Chapter 4 - How is it so big??

"Is everything going alright?"

"Oh Empress! Yes, we have been able to build houses for everyone without much of a hassle." Mark was a tall man with short brown hair and brown eyes.

Him, his wife and his daughter were the first ones to come here. Mark being a builder before coming here helped a lot in building the homes for everyone. In no time everyone had a basic house for themselves made of cement, bricks and wood. It wasn't particularly thermally isolated, but they said it was enough for the time being.

The community was all built close to the river to facilitate the access to water, the houses were a bit further away from the waterfall because of the noise it made. Mark's house was the closest to the river, not by any special reason, he just really liked fishing.

The others were set further a bit further back, where before had trees now was houses, the chopping of the trees didn't take much time with the help of the colony. One of the reasons they adapted so fast to the monster 'community' was because they received their help in any task that was hard.

The set up of the little village prototype was circular, with all the houses around a small clearing that had a stone path leading to each house. For now, this pattern was alright but, in the future, when more people came, the set up would have to change a little.

Apart from the houses they had already built, there was also a plot of farm where they were starting to grow some crops. They were getting sick of only eating fruits and unseasoned meat and fish. The seasoning was why they were in desperate need of more people.

"Everything is going well but we need some goods…"

"Hm? What is it?"

"It's a bit difficult to live with only light from torches, so we were thinking of getting some mana powered things and hopefully trade in some things for money so we can buy the things we need."

Magicians had researched mana to such a point that mana gadgets we used basically everywhere, from stoves, light sources and even transportation methods. Society was essentially dependent on those right now, so it was being a bit difficult for them to get used to living without them.

"You can do that without any problem, I already told you that you guys have freedom to do whatever you want, even leave, as long as you don't harm the colony."

His expression got a little uncomfortable, what she said just proved that she didn't hold them in high regard, but he wasn't that bothered. Their interactions with the mother, or as they call her, the empress, were limited so that was normal.

"Thank you. Some of us will take the carriage, I was wondering if there was something we could take to trade in? Things like monster pelts or even rare herbs are very useful."

"There are." After thinking a little she nodded and gestured for Mark to follow her.

"Arachne dear, take Diana with you on a stroll through the forest please."

'Yes mother.'

Arachne was the half spider half woman monster that was born from one of the eggs that had hatched a little before Diana came to the colony. In just a few months she went from barely reaching the mother's thighs to being a full head taller than her.

Her hair was black, much like the mothers but her face had eight red blood eyes that seemed to move independently. Her human skin was very soft which made her look really appealing. Like the mother she also had big breasts that were covered with a human shirt, given to her by the people on the village. Her lower spider body was black, covered with little hairs that also covered her eight spider legs.

With her hands she asked Diana to follow her while the Mother went with Mark inside the nest to see what he wanted to take.

---

"I had no idea it was this big…" Mark exclaimed in amazement at the sheer size of the Nest.

They had been walking for well over 10 minutes through tunnels that were more than big enough for him to walk comfortably. It was also very wide, with a lot of ants passing by their side without any problem.

When they started descending into the nest, mark was worried that he would have to go down in an extremely inclined ground, but the ants were very considerate with the mother and had made stairs for her to be able to traverse without any problems in the nest. Not like she would have any problem going around the way they did.

After a long while they had finally reached the Queen's chambers, as they called it.

In the end of the room was a massive ant, much bigger than their houses. Full white transparent body, where you could clearly see the eggs in her abdomen. Her massive wings were folded on her back while she was laying down looking at them with her massive full black eyes.

Although Mark couldn't hear them, he had the feeling they were communicating by the way they were moving their heads. A while later, the mother brought him back through the tunnels and they walked around some rooms getting things he could take.

They settled for a few plants that were going to be used as food for the ants, an egg that wasn't able to hatch and shed skin from the, not so little, little snake.

And just that was already troubling him, the egg alone was almost his size and he had to get help from the ants to move the shed skin. He wasn't even sure if they were going to sell but, in his head, there was definitely some crazy collector that would like an unhatched egg from a mysterious type of ant.

The shed skin was a different problem, whoever wanted to buy it would need the means to transport it and although he didn't doubt it would sell, since it had good defence capabilities, it would also be a problem for someone to identify it, considering it was from a snake that probably didn't exist anywhere else.

…

A/N: 3 days 3 chapters. Don't expect this often, this was a special case. Be sure to let me know if I make any error in the biology of the monsters or something else, I'm not knowledgeable in those matters.