If not for the fact that Money Bad and Nether Flame were taking the situation very seriously, he would have laughed and mocked her for overestimating her capabilities. However, even the little smile that he had on his face was enough to cut into Ant Hill as if his gaze were as sharp as knives. She ignored him, and acted as if she didn’t see him, but he knew that she was agitated.
All of these unfavorable states made her say to herself, ’I don’t even care about success anymore. You can fail. As long as you don’t notify the world of our presence, the situation can be salvaged, and we can always try again to sneak in."
Ant Hill felt that she should reassure them, so she forced herself to speak with a calm tone as he said, "I don’t know what is happening. But I can confirm that the crystal bug is still alive."
"I gave it the order to prioritize caution, as you said. So it is probably taking so long because it is being cautious."
Her explanation was reasonable, and Money Bag couldn’t fault her for being cautious. So he stopped looking at her with a gaze full of disappointment.
Then he said, "For your sake, I hope your crystal ant succeeds."
She nodded in agreement and opened her mouth to speak. But just as she wanted to assure him that everything would go well and her crystal ant would succeed, she sensed something from the crystal ant.
What she sensed stunned her. She stood there frozen while a loud roar of anger came from the world some distance away.
When they saw Ant Hill’s behavior and heard that roar of anger, they knew what had happened. This caused a myriad of reactions in all three of them.
Nether Flame had stopped glaring at her in anger and instead stopped looking at her completely. Instead, he sighed and muttered some words lamenting his fate.
As for Loki, he had also stopped teasing her and had instead become more serious. This was because the worst possible outcome had happened.
Only Money Body was behaving the same way. He was still disappointed in her, and his disappointment only seemed to have increased.
But Money Body wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was looking towards that roar of anger, which meant he was looking at Oceania.
That roar of anger had only happened once, but none of them could relax. They expected the worst, and Money Bag confirmed it.
He said to them, "It seems the worst has happened. The choice now is whether we give stealth another try or use brute force."
After speaking, no one else spoke up to suggest anything. They were all waiting for his lead.
Fortunately, Money Body didn’t actually expect anything useful from them. He considered the matter at hand for a few seconds in silence and came up with a decision all on his own.
When he was done thinking, he said, "It is unlikely to succeed now that the world is aware of our intrusion. But there is no harm in giving stealth another chance."
"So let’s use the homunculi for another attempt. We will use four teams of 40 homunculi at the same time. Two of the four will be the real teams, which will each hold a shield breaker. The other two will be decoys. This arrangement will increase their chances of success."
Then he asked them, saying, "Any objections?"
This plan was going to use up all the homunculi they had at hand, but no one raised any objections about the plan. They all did as Money Body said.
They opened the latch of the capsules and placed them on the crystal shield. Then they gave the homunculi orders about their mission. They also gave two teams one shield breaker each.
After making preparations, they set the homunculi free. The homunculi immediately jumped into the crystal shields and disappeared from sight.
These homunculi knew that they were probably going to die on this mission. But no matter how unwilling they were, the curse that had bound their souls compelled them to obey orders and do their best.
The four divine beings watched as the homunculi left. When the homunculi were gone, they turned to look at the life monitoring system in the capsules.
The life monitoring system will tell them the current condition of each homunculus. With it, they can tell when a homunculus is still alive or when a homunculus dies. This way, they will be able to track the success of the mission somewhat.
This batch of homunculi was specifically made to have the lowest living presence possible. To the senses of the will of the world, they were designed to appear as stones and other inanimate objects. This way, the world won’t consider them as a threat even if it notices them.
The chances of the homunculi deceiving the world and succeeding at planting the shield breaker are usually 50-50. Plus, if they draw the attention of the world and fail their mission, the world will definitely become wary and will start looking for intruders, which will eliminate most chances of gaining entry to the world through stealth.
This is why Money Body had asked them if they had a better option. When Ant Hill had provided an alternative that had a higher chance of success than the homunculi and was unlikely to alert the will of the world even if discovered, he had decided to go with her alternative suggestion.
His decision to allow the crystal ant to go ahead had been taken after considering all of the factors and picking the best option. But it now seems that he had made the wrong decision.
Not only had the crystal ant failed, but it had also made the world alert. The repercussion was that the life monitoring system showed that the homunculi were dying in droves.
In just three seconds, all 40 homunculi died. This made the second failure. It also meant that they had lost three shield breakers.