Chapter 23 - Of Ants, Shrooms, and Vines

The smoke had almost completely cleared up by the time the two mushroom people have arrived. The Ant Colony, currently 34 worker ants and one queen, got here first since the ants were somewhat faster than the mushrooms. But the queen coming here wasn't a really good thing. I guess I should've been more specific when I asked the colony to come. I had the queen move back, I still hadn't gotten enough ants out of her yet, I can't just let her die.

The worker ants are about 5-6 centimeters long, almost the length of a finger. The queen is slightly bigger, being 8 centimeters long. Workers can spit some small amounts of paralysis poison, but apparently, the soldiers can spit more lethal versions. Unfortunately, I can't summon those since they haven't died in my dungeon yet. Right now I can only summon a Queen Ant instead of her minions which is kinda strange.

The mushroom people are about a meter tall. Their bodies look like someone just stuck arms and legs to a large mushroom. There are two black dots a few centimeters underneath the cap which I assume are their eyes. They don't have feet, their short legs end in stumps. They do have very short stubby fingers though. However, those fingers look very useless.

The first thing that came out was a fast-moving centipede which was about the size of a large snake. It targeted one of the mushrooms first, quickly coiling its body around it and began trying to suffocate the mushroom person.

What the hell? Those are snake tactics! Isn't that copyrighted or some shit?

Regardless of my retorts, that centipede was very effective. The mushroom person didn't really breathe the same way as a human, but when 8 something meters of legs and carapace is trying to suffocate you, breathing techniques really don't mean shit do they?

The centipede's legs and jaws were shredding at the mushroom person as it desperately tried to get the thing off of him.

"Shit."

I ordered the mushroom person to activate spore explosion. He deflated like a balloon as spores escaped from his body. While the centipede was still stuck in the deflated mushroom I ordered the worker ants to attack by spitting their paralytic poison on the centipede, while the other mushroom person began beating at the centipede.

The paralysis poison didn't do anything at first, but the centipede's actions slowly became erratic. As it started thrashing around.

However, the mushroom person did almost nothing...

Holy shit a strength stat of 5 is seriously weak, combined with the fact that he is made out of material that was only slightly harder than a marshmallow, he literally did no damage. If this was a game then I should be seeing some 'It was not very effective..' notifications by now.

Thankfully it seemed that the size of the mushroom person managed to convince the centipede that it was a bigger threat, as it wrapped around the still living mushroom person.

I ordered the workers to swarm the centipede while it was still stuck on the mushroom person. And ordered the mushroom person to use spore explosion at the last possible moment.

The worker ants bit at the centipede while it thrashed around, throwing off lots of ants before finally succumbing after its body was severed in multiple pieces by the worker ants unending bites. Worker ants may not have the highest combat stats but their jaws are made to dig through almost anything and I suppose hardened carapace is now added to that list.

Dammit, the first intruder and I am already down two mushroom people and a handful of ants. I could sense more dots of mana coming through the darkness. Since I have no DP, I have no way of lighting up the battlefield, which isn't much of a hindrance to me since I see with a sorta weak night vision but it might affect my own guys.

It seemed a few of my workers had changed to soldiers after that fight, however, I couldn't really check since another attack was coming soon.

I moved two of the Lesser Dryads into this room while pumping mana into the spores to grow some more fodder. It seems like the fact that the mushroom people were damaged when they activate spore explosion had lowered its effectiveness since only three more mushroom people got spawned. Strangely, a few normal mushrooms actually began growing on the dead centipede and the some of the dead ants.

The next mana dot had neared a point where I could see it. It wasn't a centipede, but it was a shrimp about the same size as the ants.

I immediately ordered the Lesser Dryads to attack it immediately. Thankfully this one didn't seem to be much of a monster since it was taken out relatively quickly.

The next was wave was very literally a wave. As an army of ants marched through the opening. They numbered about 50 and seemed to be the same species as the ants I have currently have, except that about half of them were larger and had a more armored looking head. If I was correct these are the soldier variant of the ants I have.

I got the mushroom people to stand on both sides of the walls and I had the Lesser Dryads to use their vines to sweep into the middle of the room. Directly in front of my ants. A few died to the sweeping attacks, however, it didn't have enough force to force to kill them immediately. In fact, some of the ants actually held onto the vines and began chewing through it. I quickly ordered the dryads to back off before they lost all their vines, however, the effect I wanted was achieved. As the formerly separated ants were now bunched up.

I'm trying to funnel them into a cone so that the ants I have left can fight them without suffering too much of a numbers disadvantage. Since they were the only force small enough to reliably engage these enemy ants.

I had my ants form up with the newly promoted soldier ants making up the frontline. There was just enough of them to create a wall of hardened soldier ant heads. I had the workers fill up any cracks and had the rest stay behind the front line.

There was another reason for why I bunched the enemy ants up. I ordered the ants to begin with a salvo of paralysis poison into the horde of ants. The invading ants also returned fire however it was more sporadic and separated. Clearly, these ants did not understand basic tactics. When the enemy was bunched up there was no need for precision shooting, you just shoot at the large groups of enemies and you're bound to hit something. Anyone who plays FPS games should know this.

It just occurred to me that maybe I should've tried having these ants dig trenches to see if that would work, but even if it occurred to me earlier I don't think I would've had enough time to implement it.

However, the poison wasn't very effective for either side. I'm guessing these ants have some immunity to their own poisons. Regardless, a few ants began to slow down and twitch. By the time my ants ran out of poison, about a quarter of enemy ants had succumbed to poison. My side didn't lose as much since they never suffered anything like a concentrated fire of attacks. However, a handful of my ants were unmoving whilst covered in yellow poison.

At this point, I ordered my dryads to resume their vine attacks to disrupt the enemy ants at the back, while my own ants met the enemy head-on.

The enemy ants were stronger, however, due to all the stuff I've done, the enemy ants were usually fighting two of my own ants at once. Due to the dryad's vines disrupting the back of the horde, the front line ants rarely got any backup, and when they died my own ants had time to get their bearings and head towards the next enemy.

The dryads got a few ants on their vines, however, I ordered them to just smash their vines into the ground or wall when this happened, throwing the ants off. Their vines were still getting damaged, but it wasn't so serious that it needed my immediate attention.

The mushroom people fared a lot worse. A few ants decided to attack the mushroom people and their useless arms and fingers couldn't really do much about it. But at this point, I realized these mushrooms are only good to act as meatshields so I had them deal with it themselves while the ants finished off the main force. I only ordered them to activate spore explosion at the last possible moment.

The ant battle was nearing its conclusion. Only 11 of my own ants left fighting off stragglers, all of them have job changed to soldier ants. One of them was larger than the rest, it was a type I haven't seen yet, Royal Guard. Its entire body was covered with spike-like protrusions. It's formerly brown exoskeleton had changed to a sleek black. It was larger than the queen and when it fought it would just charge into a large group of ants, thrashing around and throwing them back.

Another one of the mushroom people used spore explosion. As it deflated I had the remaining unassigned shroom go take its place. While I began pumping mana into the spores. Two mushroom people began springing up, but they were swarmed with ants before they could fully grow up.

It seemed like these ants were just attacking everything in sight now. A few were even fighting amongst themselves.

It looked like a frenzy ability, I wonder why my own ants didn't have it?

Well, regardless the remaining enemy ants were dealt with quickly. Another mushroom person died and used shroom explosion and another handful of my ants died.

Of the original 34 workers, only 3 Soldier Ants and a Royal Guard Ant were left.

I only had two mushroom people at the start of this battle, however thanks to their spore explosions, four mushroom people have died and only one was left.

I had two injured Lesser Dryads, most of their attacking vines were cut off, the remaining ones had more bite marks then actual vines left.

Mushrooms started sprouting from the corpses of the dead. Hiding most traces of the fight. I couldn't sense any more enemies coming. However, I could still feel a large amount just loitering around the hole, which was still partially hidden by smoke. However, I can easily tell that the breach was huge. Probably 7-8 meters long. The cave system they were coming from, was just out of my territory. I resigned myself and began trying to fill up the breach with dirt.

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You have unlocked:

Lesser Stoneskin Centipede

Lesser Cave Shrimp

Cave Ant (Worker Variant)

Cave Ant (Soldier Variant)

Cave Ant (Royal Guard Variant)

Normal Mushroom

Normal Mushroom (Paralytic Variant)

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Your Lesser Dryad has learned Basic Nature Spell:

Life Return

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