“MOSQUITOES!”

As Aren’s cry reached the remaining forces now mostly surrounding Alaine, their gaze shot towards the sky above them.

In the sky above, they could distinguish nearly thirty of the black creatures, their buzzing now clearly ringing through the air.

Quickly regaining their awareness after the sudden assault, the forces began to take note of the current situation.

~***~

My name, is Rellon, my mind is both that of the former elite sentient ant of the Ant Queen, and the warrior currently serving as Sir Aren’s personal staff under the banner of his personal guard.

It wasn’t more than a minute since Lady Alaine had reached the surface and begun taking in the surrounding territory that we fell under attack. Most of us hadn’t realized that we were under attack until Sir Aren himself had raised the alarm with his shout.

Now here I stand, to the right of Lady Alaine herself, standing before two of these black monstrosities once again. These terrible monsters known as Mosquitoes.

In the past, the sacrifice of hundreds of warriors was necessary to repulse even a raid of a dozen of these monstrous barbarians. To fight them, we had to climb upon one another in a stack of nearly a dozen to reach their backs and begin attacking their wings. To even do so would require them to land for more than a few seconds.

The casualties from their many legs slamming the ground were always great, though the capture of one would secure enough food to sustain a hundred ants for a day.

To get onto their backs was one thing, to damage their wings was another, especially during flight would require several minutes of constant attacking at a single wing. Once that process had begun, of course the mosquitoes would simply begin flying sporadically and cause those upon them to fall off. Thanks to our size, roughly half of those who would fall could survive to continue the fight.

When it came to fighting any race, our only tactic was horde tactic, with superior numbers, we would force our way through with sheer force of our jaws.

Now, due to the Transcendence ceremony that the now Aren and Alaine had performed, our size is several times that of what it once was, allowing us to have a chance against these creatures.

We now actually stand of even height to these creatures now. Even if we lack the ability of flight, we can defend ourselves now.

Coming back to present, from a quick glance, I could tell that there were roughly three dozen Mosquitoes present in the general area with six of them taking to the ground in a slam.

My entire body froze for a moment as the spear of the Mosquito just several seconds previous had frozen right before my face.

In a split second I realized a soft hand had grasped it, following the arm led me to the face of an angel. It didn’t take me any time to realize that this was none other than Alaine.

With a light flick of her wrist, the beast was thrown back several feet, to recover in the air several seconds later.

I didn’t have any time to offer my thanks before two more of the mindless beasts began charging on foot towards us. As I bared my claws against it, Alaine stuck out her arm and began walking towards the monsters.

Chanting something faintly, her veil, glistening in the sunlight, instantly grew to cover her entire body in an elegant dress of the same material.

In the next instant, before I could react, the two beats had struck upon the body of Lady Alaine.

I as well as many of the other warriors around me shouted our various cries of worry, only to hear the soft giggling of Lady Alaine as she grasped the two spears of the Mosquitoes.

In the split of a second, Alaine severed the spears from both of the Mosquitoes with her small, almost needle-like claws.

The two beasts roared in anguish and made an attempt to take off. In this moment, a roar from the other warriors erupted as they began jumping on the beasts, hacking at their wings with their claws over and over again. The beasts began to wail louder and louder as the murky fluid of their life’s blood began pouring out of their husks.

Smiling, Lady Alaine walked over to the two beasts that had tried to run away and had been crippled by the warriors.

The beats were whimpering in great pain and looked up for mercy from Lady Alaine.

Seeing this, Lady Alaine smiled. The two beasts began to relax.

Just as soon as the two beats relaxed, Lady Alaine closed the distance and had inserted her arms into the two beast’s eyes, ripping out their small brains from the stem with a small snapping sound.

Aside from the chaos from the others every so often as a Mosquito made it’s charge at a cluster of warriors, you could hear a soft joyful humming. I turned to see Lady Alaine, walking slowly to where Sir Aren was currently engaged while defending several wounded warriors cut off from the main unit.

Sir Aren was fending off nearly a dozen Mosquitoes at once. Those who would look over to his position could only look on in worry and fear. Sir Aren had forbidden us to move to assist, largely due to what had caused that situation.

The moment the attack had begun, four warriors rushing to aid Sir Aren were instantly crushed by two Mosquitoes, their bodies carried away by the monsters. Sir Aren roared his anger and made his attempt to save as many men as possible.

Naturally we moved in to assist, but as we did, the entire swarm began to move to intercept us, to which Sir Aren forbid us from moving in to help him. Ordering us to protect Lady Alaine.

At the time, there were a dozen warriors as well as that monster of a fighter Bruton. That guy was nearly twice the size of Aren and his strength was ridiculous. Even with the extremely high tunnel ceiling, he still had to crawl out. Of course he’s the only exception, most of us are more or less only slightly taller than Lady Alaine with Sir Aren being roughly the same height as the average warrior.

Regardless, given Sir Aren’s orders, the remainder of his personal guard moved to assist Lady Alaine. The next time I looked over to their location, Bruton and Sir Aren were the only two left standing. Though from what I could gather, given that the few that were with them were still moving, that would mean that Sir Arena nd Bruton had managed to keep them alive.

I simply cannot afford to let myself distracted or overconfident. I need to remember that with one or two serious hits, these things could probably down any of us normal warriors. From before, we are all too aware of the fact that if that spear of theirs connects, we’re done for.

I rounded up several of the warriors in my general area and took off after Lady Alaine. Regardless of however strong the Matriarch and Patriarch are, we are their warriors.

WE WILL NOT LET THEM COME TO HARM!

“Let’s go men, we need to support Lady Alaine!”

---Rellon sets off with 13 warriors following up Alaine

~***~

I, am Bruton.

I, am the largest of the Firebreed.

I, am the strongest of the Firebreed’s warriors.

Yet, here I lay, totally incapacitated.

It’s only been a few minutes, and i’m already at my limit.

Just how long will these Mosquitoes refuse to land!

They just keep dive bombing us with their spears and refuse to land.

…

Of course, it’s because he’s right before us. Sir Aren himself. They have a right to be cautious of someone like him.

I can’t let myself lie here.

---Bruton forces his tired body to stand and continues slashing at the legs and spears of oncoming Mosquitoes

He was the first one to notice the Mosquito’s ambush and alerted the rest of the guards. We lost a few men due to the ambush because they were outside of Sir Aren’s range. There was no saving them, in less than half a second those two Mosquitoes had already picked those poor souls up and were out of sight.

The next moment the entire swarm of Mosquitoes began moving in response to the rest of Sir Aren’s forces coming to reinforce our position. In response, Sir Aren ordered them to aid Lady Alaine instead.

I personally thought it unwise to send off our reinforcements, but was quickly informed of the reasoning behind the decision.

“Bruton, if they were to come to aid us, only you and I would survive this situation. This is to maximise our kill to death ratio for this surprise engagement.”

As Sir Aren told me this, he struck down a Mosquito that had attempted to dive bomb him from behind with his duel blades.

“In this battle wherein we were neither prepared, supplied, nor able to fight, we must ensure as much battle information and training can come from this as possible while ensuring that no one perishes.

We are going to lose warriors, that much is certain. The cost of losing members of the Guard who are the most elite of all of the Firebreed is of great consequence, but it must be paid.

If we are forced back into our hole, we WILL NOT last more than two days before we are too weakened to defend ourselves any further. As such, we need to win here and prepare ourselves.

I had suspected as much at the very least and had informed Alaine to be on guard and come up with countermeasures. We can only hope that she has something up her sleeve for this situation. These Mosquitoes aren’t too difficult once you get used to their tactics. They aren’t bright, so don’t expect too much change for the next seven minutes or so.

We are also being probed. Our race is not what they were expecting when they were hiding outside of the old hive. Right now, our race is being tested, so we cannot let them feel that we are weak enough to fight constantly.”

As he says that, Sir Aren lets out a shout.

“HHHHYYYAAAAAH”

With a single blade, a large Mosquito is parted in two, it’s life’s essence splattering behind Sir Aren.

But, Sir Aren didn’t stop there, he began charging at me with a serious expression.

“YOU IDIOT, MOVE!”

I turn to see two Mosquitoes right on top of me.

“D##M IT! I WAS TOO CARELESS!”

“YOU IDIOOOOOT!”

.*BANG*

Suddenly a serious impact hits me…

But… It wasn’t from my front… my side?

I’m flying through the air…?

.*Thud*

“GAH!

Uggg.. I hit that blasted tree… what the heck hit me? Well at least I wasn’t hit by the Mosquitoes… ah, Sir Aren must have manag- eh? EH? SIR AREN!”

About a foot in front of me was Sir Aren…

His arms were limp, his blades dangling as he fell to his knees.

Two Mosquitoes holding their spears, piercing his chest.

“SIIIIRRR ARREEEENN!”

[Ant Tensei - Chapter 9 End]