Armoured Ant Nest

The year turned and March arrived. It had been half a year since Mihai's passing, and a fair bit of cheer had returned to Cecil.

However, that did not mean she had forgotten—what had happened now served as fuel that drove her to pour herself into her studies.

At the same time, she had also developed a desire to be strong. She once ordered him, "Allen, bring me along on your hunts." Unfortunately, the Baron did not give permission for this, so Allen had to turn her down.

Allen had already been serving at the mansion for three years and a half—six more months, and he would be turning twelve. Time had truly flown by.

Even now, he did not know the details of the so-called "duty of House Granvelle" that had gotten Mihai killed. He had gone to double-check with Rickel, who had told him previously that the kingdom was not currently at war with any other countries, but Rickel confirmed that was still the case.

While he was at it, Rickel also taught Allen a bit more about this world's history. Namely, their kingdom had been at war with the empire to its north that was dozens of times larger several decades ago, but the two had eventually signed a peace accord.

In regard to the progress of Allen's hunting, he had completely wiped out all orc villages at the end of February. It had taken longer to exterminate the orcs than the goblins, but in any case, the foothills of the White Dragon Mountains were now entirely free of both.

There was a chance that the same monsters could wander in from outside of Granvelle territory to establish more villages again, but they could easily be exterminated as they cropped up.

Thanks to Allen and the chivalric order's efforts, the first mithril mine was to open in April, with the necessary number of miners and laborers already secured. Due to all the goblins and orcs being wiped out, quite a few adventurers had actually changed occupations. A part of Allen did feel bad that he had practically robbed them of their livelihoods, but the human corpses that he kept finding in the monster villages convinced him beyond a doubt that exterminating them was truly the right thing to do.

Come spring, the settlers would move into the village that housed the furnaces for smelting mithril ore into mithril ingots. Then the mining would begin in earnest after summer. The mines were expected to operate at a deficit for the first few years in light of the cost of initial investment, but what truly mattered was simply the fact they would be up and running.

One possible source of concern was Viscount Carnel. It was now two years and counting since the White Dragon moved into his fiefdom, but he had not made so much as a peep. It was difficult to imagine how he could keep his realm running without the income from his mithril mines, and yet it was equally impossible to imagine him coming crying to Baron Granvelle.

This silence from him, therefore, seemed somewhat ominous. The Baron was clearly aware of this, seeing how frequently he asked Sebas for reports on the situation in Carnel.

After erasing all the goblin and orc villages in the area, Allen still based his hunting activities in the foothills of the White Dragon Mountains. On the other side of the forest, above the treeline, was a desolate wasteland only sparsely dotted with greenery where the mountain range, which extended far into the distance and sprawled over an unbelievable expanse, loomed in all its majestic glory.

Allen only had a limited view from his position at the top of a bare cliff, but what he saw with his own eyes felt much more awe-inspiring than the more comprehensive view that he got through Sharing with a Bird E.

'So, that's an armored ant nest.'

A slight distance away from Allen's current position lay a large bulge in the mountain slope that looked like an igloo. This was the entrance to an armored ant nest. Many armored ants, monsters that towered three meters in height, busily flowed through the entrance in an unending stream.

'Hm, the entrance is pretty small. Oh, no, it's the armored ants that are too big. I'm not sure there's space for me to slip in with all these guys going in and out nonstop.'

The width of the tunnel could only accommodate the passage of one armored ant. This was plenty of space for a human to go through, but even if he managed to infiltrate the place, the ants could easily seal his path with their bodies alone.

Of course, Allen had asked Raven to share everything he knew about killing armored ants. First, the adventurer had explained that most nests held roughly a thousand armored ants, give or take. Next, it was guaranteed that there would be a queen armored ant, a Rank B monster, within. This monster absolutely needed to be killed, or else it would continue to spawn more and more armored ants.

Unfortunately, this was all the info that Raven had—Allen attempted to press him for more details, but Raven replied that his info was only secondhand this time, and he himself did not know much else.

'So the tunnels inside are all one-way only? Isn't it inconvenient having such tiny holes? Hmm, I should probably lure as many armored ants outside as I can to kill them out here. That's the only way I'll be able to go inside to get at the queen.'

Allen called out four Beast Ds, one Insect D, and one Fish D, then Shared with all of them. 'Well, let's first give it a try and see how it goes.'

Allen had to try attacking with his Summons to see for himself how well this group composition would fare against the armored ants. Of course, having learned his lesson from the orc village that he had failed to take down, Allen now kept himself back a safe distance away.

The group of six Summons wove their way around the bare boulders, making their way toward the anthill entrance. The Beast Ds were soon spotted due to their huge size, but they continued on regardless.

Once they got close, one armored ant raised its large jaws up high and clacked them loudly in warning. Other nearby ants heard this and headed over, adding to the cacophony with their own furious clacking. This prompted several dozen more to appear from within the nest and take up defensive positions around the entrance.

'Yes, keep coming out! I love where this is going. Please come out, every last one of you. All right, six Summons is clearly not enough to deal with these numbers. Let's get more out there.'

In response to the situation, Allen called out twenty more Beast Ds, all of them Strengthened ahead of time. He ordered them to charge toward the armored ant nest.

Soon, the area fell into a battlefield. As armored ants' heads were slightly more breakable than their shells, all the Beast Ds knew to aim for their heads.

This was what Allen had always told them to do during the previous hunts, so now he no longer needed to mention it—they just did it by default. And so the Beast Ds got to work cracking heads.

'Hmm, their teamwork really leaves a lot to be desired.'

The most important thing in hunting was the amount of time taken to kill each monster. The efficiency of battle was directly determined by the number of monsters taken down.

Allen was currently watching the battle from over fifty meters away using a Bird E with Hawk Eye activated. The Beast Ds charged fiercely and were making good progress culling the ants, but there was a glaring problem that had come to light from their facing such a large number of enemies at once.

Beast Ds were incapable of crushing the heads of armored ants in one attack, even while using their Ability. This meant the most efficient way for them to fight was to coordinate with each other and focus on bringing down one enemy at a time. Unfortunately, this was not going so well.

Whenever Allen saw a Beast D attacking an armored ant, he ordered another one to also focus its attacks on that same monster. However, in large-scale protracted fights where he could not micromanage the movements of every Summon and had to rely on them to make their own decisions, holes appeared very quickly among the ranks, leading to unnecessarily wasted time.

For example, say there was an armored ant that would die with just one more attack, but the closest Beast D turned to attack another one that was closer and ended up getting attacked by the first armored ant. Similar instances started cropping up more and more, much to Allen's chagrin.

'So basically, Summons with barely more than 100 Intelligence end up making quite a lot of bad calls and can't effectively cooperate with each other.'

The longer the fight dragged on, the more mistakes the Summons made. It grew so obvious that Allen would almost believe it if he were told the Summons had been designed to make a certain percentage of incorrect decisions.

He first thought this was an issue that could be solved with thorough training, but soon arrived at the conclusion that it was the Intelligence stat that was to blame.

It was when he saw Bird D and Fish D—both of which had over 400 Intelligence after being Strengthened—communicating flawlessly that the idea had occurred to him. Bird D only knew how to say "Hoo!" whereas Fish D could not speak at all. And yet, somehow, the two were capable of picking up each other's intentions and acting in coordination.

'I guess this is basically how it is? Though I don't have a Summon with around 300 Intelligence, so I'll just fill the line with whatever.'

___

Results of Testing Summons with Varying Intelligence:

- Less than 100 Intelligence: Only reacts to the order to use its Ability.

- Above 100 Intelligence: Can comprehend normal orders and the order to use its Ability, but makes bad decisions and cannot communicate with other Summons.

- Above 200 Intelligence: Fewer mistakes in judgment.

- Above 300 Intelligence: Cannot be tested due to absence of corresponding Summons.

- Above 400 Intelligence: Can communicate with other Summons and, when Shared, can pass along Allen's orders.

___

As a result of his experiments, Allen discovered that if he Shared with a Bird D with over 400 Intelligence, the Bird D could help pass instructions on to other Summons. In this way, he could remotely instruct Summons that he was not Shared with.

However, this was effectively a game of telephone, relayed from Allen to Bird D to, say, Beast D. The instructions had to be extremely simple, otherwise they would get distorted in the process.

Allen occupied himself by considering the possibilities opened up by this discovery while watching the fight taking place at the entrance of the armored ant nest.