Golden Experience

Chapter 32: “The Ants of the Forest”

“Makes sense; if my followers kill Sugaru’s, they get nothing, even if they should’ve normally gotten XP from it. Looks like we really can’t break the game that way,” Rare muttered to herself while watching Kerry fight an Engineer Ant.

Next to her, Sugaru nodded, noting that she’d never tried having her followers attack each other. As a result of reconstructing the ant caverns, they had made a new [Queen’s Chambers], which was where Rare observed Kerry’s battle.

Not counting the day of maintenance, it had been about one week in the real world. During that time, Rare had expanded her territory to include nearly all of the great forest that was considered monster territory, which surrounded the cave. Aside from some groups of monsters set aside for supplies and provisions and a goblin village that was left alone to be used to farm XP, nothing that lived in the forest dared defy the rule of Rare’s group. After conquering the great forest, Rare had set her home base to an area near its center. While it was all under her control, it seemed she couldn’t set the entire cavern system as her home, so only the queen’s chamber and the rooms around it were considered her private area.

In the process of expanding the underground ant nest to encompass the entire area of the forest, they accidentally stumbled onto a mine that was on the edge of monster territory, where they ran into human NPCs. Since it was so close to their territory and gave them access to mineral resources, they went ahead and conquered it anyway.

In addition, around the underground edges of the forest, they were producing peat alongside a water vein, and they had also found coal. The ants were able to easily procure underground resources without needing to perform open-pit mining, and if they could use the coal to refine iron ore, then their supply of metals would improve dramatically.

Rare had Remy learn [Blacksmith] skills, and right now a forge was being constructed in one corner of the nest in order to start producing metal equipment. A number of the Engineer Ants, who wouldn’t see much combat, were taught the [Blacksmith], [Leathercraft], and [Clothcraft] skills, then assigned under Remy’s command with the ultimate goal of mass production.

With the great forest under their control, they started eyeing the prairie. Ant tunnels extended deep underneath the area, and exit holes were dug for the ants to observe the zone. Using these, they could spy on the people there. The ants were under strict order not to let anyone catch sight of them, but they were allowed to hunt rabbits as long as they stayed within a certain limited range of the exits. If the human side were to consider them a threat, the country could decide to invade the prairie and the great forest, which would not be good at all.

On the few occasions when they were accidentally seen, the witnesses were unable to defeat a group of five ants working together, so they were quickly turned into XP for Rare. It seemed that humanoids were worth a bit more XP than monsters of the same level; this was the same as in the closed beta. It was probably because their items and equipment counted toward their combat capability. Thinking only in terms of XP efficiency, they made for wonderful prey.

The most efficient course of action would be to farm players, who come back to life, but they hadn’t found any yet in the area they monitored. If the number of players increased with the official launch, she would have to keep tabs on the changes in their population while they regularly farmed those players.

If a squad were unable to defeat someone, then, while that squad’s ants were being killed, things were arranged so that other nearby squads could come and continue the fight. Even if they could manage to beat a single squad, apparently no one could possibly beat a full platoon consisting of several squads. Since this was a starting town, that much was obvious.

On another note, they found out the reason ant corpses would disappear. Apparently, they automatically respawned after about an hour. Sugaru wasn’t interested in keeping track of all her ants so she never noticed, but once Rare started managing them she instantly noticed it. At the time, she wasn’t sure if this was a special ant trait or what, but the official news the other day revealed all the details about how [Subordinated] followers worked. She thought that in the worst case, she would have to use [Summon] to facilitate an escape, but apparently even that wasn’t necessary.

In order to gain full control of the great forest and the prairie, Rare’s side needed to increase their influx of XP by an order of magnitude. She initially wanted to use their XP to fuel the growth of her followers and all the ants, but after discussing it with Sugaru, that plan was scrapped. The first step would still go as originally planned: having both Rare and Sugaru learn the [Enhance Follower] skills. Since the [Enhance Follower] bonus was based on the master’s stats, the next step was to raise Rare’s stats. For followers where it made sense to raise stats individually, she would do so. Finally, raise Sugaru’s stats. Right now, even an infantry ant would be pretty difficult for a new player to defeat. For the engineers, whose stats weren’t suitable for combat, using magic their enemies were weak to allowed them to win with ease.

What was great about [Enhance Follower] was that XP could all be spent on the master; there was no need to use any on the followers themselves. Leaning on this system, enhanced followers could challenge somewhat stronger enemies and be nearly evenly matched. The ants that were working to secure the great forest and the prairie were squads made up of mostly infantry that didn’t have any XP spent on them. By the system’s calculations, though, they were always disadvantaged in battle, so they were able to earn a lot of XP.

In all likelihood, Sugaru probably would have done the same thing if Rare hadn’t interfered. Of course, Rare’s methods were much more efficient, but all the same she would have been earning abnormal amounts of XP. After all, this cave and the great forest were supposed to eventually become the [Vespoid Queendom].

In other words, Sugaru wasn’t a fledgling unique boss, but a fledgling raid boss.

She had discovered a new skill that supported this theory. Sugaru’s [Haplodiploidy] tree now had an entry for [Flying Soldier]. This skill had been unlocked after Sugaru learned [Wind Magic]. Originally, Sugaru could not learn any magic-related skills. However, opposite of how it was for Rare and other humanoid races, learning [Enhance Follower: AGI] had unlocked the ability for her to learn magic. While Rare had been planning to prioritize the other [Enhance Follower] skills since she didn’t want Sugaru to participate in battles directly, since having her learn [Wind Magic] unlocked [Flying Soldier], she decided to investigate further.

[Wind Magic] unlocked [Flying Soldier], which produced [Soldier Vespoid]. They were giant wasps. Since the trees were so dense in the outer parts of the great forest, they were forced to fly up in the sky, but in the deeper parts with more room they showed off some amazing footwork and offensive ability. They cost quite a bit to produce, but once their stats went up, their LP and MP also rapidly increased, so Sugaru used them as her regular infantry now.

[Fire Magic] unlocked [Shock Trooper], which produced [Assault Ants]. These looked similar to fire ants, and they sprayed not venom or acid but fire from their abdomens. Compared to real-world flamethrowers, they had superior range and firepower. What they did was ignite a highly combustible liquid, so even after shooting at a target, the fire would remain for some time. This was a dangerous ability to use in the forest, so while they got produced, they normally stayed in the nest and helped the engineers out. The ones who were assigned to active squads were also under strict orders to never use their flamethrowers without seeking and getting approval first.

[Lighting Magic] unlocked [Sniper], which produced [Sniper Ants]. In the real world, snipers weren’t a separate branch of the military, they were just specialized infantry, but here, infantry ants couldn’t learn sniping skills, so they were considered separate units. Compared to regular infantry, they had longer feelers; skinnier bodies; and their stingers were different as well: they were straight, long, and narrow like a gun barrel. Snipers also bent their abdomens up over their thoraxes in order to snipe targets, visually similar to scorpions. When she analyzed one of the shells they fired, after melting the hard covering with acid, inside was some kind of incredibly hard substance that felt almost like metal. Maybe they used [Lightning Magic] to fire them off like railguns. When sniping, they made hardly any noise at all; what fearsome assassins.

[Earth Magic] unlocked [Artillery]. Compared to snipers, the [Artillery Ant]’s range was shorter and its reload time was longer, but a single one was capable of area suppressive fire at range. By appearances, they looked like fat snipers. Their shells were, simply put, highly explosive, but they could also fire ones that wouldn’t explode; they had the potential to turn the tide in both small-group and siege warfare. Not that she had seen them in action in either scenario yet.

[Ice Magic] unlocked [Scout], giving birth to [Scout Ants]. Once again, conventional thinking would lead one to believe they were the same thing as infantry, but apparently they also served in communications; scout ants could send and receive messages directly to and from other scout ants. However, all the squad leaders were already registered as friends with Sugaru, so the need for a specialized communications unit was low. However, one was still included in every squad as traditional scouts with high stealth capabilities.

[Water Magic] unlocked [Suppliers]. The resulting [Transporter Ants] were unfortunately the most obsolete. The Infantry Ants already had enough INT from [Enhance Follower] to use their inventories. The entire concept of supply trains was null and void. For testing purposes, a small number were produced, but they were all assigned to mind the nest.

With Sugaru’s current strength, if she were to produce a huge number of these ants, the human countries would be torn apart like paper. The strength and variety of mobs guarding the way to the raid boss were no joke. And since she learned a ton of magic, Sugaru herself was powerful enough to be a fearsome mage-type boss. Or rather, that was the kind of force Rare was raising under her.

Rare was watching Kerry do her best to go easy on an Engineer Ant, pulling her punches as they fought each other, as usual.

Indeed, Rare was currently watching through Kerry’s eyes.