HC: Pacifist | Ch. 260 - Heavy Losses (Patreon)

Black Sun.

-712

In a rare moment of frustration, Loki shot a burst of black flames, helping the group carry him through the dungeon. The giant spider elite finally succumbed. Everyone in the party gained a level. The election campaign had been busy for the last few days, but Loki still took the time to fulfill his daily leveling goals. 

Loki had secured patronage across the capital’s slums, and things were going well with the academic community. Half of the gold he'd made from the Rise of the Hive King event had been spent buying favors, bribing officials, and funding O’Shaughnessy. Seeing how fast the money was leaving his coffers, he had no choice but to order his purchasers over AstroTerra to ease up on their statbooster shopping spree. 

He had purchased and eaten every statbooster that money could buy. At the very least, he had spent a million gold on that, and he was starting to recognize the glory of his past self. But every time he sent an attack and saw its damage numbers, frustration overtook him. If only no one had gotten to his guild’s vault. He could have had the best stats in the game, and no one could have done anything about it. 

Whenever he remembered the vault incident, he thought of his list of suspects. At the top was Zin. In second place were the Slayer and his pet. It could also be anyone from the top guilds. The top minds and players in the game had all come to the observatory to hunt him down. What guarantee did he have that one hadn’t stumbled upon some legendary item that allowed them to break into the vault? 

What baffled him was why they had only taken the statboosters. Why hadn't they taken all the valuable consumables, gear, and equipment? He had a legendary sword in there that was left untouched. The same thing was true for the pile of millions of gold that he had amassed in the vault. Why hadn't they taken that instead? And how could anyone circumvent the safety precaution that clearly stated that no player could open that vault? 

Nexus’ game support had hinted that it had been an NPC, but just what NPC had done the deed? Were pets considered NPCs? The fact that whatever had broken into his safe had pooped in there only added to that theory. What sick player would have thought of bringing poop to blame an animal so they could cover their tracks? But who among those players didn't have a pet? There was Mel’s Goldie, ColdHand’s Cooler, and Ogre’s Taran, just to name a few. The Slayer's cat was also a likely culprit. However, it could be anyone, really. 

Now that Zin wasn't around to manipulate him, he thought with added clarity. He could now recognize how Zin had thrown him off balance and caught him off guard using his obsession for the Slayer as a distraction. He had exacerbated Loki's fears and made him act irrationally. In hindsight, he had been far too emotional. Loki recognized that, where the Slayer was concerned, he just couldn't help himself.

He got a message. The troop of assassins that he had deployed in Sun Desert was complaining that they had already been waiting for more than 24 hours outside the Sand Lizard Lair dungeon, and there were still no signs of anyone matching Roth's description. 

Even as Loki began mentally outlining a vicious message threatening the captain of the assassin squad, he kept skimming through the reports and found another message from his spy in the Union. Yet another faction had been added to the bonuses for the Union’s list. This time, it was the Sea Lizards. 

“What? He’s in the Water Caves now?!” Loki exclaimed exasperatedly. Sea lizards were a species indigenous to the many islands scattered around the ocean of AstroTerra, which was way on the other side of the map. It was a 20k—25k teleportation fee. Just how did the Slayer have this kind of money to teleport around like crazy? Just what was he doing? What was his endgame? What was his thing with lizards? 

If Loki had a way of killing off every single lizard in the game, he would have by now. The Slayer was planning something big which involved that race. But no matter how many times he ran the lizard dungeons, the system would just keep respawning them. There was nothing he could do about it. 

Loki felt his heart being torn into two. His more reasonable side told him to drop this pointless chase and give up on trying to locate the Slayer. No matter where he deployed his assassins, Roth just popped on the other side of the map. Eventually, he would fall into his wide web. 

The most important thing right now was to secure the purchase rights of real estate in the capital. If he did that, countless wealthy companies would come running to him, throwing money at his feet for advertising rights and other business-making opportunities that relied on owning property in the game. With that amount of wealth, there was little he could not do. 

His emotional side, though, told him that this man didn't deserve to live and that he should chase him to the ends of the earth until he could finally kill him. What should he do? Should he station a squad of assassins in every single lizard-related dungeon in Astro-Terra? There was at least one such dungeon around nearly every new mid-tiered city in the game. He was talking about monitoring over a hundred locations. It was too big of a haystack. 

Taking a deep breath, Loki made a decision. The Slayer was trying to visit every type of lizard in the game. He had visited the rock lizards, the sand lizards, the cloud lizards, and the sea lizards. All that was left were the lightning lizards and the tree lizards. 

Loki maintained a considerable presence in Green Country. He knew for a fact that this was the region where the Slayer had started playing the game. Logic had it that he would eventually return home. 

He didn’t need to know all of the Slayer’s plans. All he needed was to know one stop along the way. He sent a message to Anak explaining her mission. If Roth went to visit the tree lizards, Loki would catch him then. 

*

The Lord of the Acorn examined his castle. The Lord had expanded the military and now had a battalion of 40 soldiers. Thanks to the nutrition of that large, juicy worm, the number of workers had also surpassed one hundred, an important milestone in the colony's history. 

All the nanites were dead. They had been shriveled, weakened things, raised only from the queen's own food reserves. A nanite wasn’t as big or as strong as a regular worker. But even in their deaths, they served the colony. They were served as food to the brood. 

Since the worm hunt, the gate had been kept open. The troop of soldiers was enough of a safeguard. As long as it was safe, tree ant workers kept foraging nonstop. All the larders were full of seeds and the odd fly carcass. Whenever a larder was full, they built a new one. Their quest for food was unavoidable. Although their colony was young, it would grow much, much bigger. The Leafies had excavated two-thirds of the acorn. Soon, to expand the castle, they would have to dig into the soil. It wouldn’t be easy, as the ground was certainly home to other creatures. 

The steady influx of food allowed them to increase the colony's birth rate to the maximum possible. Even as the Lord prepared for the next expedition, a whole new generation of soldiers and workers was already on their way. 

Of course, with this came risk. Feeling the increased activity of the colony, there were more and more sightings of predators.  Four workers had already been lost to local predators. But for each ant that died, the colony brought in enough food to breed two more. 

Each loss was wasteful, and the Lord mourned it. Whenever an ant died before its time, it pained him. An ant’s dream was to die from overexertion. There was beauty in dying while working. Dying at the hands of a predator, despite being a worthy death, was too wasteful.

Predator!

The alarm stopped many of the departing treeant workers in their tracks. Those carrying food were told to drop it and hide if they were far from the colony, and to retreat into the moat if they were nearby.

Through the eyes of a soldier, the Lord examined the cause of the alarm. A large armored monster was pursuing an ant worker. The Lord of the Acorn commanded her to run away in the opposite direction of the colony, leading the predator away. The shells of these predators were thick, and soldiers' mandibles weren’t sharp enough to pierce them. Not yet. They would need mandiblades to do so. However, there were still no raw materials nor artisans to produce the blades that ant soldiers equipped on their mandibles. 

There was little hope for the worker. If it died, at least it would take the predator away from the castle. The Lord felt anger bubble up within him. Predator. The word disgusted him. They were only called that because the Lord hadn’t reached his prime. Soon, they would become prey.

Soon, operations were resumed. The armored predator was hard to kill, but also heavy and sluggish. Thankfully, it gave up chasing the more agile worker. She was already making her way back to the colony. After a few more hours of peaceful foraging and scavenging came another alarm.

Predator!

There was another sighting. The creature that killed more of their numbers than anything else had resurfaced. Its large, looming figure was poised to strike whatever victims came across its path and its scythes had grown sharper since their last encounter—the praying mantis. From how much bigger and fatter it was, the Lord of the Acorn judged that it was almost ready for metamorphosis. Once it became a fully-fledged adult, it would become too much for their current numbers to handle. 

Conversely, it was packed with proteins, making this the best time to hunt it. The Lord searched within him for strength, and judging it enough, summoned the army. Forty soldiers and just as many workers emerged from the castle. The soldiers would lead the charge, and the workers would support them with their thinner, shorter blades, focusing on smaller openings in the praying mantis’ armor.

The Lord positioned the hunting party. This was the part of the hunt that required the most patience. The soldiers took a large detour, forming a wide circle. Thankfully, there weren’t any other predators nearby. Not even the armored insects risked coming near praying mantises. Their scythes were sharp enough to cut through their armor.

As soon as all the troops were deployed, the Lord sprung his trap. He sent three workers to approach the praying mantis from the front. The brown juvenile praying mantis seemed to hesitate for a moment. There were three workers. They would put up a little fight. It pondered whether it should go for it. The juvenile was almost at the necessary level of protein and energy to transform. These three ant workers had enough nutrients to help it reach the threshold.

As the praying mantis prepared to strike, the real attack came from behind and from the flanks. It all happened fast. The many treeant soldiers charged the monster and dug their sharp, long mandibles into its legs. 

Bite!

Bite!

Bite!

The praying mantis was enraged. It tried turning to fend off the attackers with its sharp teeth and managed to cleave one soldier and then another into two. But there were just too many of them. The soldiers kept patiently attacking the legs, finally bringing the tall praying mantis to its knees.

Bite!

Bite!

Bite!

One by one, the ants managed to climb the praying mantis. It thrashed, bit, and cleaved as many attackers as it could. However, the more bites it received and the more ants there were on top of it, the more sluggish its movements became. After killing 13 treeant soldiers and 21 workers, it didn’t have anything left. The only vestiges of its draining life were its occasional jerking movements.

The Lord counted its losses and gains. The casualties were unmatched by anything this colony had ever seen. However, the carcasses of the dead ants were still fresh and retrievable and could be used as food for the next generation of soldiers and workers. It hadn’t been a pretty battle, but the colony would grow more numerous and stronger because of it.

The surviving ants carried each of their dead comrades and the dead prey to be butchered and fed to their hungry queen and famished larvae.

Ch. 259 - Cute

INDEX

Ch. 261 - Job Offer