Chapter 1371 – Guess Who?

When people play sports and get together after a game, they’re all standing around drinking… sports juice… or whatever, talking about the game and clapping each other on the back, it’s always such a heartwarming scene, such an inviting feeling.

Not that I would know, I’ve never been a part of something like that in my entire life. In my human life, anyway.

However, this here, this must have been what that would have felt like. After our successful effort spelunking the fifth, the entire advance team withdraws up into the tunnel. No ant or wuffer is left behind, all our records and observations are collected, no fuss, no muss, no misses. In every sense of the word, a successful mission!

The generals are happy, the mages are happy, the core shapers are happy, the soldiers are happy. The healers are not happy, because… healers… but also because there were many cases of mana contamination that had crept under the radar and needed to be taken care of.

In terms of downsides, that’s probably the biggest one to come out of the scouting operation. Despite all our precautions, it still wasn’t enough. Many of the frontline ants, our biggest and bulkiest soldiers, experienced some level of exposure to the toxic mana of the fifth. It’s not that surprising, really; all they have to do is poke a leg out of the safe zone for a fraction of a second and bam, contaminated.

How exactly we’re supposed to counter that, I have no idea, but I’m sure the boffin, big brain ants will be able to figure something out.

“Eldest, we aren’t scheduled to do another exploratory mission for another week,” Advant tells me, walking up with a fair bit of pep in her step. “Obviously, we want you and the guardians to be a part of the team. More specifically, Solant wants you as part of the team.”

“Well, if the great general wants me along, who am I to say no?”

She’s getting too big for her carapace, that Solant. She’s cruising for another thwacking! But obviously I’m going to go along, what else am I supposed to do? I mean, there’s a ton of work to do cleaning out and securing the tunnels beneath the nest, but the invasion of the fifth was my idea in the first place. I demand to be in the centre of the action!

“Are we going in with a similar sized team next time around?” I ask.

Advant shakes her head.

“No, we’ll be scaling up to around double the size. A thousand wuffers, ten thousand ants. The core shapers, carvers and generals will make modifications to our strategy in the intervening time. Hopefully, things will go just as smoothly next time.”

From her tone, she certainly doesn’t think so.

“How long until the Krath catch on to what we’re doing?” I ask. “They’re bound to work it out eventually.”

And when they do, things will get much more complicated.

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“I’m sure they already have,” Advant waves away my doubt. “Certainly, it’s in our interest to act at all times as if they are fully aware of our actions. Our next entrance into the fifth will be significantly more difficult.”

“Something to look forward to, then.”

Of course it was always going to get more difficult. The first mission was an unprecedented success; it couldn’t possibly continue in that vein.

[You happy to go back down there, gang?] I ask my three friends.

Tiny gives me a clear thumbs up, while Crinis and Invidia both tell me using more conventional methods that of coursssssse they are more than happy to go back.