Chapter 16

"So, what are we going to do?" Stone asked, expecting a great plan from his all-knowing teacher.

"We could increase your intelligence? And you could try to make that trap…" Partner replied as he was trying to find some escape or a way to fight back. "But first, talk to Queen Ant. We need to cooperate."

"Oh. Let's do that," Stone readily agreed. He would not feel right if he would abandon the ants. It was for the first time he felt something like an attachment to something else than himself or Partner. "Ant! Go for Queen!"

The Queen arrived promptly, "what do you need, Guardian Stone?"

"We prepare a trap!"

"Oh, what kind?" She curiously, but cautiously inquired.

"Partner? What kind of trap?"

"The only thing I can think of are pits filled with ants. Many of them will die, but we don't have enough mana, ability, nor the time to do anything else."

"Pits filled with ants," Stone repeated.

"It won't stop them, but at least slows them down. Fine. Prepare the pit. I will prepare the soldiers."

With this consensus, she went back. Stone, while listening to Partner's lecture about cities and rats, made a pit, around 70 centimetres deep and 50 centimetres wide around the crevice. The appointed workers put twigs, leaves, and dirt over it per Partner's instructions.

Meanwhile, Partner taught Stone about evolution, Universum, and elements.

[Your intelligence had risen by 0.8]

Queen returned with hundreds of soldiers and stationed them in the newly created hidden crevice. Stone hated when a stone was broken and even more when he was the one who was breaking it. Partner patiently and with a soothing voice explained that he only temporarily moved parts of rocks to survive and the grumpy Stone had to agree, even though with great reluctance.

The Queen also ordered ants to bring dry leaves and sticks at the Stone's request. He wanted to make supplies for heat absorption.

"Oooh, he seems to be learning. Good," Partner praised Stone in silence. Now, they have to wait.

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Heavily drunk dwarfs

"Dafur! Where are ya goin? Got scared?" Breadbeard hassled him while staggering around.

They were already before the entrance cavern.

"Got to go on the toilet! Wait a minute!" The drunk Dafur replied and skipped to the nearest bush.

"Breadbeard, did ya notice? How's he talkin'. So funny!" Eriv giggled.

"Hahaha! Talks like some scholar!"

"Scholar?" Dafur appeared behind them.

"What?! Oh, it's ya. Fuck, don't scare me! Almost piss'd my pants," Eriv giggled again.

"Yea! Didn't ya notice? When ya're hammered ya talk different."

"Oh, really?" Dafur was confused. He drank beer as any other healthy dwarf, but nobody ever told him this.

"Hahaha! Say somethin else! A spikey-ear's poem!" Breadbeard and Eriv peeked at each other with realization and laughed the whole way to the entrance cavern.

As they entered the entrance, they heard weak explosions and squeaking.

"Do ya hear it too?"

"Yes… Seems like rats?"

"Hmm, what're ya talkin about?"

"We need to go! Maybe your brother does not have deep craziness in the end."

"That's great! Do ya hear it, Breadbeard?"

"Yea, yea, I heard. But what about Orifog?"

"Accidents happen! But being killed by a stone... Humiliating death for a dwarf," Dafur shook his head.

After a moment of silence for the dwarf, Breadbeard asked, "so, what now?"

"We go down. What, are you pissing yourself, you old fart?"

"HMPF!" Breadbeard derisively snorted. "As if a dwarf would fear a mine," he tried to sound brave, but when he entered the shaft, slight shivering betrayed him.

"Breadbeard, we shoulda naet go! After all, he is just runemae'str apprentice!" Eriv got a creepy feeling. Some kind of instinct was warning her, but maybe it was still the fear from three years ago.

"Milady Eriv! Don't worry as I will protect you!" Dafur confidently proclaimed, putting an arm around her waist, ignoring her 'insult'.

Eriv pressed his arm to her chest and they caught up with Breadbeard.

"Aaaah, ye two.Find a room," Breadbeard rolled his eyes, but fear became evident in his voice.

The shaft was long around 50 meters. In the end, they turned left and could not believe their eyes.

☁☁☁☁☁☁

As predicted, the rats arrived shortly, filling the shaft before the anthill. Twenty-five rats stood in neat lines and stared straight towards the army of thousands of ants with the Queen, laying on the edge of the crevice.

King Ratam, surrounded with powerful translucent mana-shield and his four pack-leaders, proclaimed, "you have attacked us and killed three of our leaders! Today, your nest will be destroyed!"

"It was the previous Queen! I am the new one! Can we make peace yet again?" The Queen Ant tried to negotiate, already knowing it was for naught.

"Peace?! Peace?!! You broke it! You!" King Ratam yelled, spit flying from his mouth. A weak gust of mana escaping his control in his moment of fury, washed over his army, making them tremble.

King Ratam's eyes glowed red with fury and a few tendrils of flames encircled him.

Nearby pack leaders shivered in fear. They knew that in this state the King would kill them if they even dared to squeak.

"I did not. It was the previous Queen! She is dead now!"

The King derisively snorted and menacingly asked, "why should I care? You are a mere ants! I didn't destroy you before because there was no merit for me!"

"Partner, I hear the voice, but can't see him," Stone, who acted as the throne, told Partner, who was worried he would lose the host again. The shame of it would be unbearable.

"So expand your sphere again…"

"Oh, I forgot," Stone flatly replied.

He expanded his perception sphere to 4.1 metres. Now, he could 'see' the army of rats and King Ratam in their full glory.

Stone could feel an immense amount of mana that could swallow him whole from the Rat-King. Too bad that Stone did not know what fear was.

On the other hand, the Partner did know. He gazed at the towering Rat-King and his swirling, fire-attuned mana and figuratively gulped, "their King is mighty; even novice adventurers could have some problem with him. His mana should be around 150 to 180 points. That's almost five times your reserves. Even if I count refined mana, he is still stronger…"

"Partner?" Stone cut in the Partner's ranting.

"What?!"

"There is something strange under us. It's swirling, and I feel weird. Hmm… what's the word… Dizzy! I feel dizzy. It's full of mana, even more than what that big rat has."

"Does it have a colour?"

"Hmm, flame red with the occasional streak of deep blue."

"Well, that would explain why there are several monsters with elemental attunements…" Partner went deep into his thoughts as he was searching how to use the new discovery to their advantage.

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The Queen Ant was in a dilemma. The rats could attack at any moment. Even if she would be able to fend off the first wave, the King could easily wipe them off with his fire-imbued spells. "He will send his pack leaders first. He won't weaken himself before them," She calmed herself down.

"Charge!" King Ratam commanded from behind his lines and the first six rats on the front leapt towards the ants.

They fell directly into the hidden ditch, squeaking, and hundreds of ants swarmed them. They crawled inside of their bodies and slowly tore them apart.

The leaders began to charge their mana bubbles imbued with weak flames but were countered by the Queen and stealthily, Stone.

"Didn't think you are so strong, Queen! Or did you find something interesting?" King Ratam squinted at her as his pack leaders' spells were seemingly effortlessly fended off and his rats swarmed.

Three of them already horrifically died, taking with them hundreds of ants by crushing them.

The army of ants was thinning at an increased pace.

Queen studied the battlefield and the dying ants, recognizing she truly did not have a single chance. She can't outrun the enemy and she can't fight properly also. Her mana was quickly depleting.

She was forced to make a decision she did not like, but Anthill came first.

"Yes! I found something! It gave me the powers I have today! I will tell you about it but stop the assault!" She shouted back as she countered the enemy bubbles with her last drops of mana. Now she had just enough to not collapse. She would have already lost if not for Stone. It dawned on her, it was like he had an endless supply of mana...

[Heat at 90% of maximum capacity]

"Partner! I can't attack, but my heat is accumulating more and more!" Stone was fully concentrating on countering the enemy and could not create mana points with heat.

"What to do, what to do…" as Partner was pondering, he heard through Stone's sphere the Queen's proposal to the Rat King.

"Don't tell me… oh damn… Stone!"

"Stop the attack!" King Ratam commanded. The rats hastily retreated, shaking off the confused ants.

"Ants! Stop!" Queen Ant stopped them too. The beaten ants, many of them injured, retreated also.

"Talk!" King Ratam arrogantly stated as he was curious.

"Ants! Pick Stone and bring him towards King Ratam!" She climbed down from the pebble. Ants picked Stone up and brought him to the middle of the battlefield without hesitation.

She told him everything she knew about Stone. King Ratam examined Stone with a mixture of interest and anger.

The pebble, 124 millimetres in size, with white, smooth crust, sat there in silence. However, he was conversing with Partner.

"Partner? What are they doing?"

"That's called betrayal, little pebble," he flatly replied.

"Betrayal?" To Stone, it was something completely new.

"Yes. It's an action when one gives up someone for their own benefit. Get used to it. The universe is a brutal place…"

Stone felt something like never before. It was as if something ferocious banged inside of his mind.

"Partner, I feel strange. Not good. Something wants to get out of me and kill everything in sight. "

"That's wrath, Stone," Partner explained. He too was feeling it. In his case, it was like some old memory. He could almost… Before he could properly remember it, it was gone.

"What should I do about it?" Stone innocently asked, confused.

Partner finally snapped. After hundreds of years of humiliation, he was forced to live in a stupid pebble… So many hosts, so many deaths… Still, he had endured! Humiliation, loss, constant hurt... but this was that imaginary last drop, "you know what? As a hero helper, I should help you process anger and steer you towards a better path... But fuck this! I have enough! First, I got caged inside of you; the most abnormal entity in the universe, then spent months teaching you to even think and talk like a living being and when I finally start to move forward, I get betrayed by the fucking ants! Ants! So… Go nuts! Kill, murder, steal… Anything to survive!" Partner ranted, an elation washed over him. He never felt this good.

"How?"

"Kill. Everything," Partner hissed.