In the month after the Worm Mages saved the Silver Ant Battalion, the Boreus started surfacing near the southern end of the glacier more frequently, dropping their pinkish-purple slime everywhere to signal the beginning of their hostile infestation. If nothing was done about it, the slime would slowly harden, solidify, and turn the entire glacier into a hellish landscape where the ground would squirm with critters and the air would be thick with hostile bacterial spores—cleaning up an infestation at that point would be impossible, and humanity would lose this territory for the rest of time.
Utu said, arms crossed behind his head as the hunting group of twenty returned to the village, followed by a dozen extra helpers hauling the morning Boreus carcasses in. He stole a glance at Sparrow and Minki walking ahead of the group, snickering slightly.
Minki mumbled something incoherent on his back, and Sparrow shuffled her weight around so she wasn’t heavy on his shoulders.
Sparrow asked, half-mumbling himself.
Ninmah whacked him on the head and Hijo kicked him in the shins, snatching the rope he was holding to drag his share of Boreus carcasses towards the kitchens.
He was about to click his tongue in protest, but at the very least, all the hunters looked serious about him not joining them for their afternoon hunts—so he nodded begrudgingly and let Ninmah organise the Worm Mages, evenly splitting the carcasses between the four cardinal kitchens.
It was just a bit past noon, the sun burning up the crystal wood village from right on top, so this was when the cold-loving Worm Mages would retreat under a roof to have their lunches. The chefs would dig up frozen meat from yesterday’s haul to turn into some variant of Boreus stew or Boreus sandwiches or stove-cooked rice with sprinklings of Boreus strips; frankly, there wasn’t much point to hunting any more efficiently than they already were. They quite literally didn’t have enough stomach space to eat more than they were filling holes in the ground with, and even Sparrow and Minki—soldiers trained to eat as much as they possibly could and some more in the heat of battle—simply couldn’t digest more than one whole Boreus a day.
Maybe it was time he tried to shift the Worm Mage’s efforts towards cooking Boreus meat in ways that led to more points with the same biomass, but he wasn’t good at cooking at all. At least he’d told the chefs to experiment with different recipes until they could find the most point-efficient form of Boreus meat, but until then, he was almost always going to skip lunch. His breakfast sandwich was more than stifling enough for his stomach. If he ate any more, he’d probably come down with food poisoning or something of the sort.
While the chefs started warping around the entire village delivering lunches to everyone’s doorsteps, he reached the base of the bell tower and started walking up the walls—his last tier three mutation, ‘Segmented Setae’, was a generic mutation most classes offered that made minuscule claws grow all across his skin, allowing him to walk on hard surfaces as long as he wasn’t wearing any shoes. Of course, staying ‘upright’ while walking up walls required tough abdominal muscles and a strong core balance, so he’d been holding back from unlocking the mutation until he had enough strength to properly use it… but now that he had it, walking up the twenty-metre-high bell tower with Minki on his back wasn’t much of an issue.
At the very top, he kept his feet stuck to the tented roof as he shrugged Minki off, letting her cling to the roof herself. Even in a dazed and half-asleep state, her training as a Silver Ant Scout kicked in—she kept herself from slipping with one palm stuck to the alabaster. The movement woke her up, though, and she jolted upright where she sat, scowling and squinting as she tried to assess her surroundings.
There was much to see sitting atop the bell tower twenty metres higher than the rest of Immanu, so he let her blink her drowsiness away for a few moments, taking a glance at his status interface as he did.
[Name: ‘Sparrow’]
[Grade: S-Rank Giant-Class]
[Class: Whiteworm]
[Swarmblood Art: Worm Maw]
[Aura: 2,343]
[Points: 566]
[Strength: 6, Speed: 7, Toughness: 5, Dexterity: 6, Perception: 5]
[T1 Mutation | Inorganic Heart Lvl. 10
[T2 Mutations | Vibrational Senses Lvl. 4 Wormic Bones Lvl. 4
[T3 Mutations | Segmented SetaeLvl. 1Rigid Annuli Lvl. 2Sclerite Jaw Lvl. 3
[T4 Mutations | Proliferating Septa | Salt Epidermis | Permeating Mantle | Omnidirectional Ocelli] 500P
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… He had enough points to pick a tier four mutation, and while hed consulted Ninmah again to figure out what each of them would let him do, he still felt like pouring most of his points into increasing his attributes.
But he probably pick at least one tier four mutation soon, if not only to get used to it.
“... I do not think we are accomplishing anything by hunting only a hundred Boreus a day,” Minki mumbled, pulling her knees up to her chest. So high up above the village, the afternoon winds whipped her short hair from side to side, but it didn’t seem to bother her; she narrowed her scarred eyes down at the village, pursing her lips. “I do not understand why all of you have given me so many points to ‘catch up’ to you, either. Is having one more person capable of hunting with this ‘Whiteworm Class’ so important that you are all willing to slow your progression for it?”
he said bluntly.
She tried not to let her scepticism show, but her lips thinned nonetheless. “I doubt I am that instrumental to the children here. They are all… unbelievably powerful—”
he said, shaking his head slightly.
Minki was quiet.
Then she averted her eyes and looked away, staring out at the sea of clouds beyond Immanu’s borders.
“...You a mere Bullet Ant Soldier after all,” she muttered. “Carpenter Ant Guards have exceptionally high strength to erect massive outposts even in the heat of battle. Mortar Ant Troops can shed spores that feed our fungus buildings and mortars and propagate the growth of the bullets we use. Silver Ant Scouts have fast legs to infiltrate Swarm territory and return vital information. Of the four battalions the General could choose to bring with him to Hagi’Shar, I still do not understand why he brought only a single Bullet Ant Battalion to supplement our forces.”
“We face Boreus,” she whispered. “What good is the Bullet Ant Soldiers’ specialty against the Swarm?”
He didn’t have a particularly good answer for her, so he didn’t respond. She took his silence and ran with it—pointing due west where the glacier could be seen in the far, far distance.
“Three months ago, we, of the Silver Ant Battalions, were ordered to determine the location of the Boreus brood nest and return the information to the General at all costs,” she said. “After two months, we narrowed the location to around the northern end of that glacier. If my comrades made it back to the General safely, then you can expect a few things to happen over the course of the next month or two.”
She pointed the exact opposite direction, eastwards towards the sea of clouds.
“Immanu is located three thousand metres above sea level: two thousand metres from the surface to the bottom of the sea of clouds, then one thousand metres from the top of the sea of clouds to the borders of this village,” she said. “Once the General catches wind of the brood nest’s location, there is no doubt he will order the construction of a base camp at the bottom of these mountains. If we presume my comrades reached him with the information a month ago, then he will most likely have the camp constructed within another month. He will move everyone into this camp, and afterwards, he will begin his march up to this village.”
He narrowed his eyes, staring eastwards alongside her.
“Our first attempt at the construction of a forward outpost ended in failure because we did not anticipate the Boreus’ strength and numbers,” she explained, nodding at him slowly. “You and many other soldiers were left behind as a result. However, now that the General is no longer underestimating the Boreus, he will not opt for close-range combat if he knows where the brood nest is. He will attempt to march the entire Forward Army up to this village and use it as a stronghold. Then, he will have the mortars replanted and shell the brood nest all the way from here—thereby minimising casualties and resources that would otherwise be lost in a direct confrontation.”
he agreed.
“Yes. You understand. Therefore, I do not understand why you must rely on these children to exterminate the Boreus nest.”
He knitted his brows together.
“You are,” she countered, turning to face him directly. “Your order was to exterminate the Boreus, correct?”
“And you understand these ‘Whiteworm Classes’ the children have given us are extremely powerful?”
“They cannot keep us confined. Right here, right now, with me leading the way, we can warp down to the General within a day if we so desire.”
“Then, the most effective way to exterminate the Boreus is by utilising our new magic and mutations for the General,” she concluded, her eyes sharp, steady, and sincerely puzzled; he didn’t break eye contact with her. “You understand the General’s plan. With our magic and the ‘wormholes’ we can already create, we can hasten the process of replanting mortars in Immanu. We can warp the entire Forward Army up here in weeks instead of months. Our abilities can change the tides of war between humanity and the Swarm, so why are we staying up here by ourselves, hunting meagre numbers of Boreus in an entire week that the Forward Army can decimate in a single day?”
It was a good question.
This one, he finally had an answer for.
he said, rising to his feet and using the stock of his rifle as a crutch; his thighs still burned a little after all the warping he’d been doing the entire morning.
Minki looked at her for a long time before standing as well, stretching her legs. “It depends on the level of intensity. What will we be doing?”
“That is?”
he said plainly,
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