The tunnel opened up into a large cavern with walls lit up with fluorescent moss.
Ants were scuffling back and forth, bumping into each other while moving from one entrance to another.
Mitch could count at least 20 of them just in that room alone, and who knew how many more existed in the tunnels? He was lucky that the ants were not using the tunnel he came from, for some reason.
In the middle of the room, an ant a lot larger than the others was lying on its stomach. The smaller ants kept bringing it leaves, twigs, and berries. Mitch also found the occasional corpse of some mutilated creature in the pile of feed.
'That should be the queen of this colony. Though, there are far fewer ants than I expected. Have the eggs laid by the ant queen after the world was created just not hatched yet? Either way, I doubt I can kill it without announcing my presence to the rest of the nest.'
Mitch stood at the entrance, afraid to move forward but reluctant to retreat. He was lucky that ants have poor vision; he would have long been spotted otherwise. He stood there in absolute silence, thinking of a way to thin out their numbers before starting a head-on siege against the queen.
"Would you be able to pull them away somehow? Maybe you can kill them one by one that way." Katherine chimed in with her idea.
After resolving the misunderstanding, she felt quite apologetic for having accused Mitch of such a vile thing. She wanted to make it up to him somehow but lacked any idea of how to do it for now.
'That would be hard. I could try to employ guerrilla warfare tactics if we were in an open field, but we're not; this is their home ground. For all I know, they release pheromones when killed, which makes it easier for their brethren to track the offender.'
Rushing in would be suicide, and the odds of a hit-and-run working were slim. Mitch's shoulders sank. It was unfortunate, but he would have to once again traverse the maze-like colony in hopes of finding some isolated ants somewhere.
Making sure that he made no sounds, he swiftly left and tried circling around. He had seen the ants moving through several entrances, but there were some that were less commonly used. Those were the tunnels he aimed to find.
He kept track of his orientation and approximate distance to the ant queen, trying to not veer too far away. After a few more minutes of wandering, he finally came across something new.
Across from him, a group of ants was approaching. A quick headcount told him that there were five ants.
Mitch felt like he would stand a chance if they were to fight on the surface, but he was too restricted in his movement down here to actually try it. The ants would just swarm him.
He quickly backtracked to the nearest branching and waited, pressed against the wall.
The ants soon came to where he stood and split into two groups: one group of three and another of two. They went their separate ways and left Mitch in the intersection.
'Do I follow the group of two ants and find a place to ambush them, or do I keep walking in hopes of finding solitary ants? Two ants, exactly how many I need to complete the mutation. What do you think, Katherine?' He rubbed his chin in deliberation, opting to ask his de facto sidekick.
Feeling happy that Mitch was interested in her opinion, Katherine answered with a jolly voice. "I agree with you; the fact that two ants split from the rest of the group presents a perfect opportunity for you to complete your transformation. Who knows? It might heal your wounds."
"That, in combination with the increase in strength from both Devouring and the mutation, might actually be enough for you to best the queen. Worst case scenario, you could try to run away after grabbing her." As usual, Katherine took every chance at joking that she got.
'I don't know if I should feel flattered that you have that much trust in my abilities or call you a hypocrite for suggesting that I kidnap the ant queen. She's too big for me to do it.' Deciding to not put up with her antics, Mitch started sneaking after the pair of ants.
"Wow, I didn't know you were a fat-shamer too. Shame on you, Mitch, shame on you…" She kept messing with him, the awkward tension between them basically gone. Their strained relationship had more or less returned to what it used to be.
'Alright, alright. Be quiet for a moment. I need to focus.' Utilizing all of his experience in espionage and assassination that he had gained from playing games, Mitch sneaked up on the two ants.
He made sure to be as quiet as he could while closing in on his target, eventually reaching a distance of half a meter. He leaned forward, getting ready to lunge, and raised his daggers.
Swoosh
Swoosh
Two streaks of light, two decapitated heads. No chance to retaliate, no time to warn the rest of the hill.
Mitch cleaned the blood off the tooth daggers and was just about to pick his prey up when he saw something at the end of the tunnel.
He refused to believe that what he saw was real, but he decided to get a closer look just in case.
'Hey, Katherine…' He started hyperventilating, refusing to believe his eyes.
"... yes, Mitch?" Even Katherine wasn't in the mood to joke this time around.
'That… isn't that ant bigger than the queen we found before?'