Chapter 175: Princes and Princesses

Roughly ten minutes later, the ants suddenly seemed to receive instructions from the queen.

Like the tide withdrawing back into the ocean, the entire ant army retreated toward the nest.

In an instant, the countless ants disappeared from sight.

The phrase absolute obedience to command had never felt more accurate.

Several pieces of bone clattered onto the ground after the ants departed and the feathers drifted through the air.

A pile of shredded flesh lay quietly where the Chicken Chimera had fallen.

The scene was almost unbearable to look at.

Joo Joowon clicked his tongue.

If not for the feathers scattered around the area, he doubted he would even have been able to identify what kind of creature the remains had belonged to.

The ant army was simply absurd.

Not only had they killed the Chicken Chimera in such a short amount of time, they had even devoured its bones until almost nothing remained.

If they had not suddenly been called back to the nest, Joo Joowon was certain that the only thing left behind would have been a few scattered feathers proving that the Chicken Chimera had once existed at all.

Even more frustrating was the fact that his diversion plan had failed.

The soldier ants had indeed mobilized in huge numbers, but they had not all gathered around the Chicken Chimera.

A portion of them had remained behind to guard the thorny plants and spiritual mushrooms outside the nest.

If Joo Joowon had made a move at that moment, he would undoubtedly have been discovered.

At such a distance, there was no way for him to directly collect the items using the Spatial Waist Pendant.

In the end, all he could do was stand there and watch as all the effort he had spent preparing amounted to absolutely nothing.

No, it could not really be said that he had gained nothing.

At the very least, the Chimera had still provided him with nineteen experience points.

The problem was that following the worker ants to the nest and then searching for a suitable scapegoat had consumed a considerable amount of time.

Those few experience points were not even enough to satisfy him.

If he had spent that same amount of time killing zombies instead, he probably would have earned well over a hundred experience points by now.

Fortunately, Joo Joowon had already considered the possibility of failure before taking action.

Because of that, while he was disappointed, he was not so frustrated that he lost control just because his plan had failed.

At the very least, he had obtained an important piece of information.

In the future, if possible, it would be best not to come anywhere near this place.

The ant army was simply too terrifying.

Joo Joowon believed that even if the Chicken Chimera encountered Chimeras of a higher level than itself, it would probably still be able to fight back and hold its own. Yet when faced with the ant army, it had been completely overwhelmed and forced into a disadvantageous position from beginning to end.

That realization made Joo Joowon feel grateful.

Fortunately, he had not been foolish enough to act personally.

Otherwise, the one suffering that fate would not have been the Chicken Chimera.

It would have been him.

Seeing that there was nothing more to be done, Joo Joowon prepared to leave.

The sky had already begun to darken.

At this rate, night would completely fall before long.

There were no streetlights along the roads anymore.

Returning in complete darkness would carry considerable risk.

Just as he was about to move, Joo Joowon suddenly heard the rustling sounds coming from the ant nest once again.

His body stiffened instinctively.

For a moment, he thought that perhaps he had been discovered.

Fortunately, the ants’ next actions quickly proved that he had been overthinking things.

After the battle ended, the hardworking worker ants resumed their task of gathering food.

Only a portion of them remained behind.

Those ants burrowed into the mound of flesh that remained from the Chicken Chimera and soon carried out something that looked like a crystallized heart that was still beating slowly.

What was that?

Joo Joowon’s eyes flickered.

The Zombie Core he had obtained before had never looked anything like this.

The crystallized heart was even more unusual because despite having become crystal, it still seemed to possess life and continued beating slowly and rhythmically.

Joo Joowon could not help crouching down once more and continuing to observe from the shadows.

Before long, a dark cloud flew out from the ant nest and began circling around the crystallized heart, their wings beating as they produced a constant buzzing sound.

They were the princes and princesses born from the queen ant!

Joo Joowon searched through his memories and finally dug out a piece of information he had long forgotten, something he had once seen in a documentary about ants.

The social structure of an ant colony was generally made up of worker ants, soldier ants, and the queen ant.

The queen ant personally decided what role the ants she gave birth to would perform.

When she believed the time was right, she would produce "princes" and "princesses."

Only these two kinds of ants possessed reproductive abilities.

After these winged ants mated, the princess would discard her wings and become a new queen ant, eventually establishing an entirely new colony of her own.

So did this scene mean that the queen ant was preparing to divide the colony?

Joo Joowon’s spirits immediately lifted.

He remembered that after princess ants left to establish their own nests, they usually departed alone and did not take any "family property" with them.

Since they had been born from the queen ant, did that mean they might also possess the ability to cultivate those mushrooms?

Worried that the Mental Power of these princes and princesses might not be low either, Joo Joowon avoided looking at them directly and instead watched them through the corner of his eye as they began their nuptial flight.