I was woken up by an angry screech of Kaitron. It seems that everyone was woken up by it too. I've never felt Kaitron getting angry before but when I look toward on where he was screeching, I understand why. There's a line of ant coordinating to pass the leaves from our pile of food to outside. The ants are slightly taller than us, they are red in color and the only difference of its appearance compared to the ants on earth was its elbow, shoulders and the knees of its 3 pairs limbs had an armor like skin. It has the same 1 pair of compound eyes and two long antenae.
They were steeling our food while completely ignoring our presence. I stepped up and approach the first ant whose picking our foods and passing it on the second one on his back. I screech at him angrily too but it just stop for a moment and continued stealing. I tried using telepathy saying 'Why are you stealing our foods.' on them and that's when everyone of them stopped moving. My siblings was startled too at what happened. They stayed like that for 5 seconds before my mind was assaulted by cracky laughter. What I heard in my mind next surprised me.
'Hahaha! Look this one knows telepathy! '
'Yeah! And it can even speak the human language!'
'I've never encountered beetles like this, even adult ones i encountered can't speak human words.'.
They literally use human language specifically, English language! And in this situation, I was the one who was weird because I can speak it like the ants! What the freak is going on!
'Hey! You are seriously stealing our food without permit and you're even laughing at us! What is your problem! '
I scolded onto them which made the ants emits weird feeling. My siblings was silent and stunned as they can't understand what we were talking and it's their first time seeing an ant.
'Sorry little beetle, we thought this pile of leaves has no owner.'
The first ant said. I thought he was joking by saying no owner even though it was literally piled and inside our cave.
'You can just find another foods and do us a favor by giving this to us.'
The first ant apologized which caught me off guard.
'Hey, shouldn't we bring them in? Even thought they're young, they're shells are stronger than us, and they are intelligent.'
'I agree. We could use their help. I believe our queen will be interest with them too.'
'It seems that they don't have parents anyway.'
Suddenly, they were now talking to themselves about me even though I can literally hear their conversation.
'Alright! Follow us!'
'Wait what?'
I exclaimed as he declared that we were going to follow them without even asking our decision. What's with this ants! Anyways, I intended to follow them anyway. Because they don't seem hostile. Just arrogant and stupid. Yes they are stupid!
I told my siblings what are we going to do while teaching few words along the process. As the first ant stole our final food, he head outside and as we follow him exiting our wooden cave, a long red line of ants passing foods forward made me gasp. My siblings were as astonished as me. The ants didn't mind us and they're line starts moving forward. We just followed them to the side as we observe them.
They're line was so long that you can't see the end and beginning. My siblings are wary of them, mostly because of their numbers. I knew from our world that ants are omnivorous insects and I do believe that these ants are omnivorous too. But my magic is fire which is their weakness too and I don't doubt that it's not the same as the ants I know in my world.
The sun wasn't in the center of the skies when we depart from our cave and now it was on the center. After almost 2 hours of walking, I don't feel hostility from them so I stop worrying about them and focus on pointing many things we see and saying the word for it on my siblings.
But still, the language of the ants was perfectly the same as the English on my past world. I need to ask them later about it and maybe we can meet their queen if we're lucky. Finally, I saw a hill like figure from afar and that's where the ants are entering!
But something feels wrong. As we get closer, I saw the towering entrance of their den. It was bigger than the door of John's house! What's happening. My siblings were nonchalant about it but still I was really confused. Why would the ant create a huge entrance. As we enter, I found the answer. From both sides of the dark cave, I saw two pairs of compound eyes from both sides reflecting the light from the outside and revealing that the color of the eyes are green. As I get closer, I saw they're giant body.
They easily surpass the size of an adult human! They had pincher like mandible with 2 tusk at each side. Unlike the small ants, these giants had they're skins looks like red armor. They had thick limbs and on its knees and ankles had three protruding small spikes making them look intimidating. Meanwhile, they're body are smooth and shining like a red car's cover!
As me and my siblings are amazed by the creatures, one ants from the line step out and move towards us. I recognised it as the ant that leads the stealing of our food. It climbed on the giant ant on the left side which we were at and both of them look at our group.
'We need to show you on our queen. Climb up.'
Uno said. I'll nickname him that. The giant ant then stomped it's giant feet in front of us. I told my siblings to follow and stick to me. I started to climb up on the rocky scale-like skin of the giant ant until we finally arrived near Uno.
As the giant ant strides on top of the small ant who continued their marching like there was no creature above them that can literally stomp them to death. The cave was dark of course as we descended but our eyes has no problem with it. We saw more giant ants moving around as we entered a giant chamber. There were small holes on the ceiling where ray of light which were the only light source inside the chamber can seen. As we descended deeper the chamber, we spotted giant holes on the walls which I can only see giant ants moving in and out. As I estimated, I saw just over 50 ants inside these chamber.
I wonder how big is the Queen ant. We stopped inside a huge hole where two giant ants which has thicker armors and many protruding red spikes all over their body where guarding the entrance. The giant ant screech conveying his message that he has something to show on their queen and the two giant guard ants moved away to let him enter.
This hall was inclined and from the end we can see a light. As we get closer on the entrance, we spotted some glowing stones in the ceilings and in the walls. They were bright yellow, and yellow green. As the giant ant fully entered inside the glowing room made of soil. I finally caught the sight of their queen. She is giant too but maybe just the same height of an adult human. And her appearance are somewhat graceful than the other giant ants.
Her thorax are more inclined making her have a human posture unlike other arts whose like hunchbacks. Her exoskeleton are all smooth shining crimson. She has 3 pair of limbs on her abdomen and one pair on her thorax that she use and move like a human. Her head is heart shape and she has smaller compound eyes unlike the soldier types. She only has one pair of small tusk on her mandibles and her antennae were like a butterfly's.
'Well? What made you bring here a group of beetle friends?'
The Queen ask on both the small and giant ant.
'Your majesty, we found this beetle siblings without their parents on a log. We were thinking of adding them in our force as beetles are known for their hard shells. But what made me do this impudence on bringing them right in front of you your highness, is that they are somewhat peculiar group of beetles.'
Uno narrated his explanation of why he decided to add us in to their force which wasn't agreed by us, nor they ask us our opinion.
'Peculiar? What might it be?'
The Queen ask interestingly. Even though their using telepathy, her movements give more details and meaning into her telepathic sentences.
'They understand the human language and they can use it too.'
The Queen express her shock by putting both of her upper hands on her mandibles. Just like an European woman's reaction. This world is getting weirder and weirder.
'Is it true?'
The Queen asked us directly. I didn't hesitated and replied.
'Yes, actually I'm the only one who is fluent in it. And I'm still teaching my siblings.'
A frown can be painted on the Queens face as she received my telepathy.
'However, I would like to inquire if all your subordinates are like him.'
I said looking at Uno who flinch at my unexpected sentence. He was about to cut me off but I continued my rant.
'First, he entered are wooden cave and stole our foods like it was normal. And we, the owner and the resident are completely there but they ignored us and continued their atrocity. And now, he's informing you about adding us, whose just few days old in your numbers whose seems to be going in a war, without even asking us if we agree or not.'
I said firmly which made Uno's body twitch as the Queens gaze turned towards him. Sorry Uno, you deserve it. And I also want to confirm if all of you're kind are just like you and if the Queen knows it.
'Is that true?'
The Queen ask him emitting her disappointment and along with a low cold aura. Woah! I've also read this kind of phenomenon in that novel! This ability that you can control and release an aura that can make your enemy shudder in your will and strength. Auras in the novel I read reflects the emitters strength and willpower.
Uno's head down casted on the Queens present.
'I am sorry you're majesty, I wasn't thinking at that time.'
Uno relayed on her queen and her figure faced towards us.
'I am also sorry little fella for my action, I hope you forgive me.'
I was taken aback by his action. This ant was actually not a mindless insect that only knows how to talk. I can feel his sincereness on his words.
'Sorry?'
Suddenly, Kaisa repeated catching everyone's attention. 'Yes! Sorry. You do bad things, you need to say sorry.' I said roughly on my sister because I tried to just use the words I have taught them. Everyone looked at me in interest as they learned a new word.
'Fufufufu.' The Queen's internal laughter resounded on everyone's mind which made us look at her in curiosity. 'They are really an interesting bunch.' The Queen stated on the downcast Uno which made him cheer up a little bit as his mistake was covered by us which made the Queen amused.
'You can go now, I want to chat a little bit with our new friends. I also want to find out what made them this clever and adorable.' The Queen conveyed which made the small and giant ant nod. Uno gestured us to go down along we followed it. After we unmounted the giant, he moves out of the chamber along with Uno still on his back. I also added the word 'Bye' on my siblings vocabulary which made them happy again. My cute little siblings.
'Well? Can you please tell me a little about yourself little friend? Intelligent beetles are rare, but beetles that can use and understand human language was something I've never heard before.' The Queen stated sweetly as she strided on the walls observing countless white pebble-like object beneath. Is that eggs? So we are in the.. erhmm. Egg laying chamber?
'Well, we were from two intelligent beetle partners who can use magic. ' At my first sentence, the Queen halted and gave us her full attention. 'It was just after 2 days that our parents decided to find new location when two birds attack us, me and my parents successfully killed the first bird. But a crow appeared out of nowhere and snatched me.'
'My parents was taken by surprise too and could not do anything to save me as the crow quickly rose up in the air. Of course I fought back and successfully killed it midair. It landed far away from my parents location and I was knocked out unconscious. ' The Queen was giving me a look as if he can't believe what she was hearing but remained silent and let me continue.
'I waked up and was picked up by a kind little human boy, he took me in his house and tool care of me. And on the days I stayed on the boy's house, that's when I learned human language. I am also shocked at my capability to adopt their language.' I lied to hide the truth that I retained my past life memories which I was not sure if it was okay to disclose it to someone.
The Queen looked at me with understanding look and as she noticed that I am hesitant about continuing the next part of my story, she nodded at me. 'I understand, I believe you now, but to think that both you're parents can use magic, there is a possibility that they were descendant of a divine beast. It is plausible.' The Queen commented the bombshell.
My grandparents our divine beast? So there is such thing in this world? That fact made my lie to be more stronger!