You Didn't Tell Me the Start of My Transmigration Was a Gate

Chapter 34 Part 2: Anthill

As I counted out loud, an undesirable sound immediately rang out.

Click.

I looked up, and there stood Kim Ju-il, with his face pale. At his feet, something seemed to be hidden between the mounds of the soil. I’m not sure, but I think it might be some sort of… Mechanism…

Koo-koo-koo-koo!

The soil was quickly swept to the ground and began to slide down.

‘Shit!’

I lost my balance, and we were obviously falling to the ground. The sensation of having nothing touching my feet sent chills down my spine. I’m trying to heighten my senses to use my skill without realizing it,

“Hold on tight!”

Lee Eun-Woo grabbed my wrist.

‘I can’t use my skill if I bring another person!’

Instinctive rejection cut off the skill’s activation. Never, not once, had I ever traveled through space with a living creature. It was legally forbidden because the slightest mistake could shatter them.

“After we fall, if we don’t stick together, we might die quickly, so hold on to my hand!”

It was a reasonable thing to say, but it wasn’t the kind of action that would be beneficial to me. But I kept my mouth shut and took Lee Eun-Woo’s hand. Our gazes met in the air. His eyes were very straightforward, contrary to his fragile appearance. And with a splash…

“Ugh…!”

After a long passage, we finally fell into what seemed like a pond. Is it fair to call it a pond? It wasn’t watery, it was actually quite viscous. The moderately fluffy and sticky stuff absorbed most of the impact of the fall, but the sensation of it sticking to my body… was quite horrible.

“Ugh…”

I managed to crawl out. My body felt very heavy from the sticky mucus. It seemed to be screaming at me to let it rest.

“Hey, are you alive?”

Next to me, Lee Eun-Woo was similarly groggy. As a mage, his health couldn’t possibly be higher than mine, so he probably would have to die twice as much as I did. Now that we were separated from the others, I wondered what we can do…

“This is…”

As I looked around, I realized that the passageways were much wider than the ones I’ve been through before. I’ve walked through feeding troughs and other places like that, before but…. this was something else. The ceilings were so high that our voices echoed, there were no doors anywhere, and the hole in the sky we’d fallen through was the only entrance and exit.

This is Trouble… It would be difficult for a human to crawl up that high.

Other than that, the pond that we fell into was literally on a different scale. Above all, there was a pile of.. Royal Jelly nearby. I’m probably right. It looks like a cylindrical capsule about the length of a man’s forearm, glowing golden and transparent.

It was a Royal jelly which was food for a newborn queen.

So this is the queen ant’s chamber, the innermost part of the anthill.

“Ugh….”

Lee Eun-Woo let out a small groan. I checked our luggage for now. Everyone was carrying their own stuff, so it shouldn’t be too hard to set up camp here. If we get hungry, we can steal some of that royal jelly. They say it’s quite nutritious. But I’m worried about the water.

“That won’t do.”

We were missing…. that mucus-like cocoon. I peeked in and saw a lump at the very bottom of the pale greenish pond.

It was an unhatched queen ant.

‘I heard that it’s not supposed to hatch for another four years, so this is technically an incubator.’

An incubator for queen ants… I can’t help but feel a bit ominous. Could this be the reason why Lee Eun-Woo almost died? Did it hatch early? I looked at the supposed queen in the incubator, but my tongue didn’t move.

‘It’s still a long way from hatching, and it’s still quite small.’

It was less than a tenth the size of a mountain ant. It would still be incubating for another four years. Anyway, there was no way to avoid it. It wasn’t like I could just fly off into the sky and go far away, and I couldn’t leave Lee Eun-Woo alone to escape.

‘A brilliant mage, a brilliant strategist. Just exactly what humanity needs.’

It’s a mixture of personal feelings.

I won’t deny it. I didn’t want to just throw him away just because he was hateful. I left Lee Eun-Woo, who was still sprawled on the ground, and prepared a place for us to lie down. We’ll try to observe how often these ants come in and out of this place for now. Of course, we’re not ants, so we don’t have the talent to climb up and down the wall to the top, but our goal was to sneak up on them and survive without being seen.

❖

“Hmmm…”

“Is this…?”

Lee Eun-Woo opened his eyes the next morning… I don’t know the exact time, because I lost track of time after falling into this incubator.

“The queen ant’s chamber.”

“A… queen ant?!”

He jumps up in surprise, looking around as if he’s just realized he’s been resting on a well-appointed bed, and then looks at me. Hey, it’s just him and me here, so I did it for him obviously.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “I think it’s still a long way from hatching.”