“Sheesh, there’s no need to be rude, you’re speaking to a queen after all!” Declared the self-professed member of royalty.

Rainier was dearly confused. While he knew from the encyclopedia that the evoants were born from and congregated around a queen, he imagined that very queen to look more like an ant. This girl him was the complete opposite of what he expected. While she had some appendages like the tail and antennae, this Sataska more or less resembled a beautiful human girl.

As if to answer Rainier’s confusion, the encyclopedia vibrated under his belt. Rainier was glad that he didn’t leave the book back in his temporary encampment. If he did, it would’ve fallen to the back of the hollowed rock along with the guts of the arachnacosa and the fire.

Deciding to read the new entry in the encyclopedia later, Rainier resumed questioning Sataska. “Aren’t evoants supposed to look like… Well, ants? You’re clearly different.”

As if wondering ‘Is he retarded?’ Sataska tilted her head before answering Rainier. “Huh? Why should I tell you? Yes you did save me, but that is an obligation one has towards royalty.”

‘This insect…’ Rainier’s eyes twitched, irritated by her attitude.

“Anyways, even though noblesse oblige and all that, I am simply too busy to give you a suitable reward for saving my life.”

“Oh? And what that might be? Is the queen looking for a mate to screw and build a new evoant nest?” Rainier was heated from his confrontation with the arachnacosa just now and her incredibly rude attitude even though she was just saved by Rainier had pissed him off.

Rainier was usually, subjectively speaking, a rather nice individual. He rarely used rude language towards strangers even if they had wronged him in some way. It was the simply that the first seemingly sane person he was speaking to was just so impolite to him that set him off.

Surprisingly, the reaction he got was different than Rainier expected from his provocation.

“H-How did you know that!?” Sataska was visibly taken aback. “You can read minds?!”

Rainier scrunched his brow as if, wondering just how dumb this girl was. “I was joking…” Although Rainier was being more insulting than joking before, he simply couldn’t muster up any feelings of anger.

“Y-you!” Sataska pointed a quaking finger at Rainier who just scratched his head in return.

“Uh, here you go. Ah, the name’s Rainier”

Since he had yet to give his name, Rainier did so and held out a portion of the meat he cooked on an improvised spit over a fire. While he invented some ingenious ways of cooking back home, he was not so primitive as to have a Neanderthal’s knowledge of survival cooking. In fact, this was the first time since he had come to Ademptis where Rainier was eating meat.

“…” Sataska wordlessly sniffed the cooked meat before taking it with a suspicious look. Cautiously, the ant queen poked and prodded the crispy skin with her fingers before nibbling like a gerbil. Instantly her eyes burst wide and ravenously began tearing apart the meat with unexpected vigor. “Just what magic did you wrought upon this hunk of meat to make it so delicious?”

Rainier was dumbfounded. He didn’t do anything other than scoring the meat before placing it on a stick to slow cook it over a fire. He would’ve liked to add some basic spices like salt and paprika, but those were obviously unavailable to him. While Rainier doubted paprika existed, he may be able to find salt considering it is a mineral and not a plant.

"I just cooked it over a fire. Raw meat is bad anyways, so wouldn’t anyone would cook it.” Rainier began munching on his own portion of the meat he cooked.

The scorpara was quite big, twice the size of a capybara, so there was even some left over. Though with no decent ways to preserve the meat, thus whatever the two did not eat would be tossed.

“I have never heard of such a concept, this cooking is amazing. You should cook every piece of meat or plant for me.” Sataska seemed to have lost every bit of suspicion she had towards Rainier just now.

Rainier mumbled under his breath, “I should cook for you? Rapture.” He then resumed his normal voice. “Don’t tell me you evoants never cook your food?”

“As I said, I have never heard of the concept of cooking. The same would go to my queen mother and all other evoant queens most likely.”

“Speaking of which, are you a part of hive of evoants that is in this area?”

“Hm, since you did save me and introduced me to this wonderful cooking of yours… I might as well answer your questions.” Sataska tore off another chunk of meet before grinding it between her teeth. “To answer your question, I am. Or rather, I was.”

“Was?”

“I learned this from my queen mother, but the evoants are a race that spreads and swarms. Once establishing a home for her hive, a queen immediately begins the birthing process beginning with her personal guards. After which, she gives birth to the drones and soldier evoants. Both the drones and soldiers are completely mindless and act based on instinct, the queen’s guards are similar but they have a primitive level of intelligence. They are just smart enough to perceive and eliminate threats.”

“You’re quite knowledgeable.” Rainier didn’t have information that intricate in the encyclopedia.

“How so? It just means I understand my own kind. What about you? What exactly are you, Rainier?” Sataska took in Rainier’s appearance without trying to hide her prying eyes.

“Uh, well…” Rainier was troubled. Humans were supposedly extinct in Ademptis, would Sataska even believe him if he told the truth? Rainier wasn’t sure.

“Oh come on, I revealed my very soul to you!” Complained Sataska even though she didn’t seem particularly annoyed while crunching down on the roasted meat.

“Ah… I’m a human.” Cautiously, Rainier revealed his own race.

“Human? Is that tasty?”

“Don’t go attaching strange adjectives to what I am! I most certainly am not tasty! I think…” Well, Rainier had never tasted human flesh so he couldn’t exactly say that. “But you seriously don’t know what a human is?

“I know absolutely nothing about the world I live in aside from what mother and my aunts told me. So of course not, humans are quite foreign to me. I have basic knowledge about what lives on this stretch of land, so it isn’t surprising I don’t know what you are.” Sataska just finished her third piece of meat and greedily reached out for a fourth shank.

Rainier didn’t mind, the scorpara was a large animal after all, besides, he was also full.

“In any case, what do you plan to do now? Saving you was only temporary, and the arachnacosa will come here en masse since I offed a few of them.”

“Mother will try to retake me. I’ve ran away before and each time she sets out her herd after me and take me back no matter how many perish to the land.”

Rainier looked back on the two evoants he encountered before, perhaps those two were looking for Sataska? Things were getting worse and worse for Rainier’s continued existence.

“How many times have you tried to run away from home?”

“You can’t run away from home if you never called it such in the first place.” Retorted Sataska with grace.

“Touché.”

“I stopped counting after the forty-first time.”

*Cough* “You ran away forty freaking times? You’d think you get strait jacketed after that many times!”

“Strait… Wha? Whatever. In any case, I have only a single plausible option for me to finally be free.” Declared Sataska with determination. Her hands trembled as she spoke as if stricken with extreme cold.

“What’s that?” Asked Rainier as he began cleaning up the mess from their meal.

“I need my mother dead.” There was no hesitation in Sataska’s statement despite how horrifying it was.

Only because of the sheer amount of disturbing things he had seen so far, Rainier kept his calm. Even so, he was still unnerved. “Matricide?! Why would you want to do that?”

“It may seem odd to someone who is not an evoant queen, but my kind holds no qualms about killing each other. It simply means that one’s brood and self was weaker than one another.”

It made unnaturally perfect sense. “I see, survival of the fittest. Though how do you plan on going about it?”

“Easy!”

Rainier slightly admired her confidence. If she was that convinced of her victory, then she must have some sort of plan to work towards her favor. ‘It seems she wasn’t a helpless girl like I thought she was when I first saw her.’

“You will be helping me!”

“HELL NO!” Rainier shouted in exasperation, losing all composure he had gained.

“Hmph, and here I thought you would be more than happy to assist me.” Sataska had a pouting frown with crossed arms.

Rainier returned in kind with a skewed facial expression that seemed to show disgust and annoyance. “I only saved you that time because I just happened to feel like it. That doesn’t mean I’m going to be your mercenary!”

“You’re a skilled man, and although you’re physically inept compared to mother’s brood, I feel latent power in you. Besides, I can see that you will help me despite your aversion in doing so.” Sataska seemed to stare through Rainier, as if his soul was shining.

‘So now she’s an oracle?’ Rolling his eyes, Rainier asked, “And what makes you think that?”

“Because on opposites sides of this strange crater are mother’s evoant brood and a force of arachnacosa closing in on us.”

Rainier narrowed his eyes and focused on his surroundings. Sataska was right, unfortunately. On the northern side of the crater was ten to twelve evoants carelessly dashing into the wide crater. And on the southern side were the remains of the punitive arachnacosa force that had attacked Rainier at Outpost Roseir.

Due to the size of the oasis trap’s mouth, both sides were still stick figures to Rainier’s eyes, but he could clearly make out where and what both sides were coming from due to his enhanced senses from his antennae.

Rainier gnashed his teeth and grabbed his essentials which included the Razor of Envy, water skin, pouch of cushioned blaze crystals, and basic supplies. It was going to be impossible to gain any sort of peace unless he did something about both groups of insectoids.

Rainier grabbed Sataska’s hand and roughly pulled while running to the end of the crater closest to them.

“Wah! Rainier, so presumptuous!”

“Shut up and follow my lead!” Rainier led Sataska to the edge of the oasis trap’s mouth before turning behind him to see both groups of monstrous humanoids closing in. They all seemed much faster than before, much to Rainier’s lament.

“Still, doesn’t matter how fast they are, they can’t escape being this guy’s dinner!”

Rainier kicked a strange gelatinous nub protruding from the ground as hard as he possibly could. His augmented legs made the nub flop about like a fish out of water and a deep pained moan came from the very center of the oasis.

Not even a second passed when the oasis trap began closing its mouth once more, and much more quickly this time. Still, Rainier wasn’t going to allow himself and Sataska become food tonight and began running up the rapidly slanting landscape.

“Not agaaaaaaiiiiinnn!” Complained Sataska as she fled along with Rainier.

They both could hear the screeches and cries from the arachnacosa and evoants, though they didn’t bother to look behind them to see their fate. Surely they were already being dunked into the oasis trap’s gullet.

After seconds that seemed like minutes passed, Rainier found it hard to move upwards. He just needed one more jump on stable ground.

“Hold on!”

Sataska listened to Rainier’s command and complied, squeezing painfully tight on his arm.

Rainier halted for only a second before jumping with both legs into the air. He just barely managed to reach the very cusp of the oasis trap’s mouth with one hand and used the momentum to toss Sataska clumsily over the monster’s lip. Swiftly, Rainier pulled himself over and laid down flat on the underside of the oasis trap’s lower lip while panting like a dog.

When he finally regained his senses, Rainier noticed Sataska staring at him with stars in her eyes.

Rainier wasn’t sure what to make of the attention, so he asked plainly, “Uh, what?”

“THAT WAS AWESOME!” Shrieked Sataska with two fists hovering around her cheeks.

“…Ok.”

Rainier looked between the oasis trap’s lips (which were dusty and hard as rock), and saw nearly complete darkness. The only light she saw in the crater was that which came from the line of its lips and a silver glow coming from the pool in the very center.

“Oasis Trap, huh? What an amazing yet terrifying creature. I bet it could swallow an entire sports stadium if it wanted. And no wonder it stays in the same spot, everything would run away from such a massive creature.

Although despite what Rainier said, he of course only knew of a very small percentage of the wildlife in Ademptis.

Sataska eventually stopped admiring Rainier and observed their surroundings. “How do we get down?”

“I guess we’re going to wait here until the mouth closes up. We can’t reach the ground until it does so, we don’t have the gear for scaling something akin to a cliff.” Analyzed Rainier indifferently.

They waited a good minute until Rainier felt something odd around him. Almost instinctively, he drew the Razor of Envy from his waist and slashed it in a semicircle behind him.

“Sssssskss… Ssscary.” Rainier adopted a defensive stance with the razor in reverse grip and studied this new presence.

It was undoubtedly an evoant, though one unlike the workers and soldiers he had seen before. Physically, it had roughly the same appearance as a male evoant with its chitin plating and ant like features. However, the clear difference was its limbs.

Instead of the normal chitin armor evoants had, this one had veiny, muscly texture like that of a skinned human arm or leg. And adorned along multiple points all around its four limbs were dozens of black bladed protrusions that grew in scale away from its torso.

“Skaren. So mother even had you sent out to find me.” Sataska frowned and stared down on the odd looking evoant.

It was obvious this was no normal evoant, so Rainier hypothesized, “Is this one of those special guards you mentioned?”

“Yes, Skaren is among four guards that my mother had birthed as when she first started her colony.”

Skaren didn’t seem to notice Sataska much less that she was sharing a conversation with Rainier and once again uttered, “Ssscary… Enemy.”

Without much of a warning, Skaren slashed the thin air where Rainier originally stood. Keeping watch for such a surprise attack, Rainier skillfully evaded and jumped backwards. He felt something wet around his stomach and noticed an iron smell wafting about him.

‘He hit me? No, it’s just a scratch on my side. Still, I wasn’t anywhere near him when he attacked.’ Rainier was confused on how he blood was drawn from him, but the fact remained, he had lost the initiative.

“Ssscary… I misssssssssed. Sksss.” This time, Skaren stood still and slashed with both of his arms.

Focusing on his senses, Rainier noticed to black bladed objects hurtling towards his stomach, intending to rend him. Stepping to the side to dodge one, Rainier deflected the other with a mix of luck and speed into the air.

Rainier then realized what the objects were: They were the bladed protrusions from Skaren’s arms. Skaren was using them for not only slashing attacks, but as rudimentary projectiles that seemed to shoot with lethal precision.

That along with the fact that he was an evoant superior to the workers and soldiers put Rainier in a bit of a pickle. Only a bit, however.

You see, Rainier was hiding an ability he discovered during his time preparing the meat of the scorpara and used it to patch together his tattered clothing.

Skaren hopped around Rainier and slashed with his bladed arms. The ant also drew a circle in the ground with the equally dangerous leg intending to attack Rainier from multiple angles.

Rainier snapped his leg forward onto the evoant’s knee, using tremendous leg strength from both the evoants and hornet stags he slew to kick in Skaren’s joint. As he did so, Rainier dropped to the ground in order to avoid the upper slashes that, as Rainier expected, shot out more sharpened blades.

“Sssssscary!!! Pain…” Skaren howled in pain and arched his other leg toward Rainier, shooting out a blade from his other leg.

“Garh- damn it!” The blade stuck itself into Rainier’s left shoulder, pinning itself between muscle and bone.

Determined to not take another blade, Rainier punched the Skaren’s head with his left fist over and over again.

The two grappled for only moments until Skaren shoved Rainier off, leaving behind a second blade stabbing into the right half of Rainier’s ribcage. Thankfully for Rainier it did not pierce any vital organs of his.

“Too sssscary… Kill enemy.” Skaren shot another blade below the one in Rainier’s chest.

‘Damn! At this rate, I’m going to die…’ Rainier’s mind grew hazy, the blood loss was getting to him. ‘Maybe I can…’

Interrupting Rainier’s thoughts, Skaren walked over to Rainier and razed a foot over his head, intending to crush the life in his skull. With the strength of an evoant, bones meant nothing, Rainier was about to die.

“Sssscary enemy… Die.” Skaren slammed his foot down, leaving an indentation on the solid surface of the oasis trap’s lips.

However, where was the blood? The gore and bone? The mottle hair and imploded eyeballs? Skaren didn’t see any of those things and noticed that he was the one falling to the ground. The powerful evoant tried stabilizing himself with his legs, but noticed that they were bound, with a white web belonging to the arachnacosa.

As he slammed to the ground, stunned more from the fact that he fell rather than the impact itself, Skaren soon noticed his arms were equally bound by the same webbing.

“Ha ha… Can’t believe you fell for that.” Rainier lazily stood up, swaying from side to side due to blood loss. It felt like he was about to keel over and cease living any moment.

‘I want to survive.’ That sole thought kept Rainier going.

Pulling out each of the blades embedded in his body, Rainier instantly stopped the gushing fountain of blood from the new cavities in his body with a material similar to spider webs coming from his hand. “When I was a kid, I always wanted to be Spiderman. Well, except for the outfit, I guess I preferred Venom instead.’

Skaren didn’t even bother paying attention to the words coming out of Rainier’s mouth nor that he was binding his wounds up. He struggled with all his might to break free from the improvised bonds.

“Don’t even bother, ant. You’re far too weak to break from such an insanely strong material.” Rainier had bound Skaren’s limbs behind his body, so that he could not shoot the blades even without moving like Rainier thought they could. Whether they could or couldn’t, he wasn’t going to take that chance.

Rainier knelt down and positioned Skaren so that they were eye to eye.

“Ssscary… Sssca-RY! SSSSSSKS! SKSSSSS! SSSSKSSS!” The moment Skaren opened his mouth to mutter his words, he felt a painfully intense burning sensation in his mouth and traveling down his throat.

Rainier had spit a glob of acid down Skaren’s throat. “Hahaha! This is what pain is you damn ant! More than what I felt, I’m sure, but I don’t care about that.” He forced Skaren’s mouth shut so that the ant couldn’t vomit out the acid. “What I do care about is what kind of power your soul will grant me.” With a slight sadistic grin, Rainier finally ended Skaren’s life with the Razor of Envy.

The green blood belonging to the evoants completely covered the now messy blade of the razor. And already was the Razor of Envy beginning to absorb the power within the primitive soul of Skaren.

Rainier felt a ripping agony throughout his body, mainly concentrated on his limbs. He bit down on the cuff of his shirt in order to endure the pain. He had never felt anything like it, not even in his younger years. His skin seemed to rip open, like when a hose was put under too much water pressure and began splitting up. Rainier focused on the pain on his left arm, and while it helped, it didn’t divert the pain well enough.

Several tanned nubs began splitting his skin open from the inside out, ripping through Rainier’s skin like paper. Blood spewed from each of the openings adorning symmetrically on each of his limbs. The nubs grew into bladed spikes with the color of bone and grew with an outwards slant.

Eventually, the transformation stopped, though that didn’t halt the pain. As a result, Rainier found himself drifting into unconsciousness.

“Ahhh, Christ… I feel like I’ve been flayed alive.” Rainier shook his head as he pushed himself off the ground. He noticed he was lying on an improvised bed of moss and leaves with a pillow made from some of the clothes he made. He was under one of the large mangrove like trees he took shelter in when he initially came into Ademptis.

While he had read about sacrificial rituals involving flaying like the ones performed by Aztecs, he never thought he would be able to stay sane through such an ordeal.

“I’m thirsty…” Looking around for the water skin he filled prior to fleeing the oasis trap, Rainier heard a trickling sound from a brook.

The river playing pied piper to Rainier’s needs, he found himself stumbling out of the mangrove and towards the stream. He allowed himself to fall face first into the stream, relishing the effect the water’s coolness had on his body. Rainier took in large gulps of the satisfying liquid until he felt like his body was fully saturated.

He washed his face clean of any blood and grime before opening his eyes.

That was when Rainier noticed something amiss about his body. He had spikes similar to curved thorns covering his arms and legs.

“What the hell happened to me?”