It seemed the ants the queen had given birth to were special. Even the normally weak Soldier Ants were able to shrug off all but my strongest attacks. Baltore let out a scream as one bit through his shoulder.
“Baltore!”
“Don’t worry, I’m fine! Heal!”
Normally the ants’ attacks shouldn’t have been able to pierce through our armor, but it was clear they hit harder than regular ants as well. That wasn’t the worst of it either. The moment we managed to cull the ants’ numbers, the Ant Queen once again pointed her ass at us and gave birth to yet more of them.
“No way, she’s birthing even more!”
“Fuck! There’s no end to them!”
Geeko, Baltore, and I were fighting with everything we had, but we couldn’t overcome the massive difference in numbers. The Ant Queen was creating ants faster than we could kill them. We were backed into a corner.
“Dax!” Geeko shouted.
I‘d let myself get distracted by despair. I shook my head, getting control of myself again, but the second I came back to myself my longsword was ripped out of my hands by a Knight Ant. That was bad enough on its own, but it was also impossible to pierce through the ants’ tough carapaces without my weapon, which meant there was literally nothing I could do now.
Looks like this is the end of the line for me.
The last thing that flashed into my mind was Old Man Eld’s kind face, as well as the three girls I’d just met today.
“Sorry for breaking our promise, girls.”
It was strange to think those cheeky grins would be the last thing I saw before I died. But while I knew there was no getting out of this for us, I decided I still wanted to go out like an adventurer. I clenched my fist, ready to punch the Knight Ant in the face, but just then, a black-clad figure dashed past me, quick as lightning.
“Arts Plus! Quickdraw!”
“Huh?”
I watched in awe as the figure flitted from target to target, a black streak moving too fast for the eye to follow. Each stroke of its sword decapitated an ant, and within the span of a few seconds, it’d annihilated the swarm of ants that had been giving us so much trouble. Soon, the only enemy that remained was the Ant Queen, and the black-clad figure calmly stared her down.
“Rex Tauren...” I muttered, awed.
Though I’d never met him, I’d heard so much about Freelea’s strongest adventurer that I recognized him immediately.
❈❈❈
“Thank god I made it in time,” Rex said as he turned from the Ant Queen to us. The three of us were still in shock from his sudden appearance.
“Th-Thanks, you really saved us! B-But how did you get here so fast?” I stuttered. “Even if you ran through that big passage at top speed you shouldn’t have gotten here this quickly.”
Rex just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Following the main path would have taken forever, so we used a more direct route.”
“By direct route, do you mean those side paths the ants use to carry food?!”
Since the ants carried their food to the young via the passages we’d seen in the walls earlier, they led directly to the Ant Queen, who birthed those young. It was true that those smaller passages were the most direct route here, but I would have never imagined someone would try going through them.
Does that mean he purposely let himself be treated as ant food? I wondered, slightly horrified.
But while I was extremely curious as to what methods he’d used, now wasn’t the time to discuss that.
“W-Wait, that queen keeps spawning more baby ants! You need to take her out fast, or—”
“Yeah I know, don’t worry. That’s why I’m waiting.”
“Huh? What do you mean?” I asked.
I got my answer soon enough.
“Brother, please don’t run so far ahead of us!” came a voice from outside the room. A young woman with greenish-blue hair ran inside immediately after, followed by a group of four kids. While these four weren’t quite as young as Chisha and her friends, they couldn’t have been any older than fifteen or sixteen. Either way, it was clear that they were also newbie adventurers.
“Old man, how the hell are you so fast?!” snapped one of them.
“C-Could you wait for us? Please?” pleaded another.
“Y-You idiots,” I sputtered. “What are greenhorns like you doing here?!”
Just then, the Ant Queen started spawning more ants. In seconds, the kids were surrounded by another dozen or so of them.
“Shit, I still can’t move...” I muttered, trying to stand up and protect the kids. Alas, my legs refused to work. It seemed as though we were the only ones worried by this situation, however.
“Urgh... I really don’t like ants,” the girl in priest robes said, looking like she might throw up.
“Stop complaining. We’ve got a lot to kill,” the elf girl said in response.
Moments later, the four kids drew their weapons, and as they launched themselves into battle, I realized very quickly they didn’t need my help.
“Crimson Crash!”
“Flare Cannon!”
Those kids are strong, stronger even than us, I thought. They’re mowing down the ants much faster than we did. S-Still, that isn’t important right now! They might be strong enough to battle these ants, but the truly terrifying thing about that Ant Queen is that she spawns more indefinitely! Regardless of how well they’re faring right now, unless they’re able to kill her, they’ll eventually be overwhelmed just like us!
As soon as my strength returned to me I got to my feet and turned to my comrades. “Geeko! Baltore! We need to—”
“Don’t interfere.”
Before I’d realized it, Rex had walked over to us and blocked our path. That was extreme enough on its own, but he also had his sword drawn, as if to say he would actually attack us if we went to help those kids.
Wh-What the hell is he doing? I thought, my mind spinning.
I couldn’t understand what was going on. The earlier conversation had made it clear those kids were Rex’s comrades.
Why’s he stopping us from helping them? Hell, why isn’t he helping them?
Still, even though I had no idea why he was acting this way, I could muse over the mystery later. Regardless of what Rex’s reasons might be, I couldn’t just sit back and watch as those youngsters lost their lives.
I glared at Rex, and he gave me an exasperated look.
“Okay, look,” the black-clad adventurer said with a sigh. “The Ant Queen can only spawn a maximum of one hundred and fifty-one ants. Furthermore, they’re a higher level than all the other ants in this dungeon.”
I nodded. I’d seen the word “level” multiple times before in the books Rex had written. At this point even I could tell it was a numerical representation of something’s strength.
“So, if they’re high level that means they’re strong right?” I asked in return. “That’s exactly why we need to kill the queen as fast as possible, or—”
Rex sighed and shook his head, looking at us like we were the strange ones. “Wrong. You really don’t get it, do you? They’re a higher level than all the other ants here. That means it’d be a waste not to farm every last one of them for experience.”
“Huh?”
I’d understood exactly what he was saying this time, which was precisely why I was so confused. This man was purposely going easy on a powerful monster that had nearly wiped out an entire city so that she could spawn more monsters for his comrades to kill just to get stronger. It was insane.
This guy’s lost his marbles, I thought. There was no other way to describe his current behavior.