Volume 8 - CH 11

Chapter 11 – Defeat and Search for Mineral Resources

After the ant attack was over, I was determined to resume exploration, but… there were a large number of dead ants in front of me… We had to deal with them before we could move on. There’s no place to step.

“We can’t go on without dealing with them; how should we deal with them?”

Should I put them on one of the 200 or so rubber boats I have at my disposal and repatriate them?

“Wataru-san, can you take out some barrels of oil? We’ll burn them and dispose of them. After we burn them, we will go back to the big room beyond yesterday’s marker and wait for it.”

Following Alessia-san’s plan, we scattered the oil. Instead of sprinkling the oil, we spread it far and wide with Fuu-chan’s wind magic.

When the work is done, and there are some distance away, Ilma-san releases fire magic, and the ant carcasses burst into flames. We hurry back to our destination and rest.

“Alessia-san, if we can make a fire like this, why didn’t we just burn them yesterday?”

“We could have set the fire while they were still alive, and that would have killed some of them, but they’d panic and move around in their nests. Wouldn’t it be a hassle to take down the scattered ants?”

“Oh, yes. That makes sense.”

After allowing enough time, we asked Fuu-chan to blow some wind deep into the cave as a precaution. When we returned to the place where we had defeated the ants, there was a slight smell of burning and some remnants of fire, but we were able to continue.

From there, the easy work continued. We entered a room at the end of a branching passage, burned the ants’ food, and proceeded, defeating the occasional ant that appeared.

One thing we can’t forget is Fuu-chan’s wind magic. No matter how many air holes there are, if we burn too much food, we will run out of oxygen. Every time we light a fire, we ask Fuu-chan to blow wind through the air hole. It’s a lot of work.

After discussing it, we decided to check the rooms on the way back after going to the lowest level and defeating the queen. We just burned all the rooms on the way down. We go down and set fire to one room after another.

“…Alessia-san, does the ant nest really need to be this big?”

“Well… among the nests that the adventurers found during their exploration, there were some that were so huge that they couldn’t even go around them in five days. This nest is also quite large, but considering the number of ants we found, I would say it is medium-sized. We could probably go around it in a day, couldn’t we?

Well, we’ve come a long way down, and it’s still going to take us a whole day? It’s too big. Does the air hole go that far down?

“Is it really that wide?”

I said with a disappointed look on my face, and Alessia-san said that the wider the hole, the more promising it would be.

“Wataru-san, it takes time to do the burning and so on, so it will probably take a day, but if we just go through it normally, it will be much faster. Besides, the bigger the nest, the more likely we are to find a mineral deposit. It’s a good thing, so let’s go for it.”

“Yes, that’s right. I thought it would be troublesome, but if we can find a mineral deposit, everyone will be enriched. That’s a good thing, right?”

I feel a bit motivated. It would be interesting if the Dark Elf village became big and rich. The problem is the number of people, but I don’t want to go all the way into the forest to look for them anymore. Can’t we do something?

We take a meal and continue to explore the ant nest, taking breaks and naps along the way. After about a day, as Alessia-san had predicted, a change occurred.

“Huh? This passage doesn’t smell so bad.”

When we entered the branch passage, the strange smell had become stronger, but this passage did not smell.

“Well, I think we’re getting closer to the queen.”

If it didn’t smell, does that mean we’re getting closer to the queen? When I tried to ask the reason, we were attacked by an ant that was bigger than the normal ant and the soldier, and it looked tough as well.

…This new enemy was cut in half by Alessia-san’s light slash. Maybe it’s a guard, but is that okay?

I feel like there are a lot of ways to do this, like pinching or aiming for a weak spot, but I think it’s fantastically wrong to cut it in half with a single, sharp slash.

“You see, Wataru-san, this is the giant guard ant. It’s a bit big, and it looks like it has good defenses. It was guarding the room at the end of the passageway.”

It looks like it has a good defense, but you only needed one slash to defeat it, huh, Alessia-san? I know it’s not right to complain when I’m just watching in the background, but I’m still not convinced.

The game is clearly unbalanced. It’s like I went into a place where the recommended level is 20, and I’m at level 80. It’s no match.

“Is that the queen?”

“No, it’s not. It’s the eggs.”

Eggs? …Oh, so there are ant eggs at the end of the passage. That’s why there was no smell. When the passage ends, and we enter the room, three guards attack us. The giant guard ants are easily defeated.

I feel a little sorry for them as I imagine that originally there would have been some kind of event like “I-it’s too hard for my sword to penetrate” or “T-they’re so big” or something like that.

Shaking off the feeling of emptiness, I looked into the room and saw that the eggs were piled all over the room.

“…This is creepy.”

“Yeah, let’s just burn them and move on.”

We went out of the room and had Ilma-san and Ines light the fire, and we moved on. From now on, it’s mostly eggs and sometimes food. We burn everything anyway. Fuu-chan’s wind magic is also very active.

But even though humans and monsters are enemies… I think it’s a terrible thing for us to invade a nest without permission, commit genocide, and burn all the food and eggs.

“Alessia-san, isn’t it getting hot in here? Aren’t we lighting the fire too much?”

It’s getting hotter and hotter. I think it’s going to be like a steam fire if it keeps going like this.

“Well, the heat is coming from underneath. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the fire we started.”

“From down there?”

“Yes, that’s why it gets hotter the further down we go. Could it have something to do with the hot springs?”

Are there many hot springs bubbling up underground? Maybe the hot springs above are like a sauna because the temperature below was so high… Is it safe to assume that the gases are safe because ants live here? Maybe the ants were digging for the hot springs? …No way, huh?

I thought ants didn’t like hot at all. I’ve heard that they don’t like hot and cold, so I don’t understand why a queen would be in a place that’s getting hotter and hotter. Is there any point in worrying about what we don’t know?

Anyway, let’s let Fuu-chan blow a lot of wind. I’d like to think it’ll be a little safer when it thins out. If we feel sick, we’ll have to go back immediately.

I just remembered that caves could be dangerous with all that gas and stuff. Should we go and find a goblin or a bird first?

“Alessia-san, I just remembered that the caves can have dangerous poisonous gases. Is it safe to continue on our way?”

“Well, I don’t know. I’ve never heard of dangerous poisonous gases being released in the ant nest, but… should we proceed with caution? If we feel sick, turn around immediately.”

I wonder if the ant has the ability to dig into the ground to prevent the gas from escaping? That would be a great help.

“I understand. Let’s proceed with caution.”

We proceed with caution, but what we do doesn’t change much. Repeat the process of knocking down the guards and setting fire to the room at the end of the branch. But how can the queen lay so many eggs? It’s an unusual number.

If they were all born, wouldn’t this island be occupied by now? It doesn’t make sense.

As we continued, repeating the same thing over and over again, we came to a large room at the end of the main passageway that was incomparably larger than the previous one.

As we entered the room, we were attacked by a large number of ants, soldiers, and guards. Behind them, we could see a huge, giant queen ant that looked to be about 5 meters tall and would never make it out of the main passage. It’s creepy.

I wonder if this hot room is necessary to maintain that huge body? But I don’t see any hot springs. Is it just geothermal heat?

The room is now overwhelmingly large, so the ladies can use their skills and magic with some freedom. They are no match for them, no matter how many there are.

They can’t even get close to us, and we just cut them down, crush them, and blow them up. To be honest, right now, I am more afraid that the large space without any pillars will collapse under the impact of the attack than I am of the insects. While I was scared, all the ants that attacked us were annihilated.

“Can we kill the queen now, Wataru-san?”

“Huh? Is there any reason why we should not defeat the queen?”

“No, there’s no point in keeping her alive, so we’ll kill her, but won’t the people in the village be happier if Wataru-san and the others kill her?”

…No, it’s too embarrassing. And if they give me the credit, my stock will rise even more pointlessly. Even now, I’m in trouble because my reputation is too high, and I can’t take it any further.

“No problem. I’ll ask Girasole to do it.”

“Really? Then we’ll take the queen down.”

When Alessia-san said that and swung her sword, the queen’s head flew off. Isn’t this too easy?

The flying head and body hit the wall, and there was a dull thud and rattle as the wall collapsed.　

“D-did you just hear the wall collapse?”

Collapse is… okay… right?

“Yes, I did. Maybe it collapsed where the queen’s body hit it, but it’s okay.”

It didn’t collapse; just a piece of the wall came off?

“Exactly. Now that we’ve defeated the ants, what do we do now?”

“Well, let’s burn this room down first. We don’t need it, but the carcass of the ant queen will be useful, so shall we collect it?”

“Yes… Felicia, can we use the giant queen ant in the Dark Elf Village?”

“I think we can use the hard shells and claws of the giant queen ant. Do you mind, Master?”

“No problem, then I will summon a rubber boat. Can you dismantle it?”

Should I summon about three rubber boats first? I asked Girasole to help me dismantle it and moved the queen away from the wall.

As soon as the queen was separated from the wall, a hot and humid air came out of the wall.

“Wataru-san, the wall has collapsed, and there is a hole in it.”

A hole in the wall? Is it a retrieval of the hot spring flag? I approached the hole and checked it, and found… magma sloshing around in a magma pool about 15 meters below. A sea of magma? The blackness in some places must be about to solidify.

“Ah, the magma is accumulating. It’s so hot.”

What should we do? Magma, huh…? What is that? Why can we see magma if it’s not a crater? …Is it because it’s a fantasy world? I don’t know what to make of it.

Does magma emit poisonous gas or something? …The air hits me with a whoosh. It’s been a hole in the ground for a long time, and if I don’t feel sick now, it’s probably okay… Probably.

In the meantime, I’ll summon a rubber boat and plug the hole as best I can. I summon a rubber boat and place it in front of the hole, reminding the boarding rejection to reject the dangerous air.

“What is magma? Wow, it’s hot.”

The women, perhaps interested, gathered around and peered into the hole from the top of the rubber boat. I hope it doesn’t collapse and fall down.

“It’s hot, Wataru-san, but it’s beautiful. Magma looks like molten iron; is it the same?”

Alessia-san, why are you asking me such a difficult question? Isn’t magma made of molten rock? I have a feeling that it also contains iron.

“I think it looks like that because of the melting of the rocks.”

“Oh, really? So rocks can melt. I didn’t know that.”

Is it strange that rocks melt? You have an image of iron melting, not stone. But there is gold in stone, and it can be melted and taken out… Isn’t that something unusual?

“It’s so hot, so why don’t we finish dismantling now and go back to check the rooms?”

Sweat drips down my face. It’s even hotter now that there’s a hole in the wall.

“I guess so. It really is hot. Let’s get this over with.”

Girasole helped me dismantle the giant queen ant, and it got smaller and smaller. The giant queen ant is quickly loaded onto a rubber boat and repatriated.

“What are we going to do with all the dead ants around us? I don’t know much about it, but I don’t think it’s safe to use fire or water near magma.”

“Is that so? Hmm, should we throw the carcass into the magma then?”

That seems dangerous.

“It seems dangerous, so it would be inconvenient, but shall we carry it on the rubber boats? We can burn them in the room above.”

We separate the heads from the bodies and load them on the rubber boat I have summoned. It is hard work because there are a lot of them. We managed to clean them up by constantly repeating the summoning and repatriation process. The simple work in the hot air is oppressive.

After the repatriation work is done, we check to see if there are any mineral deposits in the area. I walk around the big room, but I don’t know what kind of mineral deposits there are. Let’s ask them.

…Well, for now, they say we should ignore the soil part and look for the rock part. If there are streaks in the rock, they say there might be something else in there.

Once we find it, they say that someone who can use earth magic will analyze the deposits… There aren’t any members who can use earth magic, are there? That’s a big problem.

In that case, they said they would find out the location of the mineral deposits and bring someone who could use earth magic. Are there any in the Dark Elf village? If not, it would be pointless on this island unless I find a Dark Elf who can use earth magic…

“Felicia, is there anyone in the village who can use earth magic?”

I asked, feeling like I was praying to God.

“Yes, there are. My mother and the people who work on the farm can use it.”

Oh, I was glad to hear that, because otherwise, I would have wished that we never found a mineral deposit. Now I would be more enthusiastic about looking for the mineral deposits. Let’s do it.