It was a regular morning; cloudless and open was the sky. You wouldn’t have expected the day to end the way it did—no one did.

—Ruther ’The survivor’, Former Inspector of the warrior camp.

The farm was a huge undertaking. The more I realized its scale, the easier it was for me to accept the fee which the farmer community took for managing the farm. The farm was a community in itself made of thousands of aphids, soldiers, and carriers.

“Where did they come from?” I asked Billy and he was more than happy to tell me the tale, now that lime wasn’t staring about his shoulders.

“Here, before us, they were. Some Elders have proposed--” Billy said bowing toward the tower behind us before continuing, “existed, a giant colony before us, but have failed to prove. The tower, the branches, there are, so are we. If someday they are not…” he said seriously, “We may also not be.”

“Is there something going on, Billy?” I asked noticing his distress. “Something you might want to talk about?”

He looked to be thinking. At least his anamneses conveyed such. He turned toward the tower, away from me, then looked back and opened his mandibles as if about to tell me something, then closed his mandibles and shook his head — denying. And then he started talking about the aphids, ignoring my question.

“The aphids are beings of calm, of harmony. Danger, they are to none, but themselves. They give and we protect. We protect and they give.” He said and stopped, giving weight to my conclusion. Billy, the soldier’s stiffness and Lime’s warning, all were pointing to the same invisible trepidation surrounding the farm. Billy turned to me, “There—” he said, finally opening up, but looked away before finishing as pheromones in the air got our attention, and of everyone else around.

The scent was riding the wind from the northeast direction, bringing along the message of danger and an immediate need of backup. Like normal pheromones, the scent brought along no details, and due to its thinness in the air, it wasn’t clear whether the backup was still needed or not. Such is the weakness of a common ant’s pheromones. You can’t be sure whether the signals received are valid or not.

“How will the soldiers deal with it?” I nudged Billy, pointing at the soldiers.

“Distinguish the signal and the perimeters. Leaves a soldier from every bunch of five guarding the aphids and gather with a leader, if the signal site is in a radius of five plants from them.”

True to Billy’s words, lone soldiers were breaking away from their groups all around and gathering together into a small mass, ready to march off toward the direction of the scent. A soldier of the highest level amongst the group assembled the unit as I asked Billy if he wanted to see what the commotion was about.

He gave me a heartfelt, “Yes.” and was off to ask the team leader whether we could join before I could say anything. I called out behind him, to stop him from complicating the adventure, but he was already next to the leader of that small team of seven and had stopped their march. That’s what I didn’t want, and neither did I want to be stared down by a group of anxious soldier’s leaving for battle, possibly with their lives on the line; but well, these are the perks of being around a wildflower.

Now, I don’t know whether Billy knew the team leader or he didn’t understand what it meant to walk beside him, but he called me waving his antennas in pure glee, and I walked as fast as I could, keeping my head down and eyes on the ground. The soldiers pitter-pattered behind me as I rode up to the leader and he clicked his mandibles three times -in annoyance- and we were walking.

To my surprise, the team leader couldn’t talk. The most I heard him say was follow and quick.

“One can’t be a leader if they can’t talk. Hence, the soldiers of the older generation who couldn’t learn it proper learned commands to earn leadership of small teams.” Billy supplied.

And we were off. The team leader was pretty battered of appearance. He was missing half of his left foreleg and had a healed laceration on his abdomen. One of his eyes was deflated and his mandibles were worn. He was pretty up there in terms of wear and tear, but he was still moving and had even learned words to lead. That said a lot about his character and personality, for sure. I appraised the level of the soldier ants behind me and was surprised again to see that most of them were pretty high level in their ranks. Most were at or had crossed the middle stage of their rank, while one was even reaching the last half of his, preparing to rank-up. That was impressive and informing of the kind of danger they faced because strength doesn’t come without facing danger in the shade. I had seen carnage, and they seemed to have seen their share of it, too. I glanced at my excited little friend believing I owed him an apology. Maybe he wasn’t actually as sheltered in the farm as I thought him to be; this made his openness even more impressive and respect-worthy.

We marched at a constant pace for a long while and crossed through the plants, traveling about their leaves instead of using the branches to save time. We ran into another group of similar number beings lead by a slim and agile female ant who could talk, and another group of smaller size at the third plant as we followed the scent. Billy called out to the female leader who crisply jumped the distance and moved to walk beside us, not without instructing her team to keep following the tail.

“Billy . . . doing here . . . what?” And I didn’t find it surprising at all that she knew Billy. As for her speech, at least she was better than most and could convey her thoughts.

“Sir,” He said pointing his antennae at me, “wanted to see the cause of the signal. Hence, we are.”

“He . . . is?”

“An Explorer, he is.”

“Really?” Gene’s voice was pretty high sounding in my mind and it rose by a few octaves at Billy’s prideful revelation. No one among my friends understood what an explorer was or did, so it isn’t an exaggeration when I say that her excited glare made me itch in embarrassment. I felt a thirst build up in my throat, and was suddenly conscious to all the soldiers were peering at my back, strengthening my itch. I wasn’t sure what to do if they all jumped at me in the next moment, but nothing of the sort happened. I was left feeling disappointed. This lot was tougher to impress than it looked. Though, the battered leader of my team who had been gunning stares at me and Billy since the start did stiffen up and gave us a wider berth after the revelation, which was nice.

On the way, we passed a curious pile of aphids and carriers surrounded by something green, long and tubular. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It surely was feeding on the aphids, but there were ants around it, and no one was doing anything, so I let it be. Maybe I should have voiced out my confusion, but we were closing in on the source of the scent, and I didn’t want to distract the soldiers from their mission. Distractions can lead to unwanted harm during tense situations. It was a lesson hard learned. And I wasn’t about to repeat my mistake.

By the time we reached the source of the scent, our group had expanded by another six soldiers, giving us a total strength of twenty-three ants. There was another, much smaller, group already present at the site before us when we reached. Half of them were trying to shear a pile of moving aphids, while the other half had enclosed the zone.

It was a terrible sight. The ants shearing through the mountainous pile of aphids was tough to watch for it was neither defending nor attacking—only running. This wasn’t what I expected to see. Are the soldiers bullying the aphids? I wondered, remembering the time I had to face the unbiased anger of my brothers. But the pile was fast; even with all the weight, it carried. I don’t know what gave me the idea of the grey and dried looking pile being nothing but weight. Not that I didn’t remember Billy’s description of the aphids being domestic and harmless. I have photogenic memory and it’s a curse really, but no being, no matter how small or harmless, would remain motionless at being harmed. We the ants don’t, the termites hadn’t, and neither had the blood-sucking tick. It was as if all the aphids in the pile were . . . dead.

“A corpse piler, that is,” Billy said, giving food to my thoughts.

“What kind of a beast is that?”

“Greatest enemy,” Our battered face leader chimed in.

“It’s not what it seems,” Billy said. “Under the pile of dead aphids lies its true face. It’s a hideous killer that sucks the aphids dry and covers its body with their corpses for stealth. Because the aphid’s appearance doesn’t change from the time of their death, it is very difficult to see through. Responsible its kind is for the loss of hundreds of aphid every week. Our greatest enemy it is.”

“I have never seen such a thing,” I said, “-and I have seen quite a lot of stuff.”

“Oh, it’s just one of the many which attack the farm.”

“So you are not going to attack? Isn’t that what we came here for?”

“Injure them we can, but can’t kill. Too agile they are.” Billy answered.

The group of soldiers we had arrived with broke away into pairs of four and encircled the thing, keeping the gaps at a minimum. It was a good strategy. If it can run then why not just barricade it? The pile of dead aphids thinned as the soldiers removed the dead bodies, and right when the pile folded upon itself, something broke out from under it and made a run for freedom.

“Catch it! Don’t let it run!” The leader of the group fighting the being yelled out and the soldiers got attentive. They tried to stop the corpse piler, but it killed its way through and jumped off the branch. It was fast; very fast and strong to boot. It was faster than anything any ant had ever seen. So it was understandable why catching it wasn’t an option. But to my eyes, it was slow — too slow.

Billy gasped as I ran after it.

“It is dangerous!” I heard behind, jumping off the branch and falling toward the web of leaves and branches right under. I glided through a network of leaves and branches, hot on its tail, and activated Rhythmic quake right as my feet touched the leaf it was running upon. The shock waves which erupted with me as the epicenter made the creature stumble and fall face first upon the leaf, eliminating its momentum and ensuring a face-off.

As it stood upon its eight serrated legs I took a close look at it, and I have to say, it was one nasty looking bugger. It was caramel brown with a long curved armored back. Its legs only lifted half of its body, the rest of which, it dragged behind. Its pincers were almost bigger than its head and two dotty eyes grew from the top of its pinched long face. It had a bad case of hair growth, which completely covered its unarmored parts with a layer. Its body was bulky and bigger compared to mine. If I was to compare it to a hopper, then I would say it definitely looked like a much difficult opponent at first glance.

“Wait!” I yelled running and it snarled in response.

I appraised it just in case, and turns out, it was another E tier being and had a lot of strength behind its pincers; much more so than anything with the word ant in its species had any right to have. The system informed me that the skill: reckless courage had activated, for I was up against a being of a higher tier, increasing my stats accordingly.

Spoiler: Status: Rusty

Rusty

Lv-5/10

Rank – 1

Strong Ant Lion (Uncommon)

Job- Assassin

Gender - Male

Health

33.50

Mana

3.40

Stamina

24.00

Health reg

6.05

Mana reg

0.99

Stamina reg

24.00

Attack

7.44

critical rate

0.13

Movt Speed

160%

Attack speed

24%

critical hit

2%

Crit Dmg

14.88

Attack mag

0.68

Defense

6.00

Crit Dmg(mag)

1.36

Stat Tier: ‘E’

Stat gain/Level: +0.9Agility, +0.3Strength, +.3vit/+.3 End, +.1Int/+0.1Wis

Strength

4

Intelligence

.4

Agility

7.5

Wisdom

.5

Dexterity

2.5

Endurance

3

Charisma

3

Vitality

2.5

Luck

3.5

Constitution

3

It was almost eight times stronger than a rank 1 ant; meaning, it could have easily killed at least a dozen soldiers and still have enough strength left in its legs to carry it out of our reach. It also was far faster than ants, considering having 1.5 points in agility is already a feat for a rank 1 ant, but for me, it was nothing.

I used an air bullet to stop it from moving, but I just didn’t know my strength at all. Add to that its stealth built, which focused more on agility and less on endurance, and what you get is a one-shot kill. The air bullet streaked toward the creature, pushing the air out, and dug into its tail.

The revolutions of the bullet gored its body, drilled a hole, splashed fluids all over the place and came right out of its mouth, creating a one of a kind spectacle. The rest of the mummified aphids fell off its back as the air bullet flew away and struck the stalk of plant in the end, leaving a leaking dent before fizzing into inexistence.

{Air bullet has risen to level 16.}

The ant lions defense of less than seven, versus my air bullet, which could do 130% of my magical damage, it had no chance. I heard the system chime words like critical hit and one hit kill in my head before a large -204 in red came to float above the creatures head, killing the invader on the spot.

I didn’t level up, but I did feel great.

I looked up and saw numerous eyes staring back at me in complete and utter silence. If only I knew the kind of reaction my actions would bring, then I wouldn’t have jumped the gun. It was the day I came face to face with something called politics, starting my love and hate relation with it.