The ant queen bit down and crunched on the poor soldier a couple of more times before audibly passing on the food through its body. Ackster could only watch with mixed thoughts. He had noticed but not thought anything strange of the ant nest's lack of cutlery and crockery. After all, what would ants do with things like those? So, when the soldier ant came up, Ackster simply thought it would carry the blood to the queen. But that was not the case.
Well, the soldier ant did carry it all the way to the queen's belly, so it wasn't entirely wrong. But it did come as a slight surprise when the ant queen unhesitatingly devoured the soldier to get to Ackster's blood.
Ackster suddenly realized what had happened with the ant corpses he killed during the initial siege attack.
It seemed like whether it be in life or in death, the ants of the ant queen's colony existed for her. They carried out the queen's orders no matter what. And they brought back food for the queen, even if they themselves were that food.
Ackster didn't know what to think of it, except that he didn't mind as long as the ant queen didn't treat him like one of her ants.
The ant queen gobbled up the ant and Ackster's blood in no time. Ackster could almost feel it licking its lips in satisfaction and pleasure at such a delectable treat. It sent shivers down his spine, even more so when the ant queen turned to look at him.
'"More."'
All the soldier and lieutenant ants in the room turned to look at him with sharp stares. The ant general was the same. Ackster felt like a deer trapped in a wolf's den. But only for a moment before he regained his calm with Iron Will and Clear Mind. The ants weren't strong enough to make him, who remained calm in the face of the Dragon Slayer, tremble.
If anything, the ants should fear him.
With that thought in his mind, Ackster crossed his arms and stared down the ant queen.
"Sure. But we have a deal, right? Now, I need something to eat and a place to rest and train. After that's done, I can give you some more blood and maybe even some muscle."
The ant queen tapped one of her front legs against the ground, and worker ants swarmed out of a nearby tunnel and into the queen's chamber. They went to a corner and started digging with their front legs and mandibles. The ants dug and cleared out a room with overwhelming efficiency. They even moved away the dirt that they couldn't pat down and increased the structural solidity of the walls, ceiling, and floor by making it denser.
Ackster once again confirmed that it was a good idea not to try and flee. A single of the ant queen's moves was enough to move the entire colony and use it to attack Ackster. And since she would eat the ants after they died, she wouldn't lose out that much since she could just use the energy she gained from eating them to birth more.
Ackster wondered what had happened with the ant queen and the colony in the original story since he couldn't remember either ever being mentioned. With the ant queen's intelligence, Ackster didn't think it would easily die to any stray adventurer that wandered into the Cloven Grasslands.
But The Hero wasn't the only person in the world. That much, Ackster had already confirmed. And there were a lot of people strong enough to kill the ant queen. So, it wasn't strange it wasn't mentioned.
Just like when Kargas came out of nowhere and almost killed him, Ackster realized that the world wasn't only the original story. And just like he had stumbled upon this ant queen, he could encounter more things he had no idea about. It wasn't just people.
Characters from the original story he knew about and people he didn't know about weren't the only things Ackster had to take into consideration as his actions continued rippling the world around him as per the butterfly effect. He also had to think about monsters, beasts, other beings, natural disasters, and even the weather interfering with his plans and actions.
But it wasn't all bad. Just like there might be more inconveniences in the future due to unpredictable and unknown factors, there would also be benefits and treasures Ackster didn't know of yet, but that could still help him stop The Hero. The Guild and Wilma were one such encounter, hopefully. And if he played his cards right, this meeting with the intelligent ant queen could be another one.
But it would be up to him to make sure it was a good meeting and not one of doom.
For that purpose, Ackster offered another portion of blood as soon as the room was completed, saving the meat for when he had gotten some food. He was a little curious about what the ants would prepare or get for him, but as long as it wasn't stone, he would eat it.
He had eaten a lot of the worker ants during the fight, but he had also been fighting for his life and recovering from the hits and scrapes the ants gave him, so he hadn't gotten much of a net gain. Ackster was still hungry, but more than that, he wanted to train the secret technique and experience some of the promised potential boost so he could get rid of the ant queen and her colony and proceed south.
He had already gotten sidetracked long enough from his mission of reaching the Sea God's Temple. If he delayed much longer, he risked getting caught by The Hero or the kraken that The Hero was supposed to be subjugating in those waters.
In the original story, The Hero had ended up south of the continent in a Kraken subjugation a couple of years after dealing with the corruption in the merchant city he went to after investigating the rumors of a Doppelganger around Degrest.
But, Ackster was pretty sure that his actions had already started affecting things, such as the Doppelganger Slime he used to evade death. That was what The Hero would have found and explained the Doppelganger rumors with. But now that Ackster had taken it, he had no idea what would happen. Maybe there were other Doppelganger Slimes around, which wasn't impossible since they weren't strictly solitary creatures, especially if they were recently made.
But if it was the only one, Mio excluded since it wasn't a proper Doppelganger Slime, The Hero would continue to investigate the rumors until he found something or got reassigned. That would inevitably affect his future journey, even if it were made in advance by The Hero's supporters.
So, Ackster wanted to pop down south, snag the Sea God Manual as quickly as possible, and get moving to find a trainer to minimize the risk of bumping into The Hero.
Ackster was startled out of his thoughts by a soldier ant lying down on the floor in front of him.
'Figures.'