Let go of that monster girl!

Morren stepped forward, his rune sword held horizontally beside him.

The soldier ants' compound eyes locked onto the figure that was much taller than all the rat girls, and four knives swung at Moren at the same time.

Morren dodged the first blow by sidestepping, and deflected the second with his rune sword.

Four knives came crashing down on him.

Instead of retreating, Morren advanced, swinging his rune sword upwards, the runes on the blade glowing with a ghostly blue light.

The moment the runes flashed, the sword sliced ​​through the dark red blade without resistance, through the gray chitinous armor, and through the soft insect flesh inside.

The soldier ant's head flew off, blade and neck included.

The headless body remained in the pose of holding a knife. Morren swung his knife and cleaved her into pieces. The massive body collapsed with a crash.

"very scary."

"vomit……"

The first battle against a living humanoid enemy caused many of the rat girls to vomit.

Dead ant girls were everywhere, their green blood flowing freely.

"Why is their blood green?"

Molen kicked the soldier ant's mangled body to confirm that she was definitely dead.

Then he bent down, grabbed a relatively intact ant girl corpse, and lifted it up by the neck.

The dead ant girl's head drooped, her round little face still retaining soft contours, her closed eyes with short eyelashes, and her small lips slightly parted, revealing the mouthparts hidden inside.

She looked like a sleeping little girl, quiet and pitiful.

"Don't be fooled by these guys' appearances."

Morren raised his sword and cut open the joints of her rough leather armor, peeling off her armor and lining layer by layer.

"Baron, you're such a pervert!"

"Don't look! Don't look!"

The mouse girls covered their eyes and peeked through their fingers.

Somewhat speechless, Morren held the stripped corpse up in front of the ratwomen.

Her legs were clean, and her chest was flat, without any mammalian sexual characteristics.

Aside from its head, its body structure was not humanoid at all; it was abnormally thin and pale.

Upon closer inspection, the area below the neck is not soft skin at all, but rather a skin-colored insect carapace with insect-like breaks at the joints. When bent, dark green muscle fibers can be seen inside.

It's practically a doll, a doll whose appearance is deliberately made to look cute and harmless.

The rat girls were dumbfounded.

"Don't empathize with the ant girls, and don't try to communicate with them. They're just monsters with human faces."

Molen threw the body on the ground.

"Your Excellency, we've found it!"

A female rat ran up from below the city wall, panting heavily.

"The water barrier in the river channel was bitten through; they must have sneaked in from underwater."

Molen wiped the green bloodstains from his hands and fell into deep thought.

It's strange, why would there be ant girls near the low hill?

-----------------

a few days later.

The wasteland near the low hills.

The wandering merchant sat atop the broad back of a snow ox, one hand gripping the reins, the other pulling his thick woolen cloak tighter around himself, complaining to his companion beside him:

"Things have been really unsettled lately. There are beast tides everywhere, and even ant girls are popping up all over the place."

The snow ox was huge, its four hooves making a dull thud as they trod on the gravel road, and its large sacks were full of goods.

"Well, thankfully this route is close to the low hills, where those little mice and Lord Morren are."

The man tapped the fluorite lantern in his hand, the lid tightly sealing off the fluorite's light.

"Shhh."

The wandering merchant suddenly raised his hand, signaling his assistant to shut up.

She leaned forward, squinting as she peered intently into the darkness.

A huge black shadow, as big as two or three oxen, was blocking the road in the middle of the road, motionless.

"Is it a Chimera?"

The man lowered his voice, his hand already reaching for the short axe at his waist.

"Don't talk, grab the weapon."

The wandering merchant reined in the bull, and it stopped, panting heavily.

On top of the enormous black shadow, some smaller black shadows slowly rose up.

One, two, five, a dozen, dozens, and more small black shadows crawled up from that huge outline.

They were densely packed, moving like ghostly shadows in the darkness.

"It's Ant Girl!"

The wandering merchant shouted, "Bring the lantern!"

Just as the man took the fluorite lantern from his waist, a dark red spear flew out of the darkness, piercing her chest and pinning her to the ground.

The ant girls jumped off the chimera corpse and quickly approached.

The wandering merchant didn't have time to worry about her assistant. She grabbed the fallen fluorite lantern, opened the lampshade, and raised it high towards the low hill, waving it wildly.

A flash of light appeared on the city wall.

Whoosh.

Several shells whistled in from the direction of the low hill and exploded in the center of the ant colony, instantly knocking more than a dozen ant girls to the ground amidst the fire and debris.

The wandering merchant yanked the reins hard, startling the snow ox into a wild gallop, scattering its goods everywhere.

She drove the snow oxen off the road and fled.

"Twenty-three, elevation angle fifteen, two shots fired simultaneously."

On the city wall, a scout rat with a monocular telescope was perched on the crenellation, muttering coordinates.

The surrounding militia rats were busy stuffing ammunition into the cannon barrel, working up a loud, laborious sound.

Moren stood atop the highest point of the city wall, holding up another monocular telescope, watching as the wandering merchant in the distance extinguished his lantern and fled into the darkness.

I don't know if she will survive.

Since the attack by the Ant Girl, Morren not only replaced the water gates with corrosion-resistant copper gates, but also made the militia rats practice more, firing a few shots at any wild Ant Girl they saw.

Over time, they developed a subtle understanding with the passing caravans.

When the caravan saw Ant Girl, they would wave their lanterns toward the low hills. When the low hills saw the lanterns, they would fire their cannons. So far, at least, no caravans have been accidentally injured.

Sometimes there are even some unexpected gains.

"Your Excellency, a few snow oxen failed to escape and were knocked down by the ant girl."

The scout mouse put down its binoculars and turned to report.

"I'll have Sulfur lead a team to check if there's anything good there." Morren put down his binoculars and leaned against the edge of the battlement.

The ant girls are very weak in individual combat. If the rat girl is weak, the ant girl's combat strength is probably only three. In a one-on-one fight, she can probably only beat Lim.

But unfortunately, these guys are too prolific, they're practically adorable goblins.

When food is plentiful, the queen ant can lay thousands of eggs a day, and these baby ants can reach adulthood in a week, but can only live up to nine years old.

When you spot one ant girl, there are probably tens of thousands of them around you.

Two hundred militia rats against twenty thousand ant girls—just thinking about it is thrilling.

This was the first time Morren had ever seen an ant girl near the low hills.

Although these ants are called monsters, they actually belong to the beast girl category and have absolutely no magic power.

Monsters like Chimera can run wildly for months without eating or drinking, and fungal corpses can remain active for years if left unattended.

However, if the ant girl doesn't have enough food, she will fall into a state of suspended animation within two days.

The food consumption of tens of thousands of mouths is no joke, which results in the ant girls having a very narrow distribution area. Under normal circumstances, they cannot cross the desolate wilderness of the lightless zone at all.

Could it be that……

Moren raised his binoculars again to carefully observe the huge black shadow that the ant girl had initially surrounded.

It is the corpse of a Chimera Beast.

Because of the Chimera Beast riot, the entire Dark Zone is now teeming with beasts, and the Ant Girls have no shortage of food and can go wherever they want.

Morren raised an eyebrow.

What an exquisite ecological cycle in the dark zone!

"Master..." Sulfur hesitated for a moment before starting to say the title again.

"Hey boss, I noticed you haven't asked yet, so I thought I'd remind you."

"That day, those ant girls seemed to be looking for you."

?

Chapter 48 City Defense Construction

Molen took out his charcoal pencil and gently tapped the copper bell fixed at the entrance of the mine tunnel, producing a crisp tinkling sound.

A group of rat girls immediately surrounded the mine entrance, their round ears perked up, their little heads huddled together, pointing and gesturing at the copper bell.

"What new gadget is the Baron up to now?"

"It looks like a bell."

"Idiot, look, there's still copper wire attached next to it."

With the rats all looking up at him, Morren tapped once, then twice, then put down his charcoal pencil and waved towards the city wall.

Ring ring ring ring ring!

The electric bell rang by itself, its sharp, piercing sound echoing at the mine entrance.

The mouse girls were so frightened that they all jumped back a step, and some of them grabbed the arms of their companions.

Molen waved again toward the city wall, and the sound of the electric bell stopped.

He waved his hand to the left, and the doorbell rang; he waved his hand to the right, and the doorbell stopped.

"How amazing, how can it make a sound by itself?"

A female mouse opened her eyes wide and reached out to touch the copper wire attached to the bell, but was tapped on the head by Moren.

"I know I know!"

The little mouse egg quickly raised its hand to answer.

"The Baron taught us in class that this is called an electromagnet. When electricity is applied, the copper coil generates a magnetic force, which attracts the hammer to strike the bell!"

That's right, the electric bell that tormented Morren throughout his student years was just a simple electromagnet.

The key point is not how loud it is, but how to control its loudness.

Above the city wall, a large group of rat girls were busy carrying rails and sleepers salvaged from the mine tunnels. Divided into dozens of rat groups, they were laying tracks along the top of the city wall with great effort.

These tracks were forged to the size that the mouse girls could carry, but it still took two mouse girls to carry one track, and they swayed left and right as they walked.

At the entrance of the workshop, blacksmith rats squatted on the ground, and the wooden wheels of the cannons were removed and thrown aside.

The blacksmith rats smeared grease made from chimeras on the axles and then hammered the iron wheels onto them with a clanging sound.