Golden Experience

The chamber they arrived at was about as big as all the previous ones, but the ceiling was much higher. And all the way in the back, there was a single ant, but far larger than any they had seen thus far. It had wings too. That must be the queen. Since she had wings, she must have only begun building this nest rather recently. Either that or it was just a feature of that type of ant.

“GICHIGICHIGICHI…”

She was trying to say something… or so Rare thought, but unfortunately she had no idea what it might want to say. Either way, she wouldn’t give her opponent the initiative to attack. Since there was only a single enemy, she would start things off with [Stupefy].

“[Stupefy]! …Ohh, it worked. I thought she’d be immune since she’s a boss. All right then, [Charm]! …Arg, so she can resist that!”

Given Rare’s build, she wanted to lead off with [Stupefy] for the debuff followed by [Charm], which would have its success rate increased by Stupefy. That didn’t work, so maybe the queen had some kind of special resistance. Or because they were the same sex, the charm wasn’t as effective. And because the queen resisted [Charm], she also recovered from the Stupefy debuff. [Mental Magic] was inextricably linked to its debuffs; if even a single spell was resisted, the chain would break and the target’s mental state would return to normal. That was how this style of magic worked.

“Marion! Use [Freeze]! Everyone else, keep it in check from a distance! I need you to buy me a little time until my [Stupefy] cools down!”

“Roger! [Freeze]!”

Having come back from being Stupefied, the queen tried to charge at Rare. Aiming at her initial movements, Remy and Riley let loose arrows that hit the queen’s front legs, causing her to fall to the ground. The Freeze spell had an immediate effect, so even though she quickly tried to stand back up, her movements were sluggish—and she was immediately struck in the head by the sword that Kerry had thrown. The sword bounced off harmlessly with a metallic clang, but it did seem to stun the queen.

In that time, Marion’s Freeze had lowered the temperature even more, causing the queen’s movements to slow even more. While she continued trying to get back up, Riley and Remi both threw their own melee weapons, trying to keep her down. Kerry then picked up someone’s thrown weapon and once again aimed at the queen’s head, this time attacking her directly. By that time, the queen’s body temperature had dropped low enough that she could barely throw a proper attack, but it was still one that Kerry couldn’t avoid.

This being the second successful [Stupefy], its effective duration was even shorter. Without [Charm] being chained first, its success rate wouldn’t be as high, but Rare gambled on [Control] to end it. She could feel the queen putting up quite a bit of resistance, but in the end the Control went through, and the queen’s dull movements stopped completely.

“I hope I won’t find out that even you were already tamed by someone else. Now, let’s dive in. [Subordinate].”

The queen wasn’t moving even an inch, so it probably couldn’t even perceive what was happening right beside it, but Rare could feel that the queen had completely surrendered to her. She could now see the queen’s stats. She could also see its race name: Vespoid Queen.

“Huh? You weren’t an ant?”

The name indicated that she was a vespinae. Rare thought she was an ant, but she was actually closer to a hornet. The soldier ants didn’t immediately come under her control—she could feel that there was a time lag before it would happen—but the queen’s followers did indirectly become her own underlings.

<<Named Enemy [Vespoid Queendom] has been defeated.>>

<<Unlocked personal area [Former Queendom].>>

<<Register [Former Queendom] as primary home?>>

As she had predicted, this was the same thing that had happened with the Mountain Cat Bandit Group. “Queendom” felt like it was on a scale too grand for what took place here, but like with the catkin girls, maybe this was a unique boss that was still maturing. There certainly were a lot of enemies, but nothing on the level of a nation.

In any case, she could finally take a break. She would make this place her home base, which would free up the previous base. That would let another player find it and make it their home. It was close to a human country, but it was within monster territory, so she wasn’t sure whether a human-race player or a monster-race player would end up claiming it.

“Ah, shoot. I wonder if there’s a source of clean water here. It’ll be hard to live here if there’s no water nearby.”

The queen still couldn’t move yet, but she was still able to convey her thoughts. According to the queen, while expanding the nest, the ants had apparently uncovered an underground lake. Rare’s first base was naturally connected to an underground lake, but here they had dug their way to one. The two bases weren’t very far away from each other, so perhaps the two lakes shared the same source. If possible, they should really survey this entire area before someone else claimed the other base as their home.

“Or actually, if we made a tunnel from here to the other base, would the two become recognized as a single home area? I wonder…”

This matter required some investigation. Rare could feel excitement growing within her.

“In order to test it out, we’ll need the ants to all heal back up. One day probably wouldn’t be enough time… I could summon Hakuma and the wolves to this room, but then they couldn’t get back out. This place needs to undergo some serious renovation. We’ve gotten tons of XP, though; I want to teach everyone some magic.”

Her current login session would soon hit twelve hours. She would soon receive a warning message if she didn’t log out briefly. She would have wanted to use the boar pelt she had obtained, but it hadn’t been tanned yet, so it was quite pungent; she could tell as soon as she took it out. Tanning required the [Leathercraft] skill, which should be able to do the deed even without the right chemicals through the power of magic. It would be useful to have someone learn it.

“I apologize for the abrupt announcement, but I’m going to take a nap. When I wake up, we’ll discuss our future activities. Aah, it’s fine if there isn’t a place to sleep. I’ll just lay down over there. See you later, then.”

They would need to work on making the base more comfortable, but it was also important to make do with what they had sometimes.

After stopping the catkin girls from taking off their clothes to make a temporary bed for Rare, she quickly lay down to sleep and logged out.