Goto Ryuji ended the communication there, his expression remaining quite grim.
'Did we miss something?'
In order to successfully achieve what they were aiming for, the Japanese considered all types of possibilities and variables.
However, the event of a team featuring five of the very best Japanese Hunters getting annihilated in one go like this - such a thing simply exceeded all their expectations.
'Wait a minute....'
Something popped into his memory just then. There was an odd occurrence about four months ago.
The ant queen, being observed for 24 hours straight every single day, suddenly showed a massive decline in its magical energy emission. It was less than half of the usual amount!
The research team interpreted that as the lifespan of the queen coming to an end, and submitted several hopelessly optimistic reports. That was only until the ant queen began slowly recovering her magic energy, of course.
'It took about a month, didn't it?'