บท 64: New Digging Ants at Work
It wasn't yet 7:00 in the morning when the dwarf Finerg woke him up, showing him where he could wash his face and hands, and then served him a piece of dry bread with a juice of something he couldn't identify but found tasty. Joe felt sorry, knowing Finerg had little to offer, but still received him so kindly.
"Mr. Finerg, I have something to ask you. I'm sorry if I'm being too intrusive, but aren't you married?"
The dwarf wanted to reply, but suddenly tears filled his eyes.
"I'm sorry, young one. I didn't mean to show you this, but my wife, like many other dwarves who fought against the nobles, is imprisoned on the Prison Island."
"It's alright. I won't talk about it anymore."
"No, my boy, we should talk. After all, I miss her and my children, who are there."
"What do you mean? They imprisoned your wife and children?"
"Yes, Little Joe, they really did, just like they imprisoned our hero, the dwarves' hero, Eron, and after that, everything became harder."
"And you've never tried to fight back?"
"Well, my young one, after they imprisoned our heroes and part of our families, they simply silenced us with the threat of taking the remaining dwarves if we made war against them."
Little Joe stayed silent as he packed Ilcia's journal, wrapping it and putting it back into the suitcase. Then, together with Finerg, they went to where the ants were, still working tirelessly. The sheer number of ants was admirable.
That's when he accessed the queen ant's screen and saw she had called for reinforcements. At least 2,000 ants were working there, digging the tunnel and bringing out chunks of earth. When he accessed Florida's screen, he realized it wasn't 2,000 but 5,000 ants, all working at full speed without hindering each other.
From afar, they watched these little creatures work non-stop. The tunnel had grown larger, with a circumference of 50 cm. The ants moved along the sides, above, and below, hauling the dirt and curiously pulling along a wooden plank the dwarves had used.
Finerg, who knew a great deal about digging, quickly estimated that the plank, carried by the ants, must have been moving at least 100 kg of weight effortlessly, given how much was underneath it. All of this work was brute force, but meticulous.
That's when Little Joe noticed two things: the ants must be starving, and the readings from Ylsean's journal had increased his intelligence by 0.25%. The system alerted: "You can now communicate with the queen ant with a bit more clarity."
Calling Finerg over, Joe handed him a few copper coins and made a gesture. Promptly, some dwarves came to him, took the coins, and half an hour later returned with bags full of sweet bread.
The dwarves were excited, thinking it might be a gift for them, but quickly lost their enthusiasm when they saw Little Joe place all the delicious treats on the ground while seemingly communicating with the queen ant.
Near the queen, Joe tried to explain that she should summon all the ants, but she refused—she couldn't pull them away from their work. Then Joe had an idea: he placed the sweet bread in the ants' path so that each could grab a piece without stopping their work. In less than 10 minutes, it was all gone, leaving the dwarves with their mouths watering.
Wasting no time, Little Joe began making calculations to distribute all the XP evenly.
The Sime system, responsible for the skills he acquired, hadn't considered that he'd already released one ant, the healer, and had freed up space for 26 more worker ants.
Now, he could install 26 micro screens on 26 of them. His army of ants with screens was growing. The total was now 150, and Little Joe didn't know the limit, but hoped there wasn't one.
He asked queen Florida to summon 26 worker ants, but she was smarter than he thought. She had already laid 26 eggs and, somehow, accelerated the process because, right below Joe, there were 26 strange ants that didn't seem as fast as the others but were clearly adapted for digging.
[Evaluation:]
[Digging ant with a capacity to dig 10 times that of a regular ant.]
Little Joe was so thrilled with this that, without thinking much, he picked up the little queen in his hands and began kissing her. For a moment, the queen was startled, but even so, she showed no signs of attacking the boy. Realizing it was a gesture of gratitude, the queen waved her tiny arms, showing she was happy too.
Hidden in his pocket, Joe had a large piece of sweet bread, which he offered to the queen. She accepted without much ceremony and ate it right away.
"You deserve it, my little friend. This is for you, you deserve it."
The new digging ants had a frightening appearance. Their front legs looked like shovels, and their heads resembled drills that rotated first one way, then the other.
Little Joe simply couldn't understand how such a creature could exist. Maybe it didn't exist in reality, but in the face of necessity, queen Florida had found a way to help him. To repay her, he was determined to evolve her as quickly as possible.
The digging ants were larger than the other ants, which were already old. This meant that, with a few adjustments, they would grow even bigger and stronger, and Little Joe could hardly wait to have enough XP to make them even more monstrous than they already were.
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