Zed began to smile as he saw his attack connect with the Iron Ant Soldier. Sadly, he did not have time to finish smiling, as while his attack caused the ant’s body to slow down, it didn’t stop completely. The two collided in the air with a dull thud and a shout of pain from Zed before falling to the ground in a tangled heap.

Zed shoved the ant carcass off of him, wiping its blood off of his armor. Now that he was sitting down he could feel the adrenaline fading from his system. Fighting the Iron Ant Soldier had taken less than five minutes, but the concentration needed and the stress of facing such a deadly opponent had left him feeling more exhausted than he expected. Taking a deep breath, he turned to see how the rest of the battle was going.

The Iron Ant Drones didn’t react much to his victory and were still attempting to kill the Mountain Goats while Alexx and Loran defended them. A few were starting to look at him, perhaps noticing the scent of their dead comrade, but it seemed like he had some time before they tried to come after him.

Only a short time had passed since Zed had started focusing on the Iron Ant Soldier but in that time the others had been making quick work of the Drones and they were down to less than half of their original numbers, maybe three dozen were still up and fighting.

He also noticed that several ants had broken away from the fighting and were now dragging pieces of the Mountain Goat corpses, as well as the bodies of their fellow ants. Zed didn’t think much of this at first, but then he recalled what Loran had said before.

Reinforcements.

‘If they get back to the nest then more will start coming to harvest the dead bodies, and probably start fighting before they do,’ he realized. ‘Well, we can’t have that now can we?’

He dashed to where his spear landed before stopping suddenly.

His spear was broken.

The bladed side of the spear was mostly intact, but the blunt side was completely ruined. The wooden block at the bottom had been split along the grain in multiple places, and the shaft itself was showing similar fractures in the middle. Zed had been using the spear endlessly this past week while putting all of that pressure on the blunt side. The collision with the Iron Ant Soldier had been the last straw.

Zed cursed under his breath, there was no way he could fight without a weapon; even just trying to distract them was too risky with only his bare hands.

‘I need something,’ Zed thought frantically, ‘some kind of-’ his eyes widened. He looked back at the dead Iron Ant Soldier. ‘...Weapon.’

Running back, Zed looked closer at the creature’s enlarged forlimbs. A ridge of metal was protruding from a spine of lumpy carapace. The metal itself was rough and bumpy, but had a decent edge and was, as near as Zed could tell, around two feet of pure iron.

Planting his foot above the joint, Zed grasped the base of the blade and began twisting and pulling with all of his might. The joint held strongly, not surprising considering the G-forces it needed to withstand mid-flight, but after a few seconds the limb came free. Checking to make sure the ants hadn’t gotten too far away, Zed then retrieved the other blade before running to intercept the ants as he got a feel for his new weapons.

The makeshift swords felt a little awkward in Zed’s hands. There was a few inches of carapace between the blade and the joint, giving him a small handle that while convenient were not meant to be held like this and were painful to grip tightly. Zed could also tell that, unlike a real sword, the naturally formed blades were not balanced properly and were weighted towards the top.

‘My stats should be able to compensate for that at least,’ Zed thought, before focusing himself as he closed in on the escaping Iron Ant Drones.

The leading ant, possibly distracted by the basketball-sized chunk of meat it was carrying, was caught unawares as Zed charged it down and landed a clean strike to its neck.

The Drone’s head dropped to the ground, and so did Zed’s jaw. Suddenly, all thoughts of these weapons being uncomfortable left his mind. These swords were perfect.

Zed flipped one of the swords playfully as the handful of ants that were following the leader dropped their loads to attack him. After facing down the Iron Ant Soldier, a few Drones were just what he needed to destress.

~~~~~

The whole battle lasted nearly thirty minutes. Most of the Iron Ant Drones died in the first five, but after they changed their tactics and the Soldier showed up the pace began to slow down. If it wasn’t for Alexx and Zed being able to kill and disable the ants, making them easy targets for the Mountain Goats, they probably would have been there for an hour.

Loran, Alexx, and Zed fell to the ground once they realized that the battle was over, each of them breathing heavily.

Loran and Alexx hadn’t been able to stop or even slow down throughout the second half of the fight. Even with the ants steadily losing numbers there were simply too many to leave even a single opening. Loran couldn’t even try leaping back onto the elder goat, his legs were too tired.

Zed didn’t have an easy time either. Although killing the individual ants from leaving had been made easy by his new weapons, they quickly learned to try going around him, forcing him to run back and forth in order to intercept them.

The Mountain Goats seemed to be in a similar condition, each one panting heavily and letting out distressed groans as they sat on their knees. Only the elder seemed to have any energy left as it stood, looking over the bodies of the two fallen goats. It then walked over to the goat that had been injured by the Iron Ant Soldier, licking at its wound before looking at Zed.

Zed’s eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t expected the goats to really recognize them as having helped, let alone remember that he specifically saved that one.

The elder goat then turned away, walked to a larger pile of dead ants, and began eating. After a moment of chewing, the goat spat out a ball of crushed chitin.

This surprised the three players, though not completely. Loran had already guessed that the Iron Ants and the Mountain Goats fought frequently, and they had just seen how enthusiastic the goats were in fighting the large insects. Being able to eat them didn’t seem too outrageous, although it was interesting to see they wouldn’t swallow the iron-infused shells.

As Zed watched the elder eating away, Loran and Alexx walked over.

“I guess that’s another thing that separates them from real goats,” Loran said, looking on as the other goats began eating the ants as well.

“Yeah, but why are they spitting out the shells?” Alexx asked. “Can’t goats eat tin cans or something?”

“No,” he said bluntly. “Why would anything be able to digest metal?”

“Uh?” Alexx looked at the dozens of dead Iron Ants. “You do realize that-”

“Video game monsters don’t count,” Loran rolled his eyes. He turned to Zed. “Anyway, what was that flying thing?”

“An Iron Ant Soldier. They’re unfairly fast but it was even more of a glass cannon than Alexx is.” He then filled them in on the rest of the creature’s stats.

“Over 150 AGI?” Alexx was stunned. “I don’t think I can even touch that.”

“We definitely made a good call not pressing in deeper,” Loran said. “It's too easy for those things to get the drop on us, and if more of them are waiting to defend the nest...”

“We’d be fucked,” Zed said plainly. He didn’t entertain the idea of fighting the Iron Ant Soldiers for a moment. As much as he enjoyed a challenge, fighting more than one of those things was suicide. He then held up one of the severed Soldier blades. “Although, with how nice these things are, it’s almost a shame to not kill more of them.”

[NAME]: Iron Ant Soldier Blade

[RARITY]: 3

[TYPE]: Tool/Weapon

[DURABILITY]: 386/400

[STATS]: 50 Slashing Damage

[AFFINITY/REQUIREMENTS]

STR: B/20

DEX: D/13

[DESCRIPTION]

The severed forelimb of an Iron Ant Soldier. Digested iron is accumulated along a carapace ridge and pushed upward until it forms the blade. The blade is weighted towards the top to maximize the cutting force of a single strike.

“Tell me about it,” Loran sighed. “I saw you lopping heads off left and right, those things are practically a cheat code.”

“So are the ants just not a threat if we can get more of those?” Alexx asked.

“Not really. These things are great, but I still needed to aim for the joints. Hitting the shell directly just does this.” Zed then swung the blade at a nearby Drone carcass to demonstrate.

The weapon struck the carapace with a sharp cracking sound, but Loran and Alexx quickly realized that the sound was more from the collision than from any damage to the shell. While there was a decent dent in the material, it certainly wasn’t lethal.

“I mean it’s definitely an improvement compared to what most of our weapons do to these things,” Loran commented. “Honestly, if those Soldiers weren’t so deadly I’d say we should try farming them.”

“Yeah,” Alexx sighed. Suddenly the brawler perked up. “Hold on, were they already named? Like the goats?”

“They were, but I think this is different.”

“How so?” Loran asked.

“Well, they’re still called Iron Ants for starters. Second, the menu says the naming thing is for their species. They’re still Iron Ants, the system just decided they were different enough to warrant a different classification.”

“That makes sense. When I found the first ant I didn’t name it an Iron Ant Drone, it was supposed to just be ‘Iron Ant.’”

Alexx shrugged. “Alright, so that's another weird way this game works. Does it matter?”

“Not really.”

“So what now? Are we heading back to camp?”

“In a minute,” Loran said. He set down his backpack and began pulling things from it. “You guys have any extra space in your packs?”

“A bit, why?” Zed asked.

“I want to try and grab a few of the chewed up ant shells. Can you guys take my stuff while I fill up my pack?”

“First of all, gross,” said Alexx. “Second, why? We can just grab the ants like normal. I can’t imagine the goats will be that upset over it.”

“Yeah, but the goats have taken all the meat out of those shells, or at least most of it. We only want them for the metal amyway, this can let us take more of what we actually need.” He then turned to Alexx. “Also I know it’s more than a little disgusting. I’m probably going to have to burn this pack when we get back to camp.”