The First Snow In Clear Sky

"Is it possible that these worker ants have left?"

System shook his head. Although he did not instill the thought that he was the ant queen into these ants these days, those ants still thought of him as their kin. They couldn't disobey his orders.

Even if those worker ants went out of the temporary nest for a breather, they should immediately return to the nest and continue feeding the ant larvae according to System's previous orders.

There was no clear answer from asking Shava.

If System did not ask, Shava, who was eating the slime's colloid, would not even have noticed that the number of worker ants in the temporary nest had decreased.

Although Shava had a certain degree of intelligence, she was not very sensitive to numbers. She could not even master addition and subtraction within ten until now.

System could not help but sigh.

Meanwhile, just as System was deep in thought, he suddenly got a special feeling. It was from his ability [Instinct].

System picked a worker ant and brought it along as he left the nest.

System could feel that as long as he brought a worker ant with him, he would be able to find the truth behind the two worker ants' disappearance.

Shava had already pulled away the patrolling ants near the entrance nest to help with winter nest's construction.

However, as they got closer to the dark brown ants' nest, System encountered an ant team responsible for searching for food.

An ant from the searching team discovered him and gradually approached them as if trying to see just what he was.

Unexpectedly, before that ant came closer, the worker ant System had brought along moved closer to it.

Then, the two ants touched their antennae as if they were communicating. However, suddenly, it was as if those two ants felt something was wrong, and they started biting each other in the blink of an eye.

System immediately used his tentacles to separate the two worker ants and then used one of his tentacles to twist off the hostile ant's head.

Initially, the two ants were the same ant queen's offspring, but they were like mortal enemies now. Whenever they met, they would transmit the emotion of going to fight to the death.

Even if System was not there, those two would not hesitate to fight.

After witnessing the two ants' confrontation, System easily guessed why two worker ants had disappeared. They should have gone out of the temporary nest and died in the process of fighting against such dark brown ants.

Unlike Shava, the ants that System had hatched and the ants within the ant nest would be hostile to each other from birth.

When System used [Mind Transmission] to ask that worker ants, he got an extremely clear answer—enemy.

Not food, but enemy!

It was the same when System had deceived those ants and said they were of the same kind. When the ants had realized they had been deceived, they had gotten angry and turned hostile toward him.

"…So this is why."

After jumping onto the stem of a plant while bringing the worker ant along, System observed the ants' nest. He quickly thought of a relatively reasonable explanation.

The ants that System reared and the ants from the ants' nest were both offspring of the same ant queen. However, due to a different growth environment, they had produced a slightly different scent and had become a new nest of ants.

It might be due to the habitual behavior of ants, but only one nest of ants was destined to survive in the same area where two colonies of the same kind of ants existed.

Thinking back when he had deceived the ants by saying that he was the ant queen, it might not be that the ants had discovered he was a grasshopper. Instead, they had thought of him as their enemy from another ant colony.

Otherwise, those ants would not have been so enraged at that time.

…

However, no matter what, under these circumstances, System should not recall the past. Instead, he should think of how to settle that ant nest.

Sooner or later, System would have to wage war against that ant nest, as the new ant queen he was raising would continue to produce offspring.

Even if the battle did not happen this autumn, the two ant colonies would clash. If System wanted to spend the next summer there, his ants would fight to the death with the other colony.

Within a 10-meter radius, only one nest of ants could exist.

System was unsure as to what would happen after winter. However, if his ants were to battle the enemy colony next summer, his side would suffer heavy casualties.

System considered two options:

One, after safely getting through this winter, they would migrate next summer.

Two, they would annihilate the ants and occupy their nest.

Soon, he chose the second option.

After all, System had two slimes to help him, and after winter arrived, his slimes might disappear. Thus, System did not want to miss such a perfect opportunity.

The two dark green slimes were much more powerful than his old brown slime friend, be it the elasticity of their colloids or their digestive abilities.

It should not be a problem to face a middle-scale ant nest with around 100,000 ants.

Also, with his commanding skills, he could take the initiative and control the slimes to leave after discovering that their devouring ability decreased.

With the slimes' fast digestion and recovering speed, the ants' hatching speed should be far from catching up.

Even if his slimes' first two attacks did not deal a deadly blow to the ants' nest, the enemy colony would definitely suffer great losses after getting attacked many times in the span of a few days.

By then, System could have Shava kill the ant queen, let her order the worker ants to move the ant eggs, larvae, and pupae into the same spot, and annihilate them all cleanly.

If that happened, the enemy colony would be obliterated as an ants' nest that had lost all of their eggs had no possibility of producing a new ant queen. Thus, even if System did not make a move, the remaining ants would all die.

Also, with him there, the ant nest's destruction would be even faster.

Afterward, he would order Shava to bring their construction team to expand the ant nest and annihilate the remaining ants. Then, he would officially occupy the ant nest just like how a turtledove seized a magpie's nest.

The enemy ant nest had enough food for more than 100,000 to survive through winter, which was enough for System to nurture a new ant queen and develop. He could even use the food to rear a small slime and produce a steady supply of colloids.

The more System thought, the more he felt that annihilating that colony this autumn was a wise choice.

Also, even if he failed, it would hinder him in any way. At most, he would stop his ants from going out during autumn and migrate in spring next year.

It was a shame that the winter nest that Shava and her construction team had built would be completely useless.

However, if everything went according to System's plan and they occupied the ant nest, then such a small matter could be overlooked.

…

After deciding, System was extremely efficient as he ordered Shava to watch after the ants to ensure they would not leave the temporary nest. Then, he spread his wings and flew toward the swamp where the slime was.

Today, he would control the two slimes to start their first wave of attacks toward the ant nest.

However, as System was flying, he suddenly discovered many white ice crystals falling from the sky. It was snow!

The sky was clear, and the temperature was moderate, like early autumn. However, just like that, the sky was filled with snowflakes, and falling snow was getting heavier and heavier…