Kalle hadn't made it further than down the hill before he was forced to admit he was not going to make it into town to help out. Even returning up to the main house left him sweating and gasping for air. Thankfully he was helped from feeling useless by a squad of ants who decided that the orchard was a prime choice to target, which made Kalle regret his earlier proclamations of their attackers' obvious cowardice. Luckily they could not get inside the building to reach him, due to a Skill called [Farmer's Sanctuary], it made the place damn near into a fort, so unless you had magic or fire or something it was not likely that you could drain the Skill in a single night.

Kalle had used his regular old [Wailing Bolt] at first, and while it had the creatures hesitating for a while it was not enough after they all seemed to suddenly get mentally whipped into charging, despite no verbal communication taking place. As they attacked the building, whose doors they were too large to pass by, Kalle gathered himself to make it up the stairs and onto the roof. Once he made it out to where he could safely get an angle he fired off his newer version and the struck ant immediately acted as if it had been set on fire. The attack was a mental one, so it wasn't even a specific part, the ant was entirely convinced it was on fire from every tarsus to its head.

He managed to hit one more, and the first was already running away in desperate search of water, but that was when he heard one ant scrambling on the roof behind him. It came across the ridge of the roof and almost snapped up his arm in its huge mandibles. It had cooperated with a friend to get up on the other side to ambush their attacker. Kalle scrambled down and got lucky to land in front of the main door. The two ants he had scared off left it open and he just managed to roll inside before the ants remaining on the ground snapped him up. He was more careful from then on, and it still took him close to half an hour, but eventually he had gotten an angle on five of the crazed ants and sent them soundlessly screaming, the final one broke in fear of the seemingly unending barrage of [Wailing Bolts] and Kalle could finally collapse in a pile to be found later.

He passed out with a smile on his lips. He was finally level 7, and hopefully still barely ahead of Harold.

Having been routed by a Human village with barely anything to show for it left Kcelbri, the royal Mantis, furious. He was from a prestigious society known for raising promising children from the sack to Assignment.

That said the candidates were numerous, and they could not all get lucky enough to progress in their careers. Kcelbri had already failed two missions this summer, a third straight strike out with no notable victories to speak of was a death sentence. It was near to the point he would have rather charged the line of Humans mindlessly than go back to face this fatal blow to his formerly promising career trajectory. Of course the stupid beasts who had failed him were no better off, if it weren't for the circlet granted him by the Matriarchs he would not even have been able to communicate with the lesser caste. They would not be executed, nor starved. But they would remain at the very bottom of their already low caste, and such circumstances were far from an enviable existence.

When the ant gathering-party returned to Hive Mater near empty-handed it did not cause a big stir. The society knew each raid was a gamble, and the ones that failed made up for it in losses. The quotas were dependant on the overall number of members of the Hive after all. As for the squad who disobeyed their commander and claimed to have been set on fire; Their excuses were not accepted, since no wounds could be found. While the royal Mantis commander was demoted and forced to find a different Hive to render his CV at.