One day, mysterious monsters suddenly appeared in the remote borderlands.
It didn't take long for word to spread that they weren't just a random herd of magical beasts, but a full-fledged legion.
"Why of all places did this have to happen right near our territory..."
Not only the cunning chieftain Karon sensed the crisis.
Everyone in the vicinity already knew that the ants paid no heed to established power structures or common sense—they simply attacked everything in sight.
"Chieftain, will you accept Chieftain Karon's proposal for cooperation?"
"We have no choice. The Great Spirits have already commanded us to join forces."
Durkan, another goblin chieftain who was building up his village a bit further north of Karon, nodded.
In truth, he had already sensed it coming even before Karon's message arrived.
A beam of light had suddenly fallen while he was napping, allowing Durkan to receive the will of the Great Spirits.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Stop them]
The Great Spirits had clearly instructed them as such.
Until now, the will that had granted various knowledge and power through oracles to each chieftain, pitting them against one another in competition, was now urging them to join hands.
'It must be that grave a crisis.'
Aware of its weight, he paid it no mind lightly.
Durkan accepted Karon's proposal and began arming his forces, preparing for war.
The goblin tribe of Adon, another nearby group, followed suit.
All of them had shed their status as mere low-grade magical beasts through their connection to the Great Spirits.
With the goblin traits of impregnating females of other races and rapid growth and development, they had swiftly expanded their forces through rapid breeding. To them, the war against the encroaching ants was nothing less than a holy crusade.
"Sir Robert, do you realize what you're saying? Mere wild goblins proposing that I fight alongside them?"
However, their transformation and true power had yet to become widely known.
The leaders of other factions, excluding the goblins, showed little reaction to Karon's proposal for cooperation.
"I find it hard to believe myself, but that's what happened. Numerous goblins— heavily armored and mounted on wolves—came to us with a warning. They insisted we must fight together before the ants emerging in the borderlands grow any larger."
Within the communication orb of Count Dyke, the lord governing the region, the fortress commander tasked with defending the borderlands relayed the firsthand account with a look of utter disbelief on his face.
"I did report on those monsters previously."
"I know. That area's been in an uproar lately too."
In fact, he had already received one report about the ants. Strange new magical beasts had appeared in the borderlands, harassing the surroundings.
But that was hardly the end of it. True to this age of chaos, reports flooded in from all directions even now.
Territories falling, new lords rising by force, magical beasts behaving oddly, and more.
It was chaos incarnate—a world no longer bound by old common sense.
"And there was that report calling the goblins suspicious too. It's absurd enough for lowly goblins to act like humans—how can we trust a word they say?"
The count, already devoting every resource to preserving his own domain amid such turmoil, regarded the goblins' proposal with suspicion.
"No, my lord. It's all true, I suspect!"
But in that moment, someone else cut into the communication orb.
The count flinched at the sight of her cascading silver hair. He didn't know her well, but she seemed familiar—someone he'd heard of before.
"Seira Redenverk, daughter of the Redenverk Barony. Forgive my intrusion."
"Ah, yes, I remember. But the Redenverk domain surely..."
The count recalled the report of the nearby Redenverk Barony's fall to bandits and shot her a sidelong glance.
Small fiefdoms getting overrun by bandit hordes that had bulked up was commonplace these days. Many lords outright abandoned their lands to seek shelter under greater powers like Dyke.
Besides, the Redenverks were a house with a long history of ties to him, yet he hadn't been able to aid them in their hour of need.
"Yes. Our house was indeed crushed under the heel of those scoundrels who began as slave traders. But it was those monsters that annihilated even those thugs in ruthless fashion and reduced the entire domain to ashes."
Seira testified in a trembling voice about that day.
The monsters, clearly crawled up from some hellish abyss, had wrought horrific slaughter without a moment's hesitation.
The terror of that calamity—untouched by reason or emotion—still crushed her, even now that she had barely escaped to the Dyke domain.
"Please, give it deep thought, my lord. The goblins aren't the issue. We must stop those monsters—the harbingers of the end."
"Your vivid account does paint a gruesome picture. But our situation is dire. We can't spare a large army—our borders bristle with enemies too."
The count startled slightly, taken aback as she dropped to her knees and bowed her head, her sincerity plain.
He had heard Seira's desperate testimony clearly enough. But from the outset, Count Dyke had no designs on warring with anyone.
With what he held, he could claim hegemony in the region just by sitting tight—no need to meddle.
"No need to fret so much. We're not some ragtag bandits who seized a barony. Even if those beast herds swell a bit, we shan't ally with goblins over it. Nay, if clashing with those rampaging, swelling goblin hordes spells their doom, all the better."
"But my lord...!"
"I've heard your tale before. A beautiful, talented mage, they say. I'll see you treated well, so come to the castle. Ease your grief, and your fears may lift—perhaps even change your mind."
Seira pleaded desperately to sway him, but at the sight of her lovely face, Count Dyke swallowed hard and coaxed her gently toward his castle.
'Why won't they understand? The end is coming...!'
With the communication severed, Seira sighed and staggered to her feet.
If she went to the lord's castle now—with nowhere to turn and no one to rely on—she'd surely face advances from the count, old enough to be her father.
Lords keeping concubines was hardly unusual. All the more for a great lord like him.
"What do you intend, Seira? In my view, we'd be better off heading elsewhere..."
"No. I'll go to the count's castle."
Butler Rogers, who had fled alongside her uncle Edmond—the administrator in the Dyke domain—gazed at her with pity.
Yet her mind was set. By any means, she needed power now.
And above all, she yearned to put as much distance as possible between herself and the ants, and quickly.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Your subordinates detect the flow through the information they've collected]
"Flow?"
The alert appeared on a lazy weekend afternoon as I tossed mealworms I'd bought into the enclosure with my ants.
I was monitoring other areas via the screen in the corner of my vision, but with just two eyes, I couldn't catch everything happening there.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[The queen synthesizes and analyzes the observations from countless scattered scouting parties across regions, concluding that the enemies dispersed in each area are uniting as one]
"...Is that right?"
But the ants were different.
Through their ever-strengthening hive mind, they exchanged information in real time and put it to use.
They could perceive things even I had overlooked, and now they were even developing the ability to make judgments from that data.
The first queen's abilities played a major role in this.
That she had grown smarter after two evolutions was already proven.
To prevent successor queens from threatening her position, she had suppressed the genes for brain development, and it was she who used data from venom ant experiments to produce even improved venom ants. With her vastly expanded ego, she impressed her 'will' more forcefully upon the hive, steering it as she desired.
For a queen of such caliber, spotting anomalies by analyzing simultaneous observations from countless scouts was hardly impossible.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[The queen predicts that the force centered on the goblins will turn toward us]
The ant horde sought maximum prey by deploying scouts in all directions.
But what those scouts uncovered wasn't limited to food. External threats endangering the hive were prime detection targets too.
'Clear enough. Those guys who tried pitting us against human forces—seeing we're unscathed, they're moving faster than expected.'
They were already wary of the ants—and terrified.
Even to my eyes, the ants' astonishing growth and proliferation rates were a marvel. Give them time, and they'd only grow stronger.
Knowing that, their enemies couldn't afford to waste a moment.
"We can win this, right?"
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Your subordinates react to your will but puzzle over what emotion it conveys]
Those goblins who had tried using us against human forces? Yeah, part of me wanted to smack them down.
I chuckled under my breath, and an alert popped up right away.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[In response to the queen's warning, the subordinates dispatch more scouting parties and concentrate hunting units toward the northwest]
The ants, too, began preparing for war in their own way.
They consolidated their far-flung hunting packs into position for rapid deployment and scattered far more small ants as scouts to monitor enemy movements.
Now a massive force, my ant legion—bolstered by a definitive surge in venom ants—could hurl thousands into battle at a moment's notice if I willed it.
'Time for me to step up too.'
And I, lips curling into a grin, was gearing up for war as well.
The test tube in my hand held them: wriggling critters whose abdomens bristled with sharp thorns.
Absorbing the abilities of these thorn ants into my ants would birth yet another new caste in the hive.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Your subordinates respond to the new intruders]
Moreover, the ants had grown accustomed to the new ant breeds I introduced into the enclosure.
To eliminate intruders and repurpose them as materials to grow stronger, they attacked the thorn ants without panic.
The thorn ants, with their tough bodies and razor-sharp spines, evoked memories of goblin warriors or human knights in plate armor—the very foes that had troubled them.
'Is that experience actually helping?'
I couldn't help but smile seeing them expertly swarm, latch onto legs, and dismantle limbs in seconds.
Even the evolved ants' mighty mandibles struggled against solid metal plate.
Through battling such armored foes, the hive had honed its skills against tough-bodied enemies, making short work of the thorn ants.
And now, we too could claim that armored resilience.