Let go of that monster girl!

Carrot Lane is a great place, with a suitable temperature and plenty of nutrition. Although Mom says not to eat small animals that are about the same size as them, no one will notice if they eat one or two occasionally.

In the village of Rat Girls next to the mine, a wooden window was carefully closed and bolted shut.

Seven or eight mouse girls were huddled together in the room, all huddled behind the furniture in the corner, their round ears pressed against their heads in fear.

They were all mining rats from the neighborhood, but now no rats dare to go mining anymore.

The smallest mouse girl buried her face in the arms of another large mouse girl, her hands tightly gripping the other's clothes, her little body trembling uncontrollably.

"I am afraid."

"Don't be afraid, a hug will make you less afraid, squeak."

The rat mother hugged the mouse mother tighter, but her own tail was also shaking violently.

The ant women are not afraid of fatigue or death, they can eat anything, and they don't need any wages.

Once an ant girl is used in a mine, the rat girls dare not go to that mine again.

And now almost every mine is full of ant girls.

Ant girls roam everywhere outside, staring at any passerby who dares to come out with their cute little faces, their black eyes filled with hunger.

The rat women in the village couldn't take it anymore, and most of them fled to other villages further south, while some followed the white-clothed foxes to the north.

The remaining mouse girls huddled in their homes, but this was not a safe place.

The room was dark. A fluorescent lantern was placed under the table, on which sat half-eaten bread and dried fish.

Most of the furniture was moved to block the front door. Although it was not very useful, it gave the mice a tiny bit of security.

A mouse girl said in a very, very small voice:

"I heard that many rats have fled to the south... We'll set off once those monsters outside have gone a bit further away..."

"Waaah..."

Will they leave?

A dragging sound came from outside the window, as something heavy was being slowly pulled along the ground, accompanied by the tiny, giggling voices of the ant girls, carrying a kind of innocent cruelty.

A female ant walked to the window, lay on the window frame, gripped the gap in the wooden board with her two little hands, and pressed her face against it to look inside.

The mouthparts slowly opened, revealing layers of serrated jaws inside.

The mouse girls clung to each other, their tails intertwined, tears streaming down their faces, afraid to make a sound.

"Help! Someone, please save us!"

However, if the rat girls dared to look up, they might notice that many of the ant girls had tiny white threads clinging to their bodies.

If their eyesight were better, they might have noticed that, starting a few days ago, tiny, barely visible grayish-white powders had been drifting imperceptibly down from the sky with the night wind.

rustle.

rustle.

On the street, an ant girl suddenly stopped, her antennae trembled violently a few times, then she bent over and began to cough, scratching her face with both hands.

The other ant girl next to her also stopped, her body began to sway from side to side, and her steps became disordered.

More and more ant girls stopped what they were doing, and coughs rose and fell in the darkness.

White spots appeared on their bodies and spread to their cheeks and limbs at a visible speed.

Their behavior became sluggish, their arms twitched stiffly, their steps became increasingly chaotic, and their bodies writhed like zombies, with mycelium spreading from every pore on their bodies.

Then, the ant girls suddenly began to move to higher ground.

One by one, more and more ant girls emerged slowly and listlessly from the depths of the mine, their bodies covered with white, downy mycelium, as if following some invisible call, moving in the same direction.

They headed toward the mountaintop, trying to climb onto the rooftops, the rock walls, and to reach the highest point they could.

The spreading hyphae gradually intertwined and swelled at their joints, growing into tiny white umbrella-shaped caps from the gaps between the segments.

Those ant girls who tripped and fell, those who couldn't reach the higher ground in time, began to glow.

boom.

One mushroom after another bloomed like flowers.

Their bodies took root in the ground, their feet sinking into the crevices of the mud and rocks.

The mycelium gathers, intertwines, thickens, and extends upwards, growing into one fluorescent white mushroom tree after another on each still body, with the caps spreading out in layers.

Tree after tree spread out around the mine, forming a pure white mushroom forest.

Pure white mushroom forests spread across the village and mountains, each one glowing with a faint white fluorescence, illuminating a small patch of sky and turning the entire mountain ridge silvery-white.

Tiny white spores rise from under the mushroom cap, are swept up by the wind, and drift upwards.

Reflecting the fluorescent glow of the mushroom tree, it slowly drifted northward in the dark sky, gradually disappearing into the distance.

It's so beautiful, it's like a dream.

The mouse girls poked their little heads out of the window, their round ears standing up and their eyes wide open.

Looking left and right, I tried to understand what was happening outside, but I couldn't figure it out at all.

After confirming that there was no further change outside, they opened the doors one by one and came out, cautiously raising their heads. Some of the bolder mice stretched out their little hands to catch the white powder that was falling like snow.

Is it snow?

No.

It's not cold, and it's shiny.

The spores landed on the mouse girls' noses, and one of them sneezed loudly, wiping her nose with her sleeve.

There were no more ant girls around, only this shimmering fungal forest.

A mouse girl squatted down, picked up a small stick, and carefully poked the ant girl who had turned into a small mushroom tree. The ant girl, who had been so threatening just moments before, had now turned into a tree trunk, motionless and as hard as a stone.

High in the southern sky, Morren stood on the side of the airship and raised his binoculars.

Within the telescope's field of view.

Silvery-white mushroom forests are scattered across the ridge of Carrot Ridge. From south to north, one ant nest after another bursts into fluorescence, forming a colorful band of light that stretches to the horizon, shimmering with a cold yet beautiful light in the darkness of the eternal night.

So beautiful.

Even if the fungal forest withers, the spores will remain dormant in the soil for decades.

The Dark Zone, from then on, had no more Ant Girls.

Chapter 110 War Is Coming

Low mountain.

Foreman's meeting room.

Thirty-one foreman rats sat around both sides of the long table, chattering away, making the entire conference room feel like a festival.

Molen pushed open the door and walked steadily in, and the foreman rats all looked over.

"Your Excellency!"

"Squeak! The Baron is here!"

The foreman rats almost simultaneously stood up from their seats, vying to speak first:

"Baron, Baron, we took the airship north and saw that all those ant girls have turned into trees! The spores are still flying further north!"

"That's right, that's right, the patrolling rats haven't seen any Ant Girls lately, not even one!"

Moren stood at one end of the long table, looked at the excited mouse girls, and asked:

"Have the new mouse girls been settled in?"

"Everything is settled!"

The foreman rats answered in unison, and then began to report all at once:

"Each of us foremen is in charge of more than two hundred rats, and we're almost overwhelmed!"

"I'm so busy, but I'm so happy."

Molen nodded slightly.

Although no rat population census has been conducted yet, the ground-level resettlement sites are simply being expanded as needed to accommodate all the rats.

However, the number of new rat girls under the foreman rats is evenly distributed, which means that Dwarf Mountain now has six to eight thousand rat girls.

Compared to before, it has increased fourfold!

In a typical noble territory, even a sudden influx of 10% refugees would immediately plunge the land into a life-or-death struggle.

For ordinary nobles, refugees could not be immediately converted into productive forces; food reserves, land, tools—each one was a noose.

Unemployed starving people cause massive destruction, create more starving people, and trigger an avalanche-like chain reaction.

But none of this will happen in the low hills.

After all, due to the large area of ​​fungal forest that was just cleared, the food reserves in Aishan are currently extremely full, and tons of mushrooms can only be hastily dried into dried mushrooms, which are hung everywhere.

Aishan, which is in a period of rapid expansion, has plenty of positions that are short of rats, so it is not afraid of having rats idle.

If Moren awakened the [Identify All Things] system, he would look at the Rat Girl.

They definitely possess the traits of being "rat-like intellect," "shortsighted," "cowardly," and "united like rats."

Due to the sheer number of rat girls and their extremely weak individual abilities.

The rat girls were used to huddling together in a large ball, following behind the tall person they felt could protect them.

This is the root cause of the enslavement of the rat girls over the past few centuries, and also an advantage that other demi-humans can hardly match.

Unity.

Aishan still doesn't have a prison, which shows its high value.

This is also why Moren is confident in absorbing such a large number of rat girls.

A foreman rat counted on his little fingers, reporting to Morren one item at a time:

"With more rats, the work gets done much faster. They've dug up a lot of ore, and the new living area is almost finished too."

"We've set up two more water-powered generators, and the shed that the Baron designed is almost finished."

"The hill is getting better and better, creak!"

The foreman mice nodded in agreement, their little faces beaming with smiles.

Moren looked at the smiling rat girls, then his face suddenly darkened, and he said:

"Gentlemen, now more than ever before, Dwarf Mountain is on the verge of destruction."

"Huh?"

The excitement on the faces of the foreman rats gradually faded. They looked at each other, and finally all looked at Morren.

Molen stood up and patted the words "Dwarf Mountain Recapture Plan" behind him.

There was a checkmark next to "Extinction Bacteria Beast".

There was a checkmark next to "exterminate ants".

The phrase "Extinct Chimera" was followed by a half-check mark.

Molen picked up the chalk and drew a circle over the words "Drive away the cultists, drive away the stinky foxes".

All the mouse girls knew what the Baron wanted to say.

Without Ant Girl, wouldn't we be facing those foxes and cultists right now?

It will take some time for the fungal plague to spread to the north, but unless someone suddenly awakens to modern microbiology, the extinction of the ant girls is inevitable, it's just a matter of time.

Ant Girl is the cult's black glove. The reason the cult can always maintain a peaceful and righteous facade is because Ant Girl plays the villainous role.

Once the Ant Girls become extinct, they will face the direct threat of breaking ties with the Order.

What's more troublesome is that since the Carrot Territory has already begun to be infiltrated by the cult, it's highly likely that most of the territories further north have already submitted to the cult.

Next, they will immediately advance towards the low mountain, since there are already too many rat girls there.

The cult has fewer than a hundred members, and apart from the Holy Dragon and her creations, they are all powerless. It is unlikely that the Black Fox will interfere in matters outside of the New Market, and the Holy Dragon will most likely continue to guard her lair and wait for the Calamity Moon.