Author's note:-

I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. I think this is the best chapter I have ever written. I used a ton of words like (Chameleon, magician, founder, octopus etc etc) just to explain about one single person. You might fell a little headache reading this but please take it easy and have fun.

We'll return to our dungeon upgrading on the day after tomorrow.

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Enjoy.

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Rock's P.O.V:-

The one who was completely clad In a black outfit got enshrouded in a shadow and after some seconds the shadows dissipated in smoke and the assassin was nowhere to be seen.

The person who out of the smoke checked his outfit, shock his head for a bit and walked to the open space in their circle and stood there.

But everyone continued on as nothing happened. No one gave a second look at him and started talking to him like he was standing at that place from the start.

They talked then the black fitted dangerous looking individual who had mysteriously changed into

A handsome tall and very powerful and charming looking person, took a step forward.

He stopped in front of my expensive, but now charcoal black ant and moved his hand to grasp hold of some of its remains, but the situation changed suddenly.

The hand that had just touched the ash got covered in brilliant and bright light. Then a part of my soul returned to me and my child turned from its deformed physique to a pair of mandibles, similar to the ones that all of my ants have.

“Huh” it escaped my mind and ringed inside Minnie’s head that in turn understood its meaning and replied, “This is the reward system acting. The ant’s body vanished and left behind a gift for killing the monster and like you devised they got Lucky enough to earn a prize, according to their luck."

She replied without looking at me, without even turning her head, without flinching even a little, without even addressing me.

She is becoming a stranger by the minute.

I did the only thing that I could at this point, given that my attracting her attention to ask her about her changes was not the important thing here. So, I sighed once in my heart and like Minie, turned my face to look at the screen.

I noticed that those individuals were arguing about something. I don’t know what really is happening between them and why they behave like there are six people and not five, but their expressions clearly showed that they were confused.

They were confused about something that I had no way to know until I was there to hear their talk.

This won’t do I thought. So I told Minie that I was going to shift my presence from out of the room to them and she nodded to me, again without looking or getting angry at me like she used to.

I am missing the angry Minie, but what can I do. Maybe she is having her first…

I then moved and shifted my presence to the walls of the small room they were in. I got inside just in time to eavesdr… to hear what they were talking about.

“Yeah, right, a dungeon really is what this place is. A dungeon that is so tasking from the very start, that even seasoned B ranker's like us are having problems completing it. Moreover, we are still on the first floor.”

That beautiful snow white girl with blue eyes said those words, but her voice contained a hint of mockery not flattery in it.

They were debating and discussing between them, about whether this cave was a dungeon or not. Well, their talk had more hints of aggression and pressure, than the loftiness of not knowing and the excitement of finding out something new.

I felt surprised hearing that. Didn’t they already know that this place was a dungeon and not some normal monsters cave?

I think I assumed things a little too much on my own this time. I should stop putting theories above reason, as it is proving to be nothing more than an overly though reason for an untimely headache and nothing more.

I explained the situation to Minie and she replied with an “okay.” A simple word and that’s all.

I think the situation is direr than I thought; otherwise she wouldn’t be acting like someone was going to die no matter what happened.

What really happened, what made such changes to occur in her? Well, it is not something that I can figure out on my own, she a girl after all.

After their discussion finished, they started walking and after reaching the edge of the room they saw the two tunnels leading into the inner parts of this supposed cave system and discussed between them to take a decision.

The girls were fighting and the boys were debating, and only that chameleon was standing in the side looking toward the tunnels without moving even an inch.

Then their fake leader suddenly spoke and they started talking about their problems and the hidden danger that this cave might hold etc, etc.

They talked about traps that we didn’t have. I honestly wanted to at least build some pitfalls in the narrow tunnel, but they came too suddenly and we had no time to do anything after that.

Should I make and prepare them now? Nah it won’t work they are moving pretty fast to cover the distance easily.

Then after their heated discussion ended, they decided to move together to escape any traps with the help of the black clothed individual who could detect them.

Yeah, I can see him too when I use my normal vision to see instead of my mana perception, but when I use mana perception, there is no light ball in his place indicting that he isn’t physically present and is only present in our minds.

Well, whatever I have a little devil at my side to take care of small matters like these. I don’t need to get a headache over such things. So I recited my new found clue to Minie who in turn said well done to me.

‘What the actual fuck is going on here’ yeah, those were my thoughts on when I heard her praise me out of the blue.

‘She is ill I guess.’ is another one of my crazy hypothesis, but let’s not get overly excited over it.

What I need to do is pretty clear to me. I need to make sure that all of them don’t end up dying out of nowhere and for no explainable cause.

I have to make sure that no one from their party dies and hope that after killing the queen they would decide to show mercy and not kill me too.

What will happen if they somehow died inside of my home? Nothing, I just don’t want my home to stink of blood because they will send even more powerful guys here to take revenge. Well, not like I can make even these guys bleed.

No, I had no idea or knowledge about such a controversial thing. All my wisdom about the world is the courtesy of our new and improved Minie-Sama.

The heavy armored guy and the fake swordsman bickered with one another for some time, but after that chameleon’s inspirational speech of sort, they decided to move together cause of the traps that the queen, who can’t come out of her room might have installed inside the tunnels.

Because they were moving together I decided to move the ants in the last intersected tunnels just before the one that leads to our room, in hope that they would d something interesting with the next intersection of tunnels.

I think I really need to purchase that upgrade that puts the number of individuals that a tunnel can enter.

I told Minie and she said, “It’s possible, but we’ll have to kill one or two of them.”

You heard it right, the sound of my heart breaking. Well, I didn’t, because it didn’t break in the first place.

They entered from one side and exited from the other. Their confused faces and itching hands were enough clues to tell me what they were really thinking.

Now there was the option to choose one from three tunnels and to my good luck unlike before instead of moving together again and take care of everything. Their so called leader made decision and they decided to split and travel through all the tunnels in small teams.

That bad person he really must have one or more than one reasons for splitting, but whatever I don’t care.

But I find it funny. Not their discussions or thoughtless decisions, but the octopuses’ reason for not letting them rest for even a single minute and for separating their forces.

He said and let me quote “Hah, A new colony? Do you know how, many eggs a queen can lay in a single day? You probably don’t know, so let me tell you. A queen can give birth to almost 20000 young ants in a month. So going by that, and the time that has passed between the explosions, there should be at least 600 ants here”.

*Puff*

Yeah, I laughed and laughed my ass off, until I heard a sweet gentle voice in my head telling me to stop it. I felt surprised first and then bewildered, ‘what happened to my Minie?’ this question rang in my mind like an echo.

Man what made her character change from a devil to an angel, what happened that made her so sweet and nice?

Well, it’s not like I don’t like it, but yeah, she feels like a stranger to me without her anger.

But, I think they would have felt disappointed if they knew, we only had five ants and one queen at our disposal out of which one had already died by their hands.

So, should I go and tell them my queen can only lay 3 eggs a day and the eggs take 8 hours to hatch, and the hatched egg releases larvae into the world that takes even more time and now even want resources to mature.

Nah, I don’t want them to pity me or my poor queen.

Well the ‘changeling’ used the excuse of traps, dead ends and the possibility of a queen laying millions of eggs to divide the team's love through the tunnels.

The main villain entered the middle tunnel and took the one. While I noticed activating and deactivating my mana vision that the girl they called dust was going alone. Well, not really alone. She had the phantom of that chameleon with her; I just hope she can take care of one or two ants, because they are waiting for her in there.

Am I having the hots for her? No! There is only one for me, my precious ‘Ant’.

“huh.” That was Minie. She still invades my brain to eavesdrop on my thoughts. Well, at least she hasn’t completely changed into the stranger, which she is becoming.

The ‘magician’ (those who trick other people) moved inside the middle tunnel with the one that he'd has been harnessing on the way. The rest also moved into their selected tunnels.

This person is a dungeon level threat. He is trouble and great one at that.

I wanted to make him fight with all of the ants to possibly kill him, but I rejected the idea as soon as it came and instead of suicide bombing all of my ants on his face, I decided to also divided my ants into a two team and sent them to the tunnels in the left and right.

I myself went after that traitor in disguise and followed him in the middle tunnel.

I wasn't feeling very good from his decision and my intuition was telling me to go after him to find what was really going on, so I followed him.

And like I thought his intentions really weren't any good.

Both of them walked inside the tunnel for some time and when the entrance looked nothing other than a dot, that ‘founder’ stopped dead in his track.

His hateful partner who was following from behind him saw him stopping so he also stopped. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead of letting him do so ‘The Squid’ in human skin turned around and then he looked straight into the eyes of that green clothed individual with a bow.

“What happened?” His voice was shaking and so were his legs. He knew something was wrong, but also knew that the wrong won’t be made right, even if he protested.

He wasn’t angry but scared. How do I know? Because even though I have no eyes, I could still see his shaking legs and hear his thumping chest.

On the other side our copycat was calm as the sky, but raging as an ocean.

The thing is, my mana perception is a little more precious and has a lot more abilities than I thought it to be.

Not only help me see through the useable, but it also helps me to identify emotions. It’s very sophisticated and scientific, so believe me you won’t understand even if I tell you that his ball of light was now quivering and wavering like a candle flame in high wind.

It’s not just quivering like its feeling cold but also getting smaller and its brightness is also decreasing.

So, this is what Minie meant when she said, “ones power not only depends on their mana and abilities, but also their emotions and state of mind.

Because our Robin Hood was too scared, and had forgotten his balls at home before coming here, his light ball had shriveled and had shrunk to half of its original size.

Well, size does matters after all.

Well, what happened afterwards was a… what’s the word that is used to explain the situation when squealing pigs are cut alive or when a chicken head is cut from its neck in one chop or when a deer is killed with one arrow straight to the heart or when a crying and pleading human is lifted by his hair, slapped miserably, his foot attached to the floor with a dagger and then one-sidedly punched to death.

Ah! Yes, now I remember. It’s called slaughtering; he was painfully, mercilessly, and in the most gruesome way slaughtered by our villain of the day.

How did it happen?

The story will continue but let me first take a mind call from Minie, “Yes, what happened?”

“I think, I now understand the reason for you seeing six people instead of five.” Is what she said.