—

“Thanks for coming Brother, I appreciate it.” Luis said.

The man in front of him is cladded in a heavy silver armor carrying two swords on his waist. He was just as tall as him but he had red hair which made him stand out from the crowd. This is Bradley, Ellen’s father.

“No problems there Luis. So, what’s the situation here?” Bradley went straight to the point. Once he received the letter from the hawk, he immediately reported and went towards here to provide support. He also brought some men with him since Luis also requested for that.

Luis nodded to Julius and he stepped forward to do the honors.

It was then that Bradley and his men were made aware of the horrors that this place were hiding. They never expected something like this went under their noses. If it weren’t for the guilt of the recruit who reported what was going on here, then it might really be too late for any of them.

“…there might be some changes since it has been a few hours since we came out. Either way, it’s imperative that we take action.” Julius concluded the report.

Bradley let out an audible sigh and massaged his temples, he thought: ‘I’m getting too old for this shit.’

“What’s the plan?” Bradley asked.

“Complicated.” Luis replied which made Bradley raise his brow. “There’s way too many of them. If we charge in head first, then we will soon have our backs against the wall, too many will be injured and the rate of extermination can’t keep up. Stealthing doesn’t work too since even though we could thin them out, we will leave tracks which also lead into chaos.”

“If we raid them inside the colony, then we will walking on thin wire since we can’t use attacks that are too damaging or else the ceiling will give in and we will buried underground. But if we work like that, then the damage we will deal would be slowed down and we will be mobbed by their numbers.”

Luis was stumped. He had been thinking of a way to deal with this colony for quite a while now.

“Burying them alive doesn’t work either?” Bradley suggested.

“It doesn’t.” Luis replied. “These are ants, they are used to digging. It also won’t reach or kill the queen for that matter. She’s protected by a thick membrane of mucus. We tried getting an ambush before but all of our attacks only left a scar.”

“I’ll leave for a while so that I could brief the rest of my team about what we’re about to face. I’m confident that you’ll come up with something.” Bradley patted Luis’ shoulders and left.

Luis greatly appreciated this action, he sat back down to his chair and clasped his hand before him. “You guys may take your leave.”

“Understood.” The elite forces saluted and went out of the tent.

After they left. Luis massaged his temples, he was debating to himself if he should ask for from the Royal Palace. But he decided to leave that out as a last resort, he will know when to call for them anyway.

In the mean time, he had to at least come up with something, there’s at least six days left according to the intel before the queen finishes her evolution. He’s short of time but he will managed, this wasn’t the first time that he was cornered like this.

Luis streched out his arm and a Mirage Hawk suddenly appeared. He sighed and stroked the feathers of his companion.

This is what Luis usually do whenever he’s in deep thought, it became a habit for him to be in company of his Mirage Hawk. His brain worked fast and tried to deduced for a good way to get rid of the trouble before them.

His mind wandered to the first moment that he met with Jonas. He retraced his memories and checked if he missed something very important. He recalled each of his orders, the deployment and the events that transpired not too long ago.

Then, his eyes widened as he remembered something important, a grin appeared from his face as he whispered: “Yeah…yeah! That should work!” But his smile instantly disappeared since he knew that that shouldn’t be all.

“What about the Queen? So long as he’s in that mucus shell, even if our forces joined hands, we won’t go anywhere. What to do?”

Luis thought deeply once more. He was glad that he already had an idea on what to do with the other ants, the queen is the only one left, and he absolutely can’t let her succeed or else, there would too much destruction.

*Chirp!*

Luis’ thoughts were distracted by the sudden squeal of his pet, he smiled and said: “Sorry there buddy, I was in deep thought. You should be hungry huh?”

The hawk let another squeal, but just as when he was about to feed it. The hawk tucked it’s head under it’s wing. It’s head bended and using it’s beak, it tapped the compartment on it’s feet. Luis saw this and frowned, he found it strange since he can’t remember waiting for message at all.

There was a letter rolled up and placed on the compartment on the hawk’s foot. Luis took it and fed the hawk then placed it on a stand just beside his desk. He opened the letter and saw something that he wasn’t truly expecting at all.

It was a map. To be more precise, it was a map of the place where they currently at. It clearly recorded each landmark that was familliar to him and there’s the map of the colony, which is more detailed compared to what he and Julius made before.

Luis was highly skeptical. First of all, who could’ve intercepted his pet without him noticing it? Second, how did this person have a better version of the map of the colony? Third, what is his purpose?

He was thinking if this had been planned by someone, and he hated the feeling that they might dancing in someone else’s palms.

He checked the map once more and saw that there is a highlighted markings here and there. Luis was shocked to see that even though they did combed through the colony when they went there, there’s still somethings that missed out.

The map of this person pointed out some cleverly hidden rooms that they missed previously. There’s also the tunnels that the ants used whenever they want to surface up. Those were also detailed very closely in this map.

But what’s probably the most important part of the map is the traces that this person left which are shown with red markings. It was showing him something that might solve his current predicament.

Luis immediately went into full alert mode trying to decode the message. He took out a map of the kingdom and tried comparing it to the one that this person made. Granted that this person didn’t drew the whole map of the kingdom, but he did drew the map of their current location so it was at least easier for him to do the comparison.

Luis had a deep frown on his face. According to what he saw, the markings was leading somewhere opposite of where the colony is. He first guessed if it was the Market but soon denied that since that didn’t make any sense. He then tried looking for other directions and found nothing aside from mountain ranges.

He was somewhat displeased because he thought that this person must be leading him around the nose. But he had this hunch that there should be more from this. Just to be sure, he sent his hawk to check the location while also activating the Shared Vision.

Luis was working with multiple things here, he was deducting the message of this mysterious person, looking at the map while also paying attention to the vision feed of the hawk. This is a very challenging task but one that only a few people like him could do.

Paying close attention to the vision feed from the hawk, he found that his previous guess was correct. What’s beyond this point are only a mountain ranges-

“Huh?”

The hawk caught something on the corners of it’s vision. He gave an order to look at that specific direction and saw something that he never knew was there before. He analyzed the idea for a brief moment, next thing he knew, something clicked on his brain and he gave another to the hawk to get a closer look on the field.

As soon as he saw the state of this place, anticipation rose from the depths of his heart. As the hawk flew closer to the target, his thoughts were soon confirmed and finally, enlightenment came for him. A wide grin appeared from his face as he thought.

“I get it! So that’s what you mean! Okay, we’ll do it just like that! Whoever you are, know that this service is a great merit for the kingdom! You did well!”

Unbeknownst to absolutely everyone on the field.. A hidden figure smiled and walked away.