Six

One by one, Beatrice swapped the souls of the ants with those of the humans.

As it took around twenty seconds for Beatrice to complete this operation if she did not care about the damage she dealt to the human, it had taken Beatrice around two minutes to fully swap every single soul apart.

After that, Beatrice then stood still, waiting for thirty seconds to pass.

The moment the thirty seconds passed, and it had been 2.5 minutes since the first souls were swapped, Beatrice began working on them.

In around fifteen seconds, Beatrice took out the ant soul from the human body and placed it back into the ant body, after that, she also placed the human soul inside it's body.

Not long after Beatrice placed it's soul back into it's body, the ant began slowly but surely moving once again, as regained control of it's body.

At this moment, though, Beatrice did not pay much attention to the newly revived ant, as she stared at the other four.

Surprisingly, Beatrice was not in a hurry to place the ant souls back into their bodies, as she slowly but surely waited for more time to pass.

...

The moment five minutes since the second ant was placed in the human body passed, Beatrice got to work in returning it to it's original body.

After that, ten minutes, thirty minutes and one hour was the amount of time the other ants had to spend in a human body.

...

As she looked at Canty, as well as at the five other ants standing next to her, slightly confused, Antonia couldn't help but slightly smile.

The fact that the ants appeared confused did not make Antonia nervous, rather, it made her extremely happy.

'The fact that they are able to be confused means that they are smarter than before, It seems as though Canty was not just a miracle,' thought Antonia as she looked at the six ants.

This fact made Antonia extremely happy, as it meant she could have a bunch of smart ants helping her manage the colony.

At the same time, another thought went through Antonia's mind at this moment.

'I need to learn how to do this, I can't have mistress waste her time doing this all the time,' thought Antonia with a glint in her eyes as she imagines thousands-no, tens of thousands of smart ants running along, helping her.

As she imagined the efficiency that the colony would run at if this was the case, Antonia couldn't help but be even more excited.

At this moment, though, Beatrice turned her attention back to her ants.

...

The moment Beatrice looked at the ant queen, Antonia, she immediately saw through the other's thoughts, which were clearly showing on her face.

"Hmm, that would be a good idea, I just need to make some adjustments to the soul swap," thought Beatrice as her eyes also lit up.

At this moment, Beatrice had also thought of quite a good plan that she could put in action.

'I need to do that,' thought Beatrice before once again turning her attention back to Antonia and the five ants.

By now, though, the ant that was first soul swapped had already somewhat regained it's bearing's, as it had preliminarily digested the memories that Beatrice had placed inside its mind.

As for the other ants, they still sat there in a line, with confused expressions on their ant faces.

The moment Beatrice looked at the first and, the little ant suddenly raised it's head and stared back at her.

Even though this expression did not look like a human one, Beatrice could clearly see that the moment the ant had looked at her, it had become excited.

After only a moment, the ant suddenly began speeding along the floor towards Beatrice.

As an Earth Ant, this little ant was clearly much faster than normal ants, and was able to quickly reach Beatrice and climb onto her.

Before a normal human could have any time to react, the little ant had already climbed onto Beatrice's shoulder, and had sat down there.

Beatrice ignored the actions of the little ant as she slowly examined it, more specifically, it's soul.

Like what had happened with Canty, Beatrice could see that some unknown changes had happened with the soul of the little ant, and even though she could not identify what those changes did, she could clearly see that this little ant seemed quite similar to Canty.

At this moment, though, Canty suddenly appeared on Beatrice's shoulder.

Only a fraction of a moment later, Canty suddenly moved her head and hit the little ant using her antenna.

'Little ant, how dare you disrespect mistress, get down from here this instant...'

Moments after hitting the ant, Canty had begun scolding it whilst staring at it with a seemingly angry look on her face.

Uncaring about what Canty was doing, Beatrice continued examining the little ant, whose antenna had now slightly drooped as it made its way off Beatrice's shoulder.

After a few moments, after the ant was already on the ground, suddenly raised it's head and stared at Canty, who was currently lying down on the shoulder of the mistress.

A moment later, the drooped antenna of the ant rose once again, as its eyes brightened.

Only a few moments after that, the ant made its way to Beatrice's left shoulder, ignoring Canty, who was lying on her right shoulder.

Even though Beatrice did not care about these actions, and even found the little naive ants quite cute, Antonia did not feel the same as she watched the situation unfold.

Although Antonia did not take any action at the moment, as Beatrice did not seem bothered by the actions of the two ants, silent fury built up inside of her.

'You two, just wait...' thought Antonia as thoughts swirled within her mind.

...

'You six, just wait...' thought Antonia as she stared at the six ants perched up on Beatrice's two shoulders.