章 11: Wha-what? Ant?
Robert hid behind a massive mana stone still embedded deep in the earth. His shaky hands clenched his pickaxe, the only thing that gave him a sense of safety and sanctuary. His eyes widened, horrified and his body trembled, like a wet cat.
Snaps
Munch
The sound of snapping scissor-like jaws and munching of human flesh echoed through the cave. Along with it, the smell of blood and a slight sweetness pierced Robert's nose.
The occasional sounds of steps accompanied those sound, too many steps, too many for a crowd of humans.
His hand together, he prayed.
"O-oh Goddess, ple-please," he muttered silently under his breath.
Drop
Robert felt coldness on his bald head. He rubbed it with one hand then looked at it, a green liquid. Then he looked up.
"Goddess…" he said.
Meanwhile, above the ground. The crowd of slaves looked at the entrance of the cave, their attention captured and their eyes mortified.
"Wh-what was that?" one of them asked.
"Was th-that Captain Kevlin?" another questioned. Their voices dreadful and frightened.
"Ron…" Hubert called.
"Yes?" Ron replied, his tone short.
"Robert…" Hubert said with his worried voice.
He knew that Robert was one of the miner, stationed deep inside the mana stone caves.
His trembling hands gripped his shovel as he worried, his gaze directed toward the cave, like all others, though not the same thought as those around him.
"Even if that was the captain, what can we do?!" one of the slaves shouted.
"What if the ants comes up here? Won't we need to run?" one of the slaves mentioned.
"But if we run, then won't they behead us? I heard that's what the soldiers did to those who tried to escape," another argued.
"We escape, but not from the church and soldiers, but from those monstrous ants!" another argued back.
"But what if…" another muttered with hesitation in his voice.
"Then what are you going to do?! Fight those ants?" another pressed his opinion.
"Let's run, then!"
The slaves split in two by the situation. Their fight or flee switch turned on. Their chattering and shouting like a buzzing fly sound in Hubert's ears.
He looked at them. Those who once watched the spectacle unfold as he was beaten under the slaves' leader, Brad. Those who never once stepped forward and fought back when he experienced all those oppression.
Those words that used to ring in his clouded mind returned. But this time, not directed to his self.
"Coward,"
Became a term suitable for those around him that abandoned their humanity for others. They all cowered behind each other, they dared not step forward and fight against a new oppressor for their fellow slaves.
"Cowards!" Hubert shouted. His voice filled the air, replacing the bickers of arguing.
He had enough of their mutters and murmurs. Those who were quiet and feared for their life when their fellow friends and slaves, in time of danger, like what they did to him, felt more cowardly to him.
"Let's go, Ron!" he clenched his shovel, then ran into the mine, his teeth gritted and his eyes full of determination of proving the true coward among themselves.
"…" Ron followed, his steps quick and silent.
Then again, Hubert remembered that night better than anyone. When he was punched and stepped on, and when he was pressed hard against the cold ground, when he was the source of entertainment for the slaves, no one dared to help.
Not even Robert, the one his watery and hopeful eyes glanced toward.
"Tsk!" Hubert clicked his tongue. Ron looked at him as the two rushed inward, delving deeper and deeper. Where the sunlight was absent, and the fire on the torch flickered in the darkness and silence accompanied their way down.
"Doubt not…" Ron said.
The sweet pheromone slowly noticeable by their sense of smell.
"I don't," Hubert replied.
Then they stopped. Their feet planted onto the ground, as they held their only weapon of dulled, rusty and overworked shovel in their hands.
The grim sight greeted them, the place damp and wet, not from water but from blood. Crushed bones and split body of slaves and guards scattered everywhere on the ground, lifeless.
Beside a sea of mana stones not yet mined, a hole on the ground two time the size of a normal water well.
"Wh-what…?" Hubert frightened.
"Look," Ron said, his empty gaze aimed at one direction.
There, a lonely ant stood, from its mouth leaked a gooey green substance. Under his jaw, a slave laid unconscious.
The ant noticed at them. Its black ruby-like eyes looked, as if glaring at them, while its antlers twitched.
"Fight…" Ron told, though his voice wasn't very commanding.
Hubert looked at the ant, exchanging glares with it.
Coward. Coward. Coward.
The tension made him nervous, his muscles shaky and his mind doubtful. Out of nowhere, that word came to his ear, like an uninvited guest.
He gritted his teeth and clenched his shovel with both hands. Agitated from that word, the word muttered by those around him, powerful or not, it was always he that was mauled with the same word, again and again.
"Hubert… Not coward, Hubert weak," Ron said.
"… Thank you, Ron," Hubert replied.
His mind calmed down and relaxed. Ron's voice like a savior to his struggle against the traumatic memories.
"Go." Ron commanded.
"Yes!" Hubert yelled in response.
His strengthened calf from all the laps of running he did under the evening sun launched him forward. His nourished forearm gripped his shovel like a proper spear. His tempered body prepared for the fight.
As he charged, he raised his shovel. Then dropped it down like the guillotine, its dulled edge aimed at the ant's glinting left eye.
Shwing
Snap
His power and technique proved to be futile.
"Wha-what?" Hubert muttered, sweat trickled down his face.
The ant had grabbed his dulled shovel by its head with its strong claw like jaws. Piercing the metal and gripping hard the rusting head of the shovel. Its head then swung to the left, bringing with it the shovel.
Hubert's grip lost. The shovel, the only meaningful and harming weapon beside his fist, had been sent flying through the air by the ant's jaws. Hubert's heart dropped to his stomach, his face slowly paled.
Clank
The shovel, with a hole in the middle of its metal head, landed on the pile of blue radiating mana stones sitting on a wooden wheelbarrow.
"…" Ron looked from afar.
The ant then bit forward with its sharp jaws.
Hubert jumped backward, barely avoiding the attack, his clothing was caught by the jaws and ripped by the sheer strength of it. His gaze all focused at the ant, clenching his teeth, surviving with his own dear life at the betting pot.
His eyes furiously scanned the place, searching for a way out, something that could save him and brought forth victory upon him. Then he saw it at the corner of his eyes, behind the huge body of the ant, a clear shiny metal gleamed in his eyes.
Snap!
Hubert's clenching teeth turned into a slight grin.
Then the ant snapped toward him again. Hubert predicted the ant, but instead of avoiding backward, he ducked. A few strand of his hair cut by the sharpened jaws.
Hubert crawled under the ant. The ant above turned its head from left to right, its opponent right under it, searching for him.
Then its antennae twitched. It smelled Hubert, it smelled and smelled and smelled, then it found Hubert.
Hubert's rushed stride toward the shiny metal laying on the ground echoed through the room.
A longsword, a hand still clutching to it, from the hand, a puddle of blood.
"I pray for the goddess to be with you in your death," he said, quickly grabbing the sword from the detached, stiffened hand.
The Hubert turned around. His eyes instantly filled with the reflection of the ant charging toward it. Six legs pushed and supported it forward.
Hubert raised his sword up to the air, similar to what he did with the shovel. But the ant changed. It charged Hubert with its head, instead of grabbing the sword with its jaws.
"Huagh!" a squeal came out of his mouth, accompanied with spit flying everywhere.
Thud
Its head made contact with Hubert's faint core muscles, throwing Hubert far and onto the cave wall.
"Ugh," Hubert sat, groaned, his grip over the sword he collected from a dead man weakened, another of his hand pressing his jolting, painful abdomen.
The ant didn't give him rest. It charged forward this time with its jaws opened, straight toward Hubert's waist.
Hubert saw, but couldn't move a single of his muscles, his nerves numbed by the previous attack.
He closed his eyes, a last breath and a peaceful look on his sweaty face.
"Robert... Forgive me," he muttered, one last time.
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