Chrysalis

Once Enid wakes up and manages to gather herself I speak to her a little longer before sending her back to her people. Then I lay a heck of a big pheromone marker around their campsite encouraging the workers not to eat them.

If they run into a worker outside of that ring…. That'll be a little different. Although I'm inclined to trust these people a heck of a lot more than I ever trusted their Queen I'm not prepared to let them run around willy nilly. They've been given a very small hurdle to jump over as the first action towards building trust, let's see how they go.

Job done I wander back over to the anthill, collecting Tiny on the way and we descend down to our little chamber, snacking on a few monsters once we get there.

….

This is the last thing we needed right now!! The changes to the Queen's core have only just been made, it'll be a week, two at the most, before she's ready and lain the first batch of the new wave of workers. I cannot afford to have anything go wrong! Those ants will be a heck of a lot smarter than the previous hatchlings but they are also significantly weaker! These ants are going to be like human infants, without someone to help guide them and raise them in the beginning they won't be able to reach their potential!

If I've got giant Croca-Babies and their Mother burning the Dungeon tunnels and the entire surface to the ground then it's hardly going to be an idea environment to raise ant hatchlings!

What a pain in the thorax!

What the heck am I going to do?

I can't just leave it as is… Enid made it perfectly clear that there would likely be more refugees from Liria heading south over the next few days. She seemed to think that the destruction was centred on the capital and then expanded outwards. There were a whole lot of panicked people in the towns and villages they passed, getting ready to flee at the first sign of danger. Those people are probably already on the road in this direction.

Even if I don't do anything about it the problem will reach me eventually. If those Crocs and the other monsters are running about on the surface then there's no reason to believe they won't come here.

Only one thing for it then. If I'm going to get the peace and quiet I need to change the destiny of ant kind then I'm going to have to clear up our little Croc problem.

First things first!

It's time to go

did

"Here-here!"

of Tiny's head for a change, I should

the Dungeon, we need to clear it at high speed and stuff

"Yippee!"

Of course she is.

I can to organise the humans for the time being. They know where to go and were not to, they have access to water from a nearby spring and they'll need to sort themselves out food-wise to some extent. It isn't as if we have

need more Biomass and Crinis needs to grow up as quickly as possible! I send a quick message to Enid letting her know that I'll be in the Dungeon for the next few days and to make sure her people and any newcomers stick to the rules I've lain down in my absence. I'm not worried about these humans overpowering the colony at all, they're mostly farmers and craftsmen, but I do want to avoid unnecessary casualties on both sides.

hard maintaining it over that distance but I wanted to test my limits. Formo managed to weave one over a distance of kilometres without breaking a sweat but I'm still a mile away from that level. Even maintaining it over a distance of one kilometre was about all

at this time, further releasing the burden on my brains. Now

had a rest I'll need to get to

Into the Dungeon!

able to quickly slap to death any of the regular customers we see as we rapidly descend through the upper tunnels. We take a few detours here and there to make sure

ones to stuff themselves with it to mount up that Biomass. There is one problem I

[Crinis] I ask.

master] she responds quickly this time, perhaps sensing I wasn't going to tolerate silence on

You're the same size as you

[….]

and certainly anytime she's eating she looks much

[Well?] I prod.

growing master]