“This is a bit … morbid?” Tafel asked and raised an eyebrow. She was standing in front of an ant, and beside her, Vur and Lindyss were observing the ant as well. It was roughly the same size as a person, but the majority of its bulk came from its bulging and swollen abdomen which was three times the size of the rest of its body. Within the ant’s abdomen, there was a dark-orange liquid that could be seen through the ant’s translucent exoskeleton. Not only that, but the ant’s abdomen was suspended off the ground thanks to the ant clinging to the ceiling of the tunnel. Alongside it, there were seven other ants with equally large abdomens clinging to the ceiling upside down as well.

“Morbid or not, we found the ant honey,” Lindyss said and poked the abdomen dangling in front of her. It was cool to touch, almost like a piece of amber. The ant let out a series of clicking sounds and wiggled its body, but it didn’t do anything to try to get away from the cursed elf. Perhaps it was too large to move. “It looks like these guys are living larders.”

Erin flew out of Lindyss’ robes and looked up at the massive ants. “How do the other ants get the honey out?” She stared at the bulging abdomen of the ant in front and couldn’t help but look down towards its butt. “Do they…?” the fairy queen asked, gesturing wildly towards the lower portion of the ant.

Lindyss shrugged. “Could be,” she said, “but I’d assume it’s closer to how a mother bird feeds its child. Then again, carriage-sized ants aren’t really my field of study.” She raised her hand, and her shadow extended forward. It expanded, and a large cube was unceremoniously tossed out of the shadow as if it were a piece of trash. It landed on the ground with a thump, and one of its faces swung open, revealing rows upon rows of glass jars. Lindyss patted Tafel’s shoulder. “As an SSS-ranked adventurer, I’ll leave gathering the honey up to you.”

“What does being an adventurer have to do with this?” Tafel asked, her expression darkening. She wasn’t quite sure how to harvest the ant honey. Cut the ant open? Would that risk contamination of the honey? She wasn’t quite sure.

Vur picked up a jar and walked over to the hanging ant. It wiggled as he approached, but it didn’t try to get away. Vur placed his palm against the ant’s abdomen, and a tentacle-like appendage grew out of it. The tentacle extended towards the jar, and once the tip of it was inside, an opening appeared. Like a tap in a tree, the honey leaked out of the ant and into the jar. Vur cleared his throat and tapped on the brown runes on his forearm, and a deep sigh echoed out as the runes glowed with a dim light. A thin pillar grew out of the ground, and an earthen arm was formed at its end. It grabbed the jar, holding it in place, and Vur crossed his arms over his chest while taking a step back. He nodded as the honey filled up the jar. Due to how clear it was, it didn’t look like any honey was flowing, but the volume of the jar steadily increased.

“Vur?” Tafel asked. “Where did you learn how to harvest these?”

Vur blinked. “What do you mean?” he asked before tapping on the runes on his forearm. He gestured towards the cube filled with jars using his chin. Earthen arms appeared outside of the cube and grabbed jars before shuffling over to the ant.

“What you’re doing,” Tafel said. “Was there a guidebook to harvesting these ants that you got but we didn’t?”

Vur placed his hand on the ant’s abdomen, and more tentacles grew out of it, each one finding a jar of their own. “No,” Vur said and shook his head. “There’s honey inside, and I brought it outside.”

“Right,” Tafel said and nodded. “And how did you know how to make those”—she gestured towards the tentacles—“tubes grow out of it?”

“Erin taught me,” Vur said and pointed at the fairy, who was hovering near one of the tentacles.

The fairy queen blinked hard and pointed at herself. “Me?” She reached out and poked one of the tentacles Vur had extended from the ant. “I know I’m a genius and an amazing person and all that, but, uh, tell me how I taught you?”

Vur blinked. “This is polymorph,” he said and pointed at one of the seven other ants hanging from the ceiling. Tentacles sprouted out of it, and more earthen arms carried jars over to drain the ant of its honey.

“This is polymorph?” Erin asked. “This isn’t polymorph! Polymorph is changing a creature’s form from one thing to another, from a cat to a dog, from a fish to a bird, from a person to a mushroom! I never taught you any weird, growing-tentacles-out-of-bodies thing!”

Vur scratched his head before pointing at another ant. Tentacles grew out of that one as well, and even more earthen arms were created to accommodate them. “I’m polymorphing an ant into an ant with tentacles,” Vur said. “It’s not that different from turning a fish into an octopus.”

“Not that different?” Erin asked. “Not that different? What you’re doing makes no sense at all! You can’t modify something’s base structure! You have to transform the base structure from one thing to another. As the master of polymorphing things, I would know!”

Vur scratched his head again and pointed at another ant. Tentacles grew out of it. Vur blinked at Erin. “But I’m doing it?”

Erin’s expression darkened. “Are you saying you can polymorph someone’s head open to make their brain fall out?”

“I’ve never tried it before,” Vur said and glanced at Lindyss, his gaze landing on her forehead.

The cursed elf shuddered and shifted her body to the side out of Vur’s view. “If you try to modify my head in any way, I swear to everything eternal, I’ll stick an icicle so far up your—”

“Ahem!” Tafel cleared her throat. “It looks like we have company. Did these ants send out a distress signal? Why are there so many ants heading our way?”