The nest had turned into a mass grave full of dead larvae. The Dream Weaver had successfully infiltrated the nest, no doubt.
Angor looked further inside and was puzzled to see that the nest had been cleanly divided into two parts from the middle, with the ant occupying one side while the remaining larvae stayed in the other.
At first sight, it looked like a battlefield for the creatures. But what was actually going on wasn’t really a battle. Instead, swarms of defenseless larvae surrendered themselves to the ant to feed it, just to stop it from advancing.
And such a suicidal tactic worked well so far. As long as the ant had a full stomach, it would retreat somewhere quiet and take naps, before it woke up to “hunt” again.
Angor thought that the larvae would soon exhaust their members at this rate. But to his confusion, he saw the “larva territory” still full of them. There were way more wriggling worms in his view than the eggs he used to keep.
These things couldn’t just pop into existence out of thin air. Angor suspected that the particular big egg had something to do about this.
He reached his spirit feeler all the way to the “big room” he prepared for that egg and realized that it successfully hatched without him knowing. However, the product of the egg was not a Soft Larva. It wasn’t even close. He was looking at a lump of soft, moving substance that seemed to be the mixture of green goo and slime.
This “slime”, which was at least twenty times larger than a common Soft Larvae, had taken up more than half of the room’s space.
As Angor wondered why such a monstrosity ended up in the worm nest, he suddenly noticed that, from the bottom of the slime, countless newborn larvae were rushing out to join the “front line” of their battle.
“It’s giving birth to more worms? And without eggs? Wait...”
Across the translucent slime, he saw clusters of larva eggs slowly coming into existence, which then slowly turned into living larvae, all of which happened inside the slime’s body.
Apart from new soldiers, a small number of the larvae headed to the pile of Akeso’s blood prepared by Angor, then carried small blocks of it back for the “slime” to consume.
“My word...” Angor watched the creatures working in awe. “Is this perhaps the mother of all larvae?”
By keeping the nest, he was hoping that one of the Soft Larvae could mutate into a Mutation Larva, which was a lot more valuable than common Soft Larva. But... It was even better if he could find a “Queen Larva” instead. With such a queen, he’d have an unlimited supply of Soft Larvae, which meant more chances to gain mutated specimens out of them.
Even if he somehow couldn’t find a single mutated larva, selling the common larvae in big numbers still meant a stable income!
He didn’t see any special larvae being born into the nest in this way yet. But he could wait. As long as the “queen” could give him one of them, he would be expecting more.
Thinking about how the ugly stuff could well become a money-making machine, Angor suddenly found the slime to be a lot more adorable.
He quickly captured the Dream Weaver and forced it back into its previous home so that he wouldn’t unnecessarily lose too many larvae.
He just realized that he never knew how Soft Larva eggs came into being or what their “queen” looked like. For now, he would consider the strange slime to be their queen. But he would also remember to look into it when he found a chance.
He put the nest back into his storage and left Sunders’ room.
The nest was a gift from Kanter. Since Kanter was in the base, Angor wanted to ask him whether he knew what the slime truly was.
It was snowing badly outside. Within a short amount of time, the land around the base was covered under a thick curtain of white. It was getting harder and harder to see very far. Though Angor would admit that it was pleasant to see a brighter environment in the Abyss for a change, thanks to the reflective snowfield that made everything look shinier.
Out of the corner of one eye, he saw a sudden red glimmer coming from the top of a guard tower nearby.
It was gone by the time he looked that way.
He shook his head and ignored the matter. Whether it was someone who just looked at him or if it was only him seeing things, it had nothing to do with him. There were wizards and apprentices wandering about all the time.
After he left, a white-robed man moved to open ground from behind the tower with a grim look while fiddling a glowing red chain he carried on his shoulder.
...
Angor had barely moved out of Sunders’ personal territory when he saw Kanter coming down at him from the sky. The old wizard’s pointy, triangular hat had been fully covered by snow. Combined with his white brows, they gave him quite a funny look.
“Good afternoon, sir.” Angor bowed.
“I thought Sunders is the only one who can remember the time in this sunless place. But I guess we just got another. Heading to somewhere?”
“I have a question to ask. Didn’t think I’d find you so quickly.”
Kanter came as soon as Angor left Sunders’ room because he left a Wizard Eye nearby. To keep an eye on Angor, as requested by Sunders.
“You want to talk to me? Fine. Let’s use Sunders’ room instead of standing in this snow, shall we? And where did that nice smell come from? Sunders used incense in his room?”
Angor nodded. He did see Sunders lighting up several sticks. Sunders mentioned that the smell of it could help people calm their spirits. But Angor did not feel anything particular.
“Lunar Incense is good stuff. When did he get so generous?” Kanter headed toward Sunders’ place first.
While on his way, he glanced at the guard tower that attracted Angor’s attention a moment ago. Using his Wizard Eye, he clearly saw the person who just stood there. However, he wasn’t going to care because that was a member of Brute Cavern.
After entering the room, Kanter shook off some snow from his robe and quickly sat down beside an incense pot.
He sniffed. “Ahhh... Nice.”
The soothing effect of Lunar Incense was weak and slow-coming. But for people who constantly suffered high mental pressure such as people who were working in the Overwatch Base, it was extremely good to have.
The truth was, Kanter would like to use such a great chance and continue playing the Monument Loop, if Angor did not mention talking to him.
“So, what do you need?” Kanter took it easy on Sunders’ chair and glanced at Angor.
“Mister Kanter, do you still remember the Soft Larva eggs you gave me?”
Kanter was a bit embarrassed to hear this. Back in the Floating Mech City, he wanted to show his goodwill to Angor but did not have anything too valuable on him, so he used the eggs he found by accident as a gift. These eggs were usually useless and difficult to breed. He wondered if Angor wanted to know how to hatch them properly.
He quickly thought about an excuse he could use to dodge the question since he knew little about these things.
“Do Soft Larvae have a queen, sir? If so, what does it look like?”
“A queen?” Kanter wasn’t expecting that. “What are you thinking about all of a sudden?”
Angor took out the larva nest and showed it to Kanter. “They spawned. And... There’s this very strange individual among them. I want to know if it’s their queen.”
Kanter was frozen with shock.