Golden Experience

The ants must have seen the ice wolves use ice attacks while scouting or something.

Ice wolves weren’t monsters native to this area. They had been ousted by a competing species, and this wolf pack ended up fleeing south. If the ants were indigenous to this area, it would be difficult to suddenly have to find a way to deal with an unknown species like ice wolves. Considering the climate, there probably weren’t any other monsters in this region that could use ice.

Even so, the ants should still have the advantage by virtue of their overwhelming numbers, so maybe ants became weak when the temperature dropped. Well, insects in the real world were also weaker in low temperatures, but in this world, perhaps the ants didn’t have any kind of magical defenses to cope with it. Or, maybe the ants were weak to ice for an entirely magical reason instead.

“…Well, for now, let’s just try it out and worry more later. At this point, there isn’t anything left to consider.”

She would have Marion learn ice magic. First off was [Magical Affinity: Ice] and [Freeze]. She would like to get the [Ice Bullet] offensive spell as well, but the effect they needed right now was the ability to lower air temperature, not the ability to kill, particularly since their current goal was to capture an ant.

Regular magic attacks dealt damage based on the INT stat. Marion was a beastkin, and her INT was also extremely low, so her magic wouldn’t be very potent. But even before that, she didn’t have the minimum required stats, so she wasn’t even eligible to learn magic yet. So first, Rare needed to spend some XP on increasing Marion’s INT stat.

She didn’t want to run empty on XP, so she spent in moderation. Still, Marion now had as much INT as a newbie elf specializing in casting magic. Thinking of how she was already a prodigious ranger, now all she needed was offensive magic and she would probably be able to take out a player at first sight. Not that Rare had any plans at the moment to go PKing.

“Well, Marion? Now, you should understand the basics of [Ice Magic].”

“Oooh… So cool… I do… I know how to use it too… Is this your power, Boss?”

It wasn’t technically Rare’s power, but rather a function of the game system, but it was true that Rare was the primary impetus.

“This goes for all of you as well: if you work properly for me, then I can give you magic, power, and more. Marion, this is my down payment on you, but you’ll work hard, right?”

“Yeah. I’ll go freeze the ants and catch ’em!”

“Good girl. We’ll all wait for you here, so it’s up to you.”

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Marion dove into the nest. All that was left was to wait and see what happened. As long as they weren’t too far away, Rare vaguely knew the status of her followers. If she judged that things had gotten too dangerous, she should be able to summon Marion back here.

Until Marion returned, she should think about how to spend the remaining XP strengthening everyone else. It slipped her mind while thinking about teaching her magic, but since Marion’s INT went up, it’s possible that may have affected the NPC’s cognitive ability as well. From the start, the catkin girls’ builds were oddly unbalanced, with only INT being low, so she was thinking it would be good to increase it for all of them.

She didn’t exactly dislike their crude language, but if they were going to go to town in the future, it would be better if they learned how to be more polite. She wasn’t sure if their ability to study would also go up with INT, but it was worth trying. If it turned out it didn’t work that way, then at least it wouldn’t be wasted since it still let them learn magic later.

If she were to use most of the rest of the XP, it would be on raising Kerry, Riley, and Remy’s INT. There wasn’t enough to get them each as high as what Marion had now, but she could at least get theirs up to her own base INT. Players’ actual intelligence wasn’t tied to the stat, so everyone having the same INT didn’t annoy her or anything. That said, she only had 20 XP left, and since she might want to learn standard magic for her own use in the near future, maybe she would raise her own INT. Hers would then be higher. In and of itself, there was no ulterior reason for her to do this. But man, Marion’s really was high. But now she was out of XP. Not that she felt inferior, or really cared or anything.

“Boss, Marion’s coming back.”

Her ears having picked up on something, Remy’s report interrupted Rare’s mental monologue. Apparently, Marion was successful.

“But it sounds like an ant’s coming too. I can hear its footsteps.”

In other words, Marion was being pursued. She might be able to get away on her own, but there was no sense in taking needless risks.

“[Summon: Marion].”

The ground before Rare glowed, and an instant later, Marion materialized within the light. She was holding a frost-covered ant.

“…Ah, was that Boss’s magic? Thank you for helping.”

Before Rare could explain, Marion had already guessed what had happened and expressed gratitude. Whether it was due to her increased INT or she was just that kind of person, it was wonderful that no explanation was needed. Although [Summon] was a skill, not magic, but that wasn’t particularly important at the moment.

“Not at all. You appear to have completed your task. Good job. Now, you must be cold. Go ahead and just set it on the floor.”

The ant Marion was carrying wasn’t completely frozen, nor was it dead; it was barely moving. She had maintained it in a perfectly incapacitated state.

“Remy, what happened to the ant that was chasing Marion?”

“…I think… it’s panicking around where Marion disappeared.”

“Probably because the thing it was chasing suddenly vanished… Do you think it’ll come investigate all the way here?”

“I’m not sure… Ah, it just left. Maybe it’s going back to report?”

Remy was also voicing her opinions now. It wasn’t ideal for reports to be weighed down with prejudice or wishful thinking, but that was something she could warn them about over time. It was good that they were thinking for themselves and felt comfortable voicing their conclusions, though. If they had more XP leeway in the future, she wanted to increase the girls’ INT some more. It was possible that they had been so quiet before now because they were unable to comprehend the situations at the time.

“Anyway, first, let’s thaw out this ant. It would’ve been nice if I had someone learn [Fire Magic]… But since we’re out of XP, all we can do is wait for it to thaw out by itself… I’d prefer not to give the colony that much time, though…”

“Say, Boss.”

“Yes, what is it, Kerry?”

“You can test [Subordinate] on it whether it’s frozen or not, right? As long as it’s healthy, we got what we wanted, yeah?”

Holy smokes. Kerry was totally right. There was no doubt about it; this was because their INT went up. While Rare still had a higher INT stat, she had a feeling that Kerry was now smarter than her. Players’ intelligence weren’t tied to their stats—this was the opposite case playing out. Well, you know, it was a good thing, having smart subordinates. Just like with Remy earlier, though, she’d have to teach them how to clearly differentiate between observations and opinions, but if that could be cleared up, it should result in an increase to their combat potential that couldn’t be quantified with stat values.

“I see; a magnificent observation, Kerry. It’s exactly as you say. I’ll try it out right away.”

Rare cast [Stupefy] on the ant. It was hard to tell since it hadn’t been moving much in the first place, but it should have been successful. Since she barely felt any resistance, she started to worry if she had actually activated it or not. [Mental Magic] spells weren’t flashy and didn’t leave clear visual indicators of their effects, which was pretty inconvenient. Next she’d use [Fear]. Normally she would follow up with [Charm], but since she’d never used [Fear] before, she wanted to test it out. When she had used [Charm] on the ice wolf earlier, there was nearly no resistance, but right now with [Fear], she could feel quite a bit of it. It still ended up working, though. This might mean that ice wolves had less charm resistance than ants had fear resistance. It was true that she had a hard time imagining insects feeling fear. Another explanation was that Rare herself was simply better at using [Charm] than [Fear], but from a game system perspective, there shouldn’t be any diff—

“…Ah, that reminds me, I did have that [Beauty] trait, didn’t I…”

The innate characteristic [Beauty] had the effect [Favorability with NPCs is increased], didn’t it? Apparently it modified the success rate of [Charm]. Thinking it over, that shouldn’t have been unexpected. Maybe being able to immediately tame the catkin girls after spending five hours with them was also in part due to its effects. In any case, [Fear] still got through. Now she just needed [Control] to work and then [Subordinate] should be guaranteed.

“[Control]… good. Then [Subordinate]… Huh?”

<<[Subordinate] cannot be activated. The target [Infantry Ant] has already been tamed.>>