Shire had previously tried to imagine the giant ant Broken Tooth had described, figuring it would be about the size of a small dog at most. But when he finally saw it, he realized his imagination had been rather lacking.
It had taken him a good while to get here with his men. Standing at the edge of the clearing, he stared at the ant’s corpse with incredulous eyes.
The ant’s entire body was about 1.6 meters long. Its large, white head had two big black eyes. The thorax and six legs were black, and its once-plump abdomen was now shriveled and contracted, covered in black and white stripes.
"What a magical forest," Shire remarked, slowly approaching the ant’s body lying on the ground.
The ant looked like it had been dead for some time. Rot had set in at many of the joints, causing its body parts to separate. The leg segments, in particular, were scattered across the ground.
"How could such a huge ant be killed?" Shire walked over to the ant’s head and rapped it a few times with his knuckles. "It’s hard, like steel."
He rubbed his fingers and moved to the corpse’s abdomen.
The ant’s abdomen now looked like a large, deflated sack, and there were several big holes in it, clearly punctured by something.
"Hm? What’s this?" Shire looked down at his feet. Something seemed to be stuck to the bottom of his boot.
It was a few thin, white, slightly sticky threads.
"This stuff... it can’t be spider silk, can it?" he said with a frown, looking at the threads in his hand.
If this was spider silk, it meant the ant had been killed and eaten by a large spider. The large holes in its abdomen must have been pierced by the spider’s fangs.
"Why do I feel like I’ve ended up in Lilliput?" He tossed the threads aside and turned to look at the ant’s corpse. "If the eastern region is full of Giant Ants and Giant Spiders, it’s going to be a little too dangerous."
"And with chitinous shells this tough, normal swords and blades probably won’t be very effective."
He waved his hand, signaling his men to spread out. He then backed away himself, pulled a Hand Grenade Fruit from behind his waist, and threw it at the ant’s corpse.
BOOM! The explosion rang out, the shockwave scattering the pieces of the ant’s exoskeleton.
Shire walked over and picked up a segment of the ant’s leg, turning it over to examine it. ’The Hand Grenade Fruit has limited effect. Even at this close range, only one piece of shrapnel pierced the leg armor. The rest just made some scratches.’
’And its throwing range is limited. Even if I manage to land a hit, a creature this big would charge me down before I could do any real damage.’
He placed the leg segment back on the ground, took out some Blazing Fire Glue, and tossed it over. Flames quickly engulfed the ant’s remains.
’It can be burned. So it’s manageable.’ Shire’s eyes lit up; he felt he had found a way to deal with them.
’If I throw the Blazing Fire Glue directly at the Giant Ants and Giant Spiders, it will set them on fire. Following their primal instincts, they’re bound to flail about randomly or turn and flee. In that case, we’d have a fighting chance.’ A smile gradually spread across his face. He then ordered his men to extinguish the fire.
"Let’s head back for now." Shire looked up, his gaze sweeping across the forest ahead, wondering what else might be lurking in this area.
...
"Giant ants?" Agatha said in surprise.
"That’s right." Shire nodded, then lifted a leg segment from the floor and placed it on the table. "This is a segment of the ant’s leg."
"Ugh, the smell." Agatha wrinkled her nose, but then leaned in curiously and, undeterred, reached out a pale white finger to touch it.
"If the leg segment is this long, how long must the whole body have been?" she said with a smile.
"About 1.6 meters." Shire leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and looked up at the fluorescent Mushrooms on the ceiling. "And I suspect it was killed by a giant spider."
"With such massive creatures in the east, it looks like exploring there won’t be so easy." He shook his head slightly.
"Was the one you saw a Worker Ant or a Soldier Ant?" Agatha asked directly, without looking up.
"Worker Ant? Soldier Ant?"
"Yes. Worker Ants and Soldier Ants are different sizes; Soldier Ants are even bigger. Didn’t you ever dig up an Ant Nest when you were a kid?"
"Of course I did. I even peed and poured water into them," Shire said with a laugh. He thought for a moment. "The ant corpse I saw didn’t have a very large head. Based on what I know about ant classification, it was probably a Worker Ant."
"Ants this big... if you could Control them, that would be pretty amazing, wouldn’t it?" Agatha said with a smile. "Worker Ants for digging and transporting goods, and Soldier Ants for riding and fighting."
"Hm? How did you come up with an idea like that?" Shire’s interest was immediately piqued.
"When I was a child, before my bloodline awakened, I used to watch the elders in my family summon all sorts of animals from the Star Realm. I used to fantasize about what I would summon, and giant ants were one of the things I dreamed of." Agatha gazed at the leg armor before her, the corner of her mouth curling up. "Besides, I read a fairy tale once, about a Hero who rode a giant ant to defeat an Evil Dragon and rescue the captured princess."
"Now that you mention it, I remember that one," Shire said with a grin. "But in the version I read, the giant ant rode the Hero, defeated the princess, and rescued the captured Evil Dragon."
Hearing this, Agatha froze, utterly stunned.
"But you’re right," Shire said, leaning forward and propping his chin on his hands, which were resting on the table. "Worker Ants could carry heavy loads and help with digging. That would let me renovate the Fortress and reassign manpower. If we could get the goblins to ride the ants out for gathering, they’d break through their single-trip carrying limits and bring back far more resources."