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51.66% Laws of the Insect Hive / Chapter 31: Ant Spy

Bab 31: Ant Spy

Editor: Atlas Studios

"Queen, egg."

Compared to normal insects, Foolish, the soldier ant, was quite clever. Normal bugs could hardly sort out words using [Spirit Connection].

After just one afternoon, Foolish was able to send a simple message to System. Although it was not as good as Quin, it was counted as a bug with superior intelligence.

The soldier ant was not really foolish, but just simple-minded and prone to believe in others easily.

Foolish was convinced of System's concocted identity—the ant queen.

Foolish really believed that it was System's child, so it would do everything System told it.

"Go get me an ant larva."

After receiving an ant egg from Foolish, System continued his test on the soldier ant. He had ordered it to rob normal worker ants' food, steal food from an anthill, bring out ant eggs and larvae…

System's test escalated step by step. He found that even if he asked Foolish to commit suicide or to assassinate the fake ant queen in the depths of the anthill, Foolish would not hesitate to obey.

However, System simply tried to give the orders and stopped it immediately.

He would not let Foolish commit suicide. Also, it would not do System any good to let Foolish assassinate the ant queen in the anthill, regardless of whether it could succeed.

After choosing a crevice, System ordered Foolish to carry food in it while he jumped away from the anthill.

The sky darkened, and System explored around the forest in the darkness.

Due to [Dark Vision] and his newly acquired ability,0 [Subtlety Vision], System's vision in the dark was much better than during the day. Ever since System inherited Quin's spiritual power, he could continuously use [Information Reading] for more than ten minutes, which was three times longer than before.

In fact, while System previously had been out foraging in the dark, this was the first time he tried to explore. There were many mosquitoes in the forest at night, fluttering together in swarms, and seemed to be mating.

The spiders appeared on their webs every few meters apart, and one or two toads with bulging abdomens would appear on the ground, reaching out their tongues to catch the mosquitoes in the air.

The forest at night seemed dangerous and creepy.

It was not long before a small bat showed up in the sky, flying back and forth. System tensed his nerves and was ready to avoid this bug-eating predator.

However, before System made a move, he realized that the small bat had noticed him and flew away quickly.

System was suddenly enlightened.

This bat, which was about his size, did not take him as prey at all. It chose to keep a distance from him instead, which clearly showed its fear of him.

He was no longer the same little grasshopper he was back then.

System ignored that bat and continued to explore around. There was a variety of possible prey for System at night, but most of them were not what he wanted. Undoubtedly, it was more efficient to snatch the ants' food than hunting these bugs.

System's target was an edible magical creature like the slime.

While inheriting Quin's power, System also had access to many of her memories.

The memories about Quin acquiring [Mind Transmission] and the world's voice were vague, but the part about the plant that allowed her to grow quickly was clear.

Quin had trodden on a path different from normal grasshoppers only after eating the pale blue fruit.

Though System's idea was good, searching for magical creatures in the forest was like fishing for a needle in the ocean. System searched all night but gained nothing.

In the morning, System returned to the ant nest where Foolish as he had utterly failed.

Surprisingly, he made an amazing discovery, giving him a way to hibernate peacefully. With this, he would not have to look for magical creatures to boost his strength as quickly as possible. After all, searching for the pale blue fruit that Quin had eaten was like buying a lottery ticket, which could only be encountered accidentally.

All he had to do was prepare with a peaceful mind, steadily gain EXP, and undergo his third molting after ten days. Then, he would be able to spend the entire winter with ease, even if there were two or three months of snow.

This startling discovery came from Foolish. After an entire night, Foolish had filled the rock crevice, which System had chosen at random the previous day, with food.

The crevice was large for ants, as it was about the size of a can of coke in his previous life.

It was not because of its strong strength that Foolish had filled it in only one night. In fact, normal soldier ants were only larger, and their ability to carry things was not even comparable to normal worker ants.

Like normal soldier ants, Foolish's ability to carry food was equally poor. Thus, it would not be able to fill the crevice even if ten of it carried food all night long.

Foolish had filled the crevice with food because it had sought help from the worker ants.

When System returned, nearly a hundred worker ants were moving around his crevice.

Under Foolish's command, these worker ants placed the food they were carrying in their mouths into the rock crevice.

Soon, the crevice was filled. The worker ants continued to pile on the food in the crevice, while Foolish wandered around and guided the worker ants to move from time to time.

Foolish had far exceeded System's expectations.

System, with his human intelligence, had not even thought of letting the soldier ant command the worker ants to carry food. Nevertheless, Foolish had thought of it.

Since Foolish could command the worker ants, System immediately thought of countless possibilities, including a plan to build a nest for hibernation with the help of these ants.

Ants were good at digging, so System could build an underground nest effortlessly and make it luxurious, too.

He had planned to dig a simple cave two meters deep down into the ground that would allow him to escape from the coldness of winter.

However, now, he was capable of digging a five-meter deep cave with these hard-working worker ants. They would also dig many rooms in the cave as his granaries.

All System needed to do was ask Foolish to instruct the worker ants to make the cave wider, allowing him to access it freely.

As for filling the granaries, this could be done by these hard-working worker ants too. If the food collection process was too slow, he could even ask them to bring resources from their nest's storage.

When winter came, he could stay still as if he was hibernating and eat non-stop underground to further enhance his strength.


next chapter

Bab 32: Shadow

Editor: Atlas Studios

System acted swiftly and ordered Foolish to command the worker ants and build a nest for him to spend the winter.

Foolish communicated with the worker ants by spraying special acid and touching their antennae. It did not take long before it led more than 100 worker ants from the ant nest nearby and started digging a few meters away.

As the middle management of the ant nest, Foolish had the power to assign normal worker ants.

Usually, a normal soldier ant could command dozens of worker ants, while Foolish, who was smarter, could command more of them, probably around 100 or so.

Theoretically, Foolish could command more worker ants because there was no upper limit to the number of ants that its antic acid could control.

However, commanding too many worker ants would undoubtedly make the soldier ants with poor command ability unable to attend to everything at once. Thus, the controlled worker ants would fall in confusion, lowering their efficiency.

Soldier ants seemed to be born knowing how to command and the appropriate number of ants they could control.

The idea of digging a nest was brilliant, but System found it unsatisfactory when watching Foolish lead the worker ants to dig.

Although he had asked Foolish to dig a wider cave, he did not know if Foolish had sent the wrong order or normal ants' intelligence was low. In short, the cave the ants dug was too narrow.

It took nearly an hour of communication for the worker ants to widen the soil near the cave's opening under Foolish's command.

Nevertheless, this was only the opening, and the width of the cave's interior was not known to System.

When System tried to get close to the cave to check, the worker ants would attack him without mercy. After all, System relied on Foolish to command these ants.

As a result, when the less intelligent Foolish commanded lesser intelligent worker ants, it led to a tragedy.

System ordered Foolish to transfer all these worker ants away. Then he discovered that except for the cave's entrance, the inner passage was almost identical to an ant nest. It was so narrow that he could not possibly go through at all.

Except for the first two hours, System and the ant construction team led by Foolish were making no progress for the entire afternoon.

If he kept ordering Foolish to command in the way he wanted, this group of ants would more or less understand and listen to some orders. But this was inefficient in order to meet System's expectations.

"Can't there be any more ants like Foolish?"

System looked at Foolish that was rubbing its limb. If there were hundreds of soldier ants like Foolish under his command, it would not be a problem to build one, or even five caves.

He instructed Foolish to continue digging the cave with the worker ants.

System approached the ant nest and tried to use [Mind Transmission] to find obedient ants like Foolish.

After driving nearly a hundred ants into a rage with his lies, System concluded that Foolish was just a special case among ants.

Even if deceived by his lies, normal ants would notice something wrong and then attack him without hesitation.

"A few dozen seconds?"

System suddenly realized something, but at that moment, he had yet to find the key point.

He thought for a while, played back the images with his [Information Entry], and then keyed in the information of the hundred ants that he had just tried to deceive into the menu of [Self-Information Generation] for statistical analysis.

The time between being deceived and going into a rage was generally around 30 to 60 seconds. Usually, these ants would believe him in the first 20 seconds, but at around 25 seconds, they would become dull and mentally confused.

The time those ants needed to awaken from confusion varied greatly from 5 to 30 seconds, depending on the individual differences.

"Could it be that there is an obvious difference in the lies I told?"

System shook his head. The information he gave to these ants using [Mind Transmission] was basically the same, and even the tone he used was similar.

System re-watched the images in [Information Entry] and was reminded of something. He recalled the images of [Information Entry] a few hours ago and found the key point he had thought of earlier.

A few hours ago, he had ordered Foolish to catch an ant larva from the nest.

Before eating the ant larva, he had also told it a lie using [Mind Transmission]. Although it had eventually caught him telling a lie, it had been deceived for nearly five minutes. Adult ants would see through his lies in a short period.

If he could get Foolish to catch more ant larva from the nest for him to test out…

No!

The success rate on ant larvae might still be low, but how about the eggs before they became larva?

By brainwashing ants from the egg stage, would they become as obedient as Foolish?

If this hypothesis was true, he could order Foolish to carry some eggs for him to brainwash. After the eggs were hatched and the larvae grew into adult ants, he would have many ants that only worked for him.

Unfortunately, it was impossible to determine the needed time for the process, as he did not know the dark-brown ants' growth cycle.

Also, Foolish could not track the amount of time spent. When System asked how long it took to mature from when it was born, it gave a puzzled look and could not answer at all.

If it took too long, for ants to mature, System could only give up and find another way.

While System was making plans about winter, a bug returned from Leyte Forest to the abyss across the void.

Leyte Forest was covered with ice and snow all year round, and ever since the Glacier Lord had disappeared 300 years ago, the ice and snow there had started to melt. It had become a place with four distinct seasons.

Shadow had been traveling between the abyss and the Leyte Forest for 30 years.

Every year at the end of summer, her master, an Abyssal Druid, would use a special secret spell and send her into the main world. She had to search for bugs that had power beyond their race limit and bring them to the abyss.

Shadow loved the sunshine of the main world, but she could not stay for too long.

Abyssal Druids, formerly known as Swarm Druids, specialized in ordering insect swarms in nature, and they belonged to a branch of the Druids.

After the Swarm Druids had surrendered to Demon Overlord Ogan, the Druids' traitor, the Swarm Druids, had been called the Abyssal Druids.

They used the flesh and blood of bugs to rebuild a demon nest, which could significantly improve the incubation efficiency of the newborn demons. Thus, they developed many new types of demons.

Shadow did not know that until ten years ago when she had slowly started to understand this.

Shadow was regretful as she had been forced to kill two of her kind who had betrayed the master.

At that time, she had known nothing.

Shadow knew that she possessed intelligence now, just like those two who had betrayed the master.

After handing over a bug, whose power had reached the limit of its race, to her master, Shadow had disappeared into the shadows.

However, she had concealed one special bug she had found in the Leyte Forest—Quin.

Shadow looked forward to meeting Quin again the following year. Although Quin was much weaker than her, she had something that she did not have…


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