When I awoke the pain was gone.

I'm glad that's over, that was the worst chest burn in my entire life. I couldn’t even breathe. That is something I do not want to ever experience again.

“Where am I?”

I asked myself, but something felt off. It didn’t feel like my usual body that I was accustomed to all my life.

Why does my mouth feel weird? Am I in one of those situations where I’m having some out-of-body experience while being in a coma at the hospital? No... that doesn’t seem right, I can’t see anything, and I can certainly feel somehow.

I call out to whoever might be around.

“Hello, anybody? Mom? Dad? Aisaki?...”

Feeling my surroundings, a slimy substance covered the walls and pushing against the walls flexed it a little. Assuming that I wasn’t kidnapped nor was I in a morgue, which both would really be the worst case scenarios.

I really hope I’m not where I believe this is. Oh no… It is… Am I being reborn as a baby chicken!? I don’t remember passing through Heaven’s Gates or talking to some God or Goddess and asking if he or she would let me be reborn. As cliché as all that was, were they too busy reborning other people into new lives that they just tossed me at a random life?? That’s not fair, I could of been a cool heroine with godlike skills destined to defeat some demon lord! Well.. it’s not the kind of life I thought to live after I just died, but chickens... are cute.

I remember visiting an animal farm as one of my schools’ trips last year for biology class. It was amazing because of all the adorable farm animals, I even got to watch the hatching of baby chicks.

I do feel like I have a beak... might as well use it to break open this egg. Here we go! One..! Two!

To pierce the wall I put my all into pushing the tip of my beak against the shell. Slowly but surely light poured in clearing my vision. Bursting open my egg being born anew as a baby chicken.

Wait, wait, wait hold on, why are there ants everywhere?? And why are they almost the same size as me? What kind of world is this?

The ants stop their activities turning their attention to the newly hatched egg. Reluctantly, I crawl out my egg and notice all their insect eyes are on me.

Oh no they’re looking at me… Have I just been cruelly born to die again in the worst way imaginable? This is definitely gonna play out like that scene in the zombie movie where a side character is getting eaten alive by a group of zombies, while the other side character with a secret evil agenda watches. I know I was a naturally beautiful top-of-the class student, but that shouldn’t warrant this much bad karma! I was nice to everyone, even avoided any bad aura I felt. Did someone curse me for being who I normally am? Wait…

Suddenly, an ant larger than the rest emerges from the crowd slowly approaching while bowing its head. It was the closest in size to me compared to the others around. It’s body littered with battle scars, it had a crimson coat with a large curved sword-like pincers for jaws. The appearance and the way the ant presented itself, strong but humble are the first words that came to my mind. It chirped moving its abdomen and feelers to speak.

“My Queen, you have finally hatched, I shall now pledge my loyalty and protect you even if it’ll cost me my life.”

Woah, woah, woah, hold on, did I just understand what that ant said? Wait it called me queen, that must mean...

Looking around I noticed a reflective object buried into the wall besides me, serving as a decent mirror. Seeing the same larger than every other ant in the room looking back at me, I realized why I wasn’t grinded up chicken meat upon hatching.

Oh no, oh no, oh no, I’m an ant! I’ve been reborn as an Ant Queen!!??

Turning back to the large ant bowing to me, the rest of the ants in the large chamber bow their heads as their antennae slightly twitch around. Picking up on how the large ant spoke to me, I communicated back chirping and twitching my butt and antennae.

“Am I the only queen of this colony? What had happened to the last queen?”

The large ant raises its head to look at me with stern eyes.

“Our last queen was killed along with many other comrades in a battle against those two-legs covered in shinies. Now with you born you shall give birth to more ants and create an even bigger and stronger colony!”

As the large ant states the last bit with pride all the other ants raise their heads chirping loudly in the glory of the large ant’s speech.

Oh okay, so they had a recent fight and lost a lot of ants to some ‘two-legs’? And the queen died and now they hatched me as their new queen. Pretty simple explanation… wait did it say, ‘give birth’? Oh no, no, no, if I remember correctly I’m gonna have to mate with a lot of males to make more ants. I hardly even dated in high school, now I’m forced into a role where I casually mate and birth ants!? I did have a huge crush on this guy in the same grade as me, and I would spend shameless nights thinking about him in those ‘ways’, but still this is way too much for a girl like me!

Shivers going down my insect body I chirped as loudly as I can to quiet down the colony.

“A-as the new queen of this colony all of you obey my orders! And my first order is I choose whom I mate with and when I mate! No exceptions!”

The large ant simply bows again with the others following suit.

“As you wish my queen, as the remaining soldier I shall enforce your orders throughout the whole colony.”

That was surprising, looking around I don’t really see any male ants at the moment just this large soldier ant and a bunch of workers. Still, ants really don’t care who mates with who long as their colonies continues to grow.

After their acknowledgement of me as the new queen, the worker ants resume their activities. Carefully bustling around the eggs pushing past me and the large ant. Still standing where I hatched I chirp at the large soldier ant.

“Uh so do you have a name?”

“I do not have a name.”

That’s rather sad, I hoped that ants had some sort of naming system even something as simple as ‘Suki’ would have sufficed. Hahaha Suki would have been a cute name for a big ant like her.

“Well that won’t do as the new queen's order, I shall name you, Tsuwo!”

Tsuwamono, meaning warrior - is where I made up her name from, she gives off a very strong warrior aura. It’s not a cute name per say, but I feel like it fits better. The way she conducts herself and speaks reminds me of a friend in my class. Despite being the same age as me she became an older sister to me. Hmm… Tsuwo seems bigger than the average soldier ant… soo a major, major soldier ant maybe?

“Tsuwo… I shall gladly accept this name, my queen.”

She bows her head, her antenna doing some sort of celebration dance. I finally move from my spot using the reflective object in the wall to look at my new ant features.

I have quite a large bottom now, I can feel the heft of my butt. As a girl, I’d deal with my two large hanging fruits, but now I got this big baby back. Hmm, I'm not sure how I feel about this.. although I’m not really freaking out... even when I see myself this close. Maybe it hasn't sunk in yet? Or maybe ants don’t have any emotions..? Dang, those movies lied to me.

I am accustomed to the outside world and the wilderness, so much so that not much bothered me when it came to things like insects.

Thinking back on it now, I'm quite the fearless beauty. Let’s see… Yep, I got my wings which obviously states that I’m a virgin… not for long though, and a bigger thorax. All things required to be the ant queen. Sort of wished I was a butterfly instead, least then I’d have beautiful wings… although I’d be a caterpillar first which doesn’t sound too bad, even some caterpillars are cute. Most of the ants including me is like a dark-ish red color… so I’m an ant queen to a fire ant colony? That’s pretty neat, least us fire ants are tough! Cool, I still have my beauty dot below the outer end of my left eye even my slight eyeshadow (baggy eyes) remains. Heh, I wonder if I’m beautiful in ant queen standards?

Attempting a few poses in front of the mirror I notice that Tsuwo still hasn’t left and been watching me the entire time. I instinctively scratch my face with my front leg as I turn to face her.

Can I even blush as an ant?

“Ahem… well uh it seems that this is the egg chambers could you lead me to my own chambers, Tsuwo?”

Tsuwo bows.

“Yes, it is this way my queen.”

Okay as much as I kinda like being called that I’m still, at heart, a high school girl who just graduated.

“Also, as your queen I command you to call me, Ariki”

“Okay, my queen, Ariki.”

“No, just Ariki!”

Tsuwo lead the way past the busy line of workers as I closely follow behind her. Her large demeanor create a nice path despite the sheer number of ants scurrying around in the dirt hallways. Looking at her I realize since I’m queen I’m a bit larger than her.

Ho, ho, ho! Being average height all my life finally changes, now I can experience looking down at smaller… ants like how those taller boys have looked down at me back in high school!

Following Tsuwo, we exit the egg chambers into a vast and spacious area. Dirt pathways leading everywhere straightforward from every angle. It looked like we were in a giant dirt dome as big as a sports stadium would be. Ants were climbing the walls, running through the dirt ways, and carrying various things in their jaws. As we walk down the path some ants stop and bow their heads to me then move on as we pass them. Looking around the dirt dome, I see no male or soldier ants in sight.

It really does seem like Tsuwo is the only soldier ant left… I wonder if she feels any remorse towards losing her ant in arms and her last queen. I feel compelled to ask since I always thought even ants would have some feelings. Well this isn’t like those family cartoon movies where even feelings can have feelings, this is reality! Yeah as… real as a reality where a girl being reborn as an ant queen can be.

Tsuwo leads me into a large dirt chambers, seemingly big as a two-story house.

Why do the proportions inside this colony’s anthill seem waay too big!!?? Is this how it looks like in an ant’s perspective of their dirt home? Geez was the previous queen’s tush the size of a whole charter bus or something?

I walked to the middle of the chamber turning to face Tsuwo who eagerly awaited my next order.

“Thank you Tsuwo, could you wait by the entrance for me? I need some time to think.”

“As you wish, my queen Ariki.”

She exits the room proceeding to guard the humongous chamber entrance. Finally having the time and space to recollect myself, I take a deep breath, and scream. Scrambling around throughout my giant chamber. Going through all the motions and emotions finally sinking in the harsh reality that my new life is being an ant queen.

“I know, I know, I know, there’s no way this isn’t real! Everything from my sense of touch to the sense of smell feels so damn real! I said I wasn’t freaking out, but now really is a good time freak out about all this! My joyous future college life! My family! My best friend Aisaki! Even my upcoming date with my long-time crush! Aaaaaahhhhhh!”

Meanwhile, Tsuwo fidgets at the entrance from Ariki’s loud panicking chirps, torn between whether she should check on her queen or not. But decides to diligently follow her queen’s orders and stand guard in silence.

After some time passes, I quiet down lying exhausted on the ground from skidding around making a circular trail in the room.

Okay, now that I got that all out of my system I can rationalize my situation one step at a time. I’ve read a dozen books and watched plenty of shows, movies, and anime regarding plots that happen like this. Well.. not Exactly like this.. There must be a possibility of returning to my previous life, maybe at least becoming human again. I still dread the birthing and mating sessions that’s required of me… And if there isn’t a possibility then I have to think of how to comfortably live this new ant life.

Running through my different thoughts, I feel a sensation flow through my body as if I switched on a light bulb in my head. Then to my surprise, a small menu screen appears in front of me.

What the heck!?

[Status] [Colony] [Base] [Map]

This just raises so, so, so many questions. Now is this a fantasy game-like world where I was reborn as a royal insect and now I have to somehow fight for survival. Come on Isekai gods what’s up with all these weird plot twists and plotlines! I think being reborn as some slime would of been cuter! But I’m so happy to see something familiar.

Me and Aisaki loved playing together online mainly RPG, and MMORPGs because that’s how we first met before we discovered we were in the same school and class. I never noticed her since she kept to herself in the far back corner of our classroom, but after getting to know her, I felt a deep connection to her. Although she had recently started showing signs of liking me more than just a close friend, I did my best to keep our relationship just close friends. Because of her troubled life, I suspected that she’d get more than attached to me, not that I mind.

Realizing this now... I feel horrible for leaving her alone by dying.

I shake my head pushing that train of thought back for another time looking back at the menu screen. An arrow appeared directly by whatever I look at.

>[Status] [Colony] [Base] [Map]

[Status] >[Colony] [Base] [Map]

[Status] [Colony] [Base] >[Map]

I guess checking my status should answer some of my questions and theories. I guess I would be titled ‘Fire Ant Queen’ level 1 or something, I wonder if I kept my name?

>[Status] [Colony] [Base] [Map]

[Status]

Name:

Race: Fire Ant

Class: Queen

LV 1

HP: 2,000/2,000 (green)

MP: 400/400 (blue)

SP: 500/500 (orange)

Offense: 1,000 Defense: 1,000 Magic: 500

Skills (20):

[Hard Skin LV 5] [Strength LV 7] [Life LV 7] [Fly LV 4] [Command LV 7] [Accuracy LV 5] [Touch Sensory LV 5] [Smell Sensory LV 5] [Vision LV 3] [Movement LV 3] [Aura Detect LV 8] [Intelligence LV 7] [Fire-Breath LV 7] [Tactics LV 5] [Persuasion LV 6] [Charm LV 10] [Resistance: Fire LV 7] [Resistance: Poison LV 5] [Poison LV 5] [Bite LV 5]

Wow 20 skills in total and my base stats are decent… I guess, I don’t know this world’s standards for good or bad stats. My class is Queen which makes sense.. And I was right about being a fire ant. Looks like there’s a “race” and “class” system here. Is this even another world or a video game with next gen. graphics? Ah... well my guess is since I am a queen I should have fairly better base stats than this entire colony, with the exception of Tsuwo. But ho, ho, ho! Charm LV 10!? So that means I’m totally beautiful in ant queen standards, beauty never failed me then and it shall not fail me now! Also, I don’t have a name I guess that doesn’t carry over… do I have the ability to name myself?

[Status]

Name: >Ariki Kuin

Hmmm… well I would have chosen my online character name, but I’m literally me controlling me, not controlling some made up avatar of me. Kinda tacky to use my full name in a new life like this though…

[Status]

Name: >Ariki

Perfect! Maybe there might be a possibility that I find someone I know… eh on second thought, it’ll be all kinds of weird and awkward and I don’t even think anyone I know would've died recently reborning as an ant or something. Anyways! Moving on… the other skills are cool aside from my Charm, I have Fire-Breath, and Fly. Soo that means I’m close to a dragon now aren’t I? An insect fire dragon queen! Well that’s till I mate and lose my wings… now I really wanna avoid mating to keep these precious wings. Hmm…

I stretch out my wings to inspect them.

These are wings alright, all in perfect condition.

I flap my wings around for a bit to warm them up preparing myself for flight.

Here goes nothing.

The speed of my flapping wings accelerates and slowly I feel my legs levitate from the dirt. Dust kicked around below me as I lift my large body off the ground. [Fly LV 4] activates.

Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap! I’m really flying! Wooooo! Weeeee!

Flying around doing spins and U-turns in the air. I try to slow down, but I end up crash landing onto the floor. Muddled from the initial crash, I struggle to get up and dust myself off.

Ouch… As thrilling as that was, I never flew before plus this room is big but it would be better to fly out in the open, I’m gonna have to practice outside. So… now Fire-Breath… how would that work? Do I propel fire from my uh… jaws or spit out a fire inducing acid like how some insects do, because the former would be a heck of a lot cooler.

Facing the wall, I opened my jaws wide and concentrated, at first I felt nothing. I tried imagining flames coming out of my jaws in order to somehow activate the skill. [Fire-breath LV 7] activates. Just then a small orange flame ignited, snapping into blue flames before jetting out like a laser, incinerating a hole into the wall.

Tchh! Zzzzrrrrrr! Fwoosshhh!

While crackling and sizzling small cinders danced about before fizzling out, letting only smoke gush from the hole.

Sssssss!

Woah, woah, woah!? Really!? This isn’t even a Fire-breath, more like a Fire-beam! I’m practically like that one giant kaiju lizard with his radioactive breath attacks, but in ant form! Well… it is LV 7, but with this insane power… makes me wonder how powerful I am with my other high LV skills. Makes me wonder how powerful Tsuwo and the rest of the ants are… most importantly how powerful these ‘Two-legs’ are. They were able to defeat the last queen and the rest of the soldier ants. Wait… ‘Two-legs’ in the insect world there is no insect with 2 legs, they all at least have 6 legs. Unless these insects were some type of weird new insect species in this world I’m in or maybe it’s an animal? Why would an animal attack ants… unless it was an ant-eater even then it walks on all fours… so… that would mean Tsuwo was talking about… humans? Humans!? Wait, wait, wait a second.

I look around the giant chamber room, putting two and two together I finally realize why everything in this ant hill is so big.

Back then the ants we passed by were carrying boulders not small rocks, proportions of these dirt structures are huge because… we’re also huge! That would make us insects, giant insect monsters to humans since we’d be… bigger or as big as them in this world!

A chill ran down my ant body, feeling like I was naked out in the snow.

What a reality I gotten myself born into… waaaaah! Why couldn’t I just become some sort of princess of a prestigious kingdom, or secretly not-so-average girl in a peaceful village, or even an adventurer tasked to leveling up and saving the world, not a giant fire ant queen who has to make babies to survive! Waaaaah!

Wiping my non-existent tears, I take a deep breath and plop myself on the ground.

This is all gonna take a few days for me to fully wrap my head around this new world. Of course this is just a theory I have for now. But at this point I’m not even 100% sure I wanna live on in this world.

Smacking my face with my front legs.

No, no, no, Ariki do not think like that. After all I dealt with this kind of fear and depressing way of thinking when I was supporting Aisaki…

She’d often drop depressing thoughts onto me whether we’d be gaming online or hanging out together at school. I was always there to change her mind.

I sincerely hope now more than ever she takes all that I’ve told her to heart and continue living… Come to think of it, I can’t… really remember what happened just before I died, only that terrible chest pain and falling down. Hurts my head thinking about it, ugh…

After wondering and worrying for my family and friends back in my previous life, I sit up and check the rest of the menu options. Selecting [Colony] showed all the ants under my rule, their stats, skills, LVs, and classes. All the other worker ants’ LVs averaged around LV 4 and a few were LV 5. Interestingly enough there were four other ants that are ‘special’ aside from Tsuwo, they were all LV 10 and had unique classes.

Makes me feel left behind.. I’m still LV 1, but I’m a queen. So if I were to be LV 10 I’d be the strongest… statistically. In total there were 1,006 ants, which is very small in comparison to my world’s ants population. Then again… considering our actual size, our number would make sense and we would be considered a big colony because now humans consider us a natural predator and its possible that they hunt us down to control our numbers. Hmm.. could I check their statuses too..?

Name: Tsuwo

Race: Fire Ant

Class: Hardened Soldier

LV 10

HP: 1,500/1,500 (green)

MP: 200/200 (blue)

SP: 1,000/1,000 (orange)

Offense: 1,700 Defense: 1,200 Magic: 300

Skills (16):

[Hard Skin LV 7] [Strength LV 7] [Life LV 5] [Command LV 4] [Accuracy LV 5] [Touch Sensory LV 5] [Smell Sensory LV 5] [Vision LV 3] [Movement LV 7] [Intelligence LV 5] [Fire-Breath LV 5] [Tactics LV 5] [Resistance: Fire LV 7] [Bite LV 7] [Intimedate LV 7] [Guard LV 7] [Retaliate LV 7]

Holy moly, Tsuwo you bad’ant -- get it? -- Well she definitely has strength with little weaknesses. She’s catered towards the offensive and most likely the one to do physical DPS the most. A hard-hitter with fair amount of agility, and defense. Basically, all-round good stats. [Retaliate LV 7] maybe a skill that allows her to take punishment while dishing it out tenfold? It would explain her scars. She’s the embodiment of a warrior after all, I’m glad I gave her a name to accompany all that bad’ant’ery. Her name is implemented on the status screen, so I assume I can name all the other ants since they don’t have any names either. I wonder if naming them gives them some sort of stat increase? I didn’t feel weird or get some notation when naming Tsuwo… guess I’ll have to find that out sometime.

Next was [Base], it showed a 2D platformer view of the ant hill along with cute little icons of the ants buzzing around in the hill. Interestingly enough, I can highlight each ant in groups or one at a time. It was not long until I discovered that we had a couple different stations running. Oddly enough we had a treasury, a garden, and a laboratory. I also found options to build other things within and even outside the our ant hill. Which I couldn’t do because text came up saying ‘Insufficient Resources’ and showed what I was missing.

Steele leaves? Pampo sticks? Argo Scales?? Cauzo Claws?? Krail Strings?? Okay, sounds like someone just desperately tried coming up with unique names for materials, but failed miserably.

Looking at the last option, [Map] only shows where I’ve been and since I’ve been born, just twenty minutes ago, all I can see is the ant hill from an overview. Rest of the map is black.

I probably have to go explore if I wanna expand this map because right now it’s useless.

The neat little feature is I can zoom in and out of the map which in turn gives a little more detail about the area the closer I zoom. Zooming in as far as I could, I was able to zoom into the ant hill and see the details of the passageway I’ve walked through and such.

This would really be helpful in dungeon crawling or underground areas. If I can zoom this much, explorers and adventurers would kill for this type of power. Strangely enough… it’s not listed as one of my skills same with this menu screen. Does that mean that this menu screen and the ability to zoom this much in [Map] is common for everyone?

This time I zoomed out as far as I could. It stopped once the area that I am currently in became a dot in a sea of black.

Holy, Holy, Holy! This place is way beyond huge, sort of feels like looking at a map when you first spawn in, like that one game where you use blocks to build and find diamonds to survive.

At the top left of the map was a line of weird symbols.

Of course just like any other fantasy world people get flung into, there’s gonna be unfamiliar text, but somehow it’s readable.

The symbols read: Celestia.

So I’m guessing this world is called Celestia, sounds ominous, I hope I’m not in a world that is controlled by religion and have to fight some tyrannic church or mad gods or something. Whiich is oddly specific, I think I might have read that somewhere.

After a bit of fidgeting around with the menu and all it’s options I couldn’t seem to find a ‘Log Out’ option or anything close to that. Breaking the silence, Tsuwo calls out to me.

“My queen Ariki, is everything alright? Shall I call assistance? We do have an excellent healer that can soothe any pain.”

“No, no, no it’s all fine I was just very uh... into my thoughts. I apologize if it made you worry for my safety.”

In Tsuwo’s point of view she heard Ariki screaming, scuttling around, a brief silence before crashing onto the floor then firing a flame laser blowing a hole into the wall followed by more silence in a span of ten minutes. Tsuwo worried that Ariki was in agonizing pain from something and is taking it all out in the room. She was afraid of angering her even further if she intervened, so she waited till it blew over.

She probably thought I was having a ‘time of the month’ moment. Wait, ants don’t have that or do they??

Having nothing but questions upon questions on my mind I decided to explore the ant hill and meet the four other special ants.

“Well uh actually, I would love to meet the healer. Does she happen to be in the laboratory?”

“Yes, she helps us by creating new things and gives us items that can heal our wounded she is very smart.”

So this ant is supposedly a healer too along with being some sort of magic scientist? Pretty odd an ant colony such as ours would need a scientist, then again common sense and logic probably doesn’t apply that much in this world. It probably has to do with the “class” system. It’s very much like a virtual reality game or a VRMMO. Only difference is I’m an ant, not a human and I don’t remember putting on some VR helmet before dying and being shoved into this world. Or maybe I am actually in a coma and some scientists plunged my consciousness in another world to keep me from dying while being their lab rat for their wicked experiments… Hmmm any more of this thinking I’d probably get into trouble.

“Of course my queen Ariki, I’ll lead the way.”

Tsuwo guided me through the different passageways leading to the upper levels of the dome. Finally reaching a giant door crudely made out of wood with no handles. It roughly covered most of the entrance and held in place by a vine-like plant sprouting from the wall on the left and right side. Tsuwo pushed right through holding the door open for me, I nodded my thanks walking in before her. The doors swiftly swung back into place after Tsuwo came in. Inside lead a tall long hallway connecting to an open chambers. Lined across the walls were strange symbols along with various objects scattered across the floor. Some of them resembled parts of certain insects, others were random made knicknacks, and the rest were leaves and flowers of different kinds. A strange scent filled the air and sounds of bubbling and crackling came from the end of the hallway.

This is like some typical mad scientist’s lair, she may be a healer, but I do hope it doesn’t come with some quirky life threatening side effects.

Continuing down carefully stepping over the mess with Tsuwo in tow.

Bang! Boom! Fssshhhh!

Upon hearing that I ran down the hall, turning the corner to see a small ant. The smallest ant I’ve seen so far, lying on the ground covered in a blue goopy substance. Smoke omitted from the table-like furniture in front of the small ant and the blue goop was overflowing out a large broken glass vial.

“Wha… Whaaat!?”

Other than there being familiar shapes of glass bottles and tubes similar to the ones in an actual science lab, the whole set up looked eerily similar to a typical mad scientist’s lair. The room was even messier than the hallway. This time there were a few tables lined with vials and glass bottles each containing different colored liquids. The bubbling and crackling came from the connected tubes and bottles each releasing liquid. Small colored mists spurted out different bottles periodically while the liquid flowed into another container changing color before flowing into a different glass and repeating the cycle.

“Oh… oh noo… I didn’t mean for this to happen… now I’m all wet and covered in sticky goop… waahh… hmph I need to keep trying or her plant is gonna die!”

Barely speaking over the loud sounds happening around her, the small ant perked herself up getting up and wiping off the goop best she could. Tsuwo approached her cautiously then lightly tapped her butt.

“Eeekp!”

Surprised from Tsuwo’s touch the small ant jumped quickly retreating behind her table scattering around the mess from the initial experiment explosion.

“Ahem… the queen finally hatched and she requests to meet with you”

“O-oh it’s just you… I’m v.. very sorry I haven’t noticed when you came in, y- you sc… scared me.”

Peeping her head out from behind the table she looked at Tsuwo before meeting my gaze. She quickly scuttled out and stopped in front of me bowing her head.

“My… my queen! I am terribly sorry for this mess and I’m terribly sorry for not noticing you entering, I… I am glad to finally meet you! I a… am at your service of anything you need! I am good at healing and I can help with creating useful things I can even suggest plenty of ideas that can help this colony, i.. is there anything you require of me?”

Despite loudly chirping out to me, it was barely louder than a mouse’s squeaking. The whole situation caught me in a trance, because how cute she was behaving. All I could do was stand there captured by her adorableness. She reminded me of my super cute younger friend from high school, she was short, shy and barely talked louder than a mouse. Other than that, everything she did was too damn cute making my heart skip a few beats occasionally. Composing myself and gathering my train of thought back I look around the room examining her before speaking to the small ant. She aside from being very small, her coat colored pale red and her jaws thin like surgical tweezers, seems like its to help her carefully pick things up or do things with extreme precision. Looking at her I felt like a strong wind would break her fragile body. Makes me wanna protect her with all I have.

Name:

Race: Fire Ant

Class: Magic Scientist

LV 10

HP: 500/500 (green)

MP: 2,000/2,000 (blue)

SP: 200/200 (orange)

Offense: 100 Defense: 500 Magic: 2,000

Skills (17): [Hard Skin LV 3] [Strength LV 2] [Life LV 2] [Accuracy LV 7] [Touch Sensory LV 5] [Smell Sensory LV 5] [Vision LV 5] [Movement LV 5] [Intelligence LV 7] [Fire-Breath LV 2] [Resistance: Fire LV 6] [Bite LV 3] [Research LV 6] [Mana Recovery LV 4] [Magic: Elemental LV 5] [Heal LV 6] [Reasoning LV 5] [Science LV 3 (Intelligence+Research+Reasoning)]

My goodness she’s fragile. I cannot let a single harm befall her, ever! But this is new, she has 3 skills combined to make a bonus skill.. So there’s certain skill-sets that’ll create new skills? Well her skills and class do correlate with one another, plus her [Heal LV 6] is pretty good too.

“Ahem… Yes, I do require one thing of you and apology accepted, please raise your head so I can speak to you in earnest.”

Raising her head slowly our eyes finally meet in that instant my heart skipped a few beats.

She’s looking at me with the most adorable puppy eyes I can’t even bear looking away, I wanna pet her, I wanna hug her, I just wanna... aaaahhhhh!

“M… my queen…?”

Pink flower petals appeared fluttering about around her face with the whole atmosphere around her suddenly colored in a cutesy pastel pink as the small ant called out to me.

OH MY GOODNESS, I can feel all of my sensors to protect this precious thing no matter what. I swear to goodness gracious that if anything bad were to happen to her I’m gon-

“Ahem.. ahem sorry I was lost in my thoughts. As the new queen I am giving you a name, it’ll be a lot easier on me if you had a name.”

“Oh.. a name, I am truly grateful my queen… please by all means.”

She bows her head awaiting her name.

“Hmm… Azuwei shall be your name.”

Unable to hold back my desire I reach out to her and gently pet her head.

“Az.. Azu.. Azuwei, Azuwei, Azuwei… thank you so much my queen!”

She happily squeaks back at me as she raises her head.

“Gweh!”

Letting out a cute squeak of my own; in that moment, I could have sworn I felt my soul leave my body and come back instantaneously. Tsuwo fidgeting in the corner as she watches the entire scene unfold. She was unable to hold back due to Azuwei’s vicious cuteness attacks so she also pets her.

Truly her cuteness is a weapon from God.

Azuwei softly squeaks in joy while me and Tsuwo pet her, a puppy receiving the love from her two parents. After a minute gone by, Tsuwo and I introduced our names to her and she adorably repeated them several times to imprint them into her mind. Curiosity finally breaking my stupor from Azuwei’s cuteness.

“So what did you mean by ‘her plant is gonna die’?”

“Oh, my queen Ariki, the ant taking care of our garden told me that our important plant is dying and asked me if I could help. So I was figuring out a way to create a potion to help the plant back to a healthy condition. Unfortunately, I.. I put a little too much sturoge juice in my sticky goop.”

Sturoge juice? Seriously these names..

Looking down sadly she softly slapped her face, perking herself up again.

Aahhhhh! If you keep this up I’m probably gonna need potions to heal from your cuteness attacks.

“I’m sorry to hear, I’m sure you can find a way. You seem very smart anyways, Azuwei. I wish I could be of use, but I just don’t know enough of this world yet. Don’t give up, I believe you can do it”

I pet her head hoping my words give her a boost of confidence.

“M… my queen”

Azuwei looked up at me with teary eyes.

“Understood, if you believe in me then I know I can do this, I’ll try again right away! And… and… don’t… don’t give up too… you can help me another time when you know more… I… I believe you can do it”

Near the end of her reply, she happily fidgeted averting her eyes a little. Azuwei’s last act not only affected my soul but it seemed like Tsuwo’s soul was also instantaneously thrown and shoved back into our bodies.

Ahh… this, this is heaven isn’t it? Must be nice to be so youthful.... Wait! Why am I talking like an old lady!?

“Mhm, tha… thank you Azuwei you’re very kind which reminds me I should go visit the ant taking care of the garden and name her too. I’ll leave you to your experiments and tell her that you’ll be finished in no time.”

Trying my best to keep a composed queen-like figure I nod and turn to exit her laboratory. Azuwei simply smiles and waves goodbye resuming her experiments as we leave. Tsuwo then leads me up a few more levels.

Tsuwo’s mood has improved, somehow I can feel it pretty well… seems like she has an adorable soft side too hehe

The level we were on is a couple levels below the exit of the ant hill, looking up I see light shining through hitting the wall at an angle below. On the wall appeared to be a crude drawing of an ant queen.

Probably some sort of memorabilia of the previous queen, this colony seems to really care about their last queen. So they Do have emotions. I wonder what kind of queen she was. Huh.. so her butt was really that b-

Bumping into Tsuwo’s butt, I apologize and look in front of me to see a door. Flowers and vines prominently growing out the sides of the door and encasing a bit of the walls around the door.

Looks like I’m gonna enter some rabbit hole and end up in wonderland.

Following Tsuwo we immediately enter an enormous garden. Sunlight shone through the ceilings. Vines and grass grew all over the walls coloring the room many shades of green. To the left end of the room trees were scattered about, bearing fruits of all different kinds. To the right end of the room, had waves of flowers standing tall reflecting the sunlight off it’s petals, emphasizing their beautiful colors. Cutting the whole room in half was a small river flowing from up top a hill on the right side of the room to the left, down a hole in the wall. Amongst the small flowers, a huge plant resembling an almond was leaning over almost falling, beside it was a worker ant about half the size of the almond-like plant. She tended to the soil around the plant using her jaws and front legs to clump the dirt around it, keeping the bud from falling over from its own weight. We approached the ant, Tsuwo then gently tapped the butt of the ant to get it’s attention.

“Ya’ll better have the cure you were promisin’ cuz this plant ain’t gunna last longer than a twig in a windstorm.”

“The queen has finally been born and she is here on important business”

“Oh crud, what timin’ I didn’t even get to prepare my queen’s special salad to celebrate her birth! Not to mention I’m covered in muk, wanted to freshen up to give a good ol’ impression.”

The large worker ant gave the soil a few more good pats before turning around, inspecting me. She nodded and with her front legs gave me a thumbs up, or something that looked to be that expression.

“Woo wee! My oh, my! Our new queen is quite the looker! I’d say we’re in good jaws, you must be stunnin’ my fellow workers as you waltz on by, you sure as’ got me stunned.”

“Wha.. why thank you, I don’t usually show off, but.. I am quite proud of my appearance.. hee hee..”

With the shower of compliments from her I stand a little taller to show off my beauty, letting my ego grow a little more. I let out a soft giggle with my front leg lifting up as if to cover my laughter.

Ho ho ho ho! So I am beautiful by Ant Queen standards, this is a first being called “beautiful” as an insect hee hee I’m really glad some things hasn’t changed for me.

“So, what sort of ‘Official Queen Business’ are you on, ya majesty?”

“Oh I wanted to name my top subjects first, seeing how all 4 of you are LV 10 and that it’ll make it easier for me to communicate with you.”

“Oooh.. I see. We ain’t exactly got names, but we get by just fine. If this is what our new stunnin’ queen wants I’ll be happy to oblige. Say what did she name you?”

The worker ant shook herself like how a dog would dry itself and rubbed off some of the dirt from her face before pointing at Tsuwo.

“My queen, gave me the honor of being named Tsuwo. And I am quite proud to have it.”

She stood tall too, showing off her name to the worker ant. I couldn’t help but smile, behind my jaws, at how cute she is. After she shook off most the muk I got a better look at her. Her coat was brownish red, pincers were wide and shovel-like, and seeing her stand next to Tsuwo made it clear that she’s bigger in height and body mass. As threatening as my hardened soldier ant is, this worker ant can probably go toe to toe with her.

Wow.. she’s huge.. She’s like my other friend, which makes it 3 for 3… Did they all get reincarnated too and don’t remember who they were?? Funny enough they both share their way of speaking too. She is a bit of a country hick, the only one to be attending high school and living far out of the city. Everytime someone new meets her I can always hear them say “She’s huge” under their breath. Aside from Aisaki being really tall she wasn’t packing the same mass as her. She told us many times before that the work around the family farm is why she’s like that, but… What Kind of Amazonian Farm Work Does That???

“Aw shucks.. Thank you, ya majesty, I get that a lot. It’s just me working my garden, it’s how I was able to be how I am now.”

“You’re welcome… Saku, from now on, that will be your name. I hope it is to your likings”

“Hmmm…”

She pondered on it for a bit looking at me then Tsuwo then me again. Not long before she opened her arms grabbing both of us, hugging and swinging us around a little. More like choke holding us with the strength she was exerting.

“Why yes, Saku! I love it! Short and sweet, like having a fresh oppa fruit under the hot sun. Thank you so so so much ya majesty!”

“Ack- y- your welcome..! My, you have q- quite the strength on you!”

Saku finally released us and I huffed for air while Tsuwo stood unfazed by the hug choke. After catching my breath I focused on Saku bringing up her status screen.

Name: Saku

Race: Fire Ant

Class: Farmer

LV 10

HP: 1,100/1,700 (green)

MP: 200/200 (blue)

SP: 400/1000 (orange)

Offense: 700 Defense: 2,000 Magic: 300

Skills (17):

[Hard Skin LV 7] [Strength LV 7] [Life LV 6] [Touch Sensory LV 5] [Smell Sensory LV 7] [Vision LV 3] [Movement LV 5] [Intelligence LV 5] [Fire-Breath LV 3] [Resistance: Fire LV 7] [Bite LV 7] [Intimedate LV 7] [Guard LV 7] [Dig LV 7] [Farming LV 8] [Construction LV 6] [Herbology LV 7]

She’s got two more skills than Tsuwo, but they are general life skills than combat skills. Specifies in growing plants and building things which goes well with her ‘farmer’ class. But her defense is 2,000! I was right on the nail with her going toe to toe with Tsuwo. Seems we like share similar skills: [Resistance: Fire], [Bite], [Touch Sensory], [Smell Sensory], [Vision], [Fire-Breath], and [Intelligence]. I’d assume it’ll be the same with most of the colony, probably ‘race’ has to affect the type of skills we are born with. Meaning anyone from the same race can share similarities in skills. The rest you’d have to..gain, or learn, or something.

“So you just gonna keep staring at my status or is there somethin’ else you need? I don’t mean to be rude to you, it’s just that we have a time limit on this poor plant I’m tryin’ to save right’ere.”

Oh. At this point I shouldn’t be surprised. So they can also use the ‘menu screen’ and check their statuses, probably not in the way I can though. But does she see the same screen I’m looking at or because I’m just staring into space that she can tell..?

“Oh, my name is Ariki by the way, please feel free to use my name. I also came here to let you know Azuwei is almost ready with the potion for the plant. I have complete faith that she’ll be here soon.”

“Ho ho, so that cute little youngin’ is Azuwei? Her name is just as cute as she always is. Welp, with ya majesty, Ariki, telling me that; I have no choice but to believe you like leaf would trust the branch it hangs from.”

“I’m curious though, why is this plant so important?”

Walking around it, I see the colors slightly changing as I move. From afar it looked dark brown, but up close it is crystal-like in the way the light refracted and bent causing colors to morph around inside as I view it from different angles. Touching it made a weak whirring noise and the surface faintly lit up for a few seconds from where I had touched it.

“It’s Beautiful”

“Heh… same exact words from our last queen. We found this deep in the Black Lands, and our sweet queen took a real likin’ to this plant. It’s extremely rare as it is beautiful, so we decided to take it back with us. Shame that on the way that-”

“That what...?”

I turn to face Saku to see that she wasn’t looking at me, she faced the ground in silence. Unsure of what to say or do I look to Tsuwo, but she also averted my eyes. Glancing at the plant I walk up to Saku and place a leg on her head gently petting her in hopes of making her feel better. I give the sweetest smile that I can muster and chirp at her.

“Well.. in that case this plant means everything to me just as it means to you, so let’s work together in healing this wonderful plant okay?”

“My queen..”

“Ya majesty..”

“Please, just Ariki is enough. I may be your queen, but we are all in the same colony which means you’re all my precious family.”

Not long till Saku choke hugs me and Tsuwo in a sobbing mess. Feeling her emotions flow all out made me cry too, looking over I see that Tsuwo couldn’t help it either. Although she kept her composure she cried with us. After a minute has gone by and the waterworks had finally dried up, Saku releases us rubbing her eyes.

“Hic… I apolohgize hic.. It’s just been so long bottlin’ all that up, thank you ya ma-.. Thank you, Ariki.”

“Apology accepted, next time.. Please don’t feel any pressure to talk to me okay? I may be busy doing.. Queen things, but I always have time for you.”

Gently petting her felt like I was petting a big bear compared to petting my little puppy, Azuwei. I swear I may have heard Tsuwo go ‘Hmph’ under her breath, but I wasn’t gonna prod her about it now.

Tsuwo is probably a Tsundere, which I half expected considering strong girls like her usually have some hidden personality (Plus her name has ‘Tsu’ in it!). Maybe I should give her a head pat too as thanks for guiding me around.

“Alright, we should get going I still have two more ants to name and I don’t wanna keep you from keeping this precious plant from dying. I shall assist however I can after I finish my initial business and tour with Tsuwo. So don’t hesitate to ask me of anything understood?”

“I hear you loud an’ clear, I’ll keep you in the loop about the plant. But the last ant you’re visiting is the one in the room full of shinies right? Could you ask her to lend over some crytikes? Running low on stamina here”

“Crytikes? Okay, I’ll let her know soon as I can.”

Following Tsuwo’s lead, we journey downwards this time reaching the deepest part of the dirt home. We approach a large opening resembling the maw of giant dino-like creature. Although it was too dark to see the hallway, inside a faint golden light omitted from afar beckoning us to come inside. The moment we step foot inside the hallway torches lit up one by one showing the straight pathway to the golden light.

“Are we.. safe to walk through here??”

“Don’t worry, I shall guard you with my life. But this is her lair where she keeps all the shinies, it’s like this because she asked for it to be built this way.”

Keeping real close to Tsuwo, I look around taking in the dungeon aesthetics of the huge hallway.

Well if she wanted to keep any trespassers out this is a way to go. Everything just screams danger and ominous, did she evolved into an ant dragon and made this lair to protect her ‘treasure’? Wait does that mean we can evolve? Maybe I can find a way to… evolve into a humanoid form of an ant queen. Hmmm… would I keep my big butt and legs but have the upper body of a human, like a centaur or… would I just be mostly humanoid with insect antennas? Weeell long as I can gain my pretty face and gorgeous hair again I’ll be set.

After a bit of walking we finally enter a room about half the size of the ant hill home. Almost blinded by the amount of shininess the huge open room possessed. There wasn’t just gold; there was silver, copper, iron, gems, glass, whatever had the capacity to shine was piled into here. Not only that…

“Eek!?”

“My queen?”

Took me a second to notice that beneath the enormous amount of riches and shinies were piles of skeletons serving as the foundation. Littered across the floor were human skeletons and others that I couldn’t tell what they are. Surprisingly, the stench of death hasn’t singe my nose (if I had a nose). Good thing, all the ‘smelling’ is left to my antennae and only then I don’t actually smell the smell. Shivering seeing skeleton piles of my former race, but kept my body tense to keep myself together as I walk with Tsuwo across the narrow pathways. There was a small single-file passage unburdened by shinies or skeletons and after a bit more walking we reach the heart of the entire room. In the middle stood a single desk, and an ant behind the desk seemingly writing on something.

“The queen has hatched and is on official business, she wishes to personally greet you”

“My, coming all the way out here for me. I am flattered your highness. Please have a seat while I prepare you an oppa fruit”

The ant’s coat was more a purplish-red with long slim pincers that curved at the tip, other than that she was about the same size as a normal worker ant. The way she sat was almost posh giving her a stern professional air about her.

“The journey was quite relaxing so it was no trouble to come this far, I wanted to get to know my precious subjects personally.”

We sat down in front of the desk as the ant pulled out two large fruits out of nowhere. The fruits were bizarre, colored in bright purple with yellow dots and shaped like a cylinder. She cut the fruits into even pieces with her pincers with the knifeworks of a chef. She then neatly placed the fruit pieces on a leaf plate before setting it down in front of us.

“Wow, such precision in your cutting, I assume this has to do with your skills?”

“Yes, precisely. My skills in [Cooking] and [Blade] are both LV 7. It was thanks to the arduous training I’ve gone through to obtain these wonderful skills. Plus enjoying fresh cut oppa fruit is a delight fit for your highness.”

Despite how presentable she has made this fruit, it still screams danger. I’m guessing this is extremely poisonous to humans, but a delicacy among us ants. I wonder if she killed humans by feeding them this? That would make her like a malevolent ant witch in the woods… I wonder if she poisoned any princesses lately.

Gulping down my nonexistent saliva I take a bite after watching Tsuwo eat a few pieces.

“OH WOW! This is so mmm! No wonder you praise this fruit so much!”

Eating a couple more pieces I notice the happy faces of the two ants as they enjoy their share of oppa fruits. Letting out a sigh of content I pat my tummy.

“Ahh… that was really delicious, thank you for that wonderful dessert.”

“As always your [Cooking] is amazing.”

“I am deeply flattered to be complemented by your highness and her strongest soldier. So your official business, my guess is that you’ve come to name me as well?”

“Yes, I have. How did you know?”

“Take a look at my status and you’ll see. I do have one selfish request, is that you make my name.. Pretty too.”

Gah.. I also never expected this ant be another world version of my homeroom teacher. The wooden desk, the way she holds herself, the way she talks, heck strangely even the looks despite being an ant. I can feel that she’s shrewd and very aware of everything, wouldn’t be surprised if she found out my secret. Not to mention all these shinies.. Just as greedy as my teacher, but I still couldn’t hate her because behind it all she had a good heart. Long as she keeps her greed in check, that is.

Name:

Race: Fire Ant

Class: Slayer

LV 10

HP: 1,500/1,500 (green)

MP: 1,000/1,000 (blue)

SP: 1,000/1,000 (orange)

Offense: 2,000 Defense: 1,000 Magic: 700

Skills (23): [Hard Skin LV 5] [Strength LV 5] [Life LV 5] [Accuracy LV 7] [Touch Sensory LV 7] [Smell Sensory LV 7] [Vision LV 5] [Movement LV 7] [Intelligence LV 6] [Fire-Breath LV 3] [Resistance: Fire LV 7] [Bite LV 7] [Movement Increase LV 5] [Cooking LV 7] [Blade LV 7] [Shadow LV 5] [Intel LV 7] [Weakness Exploit LV 7] [Increase Damage: Humans LV 5] [Increase Damage: Sects LV 4] [Ambush LV 5] [Vampry LV 3] [Assassinate LV 4 (Shadow+Ambush+Weakness Exploit+Blade)]

My God what 23 skills? She’s dangerous, it’s obvious because of where we are but.. ‘Slayer’ as a class. Her skills are deeply catered to One Hit KOs, she even has [Assassinate] created by 4 specialized skills instead of 3 this time! [Intel LV 7] is probably how she knew what I was doing. It’s kind of scary to think of how many she must of killed to get to this powerful.

“Very well, I shall arrange a name fitting of your request.”

“Does Gyoma satisfy your request?”

“May I ask why, Gyoma?”

“Well… the aura about you is something special, I get a sense of wisdom and dedication. Gyoma is what came to mind because of that.”

She looked at me as if she was looking into my soul seeing if what I had said is what I truly meant. The intensity of her stare made me sweat internally. She then clicked her jaws and wrote down on something.

“Very well, I accept. To be honest your naming leaves much to be desired, but at least you put your heart into what you say. From this day forth I, Keeper of shinies, shall be named Gyoma. The head of our troops, is Tsuwo. The knowledgeable scientist, Azuwei. The constructor and farmer, Saku. And your highness.. As she prefers, Ariki am I correct?”

“Wha- How-.. Ahem.. Yes, you are correct, I do prefer that you all call me Ariki. Are you perhaps writing this information down?”

“You are smarter than you look, yes I am. Information is important, it can sometimes cost more than the shinies I have around me. Humans tend to have that way of thinking, makes it easy enough to take… or rather ‘have them place an early investment’ on my behalf.”

Which confirms my theory with these skeletons and her greed, I’d hate to get on her bad side if anything.

“Don’t worry, Ariki. Despite my… extreme hobby of collecting. I am first and foremost loyal to you and the colony. I wouldn’t dare raise my jaw against you no matter my mood.”

OH GOD, Can she read my mind!?

Gyoma let out a small chuckle then proceeded to pull out a bag placing it on the table. The bag pulsated light from within.

“This is what Saku requested. Crytikes, able to replenish a moderate amount of stamina and mana. Quite a common carry for human adventurers and a common find inside strong sects. I see that taking care of the plant without rest is finally taking a toll on her.”

“Thank you, I shall take this to her when I finish the tour for my queen.”

“Time is precious so I’ll just need to see one more ant then I’ll relieve you to that important delivery.”

“Understood, which ant did you need to see?”

“The last male ant.”