We’ll need a distraction. Captain of the explorers put it to everyone’s attention.

The Giant stood up, stumbling. Is it time, already?

He was delirious. The blood loss was taking its toll on him. The nurse supported him up, but he kept shaking like a yellow leaf.

Captain— He shook his head, but that didn’t seem to clear his head because he was still a bit woozy on his feet. What are your orders?

The Giant took a stumbling step forward only for the nurse to stand in his way and cling to his legs. Commander, please, She requested. Let me try once again. With time I can, maybe—

It’s enough, number eleven. We have talked about this. And he agrees. Don’t you?

I do. The giant shoved the nurse aside and started walking toward the exit. It’s my life, he blasted the scent. Therefore it’s my choice. I won’t die shivering in a cold burrow, lost to sleep. No. That’s not the way I’ll go. Give me my order, captain. Let me loose.

It finally dawned upon me. The nurse was trying to stop him because he wanted to die. No. he was already dying. His wounds, most would have healed with time, but his slit abdomen was fatal with no chance of recovery. It reminded me of the soldier that had refused help because she didn’t want to be a burden on the colony. This wasn’t it. The giant —he wanted to die on his own terms. There was a difference. One I would understand, but much later in life. For now, it only felt like a deceitful lie to me, another manipulation by the captain. And it saddened me that he didn’t spare his own either.

You have to enter the city at all costs. The captain ordered him. Try to reach the third floor at least. And rampage; call as many of the infected to you as possible.

My hair stood up from fright the longer he talked; and he wasn’t done by any measure.

The captain continued. Most of them should be stationed on the upper floors, but you never know. And he heartlessly sent his own companion to a brutal death.

The giant kept nodding all the way to the exit, dragging his feet. The long-legged stood at the exit, but she didn’t block his path. They didn’t say anything to each other. He swayed a few steps at the exit and slowly climbed away, leaving with a quiet farewell. The captain sent the two soldiers in the chamber after the Giant, ordering them to help him in every way possible, and make sure the distraction works.

Then he called forward the old warrior who had shown me the way.

Are you a captain?

Yes, Commander! She gave a scented salute and lowered her antennae with respect.

What do you think about sneaking into the city and rescuing the Queen?

It’ll be a great honor, sir.

Then meet us at the front lines and bring twenty soldiers with you. GO.

She waved her antennae at me before leaving.

The wind was starting to lose its warmth by the time I came out of the burrow. The day was coming to an end. The battle would have ended for the day normally, but the infected could survive the cold. The termites had given many accounts of the infected attacking them during the night. It was safe to assume the same would occur there.

I had already informed the acting commander and she was busy taking precautionary measures.

Barry still flew amidst the infected. As it turns out, Bella was not the only one who enjoyed a bit of carnage. He wouldn’t have impressed her otherwise. A wasp-like her needed excitement in her life.

I didn’t worry about him. He was flying circles around the winged infected. They were a few years too early to be fighting with him. A flying throng of infected soldiers would have been a much-balanced opponent for him. The infected workers barely had a harder shell and some improved strength; they were like nymphs compared to the tentacle monstrosities that most infected soldiers transferred into.

I followed the explorers to the front line. The nurse boiled for action, while the other two were motivated at least. That’s all I could figure out from watching them. I might have curbed the floor with them, but they were professionals at this. There were stories of harvesters, of diggers and the royals, but of the explorers, there were only myths. They were a mysterious bunch, allowed to come and leave at any time. Their only job was to keep finding new places to harvest food. It didn’t matter how dangerous a place it was or how far. And I was going to be a part of them. It should have been an exciting experience. Sadly, it wasn’t.

As for the battlefield, the Giant was really causing quite a lot of mayhem. He was really pushing through the infected even though he was basically half dead. His presence had also revitalized the soldiers and motivated them to keep fighting. He could have accomplished so much more if he wasn’t dying.

Unfortunately, the place we were fighting for, the city was in ruins. There were mushrooms growing on the surface. The tower had been turned into rubble.

The white behemoth that had taken its place was truly a marvel to behold, even though it was just a mushroom. We had found the ant at the foot of that thing. Needless to say, the infection had everything to do with its sudden explosive growth, and I had a premonition it was not a good idea to be around it for long.

Commander, The old warrior joined us just as we were separating from the army. She noticed me and gave a scented salute. Duty called so she didn’t wait for my reaction, but I was too bamboozled by the respectful gesture to act anyway. The soldiers she had brought followed her example, giving me my virgin experience with respect.

As for our destination, we comfortably reached the area where the air shafts had been dug. The three obviously knew how to move around unnoticed, and the twenty soldiers they had chosen weren’t any bad. I had no difficulty sneaking behind them

There were times when the infected noticed us, but we took care of them before they could call the others. There was enough grass cover to hide our tracks. The soldiers went down first. We followed after they sent the clear signal.

The shaft was narrow. The soldiers must have had a difficult time getting down, as did the explorers, but It was not a problem for me. I was small, I was nimble, and I was a worker. I was made for getting through narrow spaces.

At the bottom of shafts, the chamber laid, still half dug and far from finishing. We climbed down the walls as the shafts were dug onto the roof and the captain took lead. My heart raced. I was nervous before, but my heart thrummed with an echo as soon as I set foot on the floor. The dried-up connection between me and Princess stirred once again, but it was weak and I knew something was wrong.

Memories arose in my mind only to be pushed back. I could be sentimental or I could concentrate on my mission. The princess was out there somewhere. I needed to find her, not look for her in my memories.

The soldiers surrounded up in a shield formation and we left the chamber behind, entering the tunnel that led straight to the city. We slowed at the junction and I felt movement up ahead. I went to inform the others, but the captain had already noticed the same. He tapped the old warrior’s abdomen and she instructed the others to stop; all done without releasing a single trace of pheromone. The infected were perversely attracted toward scents. A single trace of scent and we could have had a horde of them rushing at us and trapping us inside.

The tunnel was empty, but there was an infected at the junction connecting the tunnel to the city. It was alone, but the numbers didn’t matter when we were in the middle of the enemy lair. A single alarm would have had us scrambling for cover or running for our lives. There was no margin for error.

Captain instructed the old warrior to wait for his signal. The order was passed from soldier to soldier. There was no need to guess what he was waiting for. And in under a minute there was a commotion. The Giant must have entered the city because suddenly an angry vibration took overall movement. The infected ahead of us screamed and rushed away, leaving us free to enter the city.

I stood up, nervousness making me move, but the long-legged one pulled me back. A few more infected rushed up in the meantime, coming from the depths. They were soldiers. Most might have left for the war, but some had stayed behind to protect the city. Soldiers were needed to keep the city working normally so the queen could lay a new crop of eggs.

There were bound to be hundreds and thousands of eggs and nymphs sealed inside the Queen's chamber. There was still hope for the city if the Queen was alive and the eggs were safe and protected. We might have needed to create a new city from scratch though, but that wouldn’t have been a problem.

Finally, we started moving again. The city had never been so empty: even during the rain when everyone had hidden inside warm shelters, or after the soldiers had gone to war, there were plenty of workers and nurses moving in the tunnels going about their work.

However, it was different. The tunnels turned hauntingly quiet after all the infected left; it caused our steps to echo. And since the only trails left were those old and deteriorated, our mission felt more like an expedition into an abandoned city rather than a rescue mission into the heart of our own. It was as if I had been transported back to the tunnel under the rocky mountain which had started it all.

We were awkwardly slow in our climb to the 25th floor. There wasn’t anyone around, but our city structure was a very good conductor of vibrations. Although we couldn’t quite feel the surface, since we were far underground, a group of vibrations moving together was the same as leaving a trail behind us for anyone listening.

Hence, we moved irregularly to camouflage our movement with that of the natural vibration of the city and walked one at a time.

This was all knowledge that the explorers shared. I knew none of it. Their experience showed, and it brought us to the 25th floor without a single hiccup. However, the floor was suspiciously empty. Sure there was a giant rampaging inside the city, but why would the infected leave the most important place of the city unguarded?

Where are they? The nurse asked.

Doesn’t matter. The captain answered.

It’s a trap. The long-legged one scented.

The soldiers grew uneasy. They tightened their protection. Closed the gaps and came closer.

It’s the infected, the captain scented to ease the pressure. Who knows what they are thinking or whether they can even think?

Half-eaten limbs lay outside the chamber. I even noticed the thick coin head of a door guard. That sent a shiver down my spine, but the only entrance to the queen chamber was still blocked. The coin head of a guard was perfectly wedged inside the opening. I wondered where the other one had come from.

The head of a coin guard was not something that could be shaved away by the mandibles of an ant. Poison would only kill the guard, sealing the entrance until she was removed by force. Moreover, since the infected could not use acid, I would have found it more surprising if they had somehow gotten through.

All that left was for us to instruct the coin guard to clear the entrance. Usually, only the royal guards situated right outside know the combination of scents to open the door, but the explorers were the only exception to this. It was the reason why the captain of the explorers and the acting commander had to risk his life by sneaking into the enemy lair.

I had my senses opened and expanded since we had landed, but they had not caught anything. It truly seemed like the infected had abandoned the floor since they couldn’t get inside the queen's chamber. But the long-legged one was sure it was a trap.

The infected could have found a method to escape detection and be waiting around for the entrance to clear, so they could finally have a taste of the eggs and the nymphs stored inside, but I doubted it.

The soldiers encircled the door and the captain approached it with caution. The soldiers were basically forfeiting their lives by standing guard outside since they would be the first to engage whatever came for the entrances.

The door guard accepted the captain’s scent and cleared the entrance. I looked around, but there was still no movement. They entered, but my heart lurched when I was about to follow them.

Princess wasn’t inside.

For a second I felt her again. I had her again for a second. She was confused, tired, scared, and she was in pain. So much pain it numbed my head. I called out to her and she noticed me, but then our connection cut off again and she was lost to me. I was left drained, but I knew where she was.

She was down, deep into the depths of the colony. There was only one place she could have run to if she had escaped the queen’s chamber. She was definitely on the 41st floor! I didn’t have to search for the answer; it appeared to me on its own.

The long-legged one called me from the door.

Aren’t youse coming?

I—

Then suddenly my surroundings turned cold. My head turned away, outside the shield of protection that the soldiers had created. I believed to find monsters rushing at us, but there was nothing there. The soldiers, however, looked back, toward me, behind me, inside the chamber, and they had their antennae erect in fear, mandible open from sheer fright. The shiver that went down my spine was the coldest I had ever sensed.

A scent of morbid desperation spread out from behind me. I turned in time to see the nurse running toward the door.

She was scared and out of her wits ends. Fear had her in its clutches. Her antennae frantic, she dashed, but something smacked her to the ground. The impact was so hard, it was heard by everyone and the nurse, the top of her head had been blasted open. She fell lifelessly to the ground. I watched as a tentacle, purple and pulsating, thick as her head and nimble as my antennae, wrapped around her torso and slowly pulled her away and out of sight.

The quiet lasted for a mere minute before infected starting pouring into the 25th floor from all over the place. They were coming from the ground, from the ceiling, from the walls! The soldiers got on their haunches to fix their balance and became ready to encounter the infected. They knew it was going to be a massacre. They knew they were about to die. However, none of the twenty soldiers, including the old warrior, backed away from the fight.

I wanted to run away, but I didn’t.

The soldiers had followed us without question. The captain might have sent one of his own to death, but I couldn’t do the same.

Down, everyone, down! I scented with the authority of a leader. I had the skill, and it had its sway. The soldiers were confused as they fell to the ground. They followed my order or the system made them follow, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they followed and that I needed to deliver a miracle.

I collected more scents and burst away an overwhelming wave of pheromones at the infected. There were far too many of them, but my capacity had also increased since the first time I had used the skill.

I could almost sense the crescent wave of pheromones that spread with me at the center. It was blindingly fast and the infected dropped from its mere touch as it passed through their swarm, overwhelming them at a moment’s notice.

Soon there was quiet again. The soldiers, a few of them had been hit, but it was not lethal.

RUN! I scented. The soldiers didn’t move. They too were overwhelmed but by the sight of a worker taking care of the infected, not by the skill.

THEY ARE NOT DEAD! GET UP AND RUN!

If that didn’t do the trick, then the next wave of infected that was rushing into the floor did the work. The soldiers were up and running, right after me. I did one more thing. I picked up the coin head that lay on the ground. It wasn’t heavy by any measure, for me, but I had to stab my mandible into its backside, into the soft tissue where its skull was attached once. That was the only way. I had only a single mandible, and it was only good as a blade. The soldiers looked at me confused as they picked up the few that had been hit by overwhelm. There was no time to explain. We pushed down the tunnel and onto the twenty-sixth floor.

However, there was movement below us and up was already a dead end.

The soldiers made it for the air ducts in the secondary queen’s chamber, while I separated from them.

Where are you going? The old warrior scented in panic as she chased me. That was a mistake. However, she wasn’t alone. Three soldiers followed her, asking her the same question she had asked me.

I am a royal guard, warrior. I have to save my Princess. It wasn’t a good enough reason for her. But I had nothing else, and it was too late by then, anyway.

You will die if you go down. She informed me. I thanked her for the information and entered the elevator shaft connecting the twenty-sixth floor to the thirty-first. I thought I lost her there, but she appeared only a heartbeat later, carrying the three soldiers in tow. My heart grew warm. She had come to help me.

Nope.

RUN! THE INFECTED ARE COMING! She warned as she ran past me. The three soldiers weren’t slow either. It almost made me laugh, but I held it back.

The infected poured into the shaft behind us like a tide of water. The tunnel shook vigorously as they pushed after us, screaming hunger of the level that I had never felt before. The three soldiers swayed, but she slapped them back to normal.

I charged forward, slowed beside the old warrior to ask to tell her I was taking lead and then pled ahead.

I presented myself to danger by taking the lead, but the most resistance we met on the way down was a group of seven, with one that had tentacles growing out of its body. The danger they presented wasn’t by their strength, but by the delay they caused us.

I had to take care of the tentacle monster while the other four handled the rest. The last time I had tussled with a tentacle atrocity, I had won by sneaking up to it and dealing it a fatal blow. This time I fought it head-on, but I had also leveled up in the meantime while it wasn’t mature by any means. Its tentacles though whirled at me like a storm, barely nicked my armor. It was not my match, which was a good thing.

It took me five points of endurance to kill it. I was surprised to see one of the soldiers using the coin head to defend against the infected and push it back. The coin head was still doing its job even though its owner was dead. But the coin head also occupied her mandibles, making it impossible for her to kill any. Well, she had help. So did the infected, but the difference between the two was apparent. The infected fought alone, though they did come to help another when it called, while the soldiers moved as the old warrior willed them, truly using her experience to battle multiple opponents and it showed.

I went to help them when I was done with the tentacle monster and then we rushed away again. The three took care of the rest. It helped that I leveled up again. It was due. However, the gap that we had created between the horde and us had shrunk again.

We hurried. Another overwhelming burst of pheromones helped keep the swarm at bay, but with that, I had run out of pheromones. I barely had enough to converse with the others.

They were scared, they were hurting, but most of all they were angry with me. And they were rightfully entitled to their anger because they would have been outside already and enjoying a sip of cold evening wind if it wasn’t for me. However, they knew it was their decision to follow the old warrior and therefore kept their grievances in check.

It would have been impossible to go past the thirty-first floor if soldiers still occupied the chambers, but the soldiers were at war, save for a few that were left behind to protect the city. I had no difficulty getting through them. It’s just that my endurance fell faster than I would fall from a tree, but it was alright. My rude companions, they liked me more and more as I kept killing the infected without needing their help.

We met a claw full of infected on the way; some we pushed past, others we killed. I was another level up by the time we reached the 40th floor and that’s where our progression came to a halt.

When we entered the chamber was empty, but there was a wooden scent all over the place. The fungus that once grew only on the 41st floor had taken over the 40th floor, too. I was surprised and walked ahead of the others in a daze. It was a mistake.

I realized too late, but we were not alone in the chamber.

It was an ambush. They jumped at us from the ceiling. There were seven of them, infected, nimble, and full of killing intent. None jumped at me. One of the soldiers was very unlucky as four went straight for her. Even though I charged, I couldn’t save her. But I had her killer pay the price in full.

The old warrior scented remorse and killed the one that had jumped at her, while the one with the coin head once again deflected her opponents, this time efficiently keeping two of them occupied. The last soldier took a blow to his head and lay flat. He lost consciousness.

There was no time to wonder, as another group of twelve infected dug out from the walls and encircled us.

Surprising as it was, the two infected that had survived an encounter with us pulled back at this point and joined the encirclement. The horde was going to be there any minute. However, these infected were different. They were, how should I put this, they were changed surely, but in control of themselves.

They weren’t like the others infected that were blinded by hunger and anger. And they surprisingly felt familiar, like I had seen them before, and knew them personally. It was odd. While I tried to fondle old memories to see if I remembered any of them, they looked at my group as a predator looks at its prey. I had Goosebumps. And I wasn’t the only one feeling them. The old warrior shared the sentiment. The solider with the shield was shivering. She had dragged the unconscious soldier to our side, which was significantly resourceful of her.

Maybe I shouldn’t have followed you after all. The old warrior scented, making small talk. She was nervous but ready to handle anything that happened next. The others might already be in the warmth of the advanced towers and sipping on honeydew for all we know.

I was surprised by her emotional revelation. Do we still have honeydew?

Well, the army took most of it, so yeah, when the soldiers returned they brought some of it back.

I would really like a taste of it. I had to admit this small talk really got my appetite going again.

What I want is Honeydew wine. The soldier holding the coin head also chimed in. The normal thing is too sweet for my taste.

I have never had any. I told her and she reacted in every possible way other than jumping at me.

Say, how long are they going to keep watching us? She asked a second later. Shall we act if they aren’t feeling like it? This coin head might look light, but it’s really heavy. I would like to put it down if it’s alright with you.

NO. I told the soldiers. We need it.

Haven’t you had enough already?

Who was that? The soldier asked. I remembered that scent with my body. The slashes left by her antennae started throbbing as she appeared from the other side of the chamber.

Her antennae swayed in the air above her head as she approached us. The aged warrior walked slowly, deliberately dragging her steps. She looked much better, stronger, and healthier.

YOU! My anger poured out. I charged past the encirclement of infected and directly at her. But something strangely familiar occurred. Antennae, other than the pair that peacefully whirled above her head, slapped me out of charge and volleyed me back into the encirclement. It was her doing. None other could move their antennae like that.

Never thought I would see you again, boy. Well, welcome back.

She was one of them. She was also an infected.