"Haaaaah!"
Set dove from the sky without a moment's hesitation. Matching the creature’s momentum, Rei channeled magic power into Death Scythe and swung the great blade in a wide arc at the Queen Ant.
"Gi-gi-gi-gi-gi-gi!"
The Queen Ant unhinged its mandibles to counter—
"Watch out, Set!"
"Guru!"
Sensing an immediate threat, Rei barked a warning. Set instantly caught his drift, beating its wings powerfully to lunge sideways in midair.
An instant later, a stream of liquid erupted from the Queen Ant's mouth, streaking through the space where Set had been hovering just a heartbeat before.
Rei watched as the fluid struck the ground, dissolving the soil with a hiss of acrid smoke. He immediately identified the substance as acid—specifically, a potent form of formic acid.
"Gi-gi-gi-gi-gi!"
Apparently frustrated by the miss, the Queen Ant let out a shrill cry and lashed out with a massive front leg.
Set ducked under the blow, and Rei brought Death Scythe around in a vicious counter-swing at the limb passing overhead. The blade carved through the heavy leg with zero resistance. Carried by its own momentum, the severed limb spun away into the distance.
"Gii!?"
Unlike the Soldier Ants, the Queen Ant seemed to have a functional nervous system; it let out a short, pained shriek. Seizing the opening, Rei leapt from Set's back.
He hit the ground with a thud, kicking up a cloud of dust, and immediately sprang away. The Queen Ant’s second front leg slammed down an instant later, pulverizing the spot where he had just landed.
Rei continued to leap back, putting distance between himself and the monster. Only then did he finally have the breathing room to properly assess his opponent.
The creature was massive—easily five meters long, dwarfing the standard Soldier Ants. Its abdomen was grotesquely swollen, ending in a sharp, tail-like stinger.
It’s even bigger than I expected. Certainly caught me off guard.
Based on the information Rei had gathered, Soldier Ants were about one meter long, leading him to estimate the Queen at around three meters. In reality, the monster standing before him was nearly double that.
"Well, regardless..."
He leveled Death Scythe and fixed the Queen Ant with a sharp, focused gaze.
"I’ve just gotta do this!"
With a shout, Rei charged. High above, Set provided cover, raining down a continuous barrage of Water Balls.
"Gi-gi-gi!"
The Queen Ant irritably swatted the projectiles away with a hind leg. However, Set wasn't trying to deal damage; the barrage was a distraction, allowing Rei to use his extraordinary physical abilities to close the distance and bring the Queen Ant within the reach of his scythe.
The plan worked.
"O Flame, thou art a serpent. Therefore, incinerate the enemy as I command."
He chanted the same incantation he had used to slay the Water Bear in the Forest of Magic. This time, however, he drove the tip of Death Scythe’s blade directly into the monster.
The blade sank into the Queen Ant's middle-right leg with a crisp, effortless sensation.
"Dancing Flame Serpent!"
The magic unleashed. A snake of pure fire burrowed into the leg where the blade had pierced the chitin.
"Gi-gi-gi-gi-gi-gi-gi!"
The giant ant shrieked in agony as the heat cooked it from the inside out.
However, it proved why it held the rank of Queen. Even as it screamed, it used a middle leg on its opposite side to tear off the limb being incinerated by the fire snake.
"What!?"
Rei gasped, stunned by the monster's decisive self-amputation. He instinctively leaped backward to put some distance between them.
Almost simultaneously, the fire snake burst from the discarded leg on the ground and dissipated into a harmless mist.
"Gi-gi-gi!"
Enraged by the tiny human who had wounded it, the Queen Ant spat more formic acid and lashed out with its remaining legs. It snapped its sharp mandibles, looking for any opening to shear Rei’s torso in half.
Rei evaded most of the attacks, parrying the rest with the shaft of Death Scythe.
"You’re a stubborn one!"
Ducking a descending front leg, he delivered a horizontal flash. He sliced off the remaining left front leg, leaving the Queen with only three: the left middle, and both hind legs. Despite the loss of its limbs, the Queen Ant’s assault remained relentless. Its poison stinger pierced trees like needles, and its acid melted solid rock.
Rei felt a flicker of genuine admiration for its tenacity—as expected of a C-Rank monster. Seeing Set circling above, he swung Death Scythe in a flashy arc to keep the Queen's attention locked on him.
"O Flame, obey my will and burn the enemy."
As he chanted, a ball of fire about thirty centimeters in diameter manifested before his blade. He drew the scythe back and triggered the spell.
"Fireball!"
The mass of flame—the fire-attribute equivalent of Set's Water Ball—streaked toward the Queen Ant.
Having already experienced the agony of fire magic, the Queen Ant knew better than to take the hit. It flattened its body against the earth to let the spell pass overhead.
...Exactly as Rei had intended.
By flattening itself, the Queen had sacrificed its mobility. Seizing the moment, Set—who had been circling and waiting for the perfect opportunity—dove straight down. The Queen Ant had initially focused on Set, but after taking so much damage from Rei, it had prioritized him as the more dangerous threat. In the heat of the struggle, it had lost track of the gryphon.
Set had waited patiently for this exact opening. It would not miss the chance Rei had provided.
"Gururururururu!"
With a deafening roar, Set swung its powerful eagle's claws. Combined with the terminal velocity of its dive, the strike slammed into the Queen Ant's head.
A wet, sickening crunch echoed through the area. The Queen Ant's head shattered, spraying bits of flesh and ichor in every direction.
"Gururururu!"
Set let out a triumphant cry. It was a natural reaction; under normal circumstances, a crushed head meant victory. However, Set had momentarily forgotten their experience with the Soldier Ants—specifically, the terrifying vitality that allowed them to keep moving even after decapitation.
This was a Queen Ant, an entity far superior to a Soldier Ant. Its life force was on a completely different level.
As if to prove the point, the headless, half-limbless monster swung its left middle leg with lethal intent.
Rei saw the movement just as Set finished its roar.
"Set, move!"
He lunged toward his partner, Death Scythe held ready.
"Guru!?"
Reacting instinctively to Rei’s command, Set kicked off the ground and took to the sky. Fortunately, the Queen Ant’s attack was a horizontal sweep rather than a vertical strike. Set soared upward, and the Queen’s leg whistled through the air, missing the gryphon by a hair's breadth.
As the attack passed harmlessly beneath Set, Rei was already inside the monster's guard.
"Just die already!"
With a swift, powerful stroke, Death Scythe severed the Queen’s right hind leg and clipped off its poison stinger.
"Hah!"
He followed through with a back-swing, lopping off the remaining left middle and hind legs in a single motion. Having lost its head, all six legs, and its tail, the Queen Ant finally, truly, stopped moving.
"..."
Wary of another surprise, Rei kept Death Scythe leveled at the carcass for several minutes. Only when it became clear the monster was well and truly dead did he finally allow himself to relax.
"Gururu."
Set landed and approached, lowering its head with a mournful trill. It seemed to be apologizing for its carelessness and for putting Rei in danger.
Rei smiled and shook his head, stroking the gryphon’s feathers.
"Don't worry about it. We were both a bit careless. Besides, you haven't been in this world very long, Set. Just don't make the same mistake twice."
"Guru."
"I only noticed because I happened to be further away this time. There’ll be times when the roles are reversed, and I'll need you to look out for me then."
"Gururu!"
Set let out a confident cry, as if saying, Count on it!
Rei turned back to the Queen Ant's remains. "Now... time to dismantle this thing."
He pulled out Monster Dismantling: Beginner Edition from his Misty Ring to check the procedure. While it covered Soldier Ants and Imperial Ants, there was no entry for the Queen.
"So the winged ones really were called Imperial Ants."
He found the name a bit simplistic, but since his own spells weren't exactly poetically named, he kept the thought to himself.
"I guess I'll store the carcass in the Misty Ring for now and dismantle it properly later. I'll at least take the magic stone, though."
He began by storing the severed legs and the stinger. Then, drawing his Iron Dagger, he tried to figure out how to reach the stone. The monster was lying on its front, its soft underbelly pressed against the dirt. Accessing the stone would be easiest through the belly.
"Set, sorry, but give me a hand. Flip this thing over so the belly's facing up."
"Guru."
Set chirped and flipped the five-meter carcass—which was twice its own size—over with effortless ease.
Rei marveled at the display. In terms of raw physical stats, Set was clearly superior to the Queen Ant. And yet, the gryphon would likely have struggled to win that fight alone.
It comes down to experience. Set is less than a week old, while the Queen Ant survived the brutal wilderness of Elgin for years. And that goes for me, too.
Given their stats and magic, Rei and Set technically should have been able to overwhelm a C-Rank monster instantly. But as Rei realized, Set was a newborn, and he himself had only been fighting since arriving in Elgin. While the fusion had removed his hesitation to kill, that wasn't enough to guarantee survival in this world.
I have a lot to learn, he mused.
He brought the Iron Dagger down toward the Queen Ant's belly.
Clink!
The blade bounced off the skin.
"Even the belly is this tough? Well, fair enough."
He swapped the dagger for his Mithril Knife. Channeled with magic, the mithril blade sank into the Queen Ant's flesh like a hot knife through butter.
He reached inside, searching for the core.
"Wait... it has a heart?"
Biologically, insects didn't have hearts; they had dorsal vessels. Rei had expected a difficult search, but the Queen Ant possessed a distinct, fleshy heart.
"I guess monsters follow their own rules."
He pulled out the magic stone. It was the size of his fist, comparable to the one he’d taken from the Water Bear in the Forest of Magic.
"Way better than a Goblin's stone. It’s yellow, so it must be earth-attribute. Now then..."
Rei picked up Death Scythe.
"Guru?"
"Sorry, Set. I’m going to let Death Scythe have this one."
"Guru."
Set nodded, seemingly unbothered. Rei tossed the stone into the air and slashed it with the magic-imbued scythe. The stone vanished into a wisp of smoke as the weapon absorbed its essence.
【Death Scythe has learned the skill: Corrosion Lv.1】
The familiar announcement echoed in his mind. It seemed the system messages triggered regardless of whether Set or the scythe performed the absorption.
"Corrosion, huh? Likely a byproduct of the formic acid. A bit of a niche skill."
Rei chuckled and stored the rest of the Queen Ant’s body in his Misty Ring before beginning the trek back to Gilm.
To avoid trouble with Ranga, he rode Set most of the way but landed well outside the city gates, walking the final stretch.
By the time he turned in the quest, his total take for the day—including the Soldier Ant stones and materials—came to seven silver coins. It was a staggering sum for a G-Rank adventurer.
[Set] Water Ball Lv.1, Fire Breath Lv.1
[Death Scythe] Corrosion Lv.1 (New)
Corrosion: Striking metal equipment multiple times causes it to corrode. Higher skill levels reduce the number of strikes required to trigger the effect.