Chapter 193: Break through complete! (4)- A horrifying hunt...
The baroness kept looking at Theo after what he said. Theo tried looking at what she was thinking about, but so far, he could not detect anything.
The baroness kept silent for a while until she nodded again before getting up.
"It seems like always, your resolve has been a lot stronger than mine, Theo." She spoke finally, her eyes going warm.
Theo pursed his lips and looked to the side. Telling her what he was thinking and going to do was necessary, and his mother and father needed to hear this for a long time now.
The urgency to level up was not just child’s play; he knew they knew that. But at the same time, people still couldn’t help but look at him with pity and worry.
Theo didn’t need that; he wanted the others to know that what he was doing was only right for his situation.
"I will not be telling you not to level up anymore, just... slow it down a little?" The baroness spoke in a joking tone.
"I swear I won’t reach level 7 before the academy starts, mother," Theo stated with a smile as the baroness burst out in laughter.
There were a few more things that she talked about, and Theo cleared them like usual before it was time for her to go.
"Elias, don’t forget to make him rest when needed. He is bad in that area."
"I would like to do that, but young master Theo doesn’t let me have a say in it," Elias spoke with a plain expression, but Theo looked at him with a dumbfounded expression. Did he just file a complaint against him?
After that, Theo had to listen to a lot more than he was supposed to because of a certain attendant, and the night passed by quickly.
The idea of observing the ants even after the night came was rejected, as Theo had a long day tomorrow.
When he finally went to the terrarium room in the morning, Theo went to see the ants first.
The ants were not sitting in one spot anymore. Theo looked at them intently only to see the ant queen in a small chamber inside the ground.
"Finally..." Theo sighed. At one point, he had thought that maybe the ants weren’t going to get used to this environment. But it was not true; they were all making their way up and down to the chamber and tending to the queen in the chamber.
Theo could see grains of the substrate being carried by the ants, only to be thrown out of the hole in a clean way.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
"Come in, Elias."
Elias quickly came in and, before looking anywhere, he came near the ants to check on them.
Everyone related to this small project was excited about what was going to happen now. It was fun to observe these small creatures work so hard to make a livable environment.
"... This is surprising. Is this how they live in the wild, too, young master? Making such holes inside the ground?" Elias spoke and continued, "It almost looks like a room."
"It really is. The ants make chambers to live inside the colony. There is only one right now, but with time, there will be many more." Theo stated with an excited smile before he realized something too.
"Maybe I should bring my elder brother Bram here too; he will be excited looking at these ant’s work." Theo thought.
"That’s a great idea, young master. Do you want me to tell young master Bram’s attendant to make some time to come here?"
"Please do, but first, we are going to be conducting some experiments right now."
"Oh? What experiments?" Elias asked in curiosity.
"These ones. I prepared them yesterday when I..." Theo stopped in between. Yesterday night, he wasn’t able to sleep so he kept coming up with ways to complete the quest.
Elias squinted his eyes, but Theo ignored him, and after a cough, he showed the points he had written in the journal.
"Before this, there is still a normal thing I would like to observe," Theo stated and gave the journal to Elias to read before going to get some big roaches.
When he brought them back in a small cup and a small tong, Elias shivered in disgust, looking at them.
"Can you pick the glass up?"
"Right away."
Elias moved the glass in such a way the top was open halfway, which he kept holding.
Theo jumped on his chair and threw roaches to every corner of the terrarium’s top ground before closing the top again.
"Now we observe." Theo sat on the seat and made Elias bring a chair for himself too.
The roaches at first moved very slowly until they started moving around much more daringly.
For Theo, the surface area inside the terrarium was not that much, but for the insects? It was a big world of its own.
When a small ant was relatively nearer to one of the roaches, it froze. Theo looked at it with focus before what he predicted really happened.
The ant didn’t engage with the roach. It stayed there like a dead ant until its antennae started glowing.
Right at the same time, every ant’s antenna glowed, and so did the queen’s underground.
Right that instant, all the ants left what they were doing and they started approaching the solo ant near the roach until they were all together in a uniform manner.
Theo observed the queen ant, which was the only one that didn’t move.
And with the antennae of every ant still glowing, the small army of 15 ants marched toward the solitary roach near the corner.
After that, all Theo could see was a pitiful roach being ripped apart by the ants just crawling all over it.
In between, he observed another thing. The attack patterns of the ants were very synchronized.
"... All 6 legs of the roach were decapitated at the same time... 6 ants just went to each one and ripped them not one by one, but at the same time..." Theo muttered to himself, but Elias was there to hear it.
"That was a horrifying hunt, young master. I am glad these are not that big to be of harm to us..." Elias spoke with a sigh of relief, only for Theo to look at him with a smirk.
Elias couldn’t understand and looked at him with confusion before Theo went back to observing them.
"I know the ant queen is the one controlling them, that is hive mind by itself... I have realized that, but I have still not discovered it?" Theo stated while scratching his head.
Elias looked at him and sighed inwardly. Theo didn’t realize just how tough it was going to be, and whether the ants were what the insect with a hive mind was supposed to be.