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

Chapter 35 Part 2: Mutant

“Who said I had other intentions? That’s too much. Do I look like that kind of person?”

He laughs a little, but inwardly he’s probably weighing the value of my gun. Maybe not enough to steal, but enough to make a deal with a plausible prey. I’d rather pass this test, too, so I’ll say it out loud. It was something I’d been thinking about for a while now as well.

“I’ve been thinking about it.”

“What?”

He definitely wants to pass this exam, and I’d like to do the same. We’re also in front of the queen ant’s incubator.

“The queen ant is mentally connected to the entire colony before it hatches.”

Through the pale green mucus, I could see the queen ant’s fetus curled up. It’s about the size of a human, maybe a little smaller. It would have to grow more for a while.

“If you threaten it a little bit, the soldier ants will come inside.”

“And then?”

“If we pile up their carcasses then we can reach all the way up there.”

“You’re going to fight every ant in this anthill without any retreat?”

In general, this is a very dangerous idea. We can’t run away, and there’s an endless supply of enemies, and if we get tired before they’re all dead, it’s game over. That’s the last thing I wanted to do.

“The entrance is narrow, they won’t be able to let in a huge crowd at once, and once this room is full, we can use our size difference to hide or escape somehow.”

“If the… scroll isn’t in the queen ant’s chamber, there are only a few places to go. If we can get there in time, we might have a chance…”

“After all, you and I both specialize in dealing with one to many.”

“You are?”

Well. A normal Gunner would be a bit clumsy to call a one-to-many specialization, but…

“Well I can negate an attack once. When the ants swarm in, you can take a chance and send a lightning bolt in my direction. If you signal, I’ll be prepared.”

I glanced down at 「Noir」. The special bullets will negate any damage for 30 seconds, so it’s not a bad deal. Lee Eun-Woo seemed to think so too. He and I stood in front of the incubator. It’s a place that makes you feel like you’re in a science fiction universe. The fluorescent colors and the curled up fetus made me think of exactly that. Crack. I loaded it and fired a test shot.

Bang!

Gurgle…. The slimy fluid slowed most of the bullet, and it stopped before it reached the queen ant. However, the crouching mass stirred as if it had noticed an intruder in the incubator. I shot once again.

Bang.

I shot as close as I can to the trajectory of the previous bullet, but just a little further. Five more shots and I’d hit the queen ant. I wasn’t really trying to hit it. If this 6-year-old queen ant dies, they’ll have to wait for another 10 years, which would make the queen ant cycle to 16 years. It would be quite detrimental for the balance of this dungeon. One of the things that reduces the longevity of a dungeon is when the boss monster is gone for a long period of time. Another shot, and the queen ant began to visibly tremble. That was enough of a threat, so I holstered my gun.

“The ants are coming, so get ready-“

Boom!

As I turned my back on the incubator and headed towards Lee Eun-Woo, I heard an ominous sound behind me. It sounded like something was coming up through the water.

Thud, thud. It was a sound of mucus dripping onto the floor. I stiffened and slowly turned around. The thing I didn’t want to see was there.

-Kiruru…Kiruk…

The serrated snout made a familiar sound. But unlike the massive ants, the queen ant was much smaller, with wings on her back and human limbs attached to her ant-like body.

“…Mutant?”

Monsters can mutate as well although it has very little possibility. The one in front of me is definitely not a normal queen ant, so I might as well call it a mutant…

Wiping the mucus from its slimy eyes, it looked around and flapped its wings. Soon his wings were dry and opaque, then transparent. The problem with mutants is always the same. They are much stronger, faster, and often have compensated for the weaknesses of their original counterparts. They are so much trickier to deal with because we don’t have enough data about them.

‘It’s actually a queen ant’s mutation?’

A queen ant is not a level for a novice hunter to deal with in the first place. It must have been chosen because it’s not yet the season for the queen ant to hatch, and the organizers had no idea that this queen ant was a mutant!

‘Was this the reason why he almost died?’

‘Lee Eun-Woo, I always knew you had bad luck, but this is even worse!’

-Ki Ru Ru Ru.

From the looks of it, this mutant seemed to specialize in agility rather than strength and muscle power. I could guess that, just by the way it had abandoned its old fleshy body. A stationary target is best for lightning attacks. Unfortunately, I’m no tank or anything, but that meant I’d have to hold it off somehow.

“…Start casting!”

“My accuracy on a moving target is poor. It’s a waste of mana!”

“I’ll try to distract it, but first, start casting!”

“How can you!”

The queen ant flew into the air. The vastness of the queen ant’s chamber provided plenty of room for it to fly around. The only good thing was… that we hadn’t eaten all the royal jelly that the original queen ant was supposed to eat when she hatched, so I put it in my bag.

“It must have expended a lot of energy hatching, this is our chance!”

“Try to hold on… As long as you can, so we have a better chance of survival.”

(T/N: Bro this reminds me of Chimera Ants from Hunter x Hunter. That was a real nightmare!)