Chapter 115 Retreat from danger (1/2)
This stupid wave! Just how threatening does it have to get? I'm already a wrecked heap. A heap I say!
Now the veins are extending into the escape tunnel, which will surely cause monsters to sp.a.w.n right under our feet!
An addition we have to deal with these unknown threats from below? It's enough to drive an ant crazy!
Ok.. Think Anthony, what are you going to do?
Stay and fight? Against what!? We have no idea what sort of horror is going to ascend up that tunnel, eager to eviscerate our most sensitive zones? There is absolutely no way we stay here and battle it out against whatever is coming up. One of the first things I learned about in this Dungeon is not to pick a fight you aren't sure you can win.
Run?
Run where? The tunnel isn't complete! All we can do is run up towards a dead end! They don't call 'em life ends for a reason!
Only one choice remains! Hide!
”Quick! We need to cover up the entrance and seal this tunnel!” I shout to the workers around me,
The workers respond to my call to action rapidly, as they usually do. This is a family that can be relied on in a pinch!
A hundred workers leap into action, hauling dirt up to close off the remaining open section of the tunnel entrance, quickly shovelling dirt with their mandibles.
From beneath us the sounds of bloodcurdling screams and the wild gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth, grinding away at the bones of still living foes echo endlessly, certainly providing ample motivation to my own digging efforts.
What the heck is going on down there? Actually, I'm not confident that I really want to know.
It sounds like the monsters down there are experiencing a kind of existential terror that I wasn't sure the beasts I'd seen had a capacity to express.
I've always had a urge to investigate, to explore the deeper layers below just to know, just to see what it was like down there, what sort of creatures inhabited that s.p.a.ce.
The ghastly sounds echoing from below have somewhat cured me of that feeling, I have to say. To the surface my fellow ants (and Tiny), maybe find a mountain to climb when we get up there!
As we pile the dirt high I can see the gradual progress of the mana veins slowly extending their baleful reach further into the escape tunnel. The speed is still slow, perhaps only as much as thirty centimetres an hour, but just seeing them visibly growing is unsettling to me.
Is the mana concentration still growing?! Is that why they are moving in this way? There is still too much that I don't understand!
Don't think about it! Just dig!
I repeatedly urge the workers to move faster as the dirt flies, ants crawling all over each other in their eagerness to complete the task they've been given.
As the horrific noises from below continue to grow louder we quickly seal off the escape tunnel, plunging ourselves into near darkness.
I'm still not satisfied though. The m.u.f.fles noises and vibrations that pa.s.s through the loosely packed soil are enough motivation for me to continue stacking dirt against the entrance. I want to get some width between me and that room!
”Keep stacking that dirt, fellow workers! Start bringing it from the other end of the tunnel!”
I continue to exhort my fellow workers to keep piling dirt against the entrance, trying to put an amount of earth between us and the horrors that will soon enter that chamber that I'll feel comfortable we are safe.
After ten minutes of constant hauling the sounds of monstrous combat have receded and we've managed to pack the dirt far enough back that even the gradually extending tendrils of the mana veins on the wall have been covered over. Any monsters that sp.a.w.n in those walls will claw themselves out only to find they are still encased in dirt!