’t give me as clear an answer as usual, as if he had only heard the method from someone else. According to Raven, there was a B-rank magical beast called the Queen Armor Ant in the Nest, and we had to defeat it, or else the Queen Armor Ant would continue to produce Armored Ants.
A large number of Armored Ants were moving in and out of the Nest. It was easy to imagine that even if I tried to enter, the path to the Nest hole would be blocked by Armored Ants.
(It’s like a one-way tunnel. Aren’t the holes so small that they’re inconvenient for them? This is not to say all of them, but I’d have to kill quite a few Armored Ants just to get in.) free(w)ebnov(e)l
It is said that there are more than 1000 Armored Ants in this Nest. The Armored Ants were originally intended to be eradicated, but it seems that in order to defeat the Boss, the Queen Armored Ant, other Ants in the Nest must first be killed.
I summoned four Bears, one Spyder, and one Harami, and sent them to the Armored Ant Nest while using <Sharing>.
(Everything’s a challenge.)
I can’t know any hypothesis until I try it. There is no guide or anything here. I will judge how well I can handle the situation after this try. Reflecting on my experience of being cornered in the Orc Village, I decided to play it safe.
Six summoned beasts headed through a desolate area full of bare rocks and stones towards the Ants. The Bears were reasonably large, so they were immediately noticed. They moved forward without care.
“Gichi!”
“”Gigi-Gichi!””
As more summons approached, one of the Armored Ants snapped its jaws and made a warning sound. Then, as if in response, the Armored Ants that were already outside reacted and started clicking their jaws and making warning noises.
Armored Ants come out of the Nest, probably called by the warning sound. Dozens of Armored Ants surrounded the Nest.
(Oh! Good, good, good. Keep them coming. Infinite number of them. Six summons aren’t enough for this. Let’s get some more.)
I summoned 20 more Bears. The already strengthened Bears headed for the Armored Ant Nest under my direction.
The area around the Armored Ant Nest became a battlefield.
The armor of Armored Ants is hard, so I told Bears to target their heads. The exoskeleton that protects the head is somewhat softer than the armors. I usually instruct my Summon Squad to do so when they are hunting.
So the Bear knew to aim for the head and killed it up without me having to give another instruction.
(TN: Though an old joke, Thor should have gone for the head too.)
The most important thing in hunting is how to hunt magical beasts in a short time. The efficiency of the hunt is directly proportional to how fast I can kill one magical beast.
(Mmm, still not moving well.)
I was watching the battle from more than 50 meters away from the Armored Ant Nest with the [Eagle Eye] of Eagle.
Each attack of Bears increased the number of Armored Ant corpses, but it was not without problems. The Bear’s weaknesses also become apparent as it killed this amount of Armored Ants.
The exoskeleton of an Armored Ant is very hard. Because of this, a single blow from Bear is not able to crush the head of an Armored Ant covered in an exoskeleton and kill it.
In order to defeat them more efficiently, the Bears need to work together. It would be better to attack one Armored Ant at a time and take it out to reduce the damage, but the Bears couldn’t work together.
I was giving a lot of instructions, such as to prioritize attacking the magical beasts attacked by the other Bears. However, when it comes to a long battle where the situation changes rapidly, these instructions become useless. The Bears were making simple mistakes such as attacking another Armored Ants in the middle of fighting against another one, and getting attacked by the same Armored Ant you left.
Seeing from a distance, I could point out a lot of errors.
(Having only 100 [Intelligence] causes a lot of mistakes in their independent judgment, and they can’t communicate with other summons either.)
I’m not sure if they are designed to make misjudgments with a certain probability or not, but the mistakes are more noticeable when it comes to long-term battles. I was taking a long look to see if this will improve with training, but it seems to have something to do with [Intelligence].
As for the dependence on [Intelligence], Hollow and Harami, whose [Intelligence] reaches 400 after <Strengthening>, are able to communicate with each other’s summons.
Hollow can only say ‘ho’, and Harami cannot speak. However, they are still able to communicate with each other.
(I guess this is how it is for now. I don’t have any summon with an [Intelligence] in the 300s, so this is just a tentative test result.)
The number of summons of various [Intelligence] has increased and been verified.
Less than 100 [Intelligence]
They can only understand my command to use their special skills.
[Intelligence] 100+
They understand instructions other than those for special skills too but have some errors in judgment.
They cannot communicate with other summons.
[Intelligence] 200+
They have fewer errors in judgment.
[Intelligence] 300+
Cannot be verified due to lack of relevant summons.
[Intelligence] 400+
Summons can communicate with each other. By <Sharing>, they can communicate with me and give other summons instructions.
(If they have 400 [Intelligence], I can use <Sharing> on them and they can relay my instructions to other nearby summons.)
As a result of this verification, it is possible to give instructions to a normal (one without using <Sharing>) Bear with the help of Hollow and <Sharing>. However, Hollow will give the instructions to the Bear like a whispering game and this often does not work unless the instructions are simple.
As Allen watched the Armored Ant Nest attack and defend, he searched for new possibilities for the Bear’s movements.