"Please Father, let do this."
Imperia requested again, and Kael stared at her in silence. He slowly turned towards the rest of the Ants that had surrounded him, and he finally realized sothing.
These little things, they may look absurdly capable, but it didn’t an they were undefeatable—quite the opposite. Since these Ants rarely interacted with each other and dealt with everything on their own, their survival rate was much lower than one would imagine.
Especially in Winters when the conditions here beco harsh, things beco even harder. If Imperia doesn’t make a move, her children would be at risk, and many of them would actually die, hurting Imperia in the process.
And of course, as weak of a father he was, seeing his little Ria getting hurt was the last thing Kael wanted.
"Alright then."
He nodded.
"Do whatever you please, make sure all of them survive the winters, and if you need anything, co to . We will figure things out ourselves."
"Yes, Father!"
Imperia nodded excitedly.
Kael gently patted her head with his finger. After a while, Imperia took him to all the Queens and introduced him as her Father. The Queens greeted him and Lavinia with respect. Kael nodded at them as well.
After the initial introductions, Imperia started instructing her daughters, and they all got to work. Out of all the Mountains here, the mountain with the highest number of natural ores was selected. It was a dium-sized mountain, but according to Imperia, if they used the space well, even if the number of Ants rose to a whopping 10 million, it wouldn’t be a problem.
After the initial round, the Hallow Tracers and about 3,000 Whisperveils were sent throughout the mountain to map the entire thing and look for possible threats.
Once the green signal was given, the Deepmaws began mining through the hard mountain ground with ease—sothing other Ants here could not do.
This was also the reason the Mornlt Ants faced so many problems. Since they weren’t strong enough to dig through the hard ground, most of their colony and farmlands were above the ground, open to the cold and outside attacks. But with Deepmaws at work, the farms can now be protected, reducing Mornlts’ work by half.
Anyways, with over 15,000 Deepmaw Ants at work, the mining process went smoothly. Imperia also had a discussion with other Ant Queens, getting ideas on how to build the perfect colony, with each Queen telling what exactly they needed.
The Mornlt needed plain ground they could use as farms, Deepmaw needed the space near the ores, Brimback needed fewer openings—a colony that would be easy to defend. Crybleed didn’t care since the Hallow Tracers and Whisperveils had agreed to scout for them.
The rest of the Ants gave their own demands as well. A detailed plan was laid out, and the Deepmaws went to work according to that plan.
Kael and Lavinia stayed there for as long as they could, ready to protect the Ants in case sothing happened. But because of Igni’s presence, the beasts nearby didn’t dare do anything.
Just like that, evening fell.
Of course, even though the Deepmaws were experts at it, creating a colony wasn’t easy. It wasn’t sothing that could be done within hours, even when all the Ants were helping in every way they could.
In the end, all the Ants had to return to their existing colonies for the night. It wasn’t exactly safe, but with all of them together, they at least had the power to fight back.
Not to ntion, they also had the option of Kael coming to their rescue in case things went wrong.
"Continue the rest tomorrow."
Imperia instructed.
"Khrrkk!!"
"Kreeekk!!"
The Ant Queens nodded.
Kael and Lavinia, who were doing their own training, stood up as well, prepared to leave. Imperia quickly jumped on top of her Father’s head as the group left, with the Ant Queens waving them goodbyes.
"See? I told you they were adorable."
Imperia comnted at the sight, and Kael just smiled lightly.
The sun was about to set, its color had spread all over the place and had painted the sky red. It was quite a beautiful sight that everyone enjoyed.
"Lady Imperia..."
Suddenly, Lavinia called out.
"Hmm?"
Imperia turned towards her, and the Princess requested,
"Once you are done creating the colony, can you hand over its command to ?"
"Huh?"
Imperia frowned.
"Of course, everything Ant-related will go just as you instructed—the food they produce, their offense, defense, and survival—I won’t touch any of that.
I am only talking about the Mornlt Ants’ food that would be produced for the humans. Can you give the authority to regulate it?"
The Princess explained herself as she glanced at the Ant and then Kael.
The Father-Daughter frowned at the request. Imperia directly glanced at her Father. To her, it didn’t matter. She was planning on handing that over to her Father anyway—the decision was up to Kael.
"Why do you want that?"
Kael questioned.
"You plan on using the food they produce to help in the Velmourns, correct?"
"Isn’t it natural to help? You were the one who told they face food shortages, especially during winters."
Kael answered as if it was the most obvious thing.
"Winter isn’t here yet."
Lavinia comnted as she stared into Kael’s eyes.
"Just let be the one to regulate it, and don’t tell anyone that we have food, okay?
Promise ."
"But why?"
Kael couldn’t understand.
The Princess, on the other hand, turned silent at his question and,
"We just got here. I would like to see how these people handle things. After all, they survived this far without our help, did they not?
For now, we should wait, observe, and learn what these people are like.
We can’t blindly trust the reports we read three years ago, can we?"
Kael nodded at those words.
He agreed with her. They survived this far without them; a few more days wouldn’t pose much of a problem. Plus, there was no problem in being more careful. He wasn’t exactly planning on revealing everything the mont he got back anyway, not to ntion—
"I trust you."
—he trusted Lavinia.
So he left the decision to her.
"Thank you."
The Princess smiled.
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