"An atrocity almost happened here," Sian sighed as he wiped the sweat from his forehead again.
Seeing how exasperated he looked, he probably had a hard time protecting us from that attack.
Since I have never seen him like this, that means it may have been even more serious than I can imagine.
"Who attacked us?" I squeezed those words out.
"It's the queen," he replied.
"A queen ant?"
"Uh-huh," he nodded. "That damn thing almost made me have a heart attack."
I think it's understandable that he feels that way, after all, he brought Tina with him. If something happened to her, he would probably feel guilty.
While I had such thoughts, he continued.
"If I went just a little later, we would lose all the ant materials."
Doubting what reached my ears, I unconsciously asked, "You said what?"
"We almost lost the ant materials," he said. "That would be a huge waste after all that work."
As I remained speechless, Milka said, "It's okay, master's barrier didn't even flinch or any noise was heard. That means he had a lot of leeway."
"You are not welcome!"
Before I could recover from the shock, a voice that made the air vibrate echoed around us.
"Get out of here! I don't mind you killing the lesser servants when they are expelled, but invading my house for this is an affront to me. That's the second time you've done it."
Although the voice seemed indifferent, I could sense a hostility coming from it.
"Out of respect for your strength, I will let you go with a warning. But if you insist, I will kill all of you!"
"No, my queen!"
Coming out of the many holes scattered throughout the valley, some hostile talking ants appeared.
Even if I say ants, they were not exactly ants. They were like centaur ants. Their upper body resembled that of a human covered with an ant exoskeleton.
In their heads, although they closely resembled humans, their eyes and the mandible in front of their mouths were also the same as ants.
Although they were within the mapped area, I could not gauge their level. But from the open hostility, I knew they were strong.
"Let's make these insolent pay," the centaur ant with a scar on his chest that was ahead of the others slammed its long spear hard into the ground.
"Unnecessary!"
The queen's imposing voice echoed again.
"But my queen, they attacked us!"
"It's enough damage that's been done. I don't want any more destruction in my house, understand?"
"Yes, my queen, as you wish."
Following the example of the centaur ant with the scar, all the others bowed respectfully.
Although I am not the best to speak, the only destruction of the land was caused by the queen herself.
Just when I thought we would get out without any more trouble, Milka brandished her huge double-edged axe. With a half turn of her body, the handle remained in her hands while the axe spun through the air behind us.
As I turned around, in the path where the axe had just passed, the air started to become hazy and two halves of a humanoid ant with wings appeared.
Since I could not detect it, this ant was probably an expert in concealment.
Even though Tina has seen the massacre of countless ants, seeing something that looked human broken in two might be too heavy, so stay in front of her line of sight.
As I covered Tina's eyes, the axe made its way back to the handle in Milka's hands and reconnected.
"You've done this little theatrics and yet you try to get us from behind."
Shaking his head, Sian looked at the commanding ant with contempt.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, it seems that even with the mark of that beating on your chest, you still underestimate us. But it's okay, we are wrong here. However, I need compensation for sneaking up on us."
Looking like a villain ready to extort someone, he held out his hand to the ants.
"I want a few gallons of royal jelly."
"How dare you!"
With the commander's furious shout, all the centaur ants around us seemed ready to enter combat at any moment.
"You filthy human!" In a voice that sounded perplexed and angry, the queen shouted, "You steal from under my nose and still dare to mock my face?"
"Oh, you seem to have figured it out." Putting both hands together like a con man, Sian said as if it was nothing. "Well, I guess we're even, so I'm off."
While I was thinking that he was more shameless than I imagined, suddenly everything around me seemed to have frozen for an instant.
When I came to my senses, I was in the sky again. Not only me, but all of us were on Teshar's back.
Just then, the sound of something big breaking reached my ears. Looking back, the place where we were standing seemed to have collapsed and fallen into the bottom of the small crater formed by the queen's attack.
Was he making that portion of land float?
Although I was curious about this, at the moment something else was more important.
"Aren't they going to come after us?" I asked.
"No," Sian replied. "Although the ants are fearless, the queen is careful. As long as I don't go too far beyond tolerable, she wouldn't dare confront us while Teshar and I are together."
Noticing the intense look Tina was giving him, Sian bent slightly to meet her line of sight and put his hands on her shoulders.
"Were you very frightened by the things you saw down there?"
Trying to put on a strong front, she replied, "I-I wasn't afraid. I've killed birds and fish before."
"I know you weren't scared, but let's keep the stealing part between us. You can't even tell your mother, okay?"
Without saying a single word, Tina just nodded silently.
Although some time ago he was saying that I could be a bad example for a child, he doesn't seem to notice that he himself is one.
"How did you steal it?" I asked.
Clarifying my doubts, Sian gave a long explanation of how amazing space magic was for stealing from others. This was also not the first time he had stolen the queen ant.
The first time, due to the queen's magical protection, he had to sneak into the anthill and was eventually discovered. But while dealing with her, he left some hidden space magic points that served as locators.
That way, whenever the queen changed the place where she kept the jelly, he could rummage around inside the anthill without going in there. So whenever he needed it, he could get some without being noticed.
"In short, do you always steal when you want to?"
"Yeah, that's pretty much it," he stated shamelessly.
"...Don't you feel guilty about that?"
"Should I?" Seemingly indifferent to his actions, he continued, "In part, you are responsible for today's theft."
"Me?"
Although I knew I was responsible for the deaths of the thousands of ants, I didn't understand why the theft was also added to the bill.
"Well, not just you, but I did it for Tina and Emily too," he said.
"Remember when I said that we didn't skimp on training the girls?" Taking voice, Milka said. "Besides being tasty, royal jelly is a great strengthening resource. It helps improve one's physique and accelerates the development in magic."
Knowing that I had been part of the reason for the robbery made my conscience a little guilty, but because it was from monsters, it was something I could tolerate.
Speaking of monsters, there was something I was quite curious about, so I asked.
"Just like the queen ant, the big snake from before also spoke, how is that possible? Did they learn from someone?"
"I have no idea," Sian shrugged. "When I asked Teshar she said simply knew. Maybe that's the gods' doings."
Although Sian said the last part as a random justification, I was sure that this was the case. When I was reincarnated, the language of this world was inserted into my mind, so they certainly could have done this to the strong monsters.
Knowing this, I had a big complaint. It would have been much better if I had been given knowledge about magic or other things instead of being given the language of this world. After all, as someone who was yet to be born, I could learn in time.
Holding out his hands to Tina and me, two bowls appeared in Sian's hands. The contents appeared to be some kind of creamy golden paste.
"That's royal jelly, eat it all."
After placing the bowls in our hands, he turned to Milka.
"Until we get to the next goal, send the bill for eliminating the ants to Clay."
"Okay~~"
***
Although the smell and taste of the queen ant royal jelly was similar to what I tasted in my past life, the two were on different levels.
Shortly after I finished eating, I felt a strange sensation all over my body. I couldn't tell if it was a good or bad feeling, but I knew that something was changing in my body.
It was then that within a few minutes after I had eaten, I got some warnings from the system.
My physique and affinity for magic were slightly improved, and I even gained a passive skill called Magic Manipulation.
The best thing is that, according to Sian, the jelly was not a one-time consumption. Even though the effect is reduced with each use, it will still be effective for a while. Moreover, the jelly will not be the only resource he will give us.
With that said, I began to understand why the girls there are so strong.
***
After the valley of the ants, the next place we went was called the giant worm swamp.
As their name implied, they were giant worms with round, jagged mouths and varying in size from ten to fifteen meters. Like ants, they fed on the orcs and goblins that had in the area.
The result of the hunt was not much different from what happened to the ants. Sian oppressed them from beginning to end. Fortunately for my heart, no being like the queen ant appeared.
After Sian exterminated almost all the worms, we started our way back to the mansion.
With nothing to do during our journey back, I invested all the essence that the system collected in the magic attribute.
Normally, the amount of essence collected should have been enough to allow me to reach level 50 and go much further. But level 49 is a kind of bottleneck that requires an absurd amount of essence.
Even with today's hunt and the monsters killed during our visit to the demon lord, I barely made it to a third of what was needed for the next level.
Making things even more difficult, the connection with Sian that helped me in the early stages was no longer as effective as before.
If for me, who have the help of something convenient like the system, it was a struggle, for normal people to reach such a level would be an unimaginable challenge.
It also made me realize that my older brother who was level 71 and my father who was 93 were amazing people when it came to potential. But even more amazing than those two was Sian.
The first time I was able to measure his levels, he was 196, but now he was at an absurd 197 levels. It seems that even though he is already absurdly strong, his strength keeps growing.
When I stopped to compare the strong people I had met before, I noticed that they were all either bad people or people with tendencies to do questionable things.
Does this mean that people of questionable character have a tendency to be stronger?
Without finding an answer, we returned to the mansion without any mishaps.
Although it seemed like we spent a long time out, we actually still got back before lunch.
Reinforcing the fact that strangely convenient things were happening around Sian, a small surprise awaited us.