43 - POV: Worker Ant I

Silvana's pickaxe impacted stone, and the motion jarred her arms. A crack splintered through the wall, incongruent with her apparent effort, her physical labor supernaturally empowered. With a rough yank, chunks pattered to ground, echoing through the room. One of the rocks clipped the side of her foot, and she winced, but otherwise ignored it. Hardly the first time.

Steadying herself, she leaned back, and crashed the pickaxe in for a second time.

Digging. Digging was hardly the most exciting task. Silvana had always thought it mind-numbing, but mind-numbing in a … satisfying way. She didn't know how to explain it. Burrowing was a fundamental part of who she was. Her transformation into this strange, half-human form hadn't changed that. She took the same satisfaction in breaking up and clearing out rock as she always had.

More, even. The idea she was building a home for her friends—the Menagerie, as Ari had amusingly put it, and a term that had stuck—had her efforts feeling twice as rewarding as usual. These rooms she was chipping away and forming with back-breaking labor would be used as a living place for the foreseeable future. The idea had excitement thrumming through her veins.

Contribution. Progress. Community. As a worker ant, these were the cornerstones of her existence; there was nothing Silvana would rather be doing. Sure, she'd head out with Ari if she asked, work toward leveling up and conquering other monster girls, but this—this was her purpose. Building. Expanding.

Thunk. Patter. Silvana broke another section of the wall, carving out chunks of rock as she withdrew her metal tool. She eyed the room, appraising for a potential collapse. She couldn't say exactly how she knew, but she was safe—the room was stable. Eventually, she'd need to put a pillar up in the center, but as things stood, the stone supported the weight of the empty space by itself.

Before her transformation, she wouldn't have wondered how she knew that. Before her transformation, she hadn't done much thinking at all.

Now—or at least the past day or so—thinking was all she did. These monotonous motions of crashing a pickaxe in, voiding stone, and smoothing out the structure, left plenty of time to ruminate over her circumstances.

It kept her mind off her aching muscles, at least. There were stamina potions Ari had left with them, but Silvana knew how to push past discomfort. The yellow liquid was valuable, apparently, and Silvana's soreness not remotely important enough to waste resources on. The idea of doing so made her shiver. Waste—she couldn't imagine something she liked less than waste. The opposite of contribution.

As she worked away at expanding the Menagerie's soon-to-be home, Silvana thought. The loud crash of metal on stone, the splintering of rock, the patter of broken-up material—it served as an ambient, comfortable backdrop.

Life. Sapience—her transformation. That was the concept on the forefront of her mind. Looking back on her life before was like peering down a long tunnel: she could make out images, but they were small, unclear, hard to make out. They didn't feel like her. She remembered her time in the dungeon, carving out tunnels and expanding under the cold grip of the Dungeon Core—that alien entity always present in the back of her mind—but it didn't feel like her. And, she guessed, it wasn't. Silvana was something new. She'd been reborn. As something strange. Even, from the sounds of her conversations with Ari, something unprecedented.

Not that Silvana was complaining. She preferred this form much more than her previous. She hadn't accepted Ari's offer to join her Menagerie just because. Or due to … well, more of how she'd been introduced, to avoid being crude about things. A small reason, sure, was the implications of what her future with Ari looked like in the carnal sense. The insanely satisfying, clenching euphoria that had come with her first 'fight'. Being 'taken care of'.

Rather, the bulk of the reason had been the intrinsic benefits to being half-human. Sapient life was obviously preferable to mindlessness. Beyond that, having digits—dexterity—was nice, too. Hands. Thumbs. Hard to understate how useful those things were, when accustomed to a monstrous insect body, mandibles and exoskeletons. Though, she'd admit having to use tools to dig felt a bit stupid. That her hands couldn't carve into the rock by themselves felt, somehow, demeaning. She needed wood and metal to accomplish her most fundamental task? Ridiculous.

As for her teammates. Her new colony.

Small, admittedly, compared to what she'd known before. There'd been hundreds—maybe thousands—of other worker ants at the Magma Lakes Dungeon. Silvana had been comfortable there, a single cog among a sea, working toward a greater purpose. Having only three allies, now—four, actually, with the addition of Renna—was a bit odd. But odd? Odd was nothing after what she'd been through, the past day. Odd was the modus-operandi of her new life. She took it in stride.

As for her teammates themselves.

Lori seemed to be the senior here—a second in charge, if such existed. There was a disquieting lack of hierarchy in this colony, but it could be found if Silvana examined the dynamics. Lori had been Ari's first Menagerie member, and not only did she seem to passively take authority, Ari supported it. When Ari asked questions, her eyes gravitated first to Lori, then the others. Perhaps that was because of her seniority, or alternatively, because of her competence.

Because despite Silvana's mild dislike of the prickly cat-girl—something she felt was returned; Lori didn't seem to particularly like any of them, besides Ari—she could admit Lori could handle herself. She had her eyes on the future. Something Silvana respected. Her brusque nature was an irritant easily overlooked, in face of something like that. She was a good addition to the squad. Silvana didn't have to like her colony-members to respect them.

As for Claire.

Well.

She understood Claire better. Maybe that was because of their similar origin. Ants and bees were far from identical, but closer than Lori's origin to Silvana's. Claire valued hierarchy and community in much the same way Silvana did. So of course she found herself drawn to the honey-eyed girl.

Though, if she were being completely honest, maybe it was something else that drew her to Claire.

Silvana was pretty sure 'respect' or 'camaraderie' shouldn't have a blush threatening to break out.

Just, her introduction to Claire. How couldn't she blush? Claire was all bright gold eyes and innocent smiles, encouraging words. Yet, Silvana's first introduction to her had been her cock crammed down her throat, being emptied into like her mouth was some toy designed for her.

Ah, shit, she thought. She was getting hard again. Settle down, girl. Don't get in the way.

But her point: the flip-flop between desperate, fervent use of her throat, the lewd words and perverted claim of Silvana's body, to suddenly being bright-eyed and innocent. It had Silvana … well, smitten. Claire was so cute. Any time Silvana thought about her, her heart rate spiked. Started galloping in her chest. Like now.

And something else started pounding, too, when she thought about the black-and-yellow-haired girl, and their first meeting.

Seriously. Settle down. Ten inches of protruding rod wasn't the easiest thing to work around, not when trying to carve out solid rock.

She corralled her thoughts to something less compromising.