Ackster had no idea how long he had walked. It was difficult to keep track of time underground, and even more so when he didn't even have the light from the star-like stones in the ceiling of the queen's room. His body also wasn't the most reliable since he could continue moving for several days as long as he had food to eat, which he had, thanks to the ants lining the tunnels.
But keeping track of the days by counting when he fell asleep and when he woke up was a method that had long since flown out the window.
Ackster had tried maintaining a semblance of awareness of how far down the tunnel he had walked by counting his steps. But he quickly got distracted by his own thoughts—the only company he had aside from Mio—and lost count repeatedly. However, counting was a nice distraction from the paranoia, anxiety, and depression that threatened to drown him in the darkness of his mind and surroundings. So, he kept doing it, even after it became completely useless.
The thing that helped Ackster get some kind of understanding of the time that had passed was the ant corpses that had starved to death in the tunnels. Enough time for them to starve had passed, but not enough for them to begin to rot or decompose.
Since the ordinary worker ants, which were the main type he encountered, were pretty weak, approximately D-rank, Ackster guesstimated that only a couple of days had passed since the ant queen's death, even if it felt like weeks had gone by in the impenetrable darkness.
Ackster felt every passing moment and step he took take its toll on his mind and mental stability. Iron Will and Clear Mind were working nonstop to keep Ackster's sanity as intact as possible. But Ackster had begun wondering if maybe it wouldn't be so bad to go insane. He was already halfway there, considering everything he had put himself through just to reach this point.
That realization definitely didn't help.
Ackster had suffered enough to make Pain Tolerance his highest-ranking skill. And what did he get for it? He was stuck deep underground in pitch darkness with nothing but Mio, his own depressing thoughts, and dead ants to accompany him.
The growth he had felt, his rising self-confidence at seeing his stats and skills climb, and his pride and belief that he might survive past ten years were all shattered.
One lousy ant colony had rendered him helpless.
Ackster couldn't help but feel that it was disgraceful, embarrassing, and disappointing. He had almost reached the A-rank, after which there were only a couple left until he should have the numbers to back his fight against The Hero. And he had reached that level in record time.
Ackster hadn't exactly kept track of the days, but he knew that at least a couple of weeks passed after he left Degrest before he arrived at Ilto. And then, after a couple of days at Ilto, he had set out for the Cloven Grasslands. There, it only took a day or two before the debacle with Karandiel went down.
Ackster successfully secured Karandiel but lost her after, at most, a day since the ants captured him and let her go. Ackster guessed that he had to have spent at least several weeks in the ant nest by now.
So, in total, at least a month, most likely more. That was the time it had taken Ackster to go from a lowly G-rank to a B-rank, hovering on the threshold to the A-rank. As he thought about it, Ackster had to acknowledge that it was an insane speed, even when compared to The Hero.
However, The Hero's journey began as a child and was a little different since, even if The Hero underwent trials to prepare him for his final task, it wasn't as extreme as what Ackster had done to himself, at least not to the same extent. The Hero did some pretty crazy things to himself and to others when necessary.
But Ackster only did crazy things, and so far, only to himself.
And The Hero's progress wasn't as simplistic or superficial as Ackster's was.
Ackster had focused on acquiring the skills he could get by pushing himself to and past his limit. He had done his utmost using the superficial knowledge he got from being a transmigrator to grow as strong as possible as quickly as possible. He had also made sure to get the adventurer profession so he could raise his base stats quickly as well.
The Hero, on the other hand, had a well-rounded and solid training.
He had trained his mana and body ever since he was young. He had practiced advanced weapons techniques and actually learned how to fight. He had studied politics, economics, geography, survivalism, covert tactics, strategy, and anything else that could possibly help him defeat The Calamity and save the world by any means necessary.
The Hero wasn't an expert at things unrelated to combat, but he was good enough not to get fucked by the world and the people living in it during his quest. He also had a lot more real-world experience than Ackster, who had simply read a bunch of words and letters on pages of the original story before being thrust into a life-threatening situation.
Ackster still wasn't over the desperation or paranoia from his first three days on Millmeria. Those days were still firmly lodged in his mind, hanging over him and threatening him with the fact that if The Hero sees him, he's dead.
Ackster couldn't rest with such a weight on his shoulders.
But, as strange as it was, in the otherwise oppressive darkness of the ant nest, Ackster could somehow find some twisted sense of peace in the fact that The Hero would never find him where he was now.
If Ackster died, no one other than him and the ants next to him would know where he was. If The Hero were suspicious of what had transpired back at the Phileam Estate, he would have to carry those suspicions to his grave.
As he thought about that, Ackster found a weird feeling of gloat settling in his heart and doing its best to keep the loss of his arm and the growing fear of darkness at bay.
Ackster was startled out of his thoughts by something in front of him in the tunnel that wasn't a dead ant.
"That's…!"