Chapter 339 Revel (1/2)
We slaughtered a heck of a lot of monsters in the third ambush. By abusing the limitations of the control used on the monsters we continuously charged, battled, retreated and recovered until our entire force was battled out and exhausted from the slaughter, unable to keep up with the last retreating monsters. Even Tiny had collapsed to the ground, punched out.
Soldiers had been lost, of course. Fighting meant casualties and I would just have to get used to the idea. Even when including the scouts that we'd lost, a third of the number committed, the losses versus the damage inflicted looked fantastic for the colony. Not only had thousands more monsters been killed, but the experience and Bioma.s.s would be claimed by the colony in full. Enough Bioma.s.s for every soldier who partic.i.p.ated in the battle to pump their evolutions up and empower them for the next fight.
I myself just slumped to the ground once the fighting was done, trusting that some ants would keep a lookout and slipped directly into torpor, only to awaken a few hours later with a developing issue.
My core! So empty! The gnawing feeling of my energy bleeding into the air was starting to cause that sharp pain I had become all too familiar with. I brought up my status and looked at how much mana remained inside my core. Down to under ten MP! I'd gone all out in the battle so it shouldn't be a surprise but yikes, that'd been close!
No time to lose!
[Tiny, Crinis, are you around?]
[Yes, Master.]
[Zzzzzzzzz.]
[… Tiny, food.]
[Arruah!?]
d.a.m.ned ape.
[We need to leave and recharge our cores as soon as possible, stuff your faces as best you can and let's go.]
With no further ado I joined the soldiers who were busy chowing down on the literal carpet of Bioma.s.s that lay over the forest floor and started shovelling food into my mouth. Once my first stomach was filled, I diligently switched to the social stomach and kept on going until I'd expanded in size like a swollen balloon.
Another 15 points of Bioma.s.s locked in. I really don't get the value out of these low tier monsters but it isn't as if I have an option. Eating this is still better than eating nothing.
61 Bioma.s.s! So close! Four more points and I'll achieve my first fully mutated evolution. Much excited!
Alright. With my own feasting done I waddled over to the nearby scouts and let them know I'd be heading to the Dungeon location the colony had prepared in order to charge up my core. The poor saps where in charge of disposing of the Colony's dead and it was saddening to see the fallen soldiers lying lifeless on the ground, somehow looking smug and satisfied. I'd been a bit worried at one stage that the ants would eat our dead, Bioma.s.s being Bioma.s.s after all, but they had unexpectedly followed a more traditional Earth ant path.
Colonies of ants on Earth were generally speaking, very clean. Since they live in damp, underground environments where mould and fungus can thrive, it's super important that they be as spotless as possible. To that end the ants would undergo many behaviours to ensure a squeaky clean nest: grooming themselves constantly to remove contamination, using their natural acid to disinfect themselves and each other, rotating the soil inside the nest with soil on the surface to aerate it and establis.h.i.+ng a garbage site.
The garbage site was usually close to, but a respectable distance from the nest itself and it's in this place that the workers would carry the waste of the colony. The p.o.o.p would go here, the bits of food that the ants couldn't eat, and the colony's dead.
In the case of Earth ants, that means a heck of a lot of dead bodies, since the lifespan of most workers is about one month, depending on the species. In the case of my colony here on Pangera, we haven't had many dead to worry about so it's not been much of an issue but I feel my heart twinge as I watch the scouts drag the bodies and pile them neatly away from the battlefield.