Chapter 184: The New Queen

It struggled for a while before gradually calming down.

Joo Joowon did not know whether it was because the ant had finally accepted its situation or because it had temporarily given up trying to escape.

At least, after waiting a while longer, it no longer attempted to force its way out.

Only then did Joo Joowon slowly make a small opening in the spider silk cocoon, revealing a gap just large enough for the ant’s head to emerge.

At the same time, his Mental Power quietly extended toward the female ant.

Unlike before, he no longer tried to hide his presence.

Instead, he deliberately allowed the ant to sense his existence.

The female ant immediately raised its antennae and instinctively tried to locate the source of the unfamiliar presence.

The moment it found Joo Joowon, it instantly bared its mandibles, displaying an obvious posture of hostility.

Joo Joowon remained calm.

He did not rush to make any movements.

Instead, he quietly observed the female ant while continuously releasing his Mental Power, attempting to imitate the method the queen ant had used to transmit information.

He could not reproduce it perfectly.

He could only clumsily project his own emotions and intentions outward.

He tried to convey a simple message.

Do not attack.

Unfortunately, the effect was almost nonexistent.

The female ant merely tilted its head slightly before once again trying to bite through the spider silk.

Clearly, the female ant had not understood what he was trying to express.

Joo Joowon was not surprised by this outcome.

After all, this was his first attempt.

If communication through Mental Power were really that easy to master, then he would have learned it long ago.

Still, this failure at least proved one thing.

Mental Power could indeed carry information.

The only problem was that his current control was still far too crude.

He simply had not yet found the correct method.

Since direct communication did not work, Joo Joowon changed his approach.

He reached into his backpack and took out a small piece of mutated insect meat.

Then he placed it directly in front of the female ant.

The female ant immediately froze.

Her antennae twitched repeatedly as she stared at the piece of meat before cautiously moving closer.

Her instincts told her that the food was safe.

At the same time, her instincts also warned her that the human before her was extremely dangerous.

For a brief moment, the female ant hesitated.

In the end, hunger won.

She stretched out her head and quickly grabbed the piece of meat before retreating back into the spider silk cocoon.

The chewing sounds echoed continuously from inside.

Joo Joowon quietly watched the entire process.

At least this was a good beginning.

Compared to forcing it into submission through violence, slowly establishing trust might prove to be the better option.

Perhaps because the queen ant he had chosen truly lived up to his expectations, Joo Joowon watched it carefully with great satisfaction.

"Meow~"

Perched on Joo Joowon’s shoulder, Byeol stared eagerly at the white cocoon in his hands with its beautiful eyes.

It had clearly mistaken the silk cocoon for a round toy ball.

Joo Joowon gently stroked Byeol’s head.

"This isn’t a toy for you."

"Meow?"

Byeol tilted its head.

Seeing that Joo Joowon had no intention of giving it the cocoon, it quickly gave up without insisting any further.

Instead, its cat eyes alertly scanned the surroundings while its fluffy tail swayed back and forth.

Nighttime belonged to the zombies.

Many zombies that had been inactive during the day, or had even been too lazy to search for food, now began wandering through the streets.

Even the tall apartment buildings were no longer as safe as they had been when the apocalypse had first begun.

Some higher level zombies had already learned how to climb staircases even without using living humans as bait.

Some had even taken the initiative to leap into residential buildings in search of fresh flesh.

Joo Joowon was a kindhearted person.

He simply could not bear to watch such scenes.

As he use his spider silk, he rapidly moved through the city and quickly returned home.

It was not as though no zombies had noticed him along the way.

The slower ones simply could not catch him.

The smarter zombies, after seeing how quickly he moved, did not even bother trying to pursue him.

The flesh hiding inside those apartment buildings was much easier to obtain and hunting there carried far less risk to themselves.

Even zombies understood the principle of picking on the weak.

Once he safely returned home, Joo Joowon finally opened the marketplace.

The marketplace had actually opened while he was capturing the newly born queen ant.

At that time, however, he had simply been unable to divide his attention.

Afterward, while traveling back, he had not dared become distracted either.

Nighttime was already an extremely dangerous period.

If he had allowed himself to focus on something else and accidentally ran into another Boss, what then?

When it came to his own safety, Joo Joowon had always been extremely cautious.

Even if that meant delaying his visit to the marketplace, he did not mind in the slightest.

Perhaps because he had not posted a guide today, the comments beneath his previous guide had become even livelier.

Some players claimed that he had become silent because he felt guilty.

Others urged him not to pay attention to those slanders because they still needed his guides to survive.

Joo Joowon did not really care what they said.

He truly had not planned to publish a guide today.

It had nothing to do with that player called MusclePotato404.

It was simply because there really was nothing appropriate to share.

Many of the new things he had discovered today simply were not useful to ordinary players.

They lacked universal applicability, so there was no reason to release them as beginner guides.

He had originally expected that choosing not to post a guide today would only attract even more criticism.