Prologue 07

Before Shadow went to the cave, he took a bag and filled it with the first aid kit and some water.

The rest of the items were put inside of another bag.

The latter bag was hidden away near a tree, while the other he took with him.

*

Now getting closer to the cave, Shadow saw that the terrain had started to change.

Before he had been roaming around in fields of grass, but now that had turned into sand.

He took out his map and checked his location.

Since his destination was the city, he was almost at the halfway point.

From this point onwards he would have to go through a desert.

Before he went towards the city though, he had to explore the cave which had ants coming in and out of it.

*

Shadow took a sand shower, to mask his scent, and left towards the cave, making sure to remember where he hid his bag.

Once he reached the cave he took a peek inside.

He didn't know why, but the cave was somehow lit.

He could see quite clearly despite the fact that it was supposed to be dark.

Shadow walked around the cave while sticking to the shadows, and he also made sure to not make contact with any of the ants' antennae.

He explored further into the cave and found a bunch of tunnels.

He went through one without much hesitation.

He didn't have to think it much since all the ants were heading in a certain direction.

After going through a couple more tunnels he found out that the ants were very organized.

The ants with food went through a certain tunnel, the ones with things made out of metal headed into another tunnel, and lastly the ones with things they didn't understand, like electrical appliances, went inside the last tunnel.

He decided to first go through the second tunnel.

He wanted to see if he could find something that was more apt to be a weapon than a kitchen knife.

Shadow followed the ants through the tunnel for a couple of minutes.

Once he arrived at the room he saw it was quite wide and tall, and laying there in the middle of the room was a large pile of objects made of metal.

He then proceeded to wait for all the ants to leave the room.

He stayed waiting quite a long time.

He didn't know if it was an hour or just a couple minutes, but he stayed still and waited.

Once the last ant had left he started rummaging through the pile.

He found fire arms which were abandoned by the military.

He found quite a few, but didn't find much ammunition for many of them.

Shadow found two dessert eagles and some ammunition for them.

He stored the guns and ammunition separately to make sure there wasn't some kind of misfire inside his bag.

Supposedly, fire arms didn't work against demonic beasts, much less the regular demons, but he definitely had time on his hands, so he decided to try his hand at modifying them.

He searched a bit more and found a sword, more specifically a katana.

There were other swords in the mix, but none as in good condition as this one.

*

Shadow finished his search and turned around, thinking of searching through the other tunnels.

Once he turned around he saw an ant right behind him he was about to jump back, but he decided to slowly retreat instead.

Ants could certainly hear stuff through vibrations, so maybe the last ant that left had heard him rummaging through the metal pile and went to check.

That was also the reason why shadow slowly walked back instead of jumping back.

However, the ant kept on following him.

No matter how far back he walked it followed him.

It didn't know Shadow was there, but somehow it kept moving towards him.

The ant followed him until his back touched the wall.

He quickly looked around to find a way out.

He looked to the sides only to find piles of metal.

He didn't want to alert the whole ant colony, so he decided not to go through there.

Shadow didn't have much time to think.

The ant's mandibles started approaching him.

He looked up the wall and saw a slight bump, it wasn't much but he could still grab on to it.

He jumped as silently as possible before the ant reached him and managed to hang on to the wall.

He tried not to move and make any sounds.

He heard the ant chomping at something.

After a bit of time he decided to look down and saw the ant digging another tunnel in the room.

He carefully went beside it and climbed down without making a sound.

*

Shadow went on next to the tunnel with electrical appliances.

Unlike the other cave this one was didn't have any ants, but like the other one it was quite full.

This room also had a large pile in the middle of it.

From this room he wouldn't take any of the items.

They were too big to fit inside his bag.

Instead he would take what was inside.

That way he would get things that would probably be useful in the future.

Finding electricity would prove quite challenging, but he could always find some type of power source; whether it would be batteries or something more powerful he would decide when he needed it.

He didn't waste much time in the room but made a lot of noise.

He didn't have anything to uninstall the appliances, so he had to brute force his way through them.

He put in his bag as much as he could but left some space to store food.

*

Shadow left the cave while sticking close to the shadows.

Many ants went to check the cave, but their search proved futile as he couldn't be found.

His last stop was the tunnel filled with food.

This tunnel proved to be the most difficult.

It was easy to enter it and get the food, but the hard part was leaving.

Or so he thought, but there was canned food in the mix.

He took a few cans and instantly left the cave.

He then recovered his other bag and went on his way to the city.

Unbeknownst to him he had infiltrated the base of one of the twelve demon kings unnoticed.

The identity of the demon king(?) was the ant queen.