He could just vaguely sense the location of ‘Bob’ as he moved through the area; his Stealth skill was higher than Grey’s own, and if it weren’t for the fact he was inside a shard Grey himself owned… he’d likely be clueless.
He tracked him as best he could, even as Johnson was just looking around confused….. And the ants… seemed to have become aware something was going on.
Grey frowned. These two men were both clearly at least vaguely competent, and had rifles. They might kill a fair number of ants. He wanted to stack the deck against them…. But he’d made an oath. And if he worked too directly, he’d be forced to start over. Might lose the opportunity with the military.
He closed his eyes… and ignored it, trying not to think about it as he stepped out from behind the explorer. “Well hello there. I’d say I waited for you to show up… but the timing was mostly a coincidence. I’d just tricked the one who had stealth into a deathtrap and figured I’d clean up the others real quick before they realized I knew.”
Sledge looked at the three bodies, then at Grey. “... What the hell happened, anyway?”
“As I was driving up, one of them went into stealth and got into a good firing position to take me out, thought I didn’t notice. The other four pretended like he didn’t exist… and were just distracting me til you showed up.”
He looked down at the bodies. “So…. I handled it. Apparently they’re part of some ‘Human Supremacist Militia’ that just formed against people like us who swapped races… as well as genuine invaders.”
Sledge looked thoughtful. “Well, hell. Should we do something about them?”
Grey shrugged. “These guys planned to ambush you two. So I had no problems taking them out. No way to know if the whole group is that bad, though. Hesitant to just go in and wipe out a whole militia without being sure, even assuming we could.” Obviously he didn’t really care. But he needed something valid to say to the cops, or the military.
Sledge looked at the bodies, then at the Explorer. “...So what do we do with them?”
Grey looked them over for a moment. “The two I trapped are still alive, so far. I’ll loot them whenever they finally kick it. You two can loot these, and we split whatever’s in the SUV?”
Sledge blinked. “Is… that legal? I mean, these aren’t monsters, and they aren’t alien invaders. Maybe they wanted to kill us, but they are people.”
Grey shrugged. “If you want to call the cops, you can. Frankly, I don’t want anything to do with my name and these people, in case the rest of the Militia decides it wants a pound of flesh. Best case scenario, they never figure out who we are.”
Star shook her head. “We…. already accepted the invite on the Guild app. It’ll be clear we were headed this way.”
A slow nod. If the Militia came after Sledge and Star, its likely they’d torture Grey’s identity out of them, or even just find messages to him in the cell; or a previous association in the Guild app. “Well then. I guess we need to clear out the rest of the Militia so they don’t try to kill you. I’ll need one of their corpses, and a new pair of pants to dress it in.”
The siblings stared at Grey for a moment. “You…. just changed your mind, and are going to wipe them out, just like that?”
“Well, if its a choice between you two and them? Its easy enough.”
Star sighed. “There has to be some third option. Its not just ignore them and have them track us down, or kill them all.”
Sledge nodded. “We drop out of the Guild app. Swap handles, maybe and sign back on… or we just go work with you and the military.”
Grey looked at them thoughtfully… and nodded. “Fine then. Should work out. I’m expecting to get called up to head east any time now. Know of any fire ant nests? I’ve got one of those cheap extradimensional storage spaces, and I’d like to completely pack it with cheap fire-resistant undead that can mix in with the enemy while Star blasts them with fireballs.”
He’d handle the militia himself. He needed a willing target to put them in storage, but not to take them out… he could easily dump an hour’s worth of animate fire-ant zombies inside their base if he could find it. A bit bothersome if one got out, but likely enough to burn their base down and them with it.
Star blinked. “Huh! That’d actually be really handy. Sure! Ants are getting fewer and further between as time goes on, but there’s a big fire-ant nest a group is clearing out. Maybe they could use some help. Here…” She sent Grey a text with the coordinates.
“Good luck!”
***
It took over an hour to arrive at the nest, where Grey got to see a very different group’s means of handling a nest; and unfortunately a failed one. There was a heavy armored truck, clearly one formerly used by a bank, but now modified, armored plates and heavy-duty spikes mounted to it; and stuck in an enormous hole… behind a long, circling trail where it had been used to drive in circles around the nest.
Crushed corpses of ants were everywhere. And even as he slowed to a stop, he could tell that, while there were hundreds… maybe even thousands… of crushed fire-ants, they were both lower-level than the ones he already had… and mostly too damaged to be useful. Maybe one out of every six or seven could be used as a zombie if he was lucky; likely less.
There were a set of four poles mounted to the top of the truck, and each of them had an armored figure wearing black-red chitin armor, and some sort of pole-arm standing beside it; and rifles hanging uselessly at their side, undoubtedly out of ammo. The ants were swarming around them; clearly they’d been using the armored truck to maximum effect, crushing the ants en masse….
And either the ants had dug a pit trap for them… or one of their existing tunnels had collapsed under the weight. They were holding their own, but struggling; constantly working to hack at the swarm, dripping with sweat.
Grey studied them for a few seconds, then the nest. The swarm… wasn’t as thick as it should be. There must not be too many ants left.
He studied the people. They weren’t militia; but they wore identical armor to each other, and had the same weapons. Some sort of team from beforehand. He looked around… he couldn’t spot anyone else in the area. No witnesses.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He nodded to himself… and entered stealth, moving closer… and finding a rock perhaps a hundred meters away from the ongoing battle; he could feel he was close enough to start getting Mana from the kills; this might get him to the next level if he did it right. He could see injuries; their armor was fire-resistant, but not fire-proof, and not only was there a bit of blood dripping down, but two of them were using their pole-arm with one hand… and the movements were rote. Sluggish.
Without some sort of outside intervention, he gave it a fifty-fifty shot whether they’d die out before they wiped out the last couple hundred ants.
He checked the multi-rifle… setting two magazines of the Venom shells on the sand; the Serpentfolk venom, so he’d be resistant when he came in after; and took aim.
He started firing, as quickly as the rifle would launch; sending all five shells at the truck, rather than aiming at any single person. If they had gas-masks under those black-red helmets this would be of tremendous help. If not… he would be finishing off both them and the rest of the ants.
The liquid sprayed into the air, and when he emptied the earlier, partial magazine, it only got worse; a faint pale mist surrounding the truck, as the shards of venom-coated ceramic splattered across human and ant alike.
At first, they kept fighting; using their pole-arms to slash at the encroaching swarm…. But then, one by one, they went limp… and while the first few dozen ants did the same… the others started crawling over them. Biting. Attacking their paralyzed forms.
Grey swapped in another magazine, and kept firing; the ants didn’t seem to have noticed the source yet, still swarming in on the truck… and when he emptied that one, leaving the truck covered with paralyzed, dying ants and the people there to kill them….
He grabbed one of the chemical sprayers from his storage; hooking the tank up on his back, checking to ensure it was still full of venom…. And started stalking forward; casually calling out and seizing control of a pair of fire-ants he’d already controlled… and letting them serve as a vanguard, as he approached the truck, spraying any living ant groups as he walked.
It took another few minutes; and he had to completely empty the tank; but all the active ants… and the four people on the truck; were dead.
He ignored the level-up notice for now. He wanted to review what-all Stealth and Assassin’s Strike offered as options before making that choice.
Which left one more possible issue. These four were on the roof; was there a driver?
Without getting into sight of the driver’s seat, he sent one of the zombie ants around the front to take a look.. And see a person still inside the driver’s seat, a phone in hand…. Just lying there, still.
The ant stepped up, rapping on the windshield at Grey’s command…. They didn’t move.
Grey thought for a moment. Had something already killed them…. Or had his paralytic venom done the job? Either way….
He called out four of the smaller worker-ants…. But still bigger than the local variety… and had them start digging around the truck, as the Soldier ones kept watch. It took them a few minutes to get far enough down to try opening one of the doors…. And amazingly enough, it was unlocked. Then again, why bother to lock it when fighting animals?
The limp form of the sole occupant, holding their phone…. But while they’d been doing something with it, Ant-vision wasn’t good enough to read a phone screen, it seemed.
He pondered for a moment. If it were recording a video, it might show him if he walked within view. Best have the ant crush it. Considering the zombies he was using were ants, there was no proof whatsoever that he hadn’t shown up after they’d all died.
He gave it a minute for the cloud of venom in the air to settle down, and headed in… he could feel the Warrior zombies still crushing stray undead.
He snapped a picture of the scene; just in case he were questioned, this would look like a group who had died fighting an army of giant ants; and then focused on Looting them; just the people, not the ants.
He blinked. He hadn’t looked at the weapons that closely… but they’d clearly taken larger ant mandibles and used them to make blades for the Halberd, attaching them to a long steel pole. And considering they had five of them, they must have killed at least three larger queens.
Speaking of Queens… he sent one of his zombies patrolling down the tunnel once the workers had it accessible.. And then climbed into the armored truck.
There was a door from the passenger cab to the back; one that looked… odd, as if it hadn’t always been there… and the back looked… substantially bigger than it should. He looked into it, then at the much smaller cab. There were bunk beds. A refrigerator. Even a microwave and a stove. They’d clearly used multiple upgrades on it, and turned it into a mobile headquarters.
And it was already an armored truck.
He focused on the truck itself, using Examine.
He wondered just who these people were… and then shrugged. They had a good setup. They’d undoubtedly used Crusher to kill thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of Ants. And now they were dead.
When the Soldier Ant zombie made its way through the tunnel to the Queen, he could feel the general location; roughly a half kilometer away, and a few meters below the surface. And… the queen wasn’t much bigger than the zombie was.
He waited until the second soldier arrived to provide backup… and walked along the surface until he was standing above, before ordering them to attack… the empowered creatures splattering venom over the queen, the surviving defenders, the eggs…
And when they died, moving in, starting to crush the eggs, one by one, ensuring nothing else would emerge from this nest.
There we go. Done. Time to decide what to do with ‘Crusher’ if he could get it dug out… as well as what to do with his eleventh level. He should already have the tools he needed to kill the Militia, depending on its size, and besides... it was more important to focus on what he needed to kill Nightfire.
