Chapter 121

  Written by Bayzo Albion

  I stood up, drawing in a deep breath of the damp morning air, and declared:

  "It's too early to head to the city. First, we finish this quest."

  She nodded—silent as ever. But then my stomach betrayed me with a loud, insistent growl, startling even the birds perched on the branches.

  I sighed.

  "Alright... but breakfast first. No grand mission starts on an empty stomach."

  We ventured a bit deeper into the woods. I drew my knives, and within minutes, I'd snared two rabbits—my hands moving on autopilot, honed from countless repetitions.

  When I returned, she was seated on a log, watching me quietly.

  "Rabbits again," she murmured softly, breaking her usual silence for the first time that morning.

  I chuckled.

  "Yeah, well. In this forest, rabbits are like bread at a bakery. Always available."

  She tilted her head slightly.

  "But you eat them every day. Doesn't it get boring?"

  I placed the carcass on the frying pan and grinned wryly:

  "Complaining about my cooking? Here's some wisdom: If a man eats rabbit every day, he doesn't starve. But if he gets picky and demands salmon in cream sauce, he'll die before he can say 'bon appétit.'"

  She said nothing, but the corners of her mouth twitched—as if suppressing a smile.

  "Fine," I continued, flipping the meat. "If rabbits aren't your thing, I've got bread, honey, and jerky for you. I'll stick with my trusty long-eared friends."

  I spoke lightly, but inwardly, a weight lifted. This simple scene—the crackling fire, the sizzle of fat, the savory aroma—diluted the shadow lingering from the previous night, making the world feel a little less haunted.

  I sat by the fire, turning the rabbit carcass on my rusty frying pan. The fat hissed and spat, crisping on the hot metal, and the scent was a beacon of comfort in this endless wilderness. That's when I spotted movement at the edge of the clearing. Not a branch swaying or a small animal scurrying—a deliberate, black dot amid the wild grass. An ant scout.

  A cold spike pierced my chest, my heart plummeting into an abyss before surging back with frantic thuds, stealing my breath. Thoughts evaporated, replaced by raw, primal instinct.

  Without a word, without a shout, without hesitation, I leaped to my feet. My vision tunneled: the fire, the food, my startled companion—all blurred into irrelevance. Only it remained. The gleaming chitin shell, twitching antennae carrying my scent straight to the heart of the colony.

  I lunged forward, crouching low like a predator. The ground yielded softly under my boots. My knife—old, notched blade—quivered, catching the fire's glow.

  One precise motion—a swift slice from bottom to top.

  Crunch. That sickening sound, like snapping a damp twig. The ant convulsed in a final, involuntary spasm and went still, splayed at the grass roots.

  > System: You have slain a young scout. Experience +120.

  I panted heavily over it, and in a surge of adrenaline, I drove the knife deeper into the soft tissue between segments, though the foe was already dead. My body trembled with fine, rapid shivers, as if I'd swallowed liquid fire. Cold sweat trickled down my spine.

  "Ha..." A hoarse, inhuman rasp escaped my lips. With mechanical detachment, barely looking, I cut into its thorax and pried out a dimly glowing magic crystal, dripping with viscous fluid. I shoved it into my bag without wiping it clean.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  But then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught fresh movement—not at the edge, but here, near the fire, twenty paces from my pan.

  Another ant. A soldier this time. Thicker, bulkier, with massive mandibles clicking slowly in the air, sensing the death of its kin and potential prey. But still alone—for now.

  I bolted back. The ground thrummed under my heavy footfalls. It pivoted toward me, mandibles snapping menacingly. My first strike—knife slotting into the gap between head and thorax. Not fatal. The second, desperate and spinning—straight into a faceted eye. Crunch.

  > System: You have slain a young soldier. Experience +200.

  I stood over it, hands on knees, gulping air that scorched like flames. The fire's acrid smoke mingled with the cloying, sour-sweet tang of blood and innards.

  The rabbits were forgotten. Hunger vanished. The fear for my companion, the scream she might have let out—all faded to the periphery. What remained was the familiar tremor in my leaden arms, sticky fingers, and an eerie void slowly filling with... satisfaction. As if the quivering impostor by the fire had finally been replaced by the real me.

  The scent hit me like a wave—pungent, a sickly sweet-and-sour blend of blood and alien pheromones, hanging thick in the air. Icy certainty gripped my throat: we had mere minutes, perhaps seconds, before the full fury of the anthill descended.

  "Run! Now!" My voice came out not as a yell, but a low, gravelly bark, and we exploded into motion like startled deer.

  The wind, our betrayer, picked up, whipping branches across our faces and funneling that deadly aroma directly toward the colony. Then I heard it. First as a rumble in the earth, vibrating through my soles. Then swelling into a hum in the air. As if the forest itself had awakened and growled. The horde was rising. It knew. It was coming.

  We crashed through thorny bushes, branches lashing our arms, and only after twenty frantic strides did I realize I was clutching not just my knife, but that damned frying pan to my chest. Smoke billowed from it—the two rabbits.

  "Drop that pan!" Her voice cracked into a shrill whisper. She glanced back, eyes wide with terror. "Just run!"

  "Are you crazy?!" I hissed, hugging it tighter, as if it were my firstborn. "I spent half an hour frying these! Turning them, seasoning them!"

  She didn't reply, just shot me a look that screamed disbelief.

  I charged through the undergrowth like a madman, cradling the hot metal and desperately balancing to keep the precious cargo from spilling. Every leap over a fallen log, every duck under a low branch, turned into a feverish aerial maneuver: "Tilt left... now smooth right... there we go..." It was an absurd, dreamlike dance of survival, with a pan of rabbit as my unlikely partner.

  Behind us, not far now, erupted the first deafening roar. Not a hum, but a bellow. The ground quaked under the synchronized thunder of countless legs.

  "You're really going to die over that stupid pan!"

  "But I won't die hungry!" The words burst out unbidden, fueling a fresh burst of speed.

  I barreled through the woods, a lunatic with a bloodied knife in one hand and a smoking emblem of stubbornness in the other. I held it so carefully, so reverently, as if it weren't scrap iron with food, but the most priceless magical artifact, worth battling an entire swarm for.

  We tore through the forest, breaths ragged and explosive. The pursuit thundered closer—the earth shuddering from dozens of pounding limbs. I clutched my pan like a mother shielding her child. The meat inside bounced pitifully, but I managed to steady it.

  "You're insane!" she hurled over her shoulder again. "The food smell is drawing them even faster!"

  "It's dinner!" I snapped back, vaulting a root. "Do you know how much effort I put into this meat?"

  The moment we burst onto a narrow trail, she whirled around.

  I couldn't stop in time—her foot shot up, and with pinpoint precision, she kicked the pan full force.

  It sailed from my grasp, arcing through the air before crashing into the bushes with a dull clang.

  I skidded to a halt, staring at her in shock.

  "You... what have you done?!" I gasped, lungs burning. "That was the best rabbit in three days!"

  She met my gaze coldly, her eyes gleaming with unyielding resolve.

  "If you want to live, forget the rabbit. The food scent will lure them quicker than blood."

  A roar echoed from behind. The horde had caught the bait.

  I groaned but pushed on, knowing argument was futile.

  Inside, rage boiled—anger, greed, resentment for the lost meal. But woven through it was stark realization: she'd just saved my life.

  I ran, pushing my body to its absolute limits, but every stride echoed with a deafening emptiness. It wasn't just fatigue—it was utter depletion, as if every drop of blood and willpower had been siphoned from my veins.

  Hunger gnawed at me, not as a mere sensation, but as a feral beast with razor claws tearing through my insides. My stomach cramped in violent spasms, threatening to devour itself. Darkness crept at the edges of my vision, the world blurring into a hazy smear.

  Each footfall reverberated through my bones like hammers on stone. My breaths ripped from my throat in ragged, scorching gasps. Beside me, matching my desperate rhythm with effortless grace, she glided forward. The wind didn't resist her; it seemed to cradle and propel her, as if she were an extension of this wild forest, while I was nothing but a clumsy, alien burden.

  I could feel my frail, mortal form betraying me. Muscles burned with infernal fire, legs growing heavier by the second. In my ears, the thunderous stampede of the ant horde wasn't just noise—it raged like a storm. The ground trembled beneath my soles, pounding home one inescapable truth: "They're close. This is the end."