Chapter 157 - The Queen of Giant Ant

"Is that, Soldier type, Giant Ant? They have a pretty tough looking exoskeleton after all, so it has to be."

Sheila muttered while hiding in the shadow of Worker Ant on its work of transporting the spoil to the colony. The spoil was none other than the corpse of Fierce Wolf. Before confronting the colony, she wants to gain information about her opponents. Even when it comes to most of the games she played, she always did a thorough investigation of her opponents.

This becomes even more vital in reality, after all, the reality is not a game where you can just restart or respawn to try again. If you got killed, you die for real. No more second chance like those transmigrations or transportation to another world. There are also some cases about a rebirth to the past but those are all fiction.

The system had said that she could technically respawn if she dies in the Trial Tower, but as she previously said, she never wants to test it with her life whether it is a truth or a full of crap. So far, the system had shown her that it could do almost anything, so long as she works hard for it, she'll be reward with plenty of things that one could only imagine. If the system could truly 'revive' her like a respawn in the game, that means it has the power over life and death, like those necromancers who govern over death which was why they gained an ability to resist death.

If that was the case, one would think of the system or someone who managed it as a god, right? Plus, it didn't tell her if she would receive any drawback if she got respawn by the power of the system. She wouldn't believe it if didn't cost anything, especially when it involves life. The world has always been unfair and the law of the natural order as absolute. If the system could easily go against the law of natural order by reviving her without any cost, isn't that a bull? Is it possible that she would get hit by a flash of purple lightning afterward due to going against heaven?

Sheila had already seen the 'respawn process' from the system the moment she stepped into the Trial Tower so it wasn't far from the truth. Yet, does that kind of power also apply to her too? Without any drawback for her? A human and monster are two different beings. She didn't want to get revived only to find herself turned into a freak of monster. Just because the rules apply to the monster doesn't mean it would work well the same to a human. At least, that's not how it works in reality, or so she believes. Although it sounds cool by turning into a monster, she didn't want to experience it in reality.

What if she ended up turning into a goblin? That's an absolute no. Being a slime might be interesting but a goblin is a big NO. If the drawback of getting a respawn is by taking away half of her experience level, that might not be so bad. The point is, it actually has a cost which would make her feel relieved. It's not that she hates free stuff, instead, she loves it very much but when it comes to something as important as life, things are just different in various meanings.

While the Worker-type Giant Ant was traverse in the around the woods until it arrived at a small dark cave which it immediately went inside before coming out a few minutes later with prey missing from its mandibles. Sheila didn't need to enter the cave to know that it was used as a place where they put their spoil in there. She thought of following the worker ant but realized that it was going to leave the colony to hunt for more prey, and so, she decided to simply change her hiding spot to the Soldier-type Giant Ant's shadow on the way out, following the Worker Giant Ant.

The Soldier Giant Ant somehow managed to feel her presence for a split second when she was switching her hiding spot, but it was unable to locate her properly as she had already entered its shadow while it was looking around in vigilance and at the same, making weird noises with its mandibles. If her movement was a tad bit slower, she might have gotten caught by it. For the past few minutes, the Soldier Giant Ant had been very vigilance of its surroundings and never move away from its location while only on some occasion, would turn around to look at the incoming Worker Giant Ant before returning to its duty.

It took precisely an hour for the Soldier Giant Ant to return to its normal state from the initial wariness. Sheila was disgusted for a while when looking at the Giant Ant species, but after spending so much time around it, it doesn't bother her anymore. From her Analyze skill, she could tell that the Soldier Giant Ant could put up a bit of a fight if she decided to kill it. Its level is not that much far ahead of her, but what makes it hard for her is because of its strong sense of smell. If not for that, she wouldn't have almost gotten caught by it when she was switching the spot.

But that was not the scariest thing about it. As she had mentioned it previously, currently she was deep into their colony. If she were to get out of hiding to try and kill it, it would immediately release a special pheromone upon noticing her. The special pheromone could be detected by the other Giant Ants so long as they were nearby, so if she couldn't escape in time, getting surrounded by them would not be good for her. If that happens, she would get overwhelmed by them and sooner or later, she would die, won't she? That would be the case if she weren't the host of the Leveling System.

Because of the system, she could exit the Trial Tower so long as she wasn't in the middle of her quest. On each floor within the Trial Tower, there are always a few quests one could accept. This also goes the same to Sheila but unlike the other where the monsters won't be summoned unless they accept a guest, she didn't need to do so as the moment she stepped into the floor, the monster was already summoned. But once she received a quest, she couldn't leave the Trial Tower unless she fulfills the quest like the others. Of course, currently, she didn't take any quest since she was gathering information. She was not that bad of an idiot, after all.

The quest within the Trial Tower and the outside quest where she received from the system are two different things. The former had to be completed within the Trial Tower and couldn't be brought to reality, while the latter could be complete anywhere, even in the Trial Tower. But the reward remained the same for both. The higher the risk in the quest, the better the reward one would gain upon completion. Though that was what she said, she hadn't taken any single quest within the Trial Tower after ascending to another floor, mostly because she was more focused on the quest given by the system. Also, the quest reward is pretty...lousy.

She didn't know whether her expectations were set too high or that the system is trolling her. Most of them are either something I already have or something that I can easily acquire if I put effort into it, such as, low-grade weapons, some amount of gold and EXP, or miscellaneous(useless stuff). She doesn't need a shitty weapon since she already had a pretty powerful one, which is All-Purpose-Weapon. It could even compete with the top tiers one because of it being a growth-type weapon. As for gold and EXP? She could get that easily and much more by killing monsters non-stop if she put effort into the grinding. There's no need to speak of useless stuff.

Either way, that was the reason why she didn't accept any quest from the Trial Tower. It didn't give that many benefits to her yet that won't be the case for the others such as Ria, Sylvia, Mia, and her parents. They didn't have a unique weapon like her nor do they have the skills and as much as experience as her to easily kill monsters without batting an eye. For them, the quest in the Trial Tower was as good as the one she gets from the system. She also gives them a hand from time to times, it seemed that she could help them in their quest without facing any punishment or trouble which is good.

After a few hours hiding within the shadow, Sheila had almost grown fed-up of staring at the same ant on the same spot as if it has become a statue. Maybe the god has heard her desperate prayers as another Soldier-type Giant Ant suddenly appeared from another cave, crawling toward her location, or rather, the guarding Soldier-type Giant Ant. It seemed as though they have intelligence, at least enough for them to think of making a shift for the ants guarding the place. It's either a variant one or it was the idea from the Queen itself.

Anyways, once the new Soldier-type Giant Ant appeared, the old one greeted it first in their 'unique ants way' before heading inside the same cave where the former came from. Sheila was excited, finally, the time has come. When the Soldier Giant Ant went into the cave, Sheila also wonder where is its destination, would it be by the Queen's side? Or will it be a sort of relaxing room? Who knows, the ant might also need a break as any human does. With that kind of expectation, Sheila watch her surroundings with a curious look, it was a dark cave but that is not a problem with her night vision skill.

It seemed the cave was not a natural one but a work of the Worker Ants judging from how hard the wall looks like. With just a single look, one could that it is not natural by any means. Further deep into the cave, Sheila also passed a few Worker Ants working on making the cave even more spacious, or perhaps another tunnel heading somewhere else. She hadn't seen any new variant ant so far, and the colony most likely a new one as she could only sense hundreds of ants aside from her presence. Or it might be that the Queen couldn't give birth as fast as she thought possible.

As the Soldier Giant Ant went further deeper into the cave, Sheila becomes even more excited. It has to be the Queen! With that thought in mind, she looked up straight ahead when she senses that the Soldier had come to a halt. Ahead of her, she could see an elegant yet nimble looking Giant Ant stood out like a sore thumb, in the middle of many Soldier Giant Ants surrounding it. As expected, it was none other than the Queen. Even though the ants she had seen so far are all seemed ugly-looking, this one seemed a lot better than them in comparison. No, it might be rude of her to compare them with each other. It was like trying to compare a royalty with a commoner, It couldn't be called a match at all.

"Queen of the Giant Ant. Her presence alone is no joke, she must be stronger than me, perhaps. I couldn't be sure just yet, I need to gather more information before picking a fight with them."

Sheila muttered softly to herself so that the sound won't be leaked out of the shadow. If that happens, she would immediately exit the Trial Tower without wasting any time as it wasn't a joke that she was right in the most important place of her enemies. She would be killed without a doubt once they found out her presence. Even with that thought in mind, she couldn't help but think of what would the future be if she could tame the Queen and made it her own. Wouldn't she have an army of Giant Ants? The mere thought caused her to be filled with excitement yet she knew it wasn't possible unless she shows the Queen that it couldn't defeat her no matter how hard it tried. Basically, an absolute power that one couldn't resist.