Antelligent Design

115. Return and Nest

“Are you returning to the colony, eldest?” one of the scouts asks.

“Yep! It’s time for me to evolve.”

“With your permission, eldest, I shall inform the council of this event.”

“Go for it.”

Once I reach the front, I start to run into more and more scouts and soldiers, as well as other castes mixed into the small raiding teams. It appears as if the colony is scaling down their raiding operations, withdrawing the forward squads to the nest in order to spend the final hours before the battle preparing and resting. Which makes a lot of sense. Ensuring the ground is prepared and the warriors of the colony are fresh will make a huge difference compared to the starved and tired horde monsters, who’ve been forced to march for a week solid on almost no food.

Even though the ants start with very poor stats, it shouldn’t be forgotten that every ant is a tier three monster after having gone through the training program. They don’t have the benefit of maxed evolutions like I have, but they’re certainly a cut above the average monster in the horde. Bizarrely enough, this fight will be a battle of quantity against quality, and the colony of ants will be on the quality side of the equation.

At least, that’s true for the general horde. Garralosh and her children are a whole different kettle of fish. That’s where the queen and I come in. Hopefully, it’ll be enough to tip the balance.

“Off to evolve, are you, eldest? Keep up the hard work!”

“When am I not working hard?”

“That’s the spirit!”

Gah! The closer we come to the nest, the more ants we bump into. Running back and forth between the nest and the front, passing messages and keeping eyes on the situation, or just returning to regroup or sleep. Each and every one of them is happy to chip in with a comment. Which is nice on the one hand, but gets exhausting after a few hundred repetitions.

Still, it’s nice to be wanted.

My pets and I make sure to motor as quick as we can, and it still takes several hours to make it back. Colony activity continues to rise the closer we get. We find workers digging here and there, soldiers patrolling and scouts rushing about. It feels good to be back amongst the family again. The heart of the family.

I can’t help but let my mind wander over what has occurred in the time I’ve been gone. Has the queen evolved yet? Have the defences been completed? How many new ants have been born and trained? I’m also looking forward to the progress made by the different artisan castes over the week. The ants are collaborating and pushing themselves so hard, their speed of development is getting out of control.

When I try to picture what the colony will be like in a year’s time, I just can’t. I knew the ants would have incredible potential if I was able to increase their intelligence, but how could I have anticipated it would be this successful? If we’re able to survive the coming battle, the sky will be the limit for my colony.

When we begin the final approach, the first thing I see is the nest itself. They’ve made it even taller! At some point, it’s gone beyond ‘hill-like’ to just a full-on hill. At this rate, I’ll need to start thinking about how high a hill needs to be before you’d have to classify it as a mountain. At this range, I can barely make out the small forms of the ants bustling about on that enormous dirt pile.

As we draw closer, the huge amount of work that has gone into the defences becomes more noticeable. Traps are everywhere, dug into the soil and marked with pheromones. I have to lead Tiny around a zig zagging path to avoid him falling into what I’m sure would be a spiky and painful hole.

Beyond the traps are layers of walls leading toward the nest. Each wall isn’t large, only two to three metres, but after the enemy crests the first wall, a second lies a hundred metres beyond it, and a third a hundred metres beyond that. A lip of dirt a metre thick at the top of each will provide some defence from enemy projectiles and spells, whilst the ants can unleash their own barrage upon the horde with the height advantage and in relative safety.

There are eight walls in total that form a wide ring around the main nest, and we climb over them one by one. Holy mackerel! There’s even traps in between the walls! The colony has really gone all out on this one. I wonder how many trees they’ve had to cut down in order to form this many stakes… Hopefully, we haven’t caused a deforestation issue in the local area.

Someone has been directing the construction to maximise the colony’s chances against the horde of weaker monsters that are coming our way. There are probably hundreds of concealed tunnels dug through the area. I can detect some of them nearby from their pheromone markers. It’ll be interesting to see what the twenty have planned for those.

When we make it to the main hill, we begin the climb and receive the friendly greetings of every ant we walk past. I have many opportunities to engage in some friendly antennae slapping and exchange pleasantries with the members of the colony.

“How are you, eldest?”

“Looking forward to the battle, eldest?”

“Who’s going to defeat more enemies, eldest, you or the queen?”

“The queen, obviously,” I scoff at the ant who asked.

She’s tier six. With a rare core evolution! Don’t even try and compare us. That’s just madness.

It’s a relief when I finally reach the top and take a look around. From this high up, it’s easy to see the village in the distance, many of the trees between the two locations have been cut down, ensuring a clear line of sight between the two locations. My eyesight isn’t good enough to make out what the humans are up to, but I’m sure they’re just as busy preparing for the oncoming disaster.

My anger at the horde and those behind it hasn’t diminished. In fact, it’s only grown larger. Garralosh and the Ka’armodo will pay for what they’ve brought upon my family. I can only hope the rage is enough to sustain me for what is to come.

[Let’s go down and find the rest of my rare core. It’s time to do this.]