Chapter 177

Ch . 177 The Ianians

The next day, I wake up beside the swamp . My fatigue is completely gone .

We only have three more days before Nina is executed at Haranae . It’ll be difficult, but I’d like to be able to evolve either by today or tomorrow . For today, my goal is the red ants . On top of each red ant being C-rank, there are a lot of them . It’s just a mountain of experience points . As far as the potential experience points go, I expect to get more from this than I did from the giant centipede .

Although… even the giant centipede looked like it was on the verge of dying back there, when the ants crowded around it and drove it into a corner . It’s obvious that if I foolishly jump into the ant’s nest without some sort of plan, I’m going to be quickly mobbed to death . I managed to greatly increase my level yesterday, but my stats are still far from the giant centipede’s .

The most number of ants that I know that I can fight at once is three . I don’t know if I can take on four at once . And I’m almost certainly going to die if I try to face five . If I manage to get myself surrounded by a horde of them like the giant centipede did back then, then I’ll be unable to escape and I’ll die . It’s incredible that the centipede even managed to get away alive . I can honestly respect it for that . It truly is the Lord of the Desert . No, wait, I defeated it .

Should I steadily defeat the ants as they come out of their nest to raise my level instead? If I evolve and my stats go up significantly, I might be able to just charge right through the nest of ants . But I wonder if I’ll be able to make it in time then… If I’m cautious about this I may become painfully short on time . Don’t those guys move as a group pretty often?

Oh yeah, now that I think about it, I did breathe [[Plague Breath]] on them . I wonder if that weakened them? Maybe not; given the distance that I moved away from them after I used it that time, there’s a good chance the curse’s effect will have dissipated by now . Surprisingly, even this way of thinking might not be too bad .

I seem to recall a way of exterminating ants from my previous life where you’d use poisoned bait . The bait would kill them all in a single stroke after they’d bring it back to their nest . Ants do have a habit of bringing food back to their nest and sharing it among their colony .

We’re gonna need a huge amount of meat in order to carry out this plan . There is that giant centipede that I just defeated . I can use its meat . I can strip off the meat from its carapace to make insect dumplings, then alter them with [[Poison Fang]] to complete my poison bait . Afterwards, it’ll be good enough to put it near the ant’s nest .

With my [[Poison Fang]] being only Lv 3, I don’t think this much will kill them, but I’d appreciate it if it did .

What if poisoning them from a distance doesn’t cause my level to rise? Maybe if I’m not going through the experience myself, it won’t give me experience points? Back when I was helping to level the ball rabbit, I was getting fewer experience points than I expected, and I came up with a contribution-based point distribution theory .

If I can weaken them with poison, I wonder if it’s possible to take them all out at once? This plan will require lots of patience, and there’s no guarantee that it’ll go well . It’s possible that the poison won’t spread very well, and if they’re weakened, I may get fewer experience points .

Because I’ll need to wait and see, it may only result in a lot of time being wasted . There is a high amount of uncertainty and time is tight . This is definitely a high risk plan . And yet, because of that, the reward ought to be suitably huge . In the first place, there’s no such thing as a safe way for me to level up rapidly .

With Adofu and the ball rabbit accompanying me, I immediately return to the place where I had defeated the giant centipede . We found one half of the giant centipede half-buried in the sand .

“Wow, you actually brought down that giant centipede?! That huge thing is split right in half!”

Adofu shouts in excitement . No, it was the centipede’s own centipede-beam that split itself right in half . I’ll be troubled if you start expecting such feats of strength from me .

I see hyena-like beasts that I had seen before gathering close by the giant centipede . Just like before, there are eight of them . If I recall correctly, their species should be called Ianian?

There are two large ones, four medium-sized ones, and two small ones .

“Aeh!” “Avue?”

They appear to be in high spirits after seeing what’s left of the giant centipede . Reacting just like Adofu, is it rare to see a giant centipede die by being split right in half? Nah, that’s not the impression I’m getting . Either way, they have a pleasant atmosphere around them from coming across such a feast .

Ianians, their flesh looks to be tender and they look like they’d be quite delicious if I were to eat them . However, seeing such innocence drained me of the will to attack . They’re so family-like .

“Aeh…”

That Ianian cub, it’s so cute . While looking at the giant centipede with its big round eyes, it uses its front paw to scratch at the forehead of the centipede . Ohh, that gesture it just made . I seriously want to keep it as a pet .

Back when I was still a kid dragon, if I had squatted and rubbed my eyes with my hands, instead of waving them, even Douz might have come running over with a smile . No, maybe I still have a chance? I’ll give it a try the next time there’s an opportunity .

They’ll probably run away if I try to approach them, so I guess I’ll just watch them from afar for a little while . The meat is not going to run out anytime soon, so they can eat if they want to . I’d rather refrain from eating the centipede anyways . I somehow managed with the caterpillars, but that thing? No way! The number of legs… does it have something to do with that? The caterpillars had a lot of legs too .

“Pefu Pefu!”

I can hear the ball rabbit protesting behind me .

[No! Not move soon! Less food!]

…Do you actually want to eat that? You may want to stop right there . It’s just my narrow viewpoint, but I think it tastes like leather boots .

I ignore the ball rabbit’s complaints and continue watching the Ianian family without getting any closer .

“Aea…”

The Ianian cub manages to cut into the giant centipede with the claw on its front paw and gouges out a small piece of the centipede, giving the sample a sniff . Yes, yes; eat, eat . I will hold back this little ball of appetite . It’s a special exception .

“HggchhhI Scheeew!”

The Ianian cub sneezes and hides its face away . It rubs the paw that has a chunk of the giant centipede on it against the sand . The parent Ianian shakes its head slowly, walking away in the opposite direction from me .

The four medium-sized Ianians have not yet given up, and went up and sniffed the cross-section of the giant centipede, but like the Ianian cub , they violently sneezed . After that, they spit it out and start following behind the parent Ianians . Ahh, what the hell are they doing!?

But, why? I wonder if it smells extremely bad, that part . Though if it was that intense, they should have noticed it the moment they got close…

Has it become rotten by any chance? No, it should be acceptable enough for a wild animal, even if it rots a little . In any case, it appears to be smelly enough to ruin the Ianian’s appetite .

Is this going to be good enough? Will I really be able to bait red ants with this?