"If I’m not wrong... The reason why that giant ant nest was able to turn into a forbidden zone was because the giant ant queen somehow managed to evolve in a special direction that made her far more intelligent than normal giant ant queens. Giving her the foresight to predict the danger she would be in if she followed the original path to reaching the S Rank.
Ultimately, she decided to focus her efforts on quietly growing her strength while giving an outwards appearance of slow growth to any adventurers or others who might stumble upon her colony. Taking full advantage of the fact that no one wants to bother attacking a giant ant nest that has yet to reach the S Rank. In the end, she managed to reach the S Rank without being noticed and continued quietly growing before unleashing her strength and ultimately creating a new forbidden zone." Quietly mumbling this to himself as he recalled what he had read in the past, Thomas could not help wondering if the people from the Holy Light Church had somehow realized this and decided to send over a group of people to deal with the giant ant before it grew into a serious problem.
But even with this, there was still one obvious problem with his guess about the state of the giant ant queen... And that was the simple fact that the food needed to sustain an ant colony was downright terrifying. Reaching a point where a giant ant queen would be forced to continue expanding her influence to gather enough food to sustain her colony.
The example he remembered had not just been successful because the giant ant queen had evolved to become smarter, but also because she happened to have located her nest right next to an underground dungeon entrance that in turn helped provide her with an endless flow of food to continue growing her colony.
Dungeons whose entrance wasn’t visible above ground could already be considered rare, but for it to exist inside the nest of a giant ant queen was something that had only ever happened twice, with the first case turning into a forbidden zone, while the other had been occupied by a giant ant queen that didn’t understand what a dungeon even was in the first place and ended up perishing when a dungeon break occurred inside its nest.
Without a source of food large enough to grow her armies, even if a giant ant queen reached the S Rank, it wouldn’t be much different from a normal giant ant queen.
For this reason, as he thought things through, Thomas only found himself more bewildered about the state of the giant ant nest. Unable to tell what state the giant ant nest found itself in.
This confusion only grew as he walked over to the leader and informed him about his thoughts. Learning from him that it was the Red Dawn Legion from the church that had shown up earlier.
Different from the leader who might only know a bit about the terror of the Red Dawn Legion and its fearsome reputation, Thomas as a scholar who had researched more than just monsters in the past knew a bit more and understood that the Red Dawn Legion itself normally only moved according to divine will–A fancy way of saying that it had been ordered by highest authority within the Holy Light Church, the Holy See. Also known as the central governing body of the Holy Light Church throughout the world. Overseen directly by the pope of the Holy Light Church.
Of course, this didn’t mean that the entirety of the church’s upper echelons had suddenly come together to command part of the Red Dawn Legion to this place. Instead, it more likely meant that one of the cardinals that was part of the cardinal council that acted directly below the pope had ordered this operation.
Although not anywhere near the same as a decree from the Holy See itself, it still meant that this situation involved a high-ranking figure within the Holy Light Church.
"Should we leave...?" Not shy about sharing what he knew about the situation with the leader and the rest, it didn’t take long before one of adventurers spoke up. Coming up with an obvious solution to their current situation.
But... The reason why everyone remained in place had nothing to do with the potential danger involved. Instead, it was because everyone present understood that they might have the opportunity to strike it rich by following behind the group from the Holy Light Church. Picking up what they left behind as they made their way through the giant ant nest.
After all, it was a rather well-known fact among adventurers that whenever the Holy Light Church took action to fight off monsters, they tended to directly ignore picking up any valuable parts left behind after killing the monster unless it was something that couldn’t be ignored or an especially powerful monster.
Just looking around at the corpses of giant ants all around them that a few in their group had already begun dismantling for the most precious and easy to carry parts made this old fact about the Holy Light Church simple enough to see in action. Unfortunately, most of the valuable parts on the giant ants decayed rapidly after death and had to be extracted shortly after death.
"I... I think we should take a quick look inside, just to see how the church people are doing..."
"Yes, I agree. Maybe we could even lend a hand if they fall into a troublesome situation."
"Great idea! We might be able to get a good reward if that happens."
Because of this, after everyone glanced around at each other for a few seconds following the small comment about leaving, the first stepped forward before being followed by several others... And soon enough, the entire group were fired up about following the group from the Holy Light Church. Knowing that this was an opportunity to truly strike it rich and potentially double or even triple what they had managed to earn over the past week of difficulties exploring the Thousand Spire Mountain Range.