Golden Experience

The mysterious hole was actually a tunnel leading to an ant nest. The “ant” part was fine, but these things were freaking huge. The situation was probably that since this was the ice wolves’ den, they never used the tunnels on this side. The ants probably aimed to come when only the wolf pups were supposed to be here, based on their reconnaissance, and that just happened to be right now.

Depending on the size of the nest, Rare would have thought they could easily trample over eight giant wolves with pure numbers, so there must be some reason they never did that.

“Monster ants… Damn pain in the ass. What do we do, Boss?”

“What do we do”… How should I know…? Rare retorted mentally, though she was already formulating a plan in her head.

Tame the ants. If they can be used as labor, then it would be easy to enlarge the cave. If these ants had the same kind of ecology as the kind she knew from real life, as soon as she tamed the queen ant they’d be victorious. In that case, they’d need to venture into the depths of the nest.

“Is there any way for us to get to the deepest part of the nest…?”

Was what came out earlier a worker ant? If she had tamed it when it was here, then they could just tame their way through the nest. However, to do that, they’d need to make contact with an ant, since the one from before already left. Right now, the only way they had to access the nest was this tunnel, so the only option now was to take the plunge. Not only that, Rare herself had to go too.

“It’s suicidal to charge into a place where only our movements are restricted…”

That said, Rare’s skillset didn’t contribute much in terms of direct offensive power. She was quite confident in her combat ability without relying on skills or stats, but that was still at best only useful against single, individual enemies. But when facing six-legged creatures that didn’t even come up to her knees, it was hard to expect a proper one-on-one duel. In which case, whether or not Rare had freedom of movement didn’t change much in terms of strategy. If it came down to it, leaning on her [Mental Magic] and going alone was probably the most logical option.

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So then the next question was, were ants susceptible to [Mental Magic] or not?

“Would be nice if you dropped by again, Mister Ant…”

“Should I go catch one?” Marion offered.

If it was Marion, the smallest, compared to say Kerry, she should be able to move around a bit more easily, but still—

“No, hold on a second.”

Considering everyone’s current fighting capability, their group was heavily skewed toward physical attacks. The ice wolves could technically use ice elemental attacks and [Ice Magic], but right now they couldn’t even fit in the tunnel so it was a moot point. Which meant that this might be a good time to consider obtaining magic as a potential countermeasure. From the looks of them, physical attacks probably wouldn’t be terribly effective on ants. Even if they didn’t end up fighting these ants this time, there could be enemies where that was the case in the future. She originally wanted to have more numbers in order to stabilize their battles anyway; that being the case, having more diverse tactics available was also a high priority.

With the ice wolves joining the party, they now had a total of 200 XP. Having to manage that between eleven individuals would be a nightmare—it wasn’t enough to do anything, basically—but it was enough to invest all into one person. Additionally, if they just wanted to catch or lure one ant, with a little more planning, it wouldn’t even be necessary to spend all of it.

“Marion, as you offered, I’d like you to capture an ant. However, before that, I’d like to show you how to use magic.”

“‘Magic’? …Magic! Can I use magic too?!”

“Have you seen someone use magic before?”

“My papa back at the settlement could use magic. Knowing magic meant you got to wear nice clothes and eat until you were full.”

A beastkin’s base stats made them less suited to being mages, so a beastkin NPC that could naturally use magic was probably very rare. Depending on what element of magic they could use, they could have been a local celebrity in a mountain village. Since the girls’ settlement was very close to monster territory, it was quite likely that they had a mage as part of their defenses.

“Is that so? I eventually intend for all of you girls to learn some kind of magical ability, so first is you, Marion. The question is what kind of magic is suitable for you.”

Right now, she wanted to pick something that would be effective against the ants, but she wasn’t sure which element that would be. Fire was the classic anti-insect element, but that only applied in reality. Not to mention it’s not as though insects were especially vulnerable; most living things died to fire, really. And since most things were vulnerable to it, it meant there were countless ways to utilize it effectively.

“Fire might be good, but… it might not be a great idea to use in an enclosed space. We don’t want to burn up all the oxygen.”

Rare’s first base had some kind of magical ventilation, but she didn’t know if these tunnels had it too. On the other hand, oxygen deprivation could be a card to play. She wasn’t sure how these ants were different from real ants, but considering they were insects, they should have a number of spiracles on their bodies. They still needed oxygen to function, so if the concentration of oxygen dropped, it could slow them down. However, if their caves did have magical ventilation, then it would be a wasted endeavor. Furthermore, their size was a concern. Compared to real ants, they should need more oxygen to function. That would be a normal conclusion to reach, but since this was a game world, maybe their bodies had some magical ability that let them operate normally with low levels of oxygen. And actually, to begin with, she wasn’t even sure if magically created fire consumed oxygen at all. Now she was curious and wanted to investigate, but in order to prove it one way or the other she’d need various lab equipment.

“It’s really annoying to fight magical enemies… I guess we gotta counter with magic ourselves.”

If fire was too hard to use, then what would the next best element be? Not that fire had been determined to be effective or anything.

It was probably best to just forget about real ants for a second and go over known information.

They didn’t know much about these ants right now. First, they were about as large as typical house dogs. They were fast, but their movements didn’t appear irregular in any way. Next, they were able to make a pretty clean circular hole in the wall of this cave, which was hard bedrock, so they were good at excavating. She had no proof that an ant was what created that tunnel originally, but she at least couldn’t believe that it had occurred naturally. In which case, it would be better to presume it was within the capabilities of their foe. These were all the facts they had. They knew nothing that could lead to identifying a weakness.

“Ah, Boss. Maybe they’re not so good with wolves, don’t you think?”

Rare had been mumbling to herself while thinking, so Riley offered her input. Indeed, as Kerry said, it wasn’t just her [Enhanced Eyesight], she was sharp in many ways. Rare had also considered the possibility, but only spent a moment considering it before getting distracted.

Running with the idea, what exactly did it mean to be “not so good with wolves”? Considering the current situation, it’s not like they couldn’t carry them. If it wasn’t the “wolves” that they didn’t like, then maybe instead it had to do with magic. Considering their constitution, an ant wouldn’t normally be able to win in a straight-up fight. If that were the reason, it’s not like she couldn’t understand, but they should still be able to crush the wolves with numbers. In the real world, ants were able to protect themselves against small animals that were tens of times their size by banding together. And the ants in this world were gigantic. The wolves were larger as well, but not to the degree that the ants were. A group of giant ants should easily be able to protect themselves. That meant that there was another factor distorting the usual relationship between ants and normal animals in this case.

For example, something unique to this world. A magical kind of factor.

“‘Ice wolves’… Could this mean the ants are weak to ice?”